It was a long time before that the Fomor came first to Ireland; dreadful
they were to look at, and maimed, having but one foot or one hand, and
they under the leadership of a giant and his mother. There never came to
Ireland an army more horrible or more dreadful than that army of the
Fomor. And they were friendly with the Firbolgs and content to leave
Ireland to them, but there was jealousy between them and the Men of Dea.
And it was a hard tax they put on them, a third part of their corn they
asked, and a third part of their milk, and a third part of their
children, so that there was not smoke rising from a roof in Ireland but
was under tribute to them. And Bres made no stand against them, but let
them get their way.
And as to Bres himself, he put a tax on every house in Ireland of the
milk of hornless dun cows, or of the milk of cows of some other single
colour, enough for a hundred men. And one time, to deceive him, Nechtan
singed all the cows of Ireland in a fire of fern, and then he smeared
them with the ashes of flax seed, the way they were all dark brown. He
did that by the advice of the Druid Findgoll, son of Findemas. And
another time they made three hundred cows of wood with dark brown pails
in place of udders, and the pails were filled with black bog stuff. Then
Bres came to look at the cows, and to see them milked before him, and
Cian, father of Lugh, was there. And when they were milked it was the
bog stuff that was squeezed out; and Bres took a drink of it thinking it
to be milk, and he was not the better of it for a long time.
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