Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

138 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[166]he kill birds (this is because, as we shall see, his totem wasa bird). It is a geis to the Ulster champion, Fergus mac Roy,that he must not refuse an invitation to a feast; on this turns theTragedy of the Sons of Usnach. It is not at all clear who imposedthese geise or how any one found out what his personal geisewere—all that was doubtless an affair of the Druids. But theywere regarded as sacred obligations, and the worst misfortuneswere to be apprehended from breaking them. Originally, nodoubt, they were regarded as a means of keeping oneself inproper relations with the other world—the world of Faëry—andwere akin to the well-known Polynesian practice of the “tabu.” Iprefer, however, to retain the Irish word as the only fitting onefor the Irish practice.The Cowherd's FosterlingWe now return to follow the fortunes of Etain's great-grandson,Conary. Her daughter, Etain Oig, as we have seen from thegenealogical table, married Cormac, King of Ulster. She boreher husband no children save one daughter only. Embitteredby her barrenness and his want of an heir, the king put awayEtain, and ordered her infant to be abandoned and thrown intoa pit. “Then his two thralls take her to a pit, and she smiles alaughing smile at them as they were putting her into it.” 129 Afterthat they cannot leave her to die, and they carry her to a cowherdof Eterskel, King of Tara, by whom she is fostered and taught“till she became a good embroidress and there was not in Irelanda king's daughter dearer than she.” Hence the name she bore,Messbuachalla (“Messboo´hala”), which means “the cowherd'sfoster-child.”For fear of her being discovered, the cowherds keep the maidenin a house of wickerwork having only a roof-opening. But oneof King Eterskel's folk has the curiosity to climb up and look in,and sees there the fairest maiden in Ireland. He bears word to129 I quote from Whitley Stokes' translation, Revue Celtique, January 1901,and succeeding numbers.