And as to Bres himself, he put a tax on every house in Ireland of the milk of hornless dun cows, or of the milk of cows of some other single colour, enough for a hundred men.  And one time, to deceive him, Nechtan singed all the cows of Ireland in a fire of fern, and then he smeared them with the ashes of flax seed, the way they were all dark brown.  He did that by the advice of the Druid Findgoll, son of Findemas.  And another time they made three hundred cows of wood with dark brown pails in place of udders, and the pails were filled with black bog stuff.  Then Bres came to look at the cows, and to see them milked before him, and Cian, father of Lugh, was there.  And when they were milked it was the bog stuff that was squeezed out; and Bres took a drink of it thinking it to be milk, and he was not the better of it for a long time.

And there was another thing against Bres; he was no way open-handed, and the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan grumbled against him, for their knives were never greased in his house, and however often they might visit him there was no smell of ale on their breath.  And there was no sort of pleasure or merriment in his house, and no call for their poets, or singers, or harpers, or pipers, or horn-blowers, or jugglers, or fools.  And as to the trials of strength they were used to see between their champions, the only use their strength was put to now was to be doing work for the king.  Ogma himself, the shining poet, was under orders to bring firing to the palace every day for the whole army from the Islands of Mod; and he so weak for want of food that the sea would sweep away two-thirds of his bundle every day.  And as to the Dagda, he was put to build raths, for he was a good builder, and he made a trench round Rath Brese.  And he used often to be tired at the work, and one time he nearly gave in altogether for want of food, and this is the way that happened.  He used to meet in the house an idle blind man, Cridenbel his name was, that had a sharp tongue, and that coveted the Dagda’s share of food, for he thought his own to be small beside it.  So he said to him:  “For the sake of your good name let the three best bits of your share be given to me.”  And the Dagda gave in to that every night; but he was the worse of it, for what the blind man called a bit would be the size of a good pig, and with his three bits he would take a full third of the whole.

But one day, as the Dagda was in the trench, he saw his son, Angus Og, coming to him.  “That is a good meeting,” said Angus; “but what is on you, for you have no good appearance to-day?” “There is a reason for that,” said the Dagda, “for every evening, Cridenbel, the blind man, makes a demand for the three best bits of my share of food, and takes them from me.”  “I will give you an advice,” said Angus.  He put his hand in his bag then, and took out three pieces of gold and gave them to him.

“Put these pieces of gold into the three bits you will give this evening to Cridenbel,” he said, “and they will be the best bits in the dish, and the gold will turn within him the way he will die.”