O nobles of the land of comely Conn, hearken a while for a blessing,
till I tell you the legend of the elders of the ordering of Tailtiu's
Fair!
Three hundred years and three it covers, from the first Fair at
Taltiu to the birth of Christ, hearken! Taltiu, daughter of gentle
Magmor, wife of Eochu Garb son of Dui Dall, came hither leading
the Fir Bolg host to Caill Chuan, after high battle.
Caill
Chua, it was a thicket of trees from Escir to Ath Drommann, from
the Great Bog, a long journey, from the Sele to Ard Assuide. Assuide,
the seat of the unt, whither gathered the red-coated deer; often
was the bugle first sounded east of the wood, the second time
on the edge of Clochar.
Commur, Currech, Cr’ch Linde, Ard Manai where the spears used
to be; the hounds of Cairpre killed their quarry on the land of
Tipra Mungairde. Great that deed that was done with the axe's
help by Taltiu, the reclaiming of meadowland from the even wood
by Taltiu daughter of Magmor.
When
the fair wood was cut down by her, roots and all, out of the ground,
before the year's end it became Bregmag, it became a plain blossoming
with clover. Her heart burst in her body from the strain beneath
her royal vest; not wholesome, truly, is a face like the coal,
for the sake of woods or pride of timber.
Long was the sorrow, long the weariness of Tailtiu, in sickness
after heavy toil; the men of the island of Erin to whom she was
in bondage came to receive her last behest. She told them in her
sickness (feeble she was but not speechless) that they should
hold funeral games to lament her - zealous the deed.
About
the Calends of August she died, on a Monday, on the Lugnasad of
Lug; round her grave from that Monday forth is held the chief
Fair of noble Erin. White-sided Tailtiu uttered in her land a
true prophecy, that so long as every prince should accept her,
Erin should not be without perfect song.
A
fair with gold, with silver, with games, with music of chariots,
with adornment of body and of soul by means of knowledge and eloquence.
A fair without wounding or robbing of any man, without trouble,
without dispute, without reaving, without challenge of property,
without suing, without law-sessions, without evasion, without
arrest.
A
fair without sin, without fraud, without reproach, without insult,
without contention, without seizure, without theft, without redemption:
No man going into the seats of the women, nor woman into the seats
of the men, shining fair, but each in due order by rank in his
place in the high Fair.
Unbroken
truce of the fair and while through Erin and Alba alike, while
men went in and came out without any rude hostility. Corn and
milk in every stead, peace and fair weather for its sake, were
granted to the heathen tribes of the Greeks for maintaining of
justice.
From
the lamentation for Tailtiu of the Sele to the reign of Loegaire
mac Neill was held by the fairy host a fair every single year,
By the Fir Bolg, who were there, and by the Tuatha De Danann,
by the Children of Mil thereafter down to Patrick after the first
coming of the Faith.
Said Patrick, 'Victorious was the proud law of nature; though
it was not made in obedience to God, the Lord was magnifying it.'
Till Patrick came after Christ was held the fair of Tailtiu that
subdues curses; many a dead man his mat bewailed in the graveyard
of the wealthy FŽni. A tomb with one door for a man of art; a
tomb with two doors for a woman; graves without doors . . . over
lads and maidens.
Records
from pillars over graves decked with arms, bearing of candles
to watch the dead, mounds over noble foreigners, and walls built
over the dead of great plagues.
For
ever endures the wall of Tailtiu, where numbers of women were
buried, and the wall that hides many dead, where Eochu Garb was
buried. On the wall of Eochu, compact of stones, twenty seats
of the kings of Tara; and on the smooth wall of his wife twenty
seats of their queens.
A
royal chamber for mighty Munster to the left of the kinds of Tara;
the three parts of Connacht, not straitened, upon the seats of
the men of Olnecmacht. The warriors of Leinster, land of renown,
between them and the province of Ulster; let us name them, from
the right hand side:
Erin,
that belonged to her king in fee, The Ulstermen, before the faith
of the Cross, who came with their chariots to the first games,
the Leinstermen before the men of Munster, and Connacht in well-remembered
order.
The Stone of Grop, the Stone of Gar, the Stone of the Sick Men,
the Leper's Stone beside the seats; the Rocks of Counting, the
Wheel of Fal Fland, the Pillar of Colman, the Cairn of Conall.
