So they stopped in Brugh na Boinne three days and three nights, and when they left it, Angus bade them bring away from the oak-wood three apple-trees, one in full bloom, and one shedding its blossom, and the third covered with ripe fruit.

They went then to their own dun that was given them, and it is a good place they had there, and a troop of young men, and great troops of horses and of greyhounds; and they had three sorts of music that comely kings liked to be listening to, the music of harps and of lutes, and the chanting of Trogain’s son; and there were three great sounds, the tramping on the green, and the uproar of racing, and the lowing of cattle; and three other sounds, the grunting of good pigs with the fat thick on them, and the voices of the crowd on the green lawn, and the noise of men drinking inside the house.  And as to Eochaid, it was said of him that he never took a step backwards in flight, and his house was never without music or drinking of ale.  And it was said of Fiacha that there was no man of his time braver than himself, and that he never said a word too much.  And as to Ruide, he never refused any one, and never asked anything at all of any man.

And when their lifetime was over, they went back to the Tuatha de Danaan, for they belonged to them through their wives, and there they have stopped ever since.

And Bodb Dearg had a daughter, Scathniamh, the Flower of Brightness, that gave her love to Caoilte in the time of the Fianna; and they were forced to part from one another, and they never met again till the time Caoilte was, old and withered, and one of the last that was left of the Fianna.  And she came to him out of the cave of Cruachan, and asked him for the bride-price he had promised her, and that she was never able to come and ask for till then.  And Caoilte went to a cairn that was near and that was full up of gold, that was wages earned by Conan Maol and hidden there, and he gave the gold to Bodb Dearg’s daughter.  And the people that were there wondered to see the girl so young and comely, and Caoilte so grey and bent and withered.  “There is no wonder in that,” said Caoilte, “for I am of the sons of Miled that wither and fade away, but she is of the Tuatha de Danaan that never change and that never die.”

CHAPTER II.  THE DAGDA

And it was at Brugh na Boinne the Dagda, the Red Man of all Knowledge, had his house.  And the most noticeable things in it were the Hall of the Morrigu, and the Bed of the Dagda, and the Birthplace of Cermait Honey-Mouth, and the Prison of the Grey of Macha that was Cuchulain’s horse afterwards.  And there was a little hill by the house that was called the Comb and the Casket of the Dagda’s wife; and another that was called the Hill of Dabilla, that was the little hound belonging to Boann.  And the Valley of the Mata was there, the Sea-Turtle that could suck down a man in armour.