about thee and thy splendour. And though I had never seen
thee, I knew thee at once from thy description: it is thou, then, I
have reached."

"No 'seeking of an ill friend afar' shall be thine," says Eochaid. "Thou
shalt have welcome, and for thee every other woman shall be left by me,
and with thee alone will I live so long as thou hast honour."

"My proper bride-price to me!" she says, "and afterwards my desire."

"Thou shalt have both," says Eochaid.

Seven _cumals_[3] are given to her.

[Footnote 3: I.e., twenty-one cows.]

Then the king, even Eochaid Feidlech, dies, leaving one daughter named,
like her mother, Etain, and wedded to Cormac, king of Ulaid.

After the end of a time Cormac, king of Ulaid, "the man of the three
gifts," forsakes Eochaid's daughter, because she was barren save for one
daughter that she had borne to Cormac after the making of the pottage
which her mother--the woman from the elfmounds--gave her. Then she said
to her mother: "Bad is what thou hast given me: it will be a daughter
that I shall bear."

"That will not be good," says her mother; "a king's pursuit will be on
her."

Then Cormac weds again his wife, even Etain, and this was his desire,
that the daughter of the woman who had before been abandoned [i.e. his
own daughter] should be killed. So Cormac would not leave the girl to
her mother to be nursed. Then his two thralls take her to a pit, and she
smiles a laughing smile at them as they were putting her into it. Then
their kindly nature came to them. They carry her into the calfshed of
the cowherds of Etirscel, great-grandson of Iar, king of Tara, and they
fostered her till she became a good embroideress; and there was not in
Ireland a king's daughter dearer than she.

A fenced house of wickerwork was made by the thralls for her, without
any door, but only a window and a skylight. King Eterscel's folk espy
that house and suppose that it was food that the cowherds kept there.
But one of them went and looked through the skylight, and he saw in the
house the dearest, beautifullest maiden! This is told to the king, and
straightway he sends his people to break the house and carry her off
without asking the cowherds. For the king was childless, and it had been
prophesied to him by his wizards that a woman of unknown race would bear
him a son.

Then said the king: "This is the woman that has been prophesied to me!"

Now while she was there next morning she saw a Bird on the sky