the foot of Ben Edair.

So far for her.

CHAPTER II

Conn the Hundred Fighter, Ard-Ri' of Ireland, was in the lowest spirits
that can be imagined, for his wife was dead. He had been Ard-Ri for nine
years, and during his term the corn used to be reaped three times in
each year, and there was full and plenty of everything. There are few
kings who can boast of more kingly results than he can, but there was
sore trouble in store for him.

He had been married to Eithne, the daughter of Brisland Binn, King of
Norway, and, next to his subjects, he loved his wife more than all that
was lovable in the world. But the term of man and woman, of king or
queen, is set in the stars, and there is no escaping Doom for any one;
so, when her time came, Eithne died.

Now there were three great burying-places in Ireland--the Brugh of the
Boyne in Ulster, over which Angus Og is chief and god; the Shi' mound
of Cruachan Ahi, where Ethal Anbual presides over the underworld of
Connacht, and Tailltin, in Royal Meath. It was in this last, the sacred
place of his own lordship, that Conn laid his wife to rest.

Her funeral games were played during nine days. Her keen was sung by
poets and harpers, and a cairn ten acres wide was heaved over her clay.
Then the keening ceased and the games drew to an end; the princes of the
Five Prov-inces returned by horse or by chariot to their own places;
the concourse of mourners melted away, and there was nothing left by
the great cairn but the sun that dozed upon it in the daytime, the heavy
clouds that brooded on it in the night, and the desolate, memoried king.

For the dead queen had been so lovely that Conn could not forget her;
she had been so kind at every moment that he could not but miss her at
every moment; but it was in the Council Chamber and the Judgement
Hall that he most pondered her memory. For she had also been wise, and
lack-ing her guidance, all grave affairs seemed graver, shadowing each
day and going with him to the pillow at night.

The trouble of the king becomes the trouble of the subject, for how
shall we live if judgement is withheld, or if faulty decisions are
promulgated? Therefore, with the sorrow of the king, all Ireland was in
grief, and it was the wish of every person that he should marry again.

Such an idea, however, did not occur to him, for he could not conceive
how any woman should fill the place his queen had vacated. He grew more
and more despondent, and less a