Forbidden for Tailtiu is a cast at random; forbidden, to ride
through it without alighting; forbidden, when leaving it for a
meal, to look at it over the left shoulder.
A
fair green with three marvels it possessed: a man without a head
walking about it, the son of a boy of seven years, held on a finger,
the fall of the priest from the air. The three heinous spoils
Patrick forbade in it; stealing of oxen in the yoke, slaughter
of milch cows, burning of empty byres - no pristine tradition
[he taught].
Patrick
preached - so it is a judgement - that none who did such things
should find peace, so long as Tailtiu shall stand, for ever, so
long as its royal raths endure. The Eastern Rath, the Rath of
the evil West, the Rath of Lugaid, the Rath of Lort, the Rath
of Lorc, the Rath of Cœ, the Rath of Canu - hail! the Rath of
the Seed of Tadg, the triple rampart of Tailtiu.
The
triple rampart of Tailtiu, famed beyond all lands, the spot where
the kings used to fast, with laymen, with clerics, with hundreds
of headmen, that no disease might visit the land of Erin. In the
triple rampart of Tailtiu, about tierce, Jesus granted to Mac
Eirc to take away the three plagues from Erin - it is not unknown.
That the custom of gall-cherd should be put away, the sinking
of the ships off Bregmag, and the pestilence of the sons of Aed
Slaine: to Mac Eirc it was no disgrace. Though Tailtiu was a sanctuary
for the flock, God gave friends to guard it, Patrick, Brigit,
white Becan, Mac Eirc, Eithne, Adamnan.
Let
us speak of what came next after the establishment of the faith
in the Trinity; the triple bands of Tailtiu, the companies who
go to make trial of the warriors' fair-green. Men on the dun,
first, to visit it; men between two duns, after them; men behind
the dun, to ratify the truce; those are the three chief beginnings.
Patrick
whom every king invokes after traversing Tailtiu thrice; Mac Eirc,
Ciaran of Carn from Mag ‡i, these are its three guarantors. Five
hundred fairs, turn about, that is, certain with uncertain, from
the Fair of Patrick of Macha to the Black Fair of Donchad.
Two
score of kings held the fair, by four kings it was dedicated;
all the noble line of kings was sprung from Niall except Ailill
alone. One king from Loegaire descended, one king of the race
of Cairpre, nine princes of the seed of noble Aed, seven princes
of the family of Colman.
Sixteen kings out of Meath sprung from Eogan were at the Fair,
and ten kings - these came from the territory of Conall, o nobles!
Four score years (this is true) all but one year, Tailtiu lay
deserted, alas how long! and the green of Cormac without a chariot.
Until
there came in his serried array the king's comely-bearded grandson,
and the son, who drinks the heady mead, of the daughter of the
king who thwarted the Fair. The King of Temair, chosen thence,
Maelsechlainn of secure Slemun, - like the River Euphrates rises
on high the one champion of Europe.
The
glory of the noble West of the world to my aid! a new Cormac ua
Cuinn, offspring of Domnall son of Donchad, comes hither to the
princely seat. He brought the cornfield of the Gaels out of danger,
he brought Erin out of shipwreck, he raised the Fair of Tailtiu
from the sod; though of ancestral use, it was unknown.
Too
little he counts it, what he has given us of good; little, what
he has given us of corn, of milk, of malt, what of treasure, of
victual, of vestment; what of gold, of silver. Too little he thinks
it, all that he contrives for our profit; too little all the fish,
the honey, the mast; too little, what we hold, when the corn-rick
is roofed, a fair to every tribe.
Too
little, he thinks, we enjoy of the enduring world; too little
he thinks it, to make each of us a king; too little, each full
throng that follows him, till he has brought us to the Fair of
Tailtiu. He desires, though our life here should be long before
going other-where, that he should bring us into the house of God
after achieving his design.
Christ
be with Maelsechlainn of the sages! Christ with him against misfortune,
against tribulation! Christ with him to protect and prosper him
against war, against battle! Kings that have not attended our
meeting ought not to shun us:
Maelruanaid,
Flaithbertach,, Fland, Aed, Cathal, Donnchad, Domnall. Ua Lothchain's
full good wishes to you, O youths of the noble Fair! thus I greet
you after a lucky strain, so long as there be observance of the
Fair, o nobles!
