Now the leader of the invaders then was mac Con, a
nephew to Art, who had been banished out of Ireland for rising against
the High King; and when he had slain Art he seized the sovranty of
Ireland and reigned there unlawfully for many years.
But before the battle, Art had counselled his wife:
"If things go ill with us in the fight, and I am slain, seek out my
faithful friend Luna who dwells in Corann in Connacht, and he will
protect thee till thy son be born." So Achta, with one maid, fled in
her chariot before the host of mac Con and sought to go to the Dun of
Luna. On her way thither, however, the hour came when her child should
be born, and the maid turned the chariot aside into the wild wood at
the place called Creevagh (the Place of the Twigs), and there, on a
couch of twigs and leaves, she gave birth to a noble son.
Then Achta, when she had cherished her boy and rejoiced over him, bade
her handmaid keep watch over both of them, and they fell asleep. But
the maid's eyes were heavy with weariness and long travelling, and ere
long she, too, was overpowered by slumber, and all three slept a deep
sleep while the horses wandered away grazing through the wood.
By and by there came a she-wolf roaming through the wood in search of
prey for her whelps, and it came upon the sleeping woman and the
little child.
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