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Another example is Arthur, in some romances "the blameless king," in others un roi faineant. The parallel Irish case is found in the Irish saga of Diarmaid and Grainne. We read Mr. O'Grady's introduction on the position of Eionn Mac Cumhail, the legendary Over-Lord of Ireland, the Agamemnon of the Celts.
"I can say for myself," said John, "that there's not a man in Keppoch could guess my nativity or my politics if I had on another tartan than that of the Diarmaid." "Ah! you have the tongue, no doubt of it," said Argile, smiling; "and if a change of colour would make your task less hazardous, why not effect it? I'm sure we could accommodate you with some neutral fabric for kilt and plaid."
To the bosom of the Lord, with a pure death, Samtain passed from her trials." Aed Allan, the king who so feelingly wrote the epitaph of the saintly virgin Samtain, needed an epitaph himself four years later, for he fell in battle with Domnall son of Murcad son of Diarmaid, who succeeded him on the throne.
A peace was afterwards concluded between the Foreigners and the Gaels; and six score ounces of gold were given by the Foreigners to Ua Lochlain, and five score ounces of gold were paid by Diarmaid Ua Maelseaclain to Ruaidri Ua Concobar for West Meath." Here again we see the "countless cows" giving place to counted gold in the levying of tribute.
It was then that Patrick blessed that part of the plain of Tailte, so that dead bodies are never borne off from it. He went afterwards to Druim Corcortri, and founded a church there, and he left in it Diarmaid, son of Restitutus. And Maine knelt to Patrick and performed penance, and Patrick said, "Rex non erit qui te non habebit; and thy injunctions shall be the longest that will live in Erinn.
The man will say that he never heard tell of the name, and then you will speak these words to him. You will say 'The lymphads are on the loch, and the horn of Diarmaid has sounded. Keep them well in mind, for some way or other they will bring you and me together." Without another word he was off, and as I committed the gibberish to memory I could hear his song going up the Saltmarket:
In other words, he was forbidden to charge her with her supernatural character. When Diarmaid, the daughter of King Underwaves, comes in the form of a beggar to Fionn and insists on sharing his couch, she becomes a beautiful girl, and consents to marry him on condition that he does not say to her thrice how he found her.
In the same year that saw the two assemblings of the chieftains under Ruaidri Ua Concobar, another chieftain, Diarmaid son of Murcad brought in from "the land of the Saxons," as it was called, one of these bands of foreign mercenaries, for the most part Welsh descendants of the old Gaelic Britons, to aid him in his contest for "the kingdom of the sons of Ceinnsealaig."
The ambitious Diarmaid Mac Murcad died shortly after the last battle we have recorded, "perishing without sacrament, of a loathsome disease;" a manifest judgment, in the eyes of the Chronicler, for the crime of bringing the Normans to Ireland. In the year that saw his death, "Henry the Second, king of the Saxons and duke of the Normans, came to Ireland with two hundred and forty ships."
"And, besides, you speak only of my two blunders; you know my other parts, you know that by nature I am no poltroon." "That's no credit to you, sir it's the strong blood of Diarmaid; there was no poltroon in the race but what came in on the wrong side of the blanket I've said it first, and I'll say it to the last, your spirit is smoored among the books.
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