arrested, along with their auxiliaries, and taken to Tara. They
consulted the king concerning the matter, and he said: "Let each
(father) slay his son, but let my fosterlings be spared."

"Leave, leave!" says every one: "it shall be done for thee."

"Nay indeed," quoth he; "no 'cast of life' by me is the doom I have
delivered. The men shall not be hung; but let veterans go with them that
they may wreak their rapine on the men of Alba."

This they do. Thence they put to sea and met the son of the king of
Britain, even Ingcel the One-eyed, grandson of Conmac: thrice fifty men
and their veterans they met upon the sea.

They make an alliance, and go with Ingcel and wrought rapine with him.

This is the destruction which his own impulse gave him. That was the
night that his mother and his father and his seven brothers had been
bidden to the house of the king of his district. All of them were
destroyed by Ingcel in a single night. Then the Irish pirates put out to
sea to the land of Erin to seek a destruction as payment for that to
which Ingcel had been entitled from them.

In Conaire's reign there was perfect peace in Erin, save that in Thomond
there was a joining of battle between the two Carbres. Two
fosterbrothers of his were they. And until Conaire came it was
impossible to make peace between them. 'Twas a tabu of his to go to
separate them before they had repaired to him. He went, however,
although to do so was one of his tabus, and he made peace between them.
He remained five nights with each of the two. That also was a tabu
of his.

After settling the two quarrels, he was travelling to Tara. This is the
way they took to Tara, past Usnech of Meath; and they saw the raiding
from east and west, and from south and north, and they saw the warbands
and the hosts and the men stark-naked; and the land of the southern
O'Neills was a cloud of fire around him.

"What is this?" asked Conaire. "Easy to say," his people answer. "Easy
to know that the king's law has broken down therein, since the country
has begun to burn."

"Whither shall we betake ourselves?" says Conaire.

"To the Northeast," says his people.

So then they went righthandwise round Tara, and lefthandwise round
Bregia, and the evil beasts of Cerna were hunted by him. But he saw it
not till the chase had ended.

They that made of the world that smoky mist of magic were elves, and
they did so because Conaire's tabus had been violated.

Great fear then