[27] Pronounced Bwee-cad.  His name is said to be preserved in
   the townland of Dunboyke, near Blessington, Co.  Wicklow.

Now on a certain day it happened that King Cormac rode out on horseback from his Dun in Meath, and in the course of his ride he came upon the little herd of Buicad towards evening, and he saw Ethne milking the cows.  And this was the way she milked them:  first she milked a portion of each cow’s milk into a certain vessel, then she took a second vessel and milked into it the remaining portion, in which was the richest cream, and these two vessels she kept apart.  Cormac watched all this.  She then bore the vessels of milk into the hut, and came out again with two other vessels and a small cup.  These she bore down to the river-side; and one of the vessels she filled by means of the cup from the water at the brink of the stream, but the other vessel she bore out into the middle of the stream and there filled it from the deepest of the running water.  After this she took a sickle and began cutting rushes by the river-side, and Cormac saw that when she cut a wisp of long rushes she would put it on one side, and the short rushes on the other, and she bore them separately into the house.  But Cormac stopped her and saluted her, and said: 

“For whom, maiden, art thou making this careful choice of the milk and the rushes and the water?”

“I am making it,” said she, “for one who is worthy that I should do far more than that for him, if I could.”

“What is his name?”

“Buicad, the farmer,” said Ethne.

“Is it that Buicad, who was the rich farmer in Leinster that all Ireland has heard of?” asked the King.

“It is even so.”

“Then thou art his foster-child, Ethne the daughter of Dunlang?” said Cormac.

“I am,” said Ethne.

“Wilt thou be my wife and Queen of Erinn?” then said Cormac.

“If it please my foster-father to give me to thee, O King, I am willing,” replied Ethne.

Then Cormac took Ethne by the hand and they went before Buicad, and he consented to give her to Cormac to wife.  And Buicad was given rich lands and great store of cattle in the district of Odran close by Tara, and Ethne the Queen loved him and visited him so long as his life endured.

IV

THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE KING

Ethne bore to Cormac a son, her firstborn, named Cairbry, who was King of Ireland after Cormac.  It was during the lifetime of Cormac that Cairbry came to the throne, for it happened that ere he died Cormac was wounded by a chance cast of a spear and lost one of his eyes, and it was forbidden that any man having a blemish should be a king in Ireland.  Cormac therefore gave up the kingdom into the hands of Cairbry, but before he did so he told his son all the wisdom that he had in the governing of men, and this was written down in a book which is called The Instructions of Cormac.[28] These are among the things which are found in it, of the wisdom of Cormac:—­