guessed that the ingenious wording of the boy's utterance betokened coming greatness, and that Aitherne, who would probably be of the same opinion, would come, as he feared, to kill the boy in order to avoid the rise of a possible rival. So it was thought expedient to take the boy out of the way, and his sister took him to the sea near Slieve Mis in the south, which must mean either the Bay of Dingle or of Tralee, in the west of Kerry, while his father made an earthen image of him, which was dressed up to counterfeit Amorgen asleep close to where Eccet was at work. It was not long ere Aitherne came, as anticipated: it was ostensibly to have work done by the smith; but after receiving from the latter's hands an axe finished and hafted, he gave a blow with it to the supposed child: this was assumed to have killed it, and Aitherne was pursued to his house, and the nobles of Ulster undertook to fix the eric which he was to pay to the smith, and the latter so managed the matter that Aitherne was bound to include in the eric an engagement to educate a son of Eccet's until he should be equal to the poet himself in his profession. When this had received the usual sanction, Amorgen was fetched and delivered to Aitherne to be brought up by him. Sooner or later Amorgen lost his hideousness, and he eventually became the chief of the professional men of Ulster;[1] and when
- ↑ The tale occurs at length in the Bk. of Leinster, 117b, 118a, and briefly in Cormac's Glossary (Stokes-O'Donovan edition), p. 85, where, besides other differences, Amorgen's age is said to have been seven. The name of the smith varies in the MSS. between Eccet, Echen and Ecul: I should guess the correct spellings to have been Eccet and Eccen, corresponding to possible Welsh forms Adgant and Adgan, the latter of which occurs as Atgan in the Lives of the Cambro-Brit. Saints (Llandovery, 1853), p. 88.
