ince they were foster-brothers together in the
wild wood.

III

THE MARRIAGE OF KING CORMAC

It happened that in Cormac's time there was a very wealthy farmer
named Buicad[27] who dwelt in Leinster, and had vast herds of cattle
and sheep and horses. This Buicad and his wife had no children, but
they adopted a foster-child named Ethne, daughter of one Dunlang. Now
Buicad was the most hospitable of men, and never refused aught to
anyone, but he kept open house for all the nobles of Leinster who
came with their following and feasted there as they would, day after
day; and if any man fancied any of the cattle or other goods of
Buicad, he might take them home with him, and none said him nay. Thus
Buicad lived in great splendour, and his Dun was ever full to
profusion with store of food and clothing and rich weapons, until in
time it was all wasted away in boundless hospitality and generosity,
and so many had had a share in his goods that they could never be
recovered nor could it be said of any man that he was the cause of
Buicad's undoing. But undone he was at last, and when there remained
to him but one bull and seven cows he departed by night with his wife
and Ethne from Dun Buicad, leaving his mansion desolate. And he
travelled till he came to a place where there was a grove of oak trees
by a little stream in the county of Meath, near where Cormac had a
summer palace, and there he built himself a little hut and tended his
few cattle, and Ethne waited as a maid-servant upon him and his wife.

[27] Pronounced Bwee-cad. His name is said to be preserved in
the townland of Dunboyke, near Blessington, Co. Wicklow.

Now on a certain day it happened that King Cormac rode out on
horseback from his Dun in Meath, and in the course of his ride he came
upon the little herd of Buicad towards evening, and he saw Ethne
milking the cows. And this was the way she milked them: first she
milked a portion of each cow's milk into a certain vessel, then she
took a second vessel and milked into it the remaining portion, in
which was the richest cream, and these two vessels she kept apart.
Cormac watched all this. She then bore the vessels of milk into the
hut, and came out again with two other vessels and a small cup. These
she bore down to the river-side; and one of the vessels she filled by
means of the cup from the water at the brink of the stream, but the
other vessel she bore out into the middle of the stream and there
fille