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Phillpotts' nominees; but, somewhat to his surprise, Hawker found that he got on fairly well with the new Bishop, though he detested his theological standpoints. Obviously, the name of Welcombe might be "Well-combe," there being a holy well of St. Nectan here; but that derivation does not seem to be correct.
Laeg saw the tokens of it, and feared and obeyed. Unwillingly he came down the slopes of Slieve Modurn, and unwillingly harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot, and yoked the horses. Southwards, then, they fared swiftly through the night, and the intervening nations heard them as they went. When they arrived at the dun of the sons of Nectan it was twilight and the dawning of the day.
The full particulars of this combat are not related, only that the wizard-champion grew weaker, while his vigour and strength continued unabated with the son of Sualtam, and that in the end he slew the other, and in the sight of all he cut off his head and flung it from the middle Boyne to the shore, and that the headless trunk of Fenla, son of Nectan, floated down-stream to the sea.
"That champion is Foil, son of Nectan," said Laeg, "and there is not one in the world with whom it is more difficult to contend both in other respects and chiefly in this, that there is but one weapon wherewith he may be slain. To all others he is invulnerable. That weapon is an iron ball having magic properties, and no man knows where to look for it, or where the man hath hidden it away.
There is a stream that runs into the Boyne beside it, and there are bulwarks around it, and great strong barriers." Laeg answered, "That is the dun of the sons of Nectan." "Let us now leave Slieve Modurn," said Cuculain, "and guide thither my horses, for I shall lay waste that dun, and burn it with fire, after having slain the men who dwell there."
It is not very easy to find, and, here as at Tintagel, a key must be procured before its beauties can be examined. The Kieve is a basin of rock, into which the water has a fall of about 40 feet. St. Nectan is supposed to have been a brother of Morwenna, of Morwenstow; it is said he had an oratory here, and when he was dying he threw its silver bell into the waterfall. But Mr.
Baring-Gould says that he died at Hartland. Following the usual guide-book convention, this would be the right moment for quoting Hawker's ballad, "The Sisters of Glen Nectan," but that piece is not one of his happiest efforts, and the legend is at least dubious.
The son of Sualtam slumbered without sound or motion, and the charioteer stood beside him upright, like a pillar, his grey bright eyes fixed upon the house of the sorcerers, the merciless, bloody, and ever-victorious sons of Nectan, the son of Labrad. Of the people of the dun, Foil, son of Nectan, was the first to awake.
"He is a certain mild and gentle youth of the Ultonians," replied Laeg, "who yester morning prosperously assumed his arms of chivalry for the first time, and hath come hither to prove his valour upon the sons of Nectan." "Many youths of his nation have come hither with the same intent," said the giant, "but they did not return."
That cast no one could rightly blame whether as to force or direction, for the brazen blade caught the son of Nectan full on breast under the left pap and tore through his thick and strong armour and burst three rib bones, and fixed itself in his heart, so that he fell first upon his knees, stumbling forward, and then rolled over on the plain and a torrent of black blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils.
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