We no longer find any difficulty in remembering all this
nomenclature, for we are 'under gesa' to use no other. When you are
put under gesa to reveal or to conceal, to defend or to avenge, it
is a sort of charm or spell; also an obligation of honour. Finola
is under gesa not to write to Alba more than six times a week and
twice on Sundays; Sheela is bound by the same charm to give us
muffins for afternoon tea; I am vowed to forget my husband when I am
relating romances, and allude to myself, for dramatic purposes, as a
maiden princess, or a maiden of enchanting and all-conquering
beauty. And if we fail to abide by all these laws of the modern
Dedannans of Devorgilla, which are written in the Speckled Book of
Salemina, we are to pay eric-fine. These fines are collected with
all possible solemnity, and the children delight in them to such an
extent that occasionally they break the law for the joy of the
penalty. If you have ever read the Fate of the Children of Turenn,
you remember that they were to pay to Luga the following eric-fine
for the slaying of their father, Kian: two steeds and a chariot,
seven pigs, a hound whelp, a cooking-spit, and three shouts on a
hill. This does not at first seem excessive, if Kian were a good
father, and sincerely mourned; but when Luga began to explain the
hidden snares that lay in the pathway, it is small wonder that the
sons of Turenn felt doubt of ever being able to pay it, and that
when, after surmounting all the previous obstacles, they at last
raised three feeble shouts on Midkena's Hill, they immediately gave
up the ghost.
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