This Buicad and his wife had no children, but
they adopted a foster-child named Ethne, daughter of one Dunlang. Now
Buicad was the most hospitable of men, and never refused aught to
anyone, but he kept open house for all the nobles of Leinster who
came with their following and feasted there as they would, day after
day; and if any man fancied any of the cattle or other goods of
Buicad, he might take them home with him, and none said him nay. Thus
Buicad lived in great splendour, and his Dun was ever full to
profusion with store of food and clothing and rich weapons, until in
time it was all wasted away in boundless hospitality and generosity,
and so many had had a share in his goods that they could never be
recovered nor could it be said of any man that he was the cause of
Buicad's undoing. But undone he was at last, and when there remained
to him but one bull and seven cows he departed by night with his wife
and Ethne from Dun Buicad, leaving his mansion desolate. And he
travelled till he came to a place where there was a grove of oak trees
by a little stream in the county of Meath, near where Cormac had a
summer palace, and there he built himself a little hut and tended his
few cattle, and Ethne waited as a maid-servant upon him and his wife.
[27] Pronounced Bwee-cad.
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