In pre-Patrick Ireland were a few remarkable kings. Cormac
MacArt. Niall of the Nine Hostages. Conor MacNessa.
Reigning over Ulster during the early part of the
first century A.D., Conor MacNessa was a patron of warriors, scholars, and
poets. It is Conor about whom there is
told this interesting tale. A brain-ball, fired by Cet MacMagach, a champion
from Connaught, sunk into Conor’s skull. The occasion of the conflict was a
cattle raid. Conor died of this
infliction, but not for seven years. His physician would not remove the brain-ball,
saying that to do so would cause death instantly. Instead, he prescribed a
moderate lifestyle for Conor, advising him to avoid all excitement. Conor was
to live with a calmness that did not characterize kings of that time.
Conor succeeded
at this pacific existence for seven years until one day the sunlight suddenly
turned into darkness accompanied by unusually violent lighting and thunder. Conor
asked his druids the meaning of these perplexing events and was told that in
the East, in one of the many countries under the rule of Rome, a unique man of more
noble character and loftiness of mind and beauty of soul than any man who had
ever lived --- a God-man who had lifted the lowly, enlightened the ignorant,
and brought hope to the hopeless --- a man of unsurpassed love whose touch
healed the blind, the deaf and the lame, and who actually raised the dead ---
had been crucified between two thieves by the Romans.
Conor grabbed his sword and cried “Show me the
accursed wretches who did this base deed!” and burst forth from his courtiers
and into the storm, through a stand of trees, hacking their branches as he did
so, and shouting “Thus would I treat the slayers of that noble man, could I but
reach them!” From this passionate
exercise, the brain-ball was expelled from Conor’s head and he immediately
died.
