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"Oh that I were there!" he cried; "thus would I deal with his enemies." With the excitement and over-exertion, out came the brain-ball, and he died. And if God Almighty would not take Conchobar MacNessa, pagan as he was, into heaven for a thing like that, sure, God Almighty was not half such a decent kindly creature as the Irish monk who invented the yarn.
Then one day a darkness came over the world, and he put his druids to finding out the cause of it. They told him they saw in their vision three crosses on a hill in the east of the world, and three men nailed on them; and the man in the middle with the likeness of the Son of God. With that the battle-fury came on Conchobar, and he fell to destroying the trees of the forest with his sword.
Our minds, being sufficient to themselves, do not wish for victory but are content to elaborate our extravagance, if fortune aid, into wit or lyric beauty, and as for the rest 'There are nights when a king like Conchobar would spit upon his arm-ring and queens will stick out their tongues at the rising moon. This habit of the mind has made Oscar Wilde and Mr.
It is of importance for our investigation, however, to note that where Wauchier does refer to a definite source, it is to an evidently important and already famous collection of tales, Le Grant Conte, comprising several 'Branches, the hero of the collection being not Chretien's hero, Perceval, but Gawain, who, both in pseudo-historic and romantic tradition, is far more closely connected with the Arthurian legend, occupying, as he does, the traditional position of nephew, Sister's Son, to the monarch who is the centre of the cycle; even as Cuchullinn is sister's son to Conchobar, Diarmid to Finn, Tristan to Mark, and Roland to Charlemagne.
The bards could hate no one consistently. If they took away the heroic chivalry from Conchobar in one tale they restored it to him in another. They have the confident trust and expectation of goodness that children have, who may have suffered punishment, but who come later on and smile on the chastiser. It is this quality which gives the tales their extraordinary charm.
Some saint called up Cuculain from hell, converted him, and gave him a free pass that Peter at the Gates should honor. There was Conchobar MacNessa again. He was king of Ulster in the days of the Red Branch, the grand heroic cycle of Irish legend; Cuculain was the chief of his warriors.
A brain-ball was driven through the skull of Conchobar from a sling; but sure, his druid doctors would never be phased by a trifle like that. They bound up the wound and healed him in a cauldron of cure; but warned him never to get excited or over-exert himself, or the brain-ball would come out and he would die; barring such accidents, he would do splendidly. And so he did for some years.
To help his memory the early "shanachie" or story-teller grouped his romantic story-store under different heads, such as "Táins" or Cattle-spoils, Feasts, Elopements, Sieges, Battles, Destructions, Tragical Deaths; but it is easier for us now to group them in another way, and to class together the series of tales referring to the Tuatha De Danann or ancient deities, those belonging to the Red Branch cycle of King Conchobar and Cuchulainn, those relating to Finn, and the Legends of the Kings.
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