Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/127

Rh of Ireland are fair, but fairer Is this plain, its ale more Intoxicating than that of Erin! There is choice of mead and wine, and conception is without sin or crime (hence Segda in the story of Bécuma was "son of a sinless couple"). Its people are invisible: they; see but are not seen, and none ever grows old. The magic food of the gods' land will be Etaln's—unsalted pork,, new milk, and mead. Midir now met Eochaid and proposed a game of chess with him, allowing him to win, whereupon Eochaid demanded that Midir and his folk should perform four tasks—clear the plains of Meath, remove rushes, cut down the forest of Breag, and build a causeway across the moor of Lamrach. In the Dindsenchas, a topographical treatise, these tasks are an eric, or fine, on Midir for taking Eochaid's wife, and in performing them the divine folk taught a new custom to the men of Erin, viz. placing the yoke over the oxen's shoulders instead of on their foreheads, whence Eochaid's cognomen, Airem ("Ploughman").$5$ In a. second game Midir won and asked that he might hold Etain and kiss her. Eochaid would not consent until a month had passed, and then Midir arrived in splendour for his reward, surrounded by armies. Etain blushed when she heard his demand, but he reminded her that by no will of hers had he won her. "Take me then," said she, "if Eochaid is willing to give me up."

"For that I am not willing," cried Eochaid, "but he may cast his arms around thee." So Midir took her and then rose with her through the roof, and the assembly saw the pair as two swans winging their way to the síd.

The Egerton version ends by telling, how through the divination of a Druid, Eochaid discovered Midir's síd, destroyed it, and recovered Etain. The version in the Leahhar na hllidre is defective after narrating how Eochaid and his men dug up several síd one after another; but the Dindsenchas relates that Ess, Etain's daughter, brought tribute of cattle and was fostered by Midir for nine years, during which Eochaid besieged the síd, thwarted by his power. Midir brought out sixty women