worship a stock[36] that my own
carpenter has made. Rather would I worship the man that made it, for
he is nobler than the work of his hands."

[36] The image was doubtless of wood overlaid with gold.

Then it is told that Moylann by magic art caused the image to move and
leap before the eyes of Cormac. "Seest thou that?" said Moylann.

"Although I see," said Cormac, "I will do no worship save to the God
of Heaven and Earth and Hell."

Then Cormac went to his own home at Sletty on the Boyne, for there he
lived after he had given up the kingdom to his son Cairbry. But the
druids of Erinn came together and consulted over this matter, and they
determined solemnly to curse Cormac and invoke the vengeance of their
gods upon him lest the people should think that any man could despise
and reject their gods, and suffer no ill for it.

So they cursed Cormac in his flesh and bones, in his waking and
sleeping, in his down sitting and his uprising, and each day they
turned over the Wishing Stone upon the altar of their god,[37] and
wove mighty spells against his life. And whether it was that these
took effect, or that the druids prevailed upon some traitorous servant
of Cormac's to work their will, so it was that he died not long
thereafter; and some say that he was choked by a fish bone as he sat
at meat in his house at Sletty on the Boyne.

[37] There are still Wishing Stones, which are used in
connexion with petitions for good or ill, on the ancient altars
of Inishmurray and of Caher Island, and possibly other places
on the west coast of Ireland.

But when he felt his end approaching, and had still the power to
speak, he said to those that gathered round his bed:--"When I am gone
I charge you that ye bury me not at Brugh of the Boyne where is the
royal cemetery of the Kings of Erinn.[38] For all these kings paid
adoration to gods of wood or stone, or to the Sun and the Elements,
whose signs are carved on the walls of their tombs, but I have learned
to know the One God, immortal, invisible, by whom the earth and
heavens were made. Soon there will come into Erinn one from the East
who will declare Him unto us, and then wooden gods and cursing priests
shall plague us no longer in this land. Bury me then not at
Brugh-na-Boyna, but on the hither-side of Boyne, at Ross-na-ree, where
there is a sunny, eastward-sloping hill, there would I await the
coming of the sun of truth."

[38] This famous cemetery of th