hospitality, but was a very tyrannous and overbearing ruler, so that
much evil came of his government. Yet for seven years he was endured,
even though meat nor ale was dispensed at his banquets, according to De
Danaan law.

Mutterings against Breas were rife among the chiefs and their followers
when the bard Cairbré, whose mother Etan was also a maker of verses,
came to the assembly of Breas. But the bard was shown little honor and
given a mean lodging,--a room without fire or bed, with three dry loaves
for his fare. The bard was full of resentment and set himself to make
songs against Breas, so that all men repeated his verses, and the name
of Breas fell into contempt. All men's minds were enkindled by the bard,
and they drove Breas forth from the chieftainship. Breas fled to his
Fomor kindred in the isles, with his heart full of anger and revenge
against the De Danaans.

He sought help of his kindred, and their design was told to the
Fomorian chieftains--to Balor of the Evil Eye, and to Indec, son of De
Domnand, chiefs of the Isles. These two leaders gathered ships from all
the harbors and settlements of the Fomorians, from the Hebrides, the
Shetlands, and far-distant Norway, so that their fleet was thick as
gulls above a shoal of fish along the north shores of Erin.

Coming down from the northern isles, they sighted the coast of Erin, the
peaks of the northwestern mountains rising purple towards the clouds,
with white seas foaming around them. Past towering headlands they
sailed; then, drawing in towards the shore, they crept under the great
cliffs of Slieve League, that rose like a many-colored wall from the sea
to the sky--so high that the great eagles on their summits were but
specks seen from beneath, so high that the ships below seemed like