"One morning in May, as the cobwebs glistened with jewels of mist, King Cormac stood on the earthen walls of Tara. Out on the plains of his royal meath, the green of the early corn waved to the breeze's patterns across the fields. Looking to the north-west, he saw a curious figure approaching on foot from the direction of the river Boyne, a warrior by the look of him, dressed in the brilliant style to which only warriors, princes and kings were entitled. He wore cloth-of-gold brocade edged with broad bands of purple and his short crimson brocade cloak, which flapped a little behind him so quickly did he stride, had a saffron lining. One his right shoulder he bore, at an angle, a branch made of beautiful beaten silver with three golden apples hanging from it as if they had grown there. When this branch shook as he stepped along in his high prancing gait, the apples made music. Cormac knew instinctively that his sound would make all ailing people sleep peacefully: wounded warriors; women in the labour of childbirth; people with palsy or old soldiers whose aches had caught up with them. The warrior saluted formally as he approached Cormac and then spoke with confidence and with obvious, though not obsequious, respect. 'I come from a country where only truth may be spoken, where nothing ages or decays, where melancholy, envy, hate or conceit do not exist.' Cormac replied,'This trebles your ready welcome at my court.' The stranger bowed according to the etiquette due to a High King, the men clasped wrists and both immediately and spontaneously offered friendship. Cormac, in the ritual which permitted a king or host to ask any visitor for the gift of such valuables as he carried, asked the stranger for the silver branch with the golden apples. Unquestioning, the man agreed, but only on condition that the king grant him three wishes. Cormac, understanding the game, said,'Of course,' at which the stranger disappeared. Cormac walked down the steps from the ramparts and strolled back into the palace. Inside the courtyard, he shook the silver branch. When the golden apples tinkled, the entire royal household fell asleep.

After a year and a day, and on exactly the same kind of sunlit morning, the brilliantly clad warrior reappeared on the ramparts at Tara, wearing stripes of red to match the evening sky and pink to match the dawn. Cormac, delighted to see him, asked, 'Tell me, do I have the privilege of granting you your three wishes?' The stranger bowed. 'Yes, and my first wish honours three people, you, me and your daughter, whose hand I want in marriage.' The king clapped his hands in delight and when the royal women protested-who was this man? what was his breeding?- Cormac, smiling like a boy, shook the branch and they were pacified into sleep. A month later, on a morning of wind and sun, with the air on Tara exhilarating, the stranger returned, wearing the deep blue of the sea and the soft white of the early clouds. 'I hope,' said Cormac,'that I now shall have the privilege of granting you the remaining wishes.' 'One at a time,' said the stranger, 'nothing to excess. But you're right. I have come to claim the second wish. This time it honours three of us again. This time I want you to foster your young son on me.' The king happily agreed, but the lad had proved a great favorite among the women at the court who spent a lot of time combing his hair and making a pet of him. Once more Cormac subdued the family disquiet by shaking the silver bough. Once again they all fell asleep. Useful item, this. One year and one day later, the mysterious warrior returned, clothed this time in the green of the young corn and the bright saffron-gold of the sun at noon. 'i have come to claim my third and last wish-your wife.' The king-rueful this time, for he loved his wife- had no choice but to agree. It proved too much for him and, when the stranger left the ramparts, accompanied by the queen who looked back just once in sorrow and puzzlement, the king mustered his own followers and set out in pursut. Suddenly, from the sea, a deep mist floated in at great speed, cutting off the members of the party from each other.

