Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/120

74 that his wife was swifter than the horses, whereupon King Conchobar insisted that she should be sent for, and though she was with child, forced her to run against his chariot. She said that all who saw it would suffer for the deed, and when at the goal she gave birth to twins, she condemned every Ulsterman to undergo for five days and four nights each year all the pangs which she had felt, and to have no strength during that time. Cúchulainn alone escaped the curse.$13$

The automatic working out of punishment is seen in the tragic results of the breaking of personal tabus, e. g. in the case of Cúchulainn and Fionn.$14$ This is sometimes regarded as the inevitable operation of fate or as divine vengeance for wrong done to gods, not necessarily by the victim, and it receives its most mysterious illustration in the doom of Conaire Mór in the long tale of Da Derga's Hostel. In some versions Conaire's origin is connected with incest—itself caused by a vengeful god—while his death at the height of his prosperity is regarded as the consequence of injury done by his ancestor to the god Midir, whose wife Etain was retaken from him by Conaire's forefather Eochaid.$15$ Through a trick of Midir's, Eochaid had a child, Mess Buachalla, by his daughter Ess, and Mess Buachalla was mother of Conaire. Who, then, was Conaire's father? One account regards him as King Eterscel, while Mess Buachalla is here daughter of Ess and one of the síde, or of Ess and Eterscel—the latter version thus introducing the incest incident in another form. Another account tells how Eochaid married Etain, daughter of Etar, King of the cavalcade from the síd; and their daughter Etain became Cormac's wife, but was put away because she bore him no son. Cormac ordered his infant daughter to be slain, but she smiled so sweetly on his thralls that they took her to King Eterscel's cowherds, who guarded her in a hut with a roof-light, whence her name Mess Buachalla, or "the Cowherds' Foster-Child." Through the roof-light Eterscel's people saw her when she was grown up, and told the king of her beauty. Now it was