This she did today, moving everybody except Tom, Paddy and Nancy into the front two rows and bringing her own chair down off the platform and up close to them. She had promised she’d tell them more about Queen Maeve, the fiery woman at the centre of the epic tale Táin Bó Cualainge, a great queen, daughter of the High King at Tara, very rich and very beautiful, as all the great queens always are.
She began quiet, drawing them in: “You remember last day, children, how Maeve was arguing with her fourth husband King Ailill over who had the most riches and how riches at that time in Ireland didn’t mean money, but meant land and cattle?”
They all nodded.
“And how she needed to get her hands on the Brown Bull of Cooley, the best bull in all Ireland, if she was to have the winning of that argum
