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Updated: June 16, 2025
But it is true that Art regarded his mother's successor with intense dislike, and it is true that she actively returned it. One day Becuma came on the lawn before the palace, and seeing that Art was at chess with Cromdes she walked to the table on which the match was being played and for some time regarded the game.
A council had been called in the Many-Coloured Land to discuss the case of a lady named Becuma Cneisgel, that is, Becuma of the White Skin, the daughter of Eogan Inver. She had run away from her husband Labraid and had taken refuge with Gadiar, one of the sons of Mananna'n mac Lir, the god of the sea, and the ruler, therefore, of that sphere.
His voice was melancholy when he spoke again. "You love my son!" "Who could avoid loving him?" she murmured. "When a woman speaks to a man about the love she feels for another man she is not liked. And," he continued, "when she speaks to a man who has no wife of his own about her love for another man then she is disliked." "I would not be disliked by you," Becuma murmured.
Word was sent to the Shi's of Ireland that this lady should not be permitted to enter any of them; from which it would seem that the ordinances of the Shi come from the higher world, and, it might follow, that the conduct of earth lies in the Shi'. In that way, the gates of her own world and the innumerable doors of Faery being closed against her, Becuma was forced to appear in the world of men.
"Where do I look for her?" said Art in despair. "She is in one of the islands of the sea," Becuma replied, "that is all I will tell you," and she looked at him maliciously, joyously, contentedly, for she thought he would never return from that journey, and that Morgan would see to it.
Becuma then put a cloak about her and she went from Tara northward and eastward until she came to the dewy, sparkling Brugh of Angus mac an Og in Ulster, but she was not admitted there. She went thence to the Shi' ruled over by Eogabal, and although this lord would not admit her, his daughter Aine', who was her foster-sister, let her into Faery.
But Becuma's foster-sister, Aine', came from the Shi', and, unseen by any, she interfered with Art's play, so that, suddenly, when he looked again on the board, his face went pale, for he saw that the game was lost. "I didn't move that piece," said he sternly. "Nor did I," Becuma replied, and she called on the onlookers to confirm that statement.
It may be dissolution by fire, and that can note a destruction too final for the mind to contemplate; or it may be banishment from that sphere to a lower and worse one. This was the fate of Becuma of the White Skin. One may wonder how, having attained to that sphere, she could have carried with her so strong a memory of the earth.
The poets and magicians met to consider why this disaster should have befallen the country and by their arts they discovered the truth about the king's wife, and that she was Becuma of the White Skin, and they discovered also the cause of her banishment from the Many-Coloured Land that is beyond the sea, which is beyond even the grave.
"Nevertheless," said he regally, "I will not come between a woman and her choice." "I did not know you lacked a wife," said Becuma, but indeed she did. "You know it now," the king replied sternly. "What shall I do?" she inquired, "am I to wed you or your son?" "You must choose," Conn answered. "If you allow me to choose it means that you do not want me very badly," said she with a smile.
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