Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER IV: THE EARLY MILESIAN KINGS 147elemental powers controlling the forces of nature, have sealed allthe sources against him. He tries the Well of Kesair in Wicklowin vain; he goes to the great rivers, Shannon and Slayney, Bannand Barrow—they all hide away at his approach; the lakes deny [176]him also; at last he finds a lake, Loch Gara in Roscommon,which failed to hide itself in time, and thereat he fills his cup.In the morning he returned to the Hostel with the precious andhard-won draught, but found the defenders all dead or fled, andtwo of the reavers in the act of striking off the head of Conary.Mac Cecht struck off the head of one of them, and hurled a hugepillar stone after the other, who was escaping with Conary's head.The reaver fell dead on the spot, and mac Cecht, taking up hismaster's head, poured the water into its mouth. Thereupon thehead spoke, and praised and thanked him for the deed.Mac Cecht's WoundA woman then came by and saw mac Cecht lying exhaustedand wounded on the field.“Come hither, O woman,” says mac Cecht.“I dare not go there,” says the woman, “for horror and fear ofthee.”But he persuades her to come, and says: “I know not whetherit is a fly or gnat or an ant that nips me in the wound.”The woman looked and saw a hairy wolf buried as far as thetwo shoulders in the wound. She seized it by the tail and draggedit forth, and it took “the full of its jaws out of him.”“Truly,” says the woman, “this is an ant of the Ancient Land.”And mac Cecht took it by the throat and smote it on theforehead, so that it died.“Is thy Lord Alive?”The tale ends in a truly heroic strain. Conall of the Victories,as we have seen, had cut his way out after the king's death, andmade his way to Teltin, where he found his father, Amorgin, in [177]the garth before his dūn. Conall's shield-arm had been wounded