And whether it was that these
took effect, or that the druids prevailed upon some traitorous servant
of Cormac's to work their will, so it was that he died not long
thereafter; and some say that he was choked by a fish bone as he sat
at meat in his house at Sletty on the Boyne.
[37] There are still Wishing Stones, which are used in
connexion with petitions for good or ill, on the ancient altars
of Inishmurray and of Caher Island, and possibly other places
on the west coast of Ireland.
But when he felt his end approaching, and had still the power to
speak, he said to those that gathered round his bed:--"When I am gone
I charge you that ye bury me not at Brugh of the Boyne where is the
royal cemetery of the Kings of Erinn.[38] For all these kings paid
adoration to gods of wood or stone, or to the Sun and the Elements,
whose signs are carved on the walls of their tombs, but I have learned
to know the One God, immortal, invisible, by whom the earth and
heavens were made. Soon there will come into Erinn one from the East
who will declare Him unto us, and then wooden gods and cursing priests
shall plague us no longer in this land. Bury me then not at
Brugh-na-Boyna, but on the hither-side of Boyne, at Ross-na-ree, where
there is a sunny, eastward-sloping hill, there would I await the
coming of the sun of truth.
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