Conaire at his hands is one of the Celtic renderings of the story which in its Greek form describes the treatment of Zeus by Typho.
In another cycle of stories, which may be called Ultonian, the Celtic Zeus finds his representative in Conchobar mac Nessa, or Conor son of Nessa, king of Ulster, who cannot be dismissed quite so briefly as the others. As in Cormac's case, a highly coloured picture is drawn of his reign, which the Euhemerists synchronize with the time of Christ, boldly fixing the Ultonian king's death on the day of the Crucifixion.[1] His death was occasioned by a ball, with which he had been wounded in the skull years before, and which the surgeons of the court had never ventured to extract: it had been made, according to a savage practice, of the brains of a fallen foe called Mesgegra, by mixing it with lime. There was a prophecy that Mesgegra would avenge himself on the Ultonians, and a champion of Conchobar's enemies, called Cét, having surreptitiously got possession of the ball thus made of Mesgegra's brain, found an opportunity of hurling it at the Ultonian king's head, with the result already mentioned. Both Cét and Mesgegra belonged to the mythological party of darkness and death, and here we have them helping to produce an Ultonian parallel to Cormac losing one of his eyes, and Nuada one of his hands, especially as the ball was in Conchobar's head for years before it caused his death, and partly disabled him all that time, as he had to abstain from all violent exercise
- ↑ This part of the story and what immediately follows will be found summarized in O'Curry's MS. Mat. p. 275, &c. See also the original, printed (from the Bk. of Leinster, 123b—124b) with a literal translation, pp. 636—643.
