So Finn and his nobles left the hill, Finn leading Dermat’s hound. But four of the nobles turned back and laid their mantles over the champion. Then they once more followed the King.
Grania sat that day on the highest tower of Rath-Grania, watching for Dermat. The fear she had felt in the night would not be stilled, and when at length Finn came in sight, leading by the chain Dermat’s hound, she knew that she would not henceforth see Dermat alive. And when the truth had taken hold upon her, she fell in a swoon from the tower, and her handmaiden stood over her in great fear.
But at length her eyes opened, and when it was told her that Dermat was dead she uttered a long, piercing cry, so that all flocked to hear what had befallen the Princess. And when it was told that Dermat had been killed by the wild boar, the air was rent with cries of lamentation.
At length, when silence had fallen upon her grief, Grania arose, and ordered that five hundred men should go to the hill and bring to her the body of Dermat. Then turning to Finn she begged of him to leave with her Dermat’s hound. And Finn would not. But a noble, hearing that Grania wished the hound took him from the hand of Finn and gave him to the Princess.
Now as the men left Rath-Grania to bring home the body of Dermat, it was revealed to Angus of Bruga that the hero lay dead on the hill. And he at once set out on the wings of the wind and reached the sorrowful place ere Grania’s messengers had come there. And they, when they came, found Angus mourning over the body of Dermat, and he asked them wherefore they were come.
When it was told Angus that Grania had sent them to bring the body of Dermat to Rath-Grania, he stayed for some time wrapt in thought. At length he spake these words: ‘Let it be told the Princess that I will take with me the body of Dermat to my home, that he may be preserved by my power as though he still lived. For though I cannot bring him back to life, yet each day shall he speak with me for some space.’
And Angus turned to his men that he had brought with him there and ordered that Dermat’s body should be placed on a golden bier, with the red and yellow javelins, one on either side, points upward. Thus was the dead hero carried to the home of Angus.
When Grania’s messengers came back to her bringing not with them the body of Dermat, she was at first sore grieved. But when she heard how the hero lay on a golden bier in the keeping of his foster-father, and would each day speak with Angus for some space, then was she content, for she knew that Angus loved Dermat as a father loveth his only son.
And Grania sent messengers to her sons to bid them come to her. And when they were come, she welcomed them gently and kissed them. Then with an exceeding loud and clear voice she said, ‘O dear children, your father hath been slain by the will of Finn, though peace had been sworn between them. Therefore get ye hence and avenge his death. And that ye may have success in the battle, I will myself portion out among you your inheritance of arms, of arrows, and of sharp weapons. Spare none that would do good to Finn, yet see ye to it that ye deal not treacherously with any man. Hasten ye and depart.’
Then the sons of Dermat bade their mother a tender farewell, and went forth to avenge their father’s death.