Now the lad grew up very comely and strong, and he abode with Luna in Connacht, and no one told him of his descent.
II THE JUDGMENT OF CORMAC Once upon a time it happened that Cormac was at play with the two sons of Luna, and the lads grew angry in their play and came to blows, and Cormac struck one of them to the ground.

"Sorrow on it," cried the lad, "here I have been beaten by one that knows not his clan or kindred, save that he is a fellow without a father." When Cormac heard that he was troubled and ashamed, and he went to Luna and told him what had been said.
And Luna seeing the trouble of the youth, and also that he was strong and noble to look on, and wise and eloquent in speech, held that the time was now come to reveal to him his descent.

"Thou hadst indeed a clan and kindred," he said, "and a father of the noblest, for thou art the son of Art, the High King of Ireland, who was slain and dispossessed by mac Con.

But it is foretold that thou shalt yet come to thy father's place, and the land pines for thee even now, for there is no good yield from earth or sea under the unlawful rule of him who now sits on the throne of Art." "If that be so," said Cormac, "let us go to Tara, and bide our time there in my father's house." So the two of them set out for Tara on the morrow morn.

And this was the retinue they had with them: a body-guard of outlawed men that had revolted against mac Con and other lords and had gathered themselves together at Corann under Luna, and four wolves that had been cubs with Cormac when the she-wolf suckled him.
When they came to Tara, the folk there wondered at the fierce-eyed warriors and the grey beasts that played like dogs around Cormac, and the lad was adopted as a pupil by the King, to be taught arms and poetry and law.