ates in the head the fire of thought.
Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain,
if not I?
Who telleth the ages of the moon, if not I?
Who showeth the place where the sun goes to rest?

They went forward to Tara, and summoned the kings of the Danaan
Gods to give up the island to them; who asked three days to
consider whether they would give battle, or surrender, or quit
Ireland. On that request Amargin gave judgment: that it would
be wrong for the Milesians to take the Gods unprepared that way;
and that they should go to their ships again, and sail out the
distance of nine waves from the shore, and then return; then if
they could conquer Ireland fairly in battle, it should be theirs.

So they embarked, and put the nine waves between themselves and
the shore, and waited. And the Danaans raised up a druid mist
and a storm against them, whereby Ireland seemed to them no more
than the size of a pig's back in the water; and by reason of
that it has the name of Innis na Wic, the Island of the Pig. But
if the Gods had magic, Amargin had better magic; and he sang
that Invocation to the Land of Ireland; and at that the storm
fell and the mist vanished. Then Eber Donn was exulting in his
rage at the thought of putting the inhabitants to death; but the
thought in his mind brought the storm again, and his ship went
down, and he was drowned. But at last the remnant of them
landed, and fought a battle with the Gods, and defeated them;
whereafter the Gods put a druid invisibility on themselves, and
retired into the hills; and there in their fairy palaces they
remain to this day; indeed they do. They went back into the
inwardness of things; whence, however, they were always
appearing, and again vanishing into it; and all the old
literature of Ireland is thridded through with the lights of
their magic and their beauty, and their strange forthcomings and
withdrawings. For example:

There was Midir the Proud, one of them. In the time of the great
Caesar, Eochaid Airem was high king of Ireland; and he had for
his queen Etain, reborn then as a mortal,--but a Danaan princess
at one time, and the wife of Miidir. It was a fine evening in
the summer, and Eochaid Airem was looking from the walls of Tara
and admiring the beauty of the world. He saw an unknown warrior
riding towards him; clad in purple tunic; his hair yellow as
gold, and his blue eyes shining like candles. A five-pointed
lan