King Cormac found himself isolated, entirely alone on a wide moor. He led his horse gently up a defile, avoiding the thorn bushes which caught the edge of his gold cloak, and there, at the end of the pathway, as suddenly and unreally as in a dream, stood a mighty fort with walls of shining metal. He dismounted and hitched his horse to a short stone pillar beneath the walls. As he walked forward, a door swung open slowly. He had entered a house made entirely of silver; the roof , he noticed, had been only hald thatched-with the feathers of white birds-and a small army of thatchers worked with huge armfuls of more feathers to complete the job. But every time they tried to peg down a new piece of thatch, and then clip it into place with long willow rods the length of a man's forearm, the wind blem away the feathers. By the great fireplace a man crouched and heaved on a huge fire a tree-trunk, branches, roots-all of which burnt to ashes in the few moments while he went away to get another tree which he hauled through a door in the back: he seemed to perform this task every half-minute or so. Out through the back door of this chaotic silver house, Cormac could see a great palace of four citadels-banners and pennants flying at each corner. In the courtyard stood a circle of nine gnarled hazel trees, dropping their nuts as it fell. Five wide streams, relecting the light, flowed from the pool in a sound that made bright melodies.

Inside the palace Cormac found two people sitting on large oaken chairs-a champion and a beautiful woman. Neither showed any surprise at the arrival of the king. Their servants had prepared a bath for Cormac, of water warmed by stones that appeared magically as he called for more heat. At that moment through the doorway came a powerful and churlish man carrying an axe, a club and a small pig. With the axe he killed the pig and split the wooden club, and then cut the pig into four parts and tossed it into a large bubbling cauldron. Throughout this performance, the man protested that the pig would never be properly cooked until four truths were told, one for each of the pig's four quarters. So the man himself told a tale, followed by the beautiful woman; so did the warrior, and, as they did so, three quarters of the pig cooked beautifully. Then they turned looked at the king, and waited. Cormac told the story of how his wife had vanished and he told it eloquently. This completed the cooking of the pig, ready to be eaten. When they served his portion to the king, he objected, saying he never ate a meal without an entourage of at least fifty people. The warrior rose from his chair and sang a song that lulled the king to sleep. When he awoke fifty warriors stood around him, and foremost in the company stood his loving wife, daughter and son, restored to him. They all feasted merrily amid much music. During dinner, Cormac, the perfect guest, admired his host's exquisite drinking chalice, made of simple beaten gold. The warrior said, 'All its wonder does not lie in its beauty. It has its own soul.'

'How do you mean?' asked Cormac. 'If three lies be told it will break in three parts. If three thruths are told, it will then be restored.' The warrior told three lies, and the cup, with little crashes, splintered in three before their eyes. He said to Cormac, 'Look-now I will make it whole again: your son has not seen a woman, and neither your wife nor daughter has seen a man, since they left Tara.' At that the cup came back together again with three loud musical rings and stood restored, handsome as before. Cormac said, 'But how can all of this be?' His host replied, 'I am not a mortal, I am Manannan MacLir, the god of the sea, and I sent the sea-mist. I have lured you here that you may view the Land of Promise.' he revelaed himself as the warrior who had pranced across the fields that sunny morning to the ramparts at Tara. 'I favour you and I guard your sleep,' Manannan announced, and gave the king the Golden Cup 'for Truth' to go with the Silver Branch 'for Pleasantness.' Slowly, and with an air of finality, the god explained the riddles of the palace. 'The thatchers with the feathers represent poets who tried to hoard wealth; oh, such a futile thing to do-the world blows the wealth of poets away. The spring pool in the courtyard-that is the sparkling fount of all knowledge and the five streams that flow from it are the same as the five senses of seeing, hearing, smell, taste and touch, which flow from the mind and soul and through which knowledge is garnered. To drink from the well itself will do you good in soul and heart, but to drink from the streams guarantees excellence in the things you most want.' Manannan clapped his hands, the musicians played a last march and a last lament and a last lullably. The household stood, bowed to the king and everyone retired after this great feast and evening of wonders.

Next morning the king found himself rubbing the sleep out of his eyes-not in the bed to which, surely, he had gone the night before, but on the high green ramparts of Tara. Had he dreamed it all? There, in the distance, were his wife and daughter and son, and the palace seemed its normal, early morning self. But as he stirred himself, blinked, stretched and sat up, he saw nearby on the ground, gleaming in the early light, the golden cup, and beside it, the silver branch with the dear little ringing gold apples."