The Exile Who Returned
Labraid Loingsech was struck mute as a child when his grandfather Lóegaire Lore was murdered in front of him. The shock took his voice. He did not speak for years.
He was exiled — to Britain first, then Gaul. He lived among foreign peoples, learned their ways, and grew up in silence. His voice came back when a harper named Cráiftine played music so beautiful that Labraid opened his mouth and sang. From that moment he was Labraid Loingsech — the exile who had found his voice abroad and would use it to return home.
He came back from Gaul with an army — the Laighin, the continental warriors who followed him, carrying their distinctive broad-bladed spears called luinn. He fought his way back to Leinster and took what was his. The Laighin — his people — gave both the Leinstermen and the province of Leinster its name. Leinster means the place of the spear-men.
He is the origin myth of Leinster: the mute exiled prince who came back with foreign warriors and a foreign weapon and gave the province its people and its name.
His harper Cráiftine went with him everywhere — into the Otherworld as well as the mortal world. Labraid had a palace of bronze on a supernatural island, and Cráiftine played there too. The music that had restored his voice was with him for the rest of his life.
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