ne morning, soon after Eochy had returned, when the sun was shining and the birds were singing and no little girls were trapped down wells, a stranger appeared suddenly beside Eochy as he was peeing off the top of the castle wall. Eochy was startled and hit the rampart with his stream of weewee, splashing a bit on himself."Feck! Who the hell are you?" asked Eochy irritably, wiping his hand on his pants.
"My name is Midhir," the stranger told the High King, who apparently had amnesia since he didn't recognize the fellow he'd fostered his son Aengus with.
"I'm a travelling player of fidchell (an ancient Irish boardgame) and I have come to challenge the great King Eochy to play me, for his skill at the game is known far and wide."
Midhir whipped out a silver and gold playing board and pieces from within his cape. He knew Eochy could never choose not to play. He truly was an expert player and it was a geas, a magical rule imposed on him, that he could never refuse a game. Of course, Eochy readily accepted. As Midhir set up the pieces, they agreed on the stakes: fifty fleet dappled horses with enamelled bridles.
It was a cakewalk. Eochy quickly and easily won. Midhir promised to pay up. And the next day, the horses appeared as promised, galloping down the hill to Tara. Midhir appeared trotting down behind them, waving and carrying his boardgame again.
Another game was quickly set up with stakes of fifty swords with golden hilts, fifty white cows with fifty white calves, fifty sheep with fetchingly long eyelashes, fifty daggers with ivory handles, fifty cloaks with gold thread embroidery and fifty coupons for Quarter-Pounders with cheese.
"Professor Plum in the Conservatory with the Candlestick," said Eochy at last.
"Damn! You win again, your highness," sighed Midhir. "I'll have the stuff here again tomorrow morning. We'll play again?"
Eochy laughed triumphantly and agreed. After Midhir left, Eochy's old foster father, known as a smart old codger, came over to him and had a suggestion for the High King.
"I have a suggestion for you, High King," he said. "This here Midhir feller seems to be awfully eager to pay up his gambling debts right away to you. I'd be careful. Anyone with great riches like that must have great power. I think you should bind him with heavy labours instead of money and prizes. You're tripping over enough junk here at the castle as it is, anyway."
He kicked a golden Rubik's Cube across the floor into a corner with fifty other ones exactly the same. "Maybe you can get some useful work out of him, instead."
Eochy looked at his foster father and smiled. "You are one smart old codger, foster father", he said. "You know, I'm gonna do just that."
The next day, Midhir showed up with all the stuff he'd lost in the wager of the day before and handed it over to Eochy.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Eochy said, shoving it to the side. "Let's play again. This time, we'll let the terms of the wager be a forfeit at the discretion of the winner."
"What?" asks Midhir.
"Whoever loses has to do whatever the winner says", explains Eochy.
"Oh... Okay. That's jake with me," agrees Midhir. This fit in well with his plan.
When Midhir lost again, Eochy ordered him to cut down seven great forests, reclaim seven hundred acres of bogland, building seven causeways through them. Midhir pulled this off in one day with his great magic.
Things kept on like this for a whole week, Midhir losing every day and having to do things in sevens all over Eochy's kingdom: seven great roads, seven sandy beaches, seven giant supermalls, seven amusement parks, seven roller rinks, seven gambling casinos, seven stupendous bordellos.... He wasn't happy about being tricked into making all these free improvements to Eochy's domain. But he bided his time. He had a plan.
It wasn't a cunning plan and it wasn't a subtle plan, mostly because he was making it up as he went along. And so far, it wasn't working out too well. He hadn't counted on Eochy being so good at this game. But he figured his luck had to turn sooner or later.
And so it did.