The Tain

The poets of Ireland gather to see if they can remember the whole Táin Bó Cuailnge, but when they find that they can only remember parts of it, Senchán sends his son Muirgen with others to the land of Letha to trade the book Cuilmenn for The Táin. Sitting at Fergus mac Roich’s gravesite, Muirgen chants a poem to the gravestone, and he disappears in a great mist for three days, during which Fergus visits him and teaches him The Táin. Muirgen returns home to be celebrated and share the tale.

In “How Conchobor Was Begotten, and How He Took the Kingship of Ulster,” Nes is sitting outside Emain with her women. When the druid Cathbad passes by, she asks him about the day’s fortune, and he informs her it is lucky for begetting a king “who would be heard of in Ireland for ever” (3). She takes him inside and becomes pregnant with Conchobor, who is delivered after gestating for more than three years.

Courted by Fergus mac Roich, the king of Ulster, Nes agrees to marriage if he gives her son Conchobor the kingship for one year, so he may someday call his son the son of a king.