after, his people pursuaded him that he had made a
bad selection, and that the elder was the better of the two sisters;
upon which Eochaidh determined by stratagem to obtain the other daughter
also. For this purpose he shut the young queen up in a secret apartment
of his palace, and gave out a report that she was dead. He then
repaired, apparently in great grief to Tara, informed the monarch that
his daughter was dead, and demanded her sister in marriage. Tuathal gave
his consent, and the false king returned home with his new bride. Soon
after her arrival at Naas, her sister escaped from her confinement, and
suddenly and unexpectedly encountered the prince and Fithir. In a moment
she divined the truth, and had the additional anguish of seeing her
sister, who was struck with horror and shame, fall dead before her face.
The death of the unhappy princess, and the treachery of her husband, was
too much for the young queen; she returned to her solitary chamber, and
in a very short time died of a broken heart.

The insult offered to his daughters, and their untimely death, roused
the indignation of the pagan monarch, and was soon bitterly avenged. At
the head of a powerful force, he burned and ravaged Leinster to its
utmost boundary, and then compelled its humbled and terror-stricken
people to bind themselves and their descendants for ever to the payment
of a triennial tribute to the monarch of Erinn, which, from the great
number of cows exacted by it, obtained the name of the "Boromean
Tribute"--_bo_ being the Gaedhilic for a cow.

The tribute is thus described in the old annals:

"The men of Leinster were obliged to pay
To Tuathal, and all the monarchs after him,
Three-score hundred of the fairest cows,
And three-score hundred ounces of pure silver,
And three-score hundred mantles richly woven,
And three-score hundred of the fattest hogs,
And three-score hundred of the largest sheep,
And three-score hundred cauldrons strong and polished[100]."

It is elsewhere described as consisting of five thousand ounces of
silver, five thousand mantles, five thousand fat cows, five thousand fat
hogs, five thousand wethers, and five thousand vessels of brass or
bronze for the king's laving, with men and maidens for his service.

The levying of the tribute was the cause of periodical and sanguinary
wars, from the time of Tuathal until the reign of Finnachta the Festive.
About the year 680 it was aboli