nd after exchanging spears and promises
of mutual friendship, each returned to his own camp.

[Illustration: FLINT SPEAR-HEAD, FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE R.I.A.] The
Firbolg king, however, objected to this arrangement; and it was decided,
in a council of war, to give battle to the invaders. The Tuatha De
Dananns were prepared for this from the account which Breas gave of the
Firbolg warriors: they, therefore, abandoned their camp, and took up a
strong position on Mount Belgadan, at the west end of _Magh Nia_, a site
near the present village of Cong, co. Mayo.

The Firbolgs marched from Tara to meet them; but Nuada, anxious for
pacific arrangements, opened new negociations with King Eochaidh through
the medium of his bards. The battle which has been mentioned before then
followed. The warrior Breas, who ruled during the disability of Nuada,
was by no means popular. He was not hospitable, a _sine qua non_ for
king or chief from the earliest ages of Celtic being; he did not love
the bards, for the same race ever cherished and honoured learning; and
he attempted to enslave the nobles. Discontent came to a climax when the
bard Cairbre, son of the poetess Etan, visited the royal court, and was
sent to a dark chamber, without fire or bed, and, for all royal fare,
served with three small cakes of bread. If we wish to know the true
history of a people, to understand the causes of its sorrows and its
joys, to estimate its worth, and to know how to rule it wisely and well,
let us read such old-world tales carefully, and ponder them well. Even
if prejudice or ignorance should induce us to undervalue their worth as
authentic records of its ancient history, let us remember the undeniable
fact, that they _are_ authentic records of its deepest national
feelings, and let them, at least, have their weight as such in our
schemes of social economy, for the present and the future.

The poet left the court next morning, but not until he pronounced a
bitter and withering satire on the king--the first satire that had ever
been pronounced in Erinn. It was enough. Strange effects are attributed
to the satire of a poet in those olden times; but probably they could,
in all cases, bear the simple and obvious interpretation, that he on
whom the satire was pronounced was thereby disgraced eternally before
his people. For how slight a punishment would bodily suffering or
deformity be, in comparison to the mental suffering of which a
quick-souled peo