They left the Spae-Woman and went through the town, the King of Ireland’s Son searching every place for a man he knew or a horse he had mounted before, while Flann thought about the Princess Flame-of-Wine, and how little she considered him beside the King’s Son and Dermott and Downal. They came to where a crowd was standing before a conjurer’s booth. They halted and stood waiting for the conjurer to appear. He came out and put a ladder standing upright with nothing to lean against and began climbing up. Up, up, up, he went, and the ladder grew higher and higher as he climbed. Flann thought he would climb into the sky. Then the ladder got smaller and smaller and Flann saw the conjurer coming down on the other side. “He has come here to take that horse,” said a voice behind the King of Ireland’s Son.
The King’s Son looked round, and on the outskirts of the crowd he saw a man with a hare-skin cap and a protruding eye who was holding a reddish horse, while he watched the conjuror. The King of Ireland’s Son knew the horse—it was the Slight Red Steed that had carried him and Fedelma from the Enchanter’s house and had brought him to the Cave where he had found the Sword of Light. He looked at the conjuror again and he saw he was no other than the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands. Then it crossed his mind what the Gobaun Saor had said to him.
He had seen a man he knew and a horse he had mounted before. He was to mount that horse, follow the man, and force him to tell the rest of the Unique Tale.
The King’s Son drew back to the outskirts of the crowd. He snatched the bridle from the hands of Mogue, the man who held it, and jumped up on the back of the Slight Red Steed.
As soon as he did this the ladder that was standing upright fell on the ground. The people shouted and broke away. And then the King’s Son saw the Enchanter jump across a house and make for the gate of the town.
But if he could jump across a house so could the Slight Red Steed. The King’s Son turned its head, plucked at its rein, and over the same house it sprang too. The more he ran the more swift the Enchanter became. He jumped over the gate of the town, the Slight Red Steed after him. He went swiftly across the country, making high springs over ditches and hedges. No other steed but the Slight Red Steed could have kept its rider in sight of him.
IV
Up hill and down dale the Enchanter went, but, mounted on the Slight Red Steed, the King of Ireland’s Son was in hot pursuit. The Enchanter raced up the side of the seventh hill, and when the King’s Son came to the top of it he found no one in sight.
He raced on, however, and he passed a dead man hanging from a tree. He raced on and on, but still the Enchanter was not to be seen. Then the thought came into his mind that the man who was hanging from the tree and who he thought was dead was the crafty old Enchanter. He turned the Slight Red Steed round and raced back. The man that had been hanging from the tree was there no longer.
The King’s Son turned his horse amongst the trees and began to search for the Enchanter. He found no trace of him. “I have lost again,” he said. Then he threw the bridle on the neck of the horse and he said, “Go your own way now, my Slight Red Steed.”