But as to the Tuatha de Danaan after they were beaten, they would not go under the sway of the sons of Miled, but they went away by themselves.  And because Manannan, son of Lir, understood all enchantments, they left it to him to find places for them where they would be safe from their enemies.  So he chose out the most beautiful of the hills and valleys of Ireland for them to settle in; and he put hidden walls about them, that no man could see through, but they themselves could see through them and pass through them.

And he made the Feast of Age for them, and what they drank at it was the ale of Goibniu the Smith, that kept whoever tasted it from age and from sickness and from death.  And for food at the feast he gave them his own swine, that though they were killed and eaten one day, would be alive and fit for eating again the next day, and that would go on in that way for ever.

And after a while they said:  “It would be better for us one king to be over us, than to be scattered the way we are through the whole of Ireland.”

Now the men among them that had the best chance of getting the kingship at that time were Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda; and Ilbrech of Ess Ruadh; and Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, the Hill of the White Field, on Slieve Fuad; and Midhir the Proud of Bri Leith, and Angus Og, son of the Dagda; but he did not covet the kingship at all, but would sooner be left as he was.  Then all the chief men but those five went into council together, and it is what they agreed, to give the kingship to Bodb Dearg, for the sake of his father, for his own sake, and because he was the eldest among the children of the Dagda.

It was in Sidhe Femen Bodb Dearg had his house, and he put great enchantments about it.  Cliach, the Harper of the King of the Three Rosses in Connacht, went one time to ask one of his daughters in marriage, and he stayed outside the place through the whole length of a year, playing his harp, and able to get no nearer to Bodb or to his daughter.  And he went on playing till a lake burst up under his feet, the lake that is on the top of a mountain, Loch Bel Sead.

It was Bodb’s swineherd went to Da Derga’s Inn, and his squealing pig along with him, the night Conaire, the High King of Ireland, met with his death; and it was said that whatever feast that swineherd would go to, there would blood be shed before it was over.

And Bodb had three sons, Angus, and Artrach, and Aedh.  And they used often to be living among men in the time of the Fianna afterwards.  Artrach had a house with seven doors, and a free welcome for all that came, and the king’s son of Ireland, and of Alban, used to be coming to Angus to learn the throwing of spears and darts; and troops of poets from Alban and from Ireland used to be with Aedh, that was the comeliest of Bodb’s sons, so that his place used to be called “The Rath of Aedh of the Poets.”  And indeed it was a beautiful rath at that time, with golden-yellow apples in it and crimson-pointed nuts of the wood.  But after the passing away of the Fianna, the three brothers went back to the Tuatha de Danaan.