for no other course was open to her, and they rejoined her party. They were married, and Nessa’s father [Pg 11] gave them a bride-gift of land, called afterwards Rath Cathfa, in the country of the Picts in Crí Ross. In time a son was born to those two, namely, Conachúr mac Nessa, for it was by his mother’s name he was known, and it was for him that Cathfa made the poem beginning: [Pg 11] There are some who say, however, that Fachtna the Mighty had been the leman of Nessa, and that it was he was the father of Conachúr instead of Cathfa. If so, as Fachtna was the son of Maga, who was daughter of Anger mac an Og of the Brugh, then Conachúr had the blood of a god in his veins as well as the blood of a mortal, and much of his great success and of his terrible failure can be accounted for; for the gods are unlucky in love, so, too, the son of a wise mother is unlucky in love, as is also the man who is fortunate in war. After some time Nessa left her husband, taking her son with her. It may be that she had discovered he was the murderer of her tutors. It may have been that she did not love him; it may even be that she did not [Pg 12] like being wife to a magician, or he may have grown tired of her. But she never returned to him again. [Pg 12] But when Conachúr was a youth Nessa was still the most beautiful woman of Ulster. The then King of Ulster, Fachtna the Mighty, died, and his young half-brother, Fergus, the son of Roy, wife of Ross the Red, son of Rury, came to the throne. Fergus was then eighteen years of age and Conachúr was sixteen, and, like Conachúr, Fergus also was known by his mother’s name instead of his father’s. Nessa came to the Ulster court with her son, and while there Fergus fell madly in love with her, and she could in no way avoid the importunities of that monstrous youth, for Fergus was gigantic in bulk and stature. “I shall marry you on one condition,” said Nessa. “I agree to it beforehand,” said Fergus. “You know the great love I bear my son, Conachúr?” “I also love him,” said Fergus.
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