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"that it be not said I fell at the hand of one Connacht man." But Bealcu said : "I will not slay a man at the
point of death, but I will bring thee home and heal thee, and when thy strength is come again
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thou shalt fight with me in single combat." Then Beilcu put Conall on a litter and brought him home, and had
him tended till his wounds were healed.
The three sons of Bealcu, however, when they saw what the Ulster champion was like in all his might,
resolved to assassinate him before the combat should take place. By a stratagem Conall contrived that they
slew their own father instead; and then, taking the heads of the three sons, he went back, victoriously as he
was wont, to Ulster.
The Death of Maev
The tale of the death of Queen Maev is also preserved by Keating. Fergus mac Roy having been slain by
Ailell with a cast of a spear as he bathed in a lake with Maev, and Ailell having been slain by Conall, Macv
retired to an island [Inis Clothrann, now known as Quaker's Island. The pool no longer exists.] on Loch Ryve,
where she was wont to bathe early every morning in a pool near to the landing place. Forbay son of Conor
mac Nessa, having discovered this habit of the queen's, found means one day to go unperceived to the pool
and to measure the distance from it to the shore of the mainland. Then he went back to Emania,where he
measured out the distance thus obtained, and placing an apple on a pole at one end he shot at it continually
with a sling until he grew so good a marksman at that distance that he never missed his aim. Then one day,
watching his opportunity by the shores of Loch Ryve, he saw Maev enter the water, and putting a bullet in his
sling he shot at her with so good an aim that he smote her in the centre of the forehead and she fell dead.
The great warrior queen had reigned in Connacht, it was said, for eighty-eight years. She is a signal example
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of the kind of women whom the Gaelic bards delighted to portray. Gentleness and modesty were by no means
their usual characteristics, but rather a fierce overflowing life. Women-warriors like Skatha and Aifa are
frequently met with, and one is reminded of the Gaulish women, with their mighty snow-white arms, so
dangerous to provoke, of whom classical writers tell us. The Gaelic bards, who in so many ways anticipated
the ideas of chivalric romance, did not do so in setting women in a place apart from men. Women were
Chapter V: Tales of the Ultonian Cycle 119
Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race
judged and treated like men, neither as drudges nor as goddesses, and we know that well into historic times
they went with men into battle, a practice only ended in the sixth century.
Fergus mac Leda and the Wee Folk
Of the stories of the Ultonian Cycle which do not centre on the figure of Cuchulain, one of the most
interesting is that of Fergus mac Leda and the King of the Wee Folk. In this tale Fergus appears as King of
Ulster, but as he was contemporary with Conor mac Nessa, and in the Cattle Raid of Quelgny is represented
as following him to war, we must conclude that he was really a sub-king, like Cuchulain or Owen of Ferney.
The tale opens in Faylinn, or the Land of the Wee Folk, a race of elves presenting an amusing parody of
human institutions on a reduced scale, but endowed (like dwarfish people generally in the literature of
primitive races) with magical powers. Lubdan, ["Youb«dan"] the King of Faylinn, when flushed with wine at
a feast, is bragging of the greatness of his power and the invincibility of his armed forces - have they not the
strong man Glower, who with his axe has been known to hew down a thistle at a stroke ? But the king's bard,
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Eisirt, has heard something of a giant race oversea in a land called Ulster, one man of whom would annihilate
a whole battalion of the Wee Folk, and he incautiously allows himself to hint as much to the boastful
monarch. He is immediately clapped into prison for his audacity, and only gets free by promising to go
immediately to the land of the mighty men, and bring back evidence of the truth of his incredible story.
So off he goes ; and one fine day King Fergus and his lords find at the gate of their Dkn a tiny little fellow
magnificently dad in the robes of a royal bard, who demands entrance. He is borne in upon the hand of AEda,
the king's dwarf and bard, and after charming the court by his wise and witty sayings, and receiving a noble
largesse, which he at once distributes among the poets and other court attendants of Ulster, he goes off home,
taking with him as a guest the dwarf AEda, before whom the Wee Folk fly as a "Fomorian giant," although,
as Eisirt explains, the average man of Ulster can carry him like a child. lubdan is now convinced, but Eisirt
puts him under geise, the bond of chivalry which no Irish chieftain can repudiate without being shamed, to go
himself, as Eisirt has done, to the palace of Fergus and taste the king's porridge. lubdan, after he has seen
AEda, is much dismayed, but he prepares to go, and bids Bebo, his wife, accompany him. "You did an ill
deed," she says, "when you condemned Eisirt to prison; but surely there is no man under the sun that can
make thee hear reason."
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