From mid-spring
to mid-autumn no wind disturbed a cow's tail. His reign was neither
thunderous nor stormy.
[Footnote 5: The mouth of the river Boyne.--W.S.]
Now his fosterbrothers murmured at the taking from them of their
father's and their grandsire's gifts, namely Theft and Robbery and
Slaughter of men and Rapine. They thieved the three thefts from the same
man, to wit, a swine and an ox and a cow, every year, that they might
see what punishment therefor the king would inflict upon them, and what
damage the theft in his reign would cause to the king.
Now every year the farmer would come to the king to complain, and the
king would say to him. "Go thou and address Donn Desa's three
great-grandsons, for 'tis they that have taken the beasts." Whenever he
went to speak to Donn Desa's descendants they would almost kill him, and
he would not return to the king lest Conaire should attend his hurt.
Since, then, pride and wilfulness possessed them, they took to
marauding, surrounded by the sons of the lords of the men of Erin.
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