But thou shalt bear me a son who shall be King of all Ireland, and shall rule with great power and glory until some disaster from the sea overtake him.

But from him shall come yet another king, my grandson and thine, who shall also be cut down, and I think that the cause of his fall shall be the armies of the Fian host, who are swift and keen as the wind." Not long thereafter Art, son of Conn, fell in battle with the Picts and Britons at the Plain of the Swine, which is between Athenry and Galway in Connacht.

Now the leader of the invaders then was mac Con, a nephew to Art, who had been banished out of Ireland for rising against the High King; and when he had slain Art he seized the sovranty of Ireland and reigned there unlawfully for many years.
But before the battle, Art had counselled his wife: "If things go ill with us in the fight, and I am slain, seek out my faithful friend Luna who dwells in Corann in Connacht, and he will protect thee till thy son be born." So Achta, with one maid, fled in her chariot before the host of mac Con and sought to go to the Dun of Luna.

On her way thither, however, the hour came when her child should be born, and the maid turned the chariot aside into the wild wood at the place called Creevagh (the Place of the Twigs), and there, on a couch of twigs and leaves, she gave birth to a noble son.
Then Achta, when she had cherished her boy and rejoiced over him, bade her handmaid keep watch over both of them, and they fell asleep.

But the maid's eyes were heavy with weariness and long travelling, and ere long she, too, was overpowered by slumber, and all three slept a deep sleep while the horses wandered away grazing through the wood.
By and by there came a she-wolf roaming through the wood in search of prey for her whelps, and it came upon the sleeping woman and the little child.