rt,
son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. At the time at which this monarch
lived and reigned, the mist of sixteen centuries hangs between us and
the history of Ireland, but through this mist there shine a few great
and sunlike figures whose glory cannot be altogether hidden, and of
these figures Cormac is the greatest and the brightest. Much that is
told about him may be true, and much is certainly fable, but the
fables themselves are a witness to his greatness; they are like forms
seen in the mist when a great light is shining behind it, and we
cannot always say when we are looking at the true light and when at
the reflected glory.

The birth of Cormac was on this wise. His father, as we have said, was
Art, son of Conn, and his mother was named Achta, being the daughter
of a famous smith or ironworker of Connacht. Now before the birth of
Cormac, Achta had a strange dream, namely, that her head was struck
off from her body and that out of her neck there grew a great tree
which extended its branches over all Ireland and flourished
exceedingly, but a huge wave of the sea burst upon it and laid it low.
Then from the roots of this tree there grew up another, but it did not
attain the splendour of the first, and a blast of wind came from the
West and overthrew it. On this the woman started from her sleep, and
she woke her husband, Art, and told him her vision. "It is a true
dream," said Art. "I am thy head, and this portends that I shall be
violently taken from thee. But thou shalt bear me a son who shall be
King of all Ireland, and shall rule with great power and glory until
some disaster from the sea overtake him. But from him shall come yet
another king, my grandson and thine, who shall also be cut down, and I
think that the cause of his fall shall be the armies of the Fian host,
who are swift and keen as the wind."

Not long thereafter Art, son of Conn, fell in battle with the Picts
and Britons at the Plain of the Swine, which is between Athenry and
Galway in Connacht. Now the leader of the invaders then was mac Con, a
nephew to Art, who had been banished out of Ireland for rising against
the High King; and when he had slain Art he seized the sovranty of
Ireland and reigned there unlawfully for many years.

But before the battle, Art had counselled his wife:

"If things go ill with us in the fight, and I am slain, seek out my
faithful friend Luna who dwells in Corann in Connacht, and he will
protect thee till thy son