e Gaileoin, for lies and for big talk and
injustice. But for all that there were good fighters among them, and
Ferdiad, that made so good a stand against Cuchulain, in the war for the
Bull of Cuailgne was one of them. And the Gaileoin fought well in the
same war; but the men of Ireland had no great liking for them, and their
Druids drove them out of the country afterwards.

BOOK FOUR: THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES.

CHAPTER I. BODB DEARG

But as to the Tuatha de Danaan after they were beaten, they would not go
under the sway of the sons of Miled, but they went away by themselves.
And because Manannan, son of Lir, understood all enchantments, they left
it to him to find places for them where they would be safe from their
enemies. So he chose out the most beautiful of the hills and valleys of
Ireland for them to settle in; and he put hidden walls about them, that
no man could see through, but they themselves could see through them and
pass through them.

And he made the Feast of Age for them, and what they drank at it was the
ale of Goibniu the Smith, that kept whoever tasted it from age and from
sickness and from death. And for food at the feast he gave them his own
swine, that though they were killed and eaten one day, would be alive
and fit for eating again the next day, and that would go on in that way
for ever.

And after a while they said: "It would be better for us one king to be
over us, than to be scattered the way we are through the whole of
Ireland."

Now the men among them that had the best chance of getting the kingship
at that time were Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda; and Ilbrech of Ess
Ruadh; and Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, the Hill of the White Field, on
Slieve Fuad; and Midhir the Proud of Bri Leith, and Angus Og, son of the
Dagda; but he did not covet the kingship at all, but would sooner be
left as he was. Then all the chief men but those five went into council
together, and it is what they agreed, to give the kingship to Bodb
Dearg, for the sake of his father, for his own sake, and because he was
the eldest among the children of the Dagda.

It was in Sidhe Femen Bodb Dearg had his house, and he put great
enchantments about it. Cliach, the Harper of the King of the Three
Rosses in Connacht, went one time to ask one of his daughters in
marriage, and he stayed outside the place through the whole length of a
year, playing his harp, and able to get no nearer to Bodb or to his
daughter. And he we