He left his fosterbrothers at their game, and turned his chariot and his charioteer until he was in Dublin.  There he saw great, white-speckled birds, of unusual size and colour and beauty.  He pursues then until his horses were tired.  The birds would go a spearcast before him, and would not go any further.  He alighted, and takes his sling for them out of the chariot.  He goes after them until he was at the sea.  The birds betake themselves to the wave.  He went to them and overcame them.  The birds quit their birdskins, and turn upon him with spears and swords.  One of them protects him, and addressed him, saying:  “I am Nemglan, king of thy father’s birds; and thou hast been forbidden to cast at birds, for here there is no one that should not be dear to thee because of his father or mother.”

“Till to-day,” says Conaire, “I knew not this.”

“Go to Tara tonight,” says Nemglan; “’tis fittest for thee.  A bull-feast is there, and through it thou shalt be king.  A man stark-naked, who shall go at the end of the night along one of the roads of Tara, having a stone and a sling—­’tis he that shall be king.”

So in this wise Conaire fared forth; and on each of the four roads whereby men go to Tara there were three kings awaiting him, and they had raiment for him, since it had been foretold that he would come stark-naked.  Then he was seen from the road on which his fosterers were, and they put royal raiment about him, and placed him in a chariot, and he bound his pledges.

The folk of Tara said to him:  “It seems to us that our bull-feast and our spell of truth are a failure, if it be only a young, beardless lad that we have visioned therein.”

“That is of no moment,” quoth he.  “For a young, generous king like me to be in the kingship is no disgrace, since the binding of Tara’s pledges is mine by right of father and grandsire.”

“Excellent! excellent!” says the host.  They set the kingship of Erin upon him.  And he said:  “I will enquire of wise men that I myself may be wise.”

Then he uttered all this as he had been taught by the man at the wave, who said this to him:  “Thy reign will be subject to a restriction, but the bird-reign will be noble, and this shall be thy restriction, i.e. thy tabu.

“Thou shalt not go righthandwise round Tara and lefthandwise round Bregia.

“The evil-beasts of Cerna must not be hunted by thee.

“And thou shalt not go out every ninth night beyond Tara.

“Thou shalt not sleep in a house from which firelight is manifest outside, after sunset, and in which light is manifest from without.

“And three Reds shall not go before thee to Red’s house.

“And no rapine shall be wrought in thy reign.

“And after sunset a company of one woman or one man shall not enter the house in which thou art.

“And thou shalt not settle the quarrel of thy two thralls.