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40 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
since. In his reign no one needed to bolt the door, no one needed to guard the flocks, nor was anyone in all Ireland distressed for want of food or clothing. For of all Ireland, this wise and just King made a beautiful land of promise.
After a reign of forty years Cormac resigned the throne in favour of his son Cairbre. It is recorded that he only resigned because he had lost an eye from a spear-thrust, “the Bloody or Blood-spotted Spear” as it is since known and as it was one of the ancient laws of Ireland that no man with a physical defect could reign as King, he was left with no option. Cormac’s fine sense of justice was such that, instead of ordering the death of Angus of the Poisoned Spear, Angus Gabuaidech, the chieftain who had himself cast the weapon, Cormac had the man tried for his crime, and sentenced to exile. In retirement, he occupied and devoted the remaining years of his life in producing three books: Teagasc an Ríogh, The Instructions of a King, a collection of noble and beautiful precepts for the guidance of Kings; The Book Of Acaill, the principles of the old or common laws, and The Psaltair of Tara, a book composed of ancient Irish genealogies and chronology.
Cormac died in the latter half of the third century, having choked on a salmon bone. One of the many legends associated with this great man tells that he mysteriously received the light of the Christian faith in his old age, and that, having been inspired by that faith, he made a dying request that he should be buried, not as tradition required with the other pa- gan kings at their burying ground at Newgrange, but nearby at Ros na Ríogh, The Headland/ Promontory of the Kings, looking towards the East, from where the light of Christianity had come. Disregarding his dying wish, the druids ordered that he should be interred at Newgrange.
But when, in pursuance of this, the bearers were carrying his body across the river Boyne, a great wave swept it from their shoulders, down the river, and cast it up at Ros na Ríogh, where according to his wishes he was then buried. So ends the story of Cormac, a King who throughout his life blended creativity and cruelty, harmony and chaos, in ways that challenge the modern imagination, a king whose reign is generally looked upon as the brightest epoch in the entire history of pagan Ireland. What follows is a romanticized bardic pictorial description of Cormac which is gleaned from the 12th century Book of Ballymote, it goes:-
“His hair was slightly curled, and of golden colour: a scarlet shield with engraved de- vices, and golden hooks, and clasps of silver: a wide-folding purple cloak on him, with a gem-set gold brooch over his breast; a gold torque around his neck; a white-collared shirt,
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