His name is said to be preserved in
the townland of Dunboyke, near Blessington, Co. Wicklow.
Now on a certain day it happened that King Cormac rode out on
horseback from his Dun in Meath, and in the course of his ride he came
upon the little herd of Buicad towards evening, and he saw Ethne
milking the cows. And this was the way she milked them: first she
milked a portion of each cow's milk into a certain vessel, then she
took a second vessel and milked into it the remaining portion, in
which was the richest cream, and these two vessels she kept apart.
Cormac watched all this. She then bore the vessels of milk into the
hut, and came out again with two other vessels and a small cup. These
she bore down to the river-side; and one of the vessels she filled by
means of the cup from the water at the brink of the stream, but the
other vessel she bore out into the middle of the stream and there
filled it from the deepest of the running water. After this she took a
sickle and began cutting rushes by the river-side, and Cormac saw that
when she cut a wisp of long rushes she would put it on one side, and
the short rushes on the other, and she bore them separately into the
house. But Cormac stopped her and saluted her, and said:
"For whom, maiden, art thou making this careful choice of the milk and
the rushes and the water?"
"I am making it," said she, "for one who is worthy that I should do
far more than that for him, if I could.
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