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Editions

• R. I. Best and Osborn Bergin (eds), Lebor na hUidre (Dublin 1929, reprinted 1992) 95-100.
  

• Standish H. O’Grady (ed. & tr.), Silva Gadelica. 2 Vols. (London 1892) I. 233-7; II. 265-9.
  

Manuscripts

• Lebor na hUidre, 39a22-41b8
  

Date

• Middle Irish period, likely after the year 1000
  

Characters

• Mairid mac Cairedo: a mythological king of Munster.  O’Rahilly notes that the name ‘occurs in the genealogies of the Conmaicne and the Ciarraige’ (EIHM 148).

• Eochaid mac Maireda: the son of Mairid who is compelled to elope with his father’s wife Ebliu.

• Rib mac Maireda: the son of Mairid and the brother of Eochaid

• Ebliu: the daughter of Guaire from Bruig na Bóinne and the wife of Mairid.

• Midir: an otherworldly personage elsewhere regarded as the foster-father of Óengus.

• Óengus: the otherworldly figure who lives at Bruig na Bóinne (alia Bruig Meic ind Óc)

• Lí Ban: the daughter of Eochaid mac Maireda and a virgin saint.  It is unlikely that she is to be identified with her better known namesake Lí Ban the wife of Labraid Luathlám ar Claideb.

• Curnán Óinmit: the husband of Lí Ban’s sister Airiu.  He dies of grief after she is drowned in the eruption of Loch nEchach

• Conaing: an ancestor of Dál Buain and Dál Sailne.  Both septs are genealogically connected with Dál nAraide but are regarded as aithechthuatha (see Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland p. 61).

• Comgall Bendchair (d. 602): a cleric and the founder of Bendchor (Bangor) in Ulster

• Beoán mac Indli: a cleric from Tech Dá Beoc

Notes

• It is not clear whether this text should be regarded as part of the Cycles of the Kings.  However, the story does deal with a number of issues common to these narratives.  Specifically, it relates the fate of the children of Mairid mac Cairedo, a mythological king of Munster, and the events leading to the eruption of Loch nEchach.  According to the narrator of the story, this eruption is the reason why many of the original peoples of Ulster are now dispersed around the country (Iss ed sin dano is mó ro-scail Ultu fo Érind tomaidb Locha Echach).

• The eruption of Loch nEchach is also related in Airne Fíngein and in the Dindsenchas.
  

Summary

Mairid mac Cairedo becomes king of Munster.  He has a wife named Ebliu and two sons named Eochaid and Rib.  For a long time, Ebliu was entreating Eochaid to have sex with her, but he would always refuse.  In the end, she lays an irresistible demand (áilges) on him to elope with her or to suffer disgrace, and so having no other options, Eochaid, Rib, and Ebliu flee Munster.

During their journey, they learn from their druids that they are not destined to obtain land in the same location, so the group parts ways at Belach dá Líac.  Rib goes east to Tír Cluiche Midir.  While they are there, Midir himself comes along and kills their horses.  He then gives them a packhorse (capull cengalta. . . co srathair fair).  Rib and his company load their goods on the animal and travel to a place called Mag nArbthen.  However, when they arrive, the horse lays down and expels a prodigious amount of urine, drowning Rib and his company and forming a new lake, what is now known as Loch Rí (Laigid in gerrán occo and sin 7 siblais a fual corbo thipra.  Conid hé sin tánic tairsib-sium iar sin coros-báid uli.  Conid hé Loch Rí.)

Eochaid and his company (presumably including Ebliu) arrive at Bruig Meic ind Óc.  While they are there, a large man comes up to them, drives them from the Bruig, and later that night kills all their horses.  The next day, the same man (who turns out to be Óengus himself) threatens to kill their adherents (for ndóeni) unless they cleared off.  To aid them in their journey, Óengus gives Eochaid and his people a large horse to carry their belongings, and he tells them not to unharness it or to allow it to rest lest it expel a prodigious amount of urine and cause their demise (asbert friu cen scor ind eich 7 arná léictis airisium dó arnár siblad a fúal arnabad fochond báis dóib).

With that, Eochaid and his people set out and travel north until they reach Liathmuine in Ulster.  They unload the horse but fail to turn it around and send it home.  With no one to control it, the horse releases so much urine that a well is formed (silis int ech oco iar sin combo thipra).  However, unlike his brother, Eochaid and his people are not drowned.  Instead, Eochaid has the well covered and assigns a woman to look after it.  However, one day, she fails in her duties and the Lind Muine overflows from the well, washes over Liathmuine, and drowns everyone save Lí Ban, Conaing, and Curnán.  (From Conaing descend the Dál Búain and the Dál Sailne.)  The lake that is formed from this eruption comes to be known as Loch nEchach (i.e. the Lake of Eochaid mac Maireda).  By the grace of God, Lí Ban and her lapdog live beneath the waters of the new lake for some three hundred years, specifically from the time of Eochaid mac Maireda until the time of Comgall Bendchair.

One day, Comgall sends Beoán mac Indli to Rome.  While at sea, he happens upon Lí Ban.  She asks him to receive her one year from that day at Inber Ollorba, and Beoán agrees to the meeting provided he be allowed to bury her at his monastery when her time comes.  Upon his return from Rome, Beoán tells Comgall and the other clerics of Ulster about his encounter with the murgeilt (‘sea-fugitive’), and at the appointed time, they all head to sea and cast their nets in hopes of landing Lí Ban, which they soon do.

When they bring her to shore, people come from all over to marvel at her, one of whom is the leader of the Uí Conaing, who is wearing a purple cloak.  Lí Ban muses that her father was wearing a similar cloak when he was drowned, and so, as if to honor his memory, she blesses the Uí Conaing saying that they will be honored in assemblies.  Although the clerics begin fighting about which of them is to take possession of Lí Ban, an angel tells them to harness a chariot to two deer they will find upon the morrow at Carnd Airend, put Lí Ban inside, and see where the wild animals take her.  This they do, and Lí Ban is transported to Tech Dá Beoc, Beoán’s foundation.  There she is given a choice about whether she would like to live a long life and then go to heaven or to be baptized then and there and go to heaven immediately.  Lí Ban chooses the latter and dies forthwith.  Legend has it that many miracles are performed through her intercession.