"They loosed their curse against the king, They cursed him in his flesh and bones; And daily in their mystic ring They turned the maledictive stones. "Till where at meat the monarch sate, Amid the revel and the wine, He choked upon the food he ate At Sletty, southward of the Boyne."[33] So perished A.D. 267, the wisest and best of the ancient kings of Erin. Cormac, when dying, told his people not to bury him in the pagan cemetery of Brugh on the Boyne, but at Rossnaree, where he first believed, and with his face to the rising sun. But when the king was dead, his captains declared they would bury their king with his royal sires in Brugh:-- "Dead Cormac on his bier they laid; He reigned a king for forty years, And shame it were, his captains said, He lay not with his royal peers. "What though a dying man should rave Of changes o'er the eastern sea; In Brugh of Boyne shall be his grave And not in noteless Rossnaree." So they prepared to cross the fords of Boyne and bury the king at Brugh. But royal Boyne was loyal to its dead king; "the deep full-hearted river rose" to bar the way; and when the bearers attempted to cross the ford, the swelling flood swept them from their feet, caught up the bier, and "proudly bore away the king" on its own heaving bosom. Next morning the corpse was found on the bank of the river at Rossnaree, and was duly interred within the hearing of its murmuring waters. There great Cormac was left to his rest with his face to the rising sun, awaiting the dawning of that Glory which was soon to lighten over the hills and valleys of his native land. Cormac Mac Art was not only himself a lover of letters, but seems to have transmitted his own talents to his family. There is a very ancient poem in the _Book of Leinster_, which has been published by O'Curry, and has been attributed to Ailbhe, daughter of Cormac Mac Art. The language is of the most archaic character, and the sentiments expressed are not inconsistent with the origin ascribed to the poem in the _Book of Leinster_. Still critics will be naturally sceptical as to the authenticity of the poem. Meave (Meadhbh), step-mother of Cormac, who has given her name to Rath Meave at Tara, is credited with being the author of a poem in praise of Cuchorb, in which his martial prowess and numerous battles are duly celebrated. This lady seems to have been decidedly 'blue' in her tastes, for she built a choice house within her Rath, where the chief master of every art used to assemble. She was amorous too, and "would not permit any king to reign in Tara who did not first take herself as wife." Perhaps there is some truth in the ancient and romantic story recorded in the same _Book of Leinster_, that when Cuchorb was killed, she was sorrowful in heart, and after they set up the grave stone of the fallen hero, she chanted his death song in presence of the assembled warriors, who stood around his grave.