King gave judgment, that the sheep which had eaten
the woad were to be given to the Queen in compensation for what they
had destroyed. Then Cormac rose up before the people and said, "Nay,
but let the wool of the sheep, when they are next shorn, be given to
the Queen, for the woad will grow again and so shall the wool." "A
true judgment, a true judgment," cried all the folk that were present
in the place; "a very king's son is he that hath pronounced it." And
they murmured so loudly against mac Con that his druids counselled him
to quit Tara lest a worse thing befall him. So he gave up the sovranty
to Cormac and went southward into Munster to rally his friends there
and recover the kingdom, and there he was slain by Cormac's men as he
was distributing great largesse of gold and silver to his followers,
in the place called The Field of the Gold.

[26] Woad is a cruciferous plant, _Isatis tinctoria_, used for
dyeing.

So Cormac, son of Art, ruled in Tara and was High King of all Ireland.
And the land, it is said, knew its rightful lord, and yielded harvests
such as never were known, while the forest trees dripped with the
abundance of honey and the lakes and rivers were alive with fish. So
much game was there, too, that the folk could have lived on that alone
and never put a ploughshare in the soil. In Cormac's time the autumn
was not vexed with rain, nor the spring with icy winds, nor the summer
with parching heat, nor the winter with whelming snows. His rule in
Erinn, it is said, was like a wand of gold laid on a dish of silver.

Also he rebuilt the ramparts of Tara and made it strong, and he
enlarged the great banqueting hall and made pillars of cedar in it
ornamented with plates of bronze, and painted its lime-white walls in
patterns of red and blue. Palaces for the women he also made there,
and store-houses, and halls for the fighting men--never was Tara so
populous or so glorious before or since. And for his wisdom and
righteousness knowledge was given to him that none other in Ireland
had as yet, for it was revealed to him that the Immortal Ones whom the
Gael worshipped were but the names of One whom none can name, and that
his message should ere long come to Ireland from over the eastern sea,
calling the people to a sweeter and diviner faith.

And to the end of his life it was his way to have wolves about him,
for he knew their speech and they his, and they were friendly and tame
with him and his folk, s