“For a night I lay in the trap with the child beside me. Then Crom Duv came and lifted out wolf and child. Three Hags with Long Teeth were there when he took us out of the trap, and he gave the child to one of them, telling her to rear it so that the child might be a servant for him.
“He put me into a sack, promising himself that he would give me a good beating. He left me on the floor of his house. But while he was gone for his club I bit my way out of the sack and made my escape. I came back to my own house, and my wife struck me with the wand of enchantment, and changed me from a wolf into a man again. ‘Is that not true?’” said he to the woman.
“It is true,” said she.
“That is all of the Unique Tale that I know,” said the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands, “and now that I have told it to you, put up your sword.”
“I will put up no sword,” said the King of Ireland’s Son, “until you tell me what King and Queen were the father and mother of the child that was reared by the Hags of the Long Teeth.”
“I made no promise to tell you that,” said the En-chanter of the Black Back-Lands. “You have got the story you asked for, and now let me see your back going through my door.”
“Yes, you have got the story, and be off with you now,” said the woman who sat by the fire.
He put up his sword; he went to the door; he left the house of the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands. He mounted the Slight Red Steed and rode off. He knew now what went before and what came after the Unique Tale. The Gobaun Saor would clean the blemish of the blade of the Sword of Light and would show him how to come to the Land of Mist. Then he would win back his love Fedelma.
He thought too on the tidings he had for his comrade Flann—Flann was the Son of the King who was called the Hunter-King and of Sheen whose brothers had been changed into seven wild geese. He shook his horse’s reins and went back towards the Town of the Red Castle.
V