d.

Now when Conor pursued hard upon King Ailill, Ferloga, the charioteer
of Ailill, lighted down and hid himself in the heather; and as Conor
drove past, Ferloga leaped up behind him in the chariot and gripped
him by the throat.

"What will thou have of me?" said Conor.

"Give over the pursuit," said Ferloga, "and take me with thee to
Emania,[19] and let the maidens of Emania so long as I am there sing
a serenade before my dwelling every night."

[19] The ancient royal residence of Ulster, near to the present
town of Armagh.

"Granted," said Conor. So he took Ferloga with him to Emania, and at
the end of a year sent him back to Connacht, escorting him as far as
to Athlone; and Ferloga had from the King of Ulster two noble horses
with golden bridles, but the serenade from the maidens of Ulster he
did not get, though he got the horses instead. And thus ends the tale
of the contention between Ulster and Connacht over the Carving of mac
Datho's Boar.

CHAPTER VI

The Vengeance of Mesgedra

Atharna the Bard, surnamed the Extortionate, was the chief poet and
satirist of Ulster in the reign of Conor mac Nessa. Greed and
arrogance were in his heart and poison on his tongue, and the kings
and lords of whom he asked rewards for his poems dared not refuse him
aught, partly because of the poisonous satires and lampoons which he
would otherwise make upon them for their niggardliness, and partly for
that in Ireland at that day it was deemed shameful to refuse to a bard
whatsoever he might ask. Once it was said that he asked of a sub-king,
namely Eochy mac Luchta, who was famed for hospitality and generosity,
the single thing that Eochy would have been grieved to give, namely
his eye, and Eochy had but one eye. But the King plucked it out by the
roots and gave it to him; and Atharna went away disappointed, for he
had looked that Eochy would ransom his eye at a great price.

Now Conor mac Nessa, King of Ulster, and all the Ulster lords, having
grown very powerful and haughty, became ill neighbours to all the
other kingdoms in Ireland. On fertile Leinster above all they fixed
their eyes, and sought for an opportunity to attack and plunder the
province. Conor resolved at last to move Atharna to go to the King of
Leinster, in the hope that he himself might be rid of Atharna, by the
King of Leinster killing him for his insolence and his exactions, and
that he might avenge the death of his bard by the invasion of