Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER IV: THE EARLY MILESIAN KINGS 143the news. Weary are the steeds we ride —the steeds from thefairy mounds. Though we are living, we are dead. Great arethe signs: destruction of life; sating of ravens; feeding of crows;strife of slaughter; wetting of sword-edge; shields with brokenbosses after sundown. Lo, my son!” Then they ride forward,and, alighting from their red steeds, fasten them at the portalof Da Derga's Hostel and sit down inside. “Derga,” it may beexplained, means “red.” Conary had therefore been preceded bythree red horsemen to the House of Red. “All my geise,” heremarks forebodingly, “have seized me to-night.”Gathering of the HostsFrom this point the story of Conary Mōr takes on a character ofsupernatural vastness and mystery, the imagination of the bardicnarrator dilating, as it were, with the approach of the crisis.Night has fallen, and the pirate host of Ingcel is encamped on theshores of Dublin Bay. They hear the noise of the royal cavalcade,and a long-sighted messenger is sent out to discover what it is.He brings back word of the glittering and multitudinous hostwhich has followed Conary to the Hostel. A crashing noise isheard—Ingcel asks of Ferrogan what it may be—it is the giantwarrior mac Cecht striking flint on steel to kindle fire for theking's feast. “God send that Conary be not there to-night,” crythe sons of Desa; “woe that he should be under the hurt of hisfoes.” But Ingcel reminds them of their compact—he had giventhem the plundering of his own father and brethren; they cannotrefuse to stand by him in the attack he meditates on Conary in the [172]Hostel. A glare of the fire lit by mac Cecht is now perceived bythe pirate host, shining through the wheels of the chariots whichare drawn up around the open doors of the Hostel. Another ofthe geise of Conary has been broken.Ingcel and his host now proceed to build a great cairn ofstones, each man contributing one stone, so that there may bea memorial of the fight, and also a record of the number slainwhen each survivor removes his stone again.