en Fedelma and the King of Ireland's Son, and Morag
and Flann were married. They were plighted to each other in the Circle
of Stones by the Druids who invoked upon them the powers of the Sun, the
Moon, the Earth, and the Air. They were married at the height of the day
and they feasted at night when the wax candles were lighted round the
tables. They had Greek honey and Lochlinn beer; ducks from Achill,
apples from Emain and venison from the Hunting Hill; they had trout
and grouse and plovers' eggs and a boar's head for every King in the
company. And these were the Kings who sat down to table with the King of
Eirinn: the King of Sorcha, the King of Hispania, the King of Lochlinn
and the King of the Green Island who had Sunbeam for his daughter. And
they had there the best heroes of Lochlinn, the best story-tellers of
Alba, the best bards of Eirinn. They laid sorrow and they raised music,
and the harpers played until the great champion Split-the-Shields told a
tale of the realm of Greece and how he slew the three lions that guarded
the daughter of the King. They feasted for six days and the last day
was better than the first, and the laugh they laughed when Witless, the
Saxon fool, told how Split-the-Shield's story should have ended, shook
the young jackdaws out of every chimney in the Castle and brought them
down fluttering on the floors.

The King of Ireland lived long, but he died while his sons were in their
strong manhood, and after he passed away the Island of Destiny came
under the equal rule of the two. And one had rule over the courts and
cities, the harbors and the military encampments. And the other had rule
over the waste places and the villages and the roads where masterless
men walked. And the deeds of one are in the histories the shanachies
have written in the language of the learned, and the deeds of the other
are in the stories the people tell to you and to me.

When I crossed the Ford
They were turning the Mountain Pass;
When I stood on the Stepping-stones
They were travelling the Road of Glass.

End of Project Gutenberg's The King of Ireland's Son, by Padraic Colum

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