"
Such were the counsels that Cormac mac Art gave to his son Cairbry.
And Cairbry became King after his father's abdication, and reigned
seven and twenty years, till he and Oscar, son of Oisin, slew one
another at the battle of Gowra.
V
CORMAC SETS UP THE FIRST MILL IN ERINN
During the reign of Cormac it happened that some of the lords of
Ulster made a raid upon the Picts in Alba[29] and brought home many
captives. Among them was a Pictish maiden named Kiernit, daughter of a
king of that nation, who was strangely beautiful, and for that the
Ulstermen sent her as a gift to King Cormac. And Cormac gave her as a
household slave to his wife Ethne, who set her to grinding corn with a
hand-quern, as women in Erinn were used to do. One day as Cormac was
in the palace of the Queen he saw Kiernit labouring at her task and
weeping as she wrought, for the toil was heavy and she was unused to
it. Then Cormac was moved with compassion for the women that ground
corn throughout Ireland, and he sent to Alba for artificers to come
over and set up a mill, for up to then there were no mills in Ireland.
Now there was in Tara, as there is to this day, a well of water
called _The Pearly_, for the purity and brightness of the water that
sprang from it, and it ran in a stream down the hillside, as it still
runs, but now only in a slender trickle.
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