“Bring the Comb of Magnificence to me too,” said she. “I could not be proud of this rose, and I could not love you so well for bringing it to me if I thought that any other maiden had the Comb of Magnificence. Bring it to me, Flann.”
“I will bring it to you,” said Flann.
VI
He was at the gate of the town when the King of Ireland’s Son rode back on the Slight Red Steed. The King’s Son dismounted, put his arm about Flann and told him that he now had the whole of the Unique Tale. They sat before Mogue’s tent, and the King’s Son told Flann the whole of the story he had searched for—how a King traveling through the mist had come to where Druids and the Maid of the Green Mantle lived, how the King was enchanted, and how the maiden Sheen released him from the enchantment. He told him, too, how the Enchanter was changed into a wolf, and how the wolf carried away Sheen’s child. “And the Unique Tale is in part your own history, Flann,” said the King of Ireland’s Son, “for the child that was left with the Hags of the Long Teeth was no one else than yourself, for you, Flann, have on your breast the stars that denote the Son of a King.”
“It is so, it is so,” said Flann, “and I will find out what King and Queen were my father and my mother.”
“Go to the Hags of the Long Teeth and force them to tell you,” said the King’s Son.
“I will do that,” said Flann, but in his own mind he said, “I will first bring the Comb of Magnificence to Flame-of-Wine, and I will tell her that I will have to be away for so many years with Mogue and I shall ask her to remember me until I come back to her. Then I shall go to the Hags of the Long Teeth and force them to tell me what King and Queen were my father and mother.”
The King of Ireland’s Son left Flann to his thoughts and went to find the Gobaun Saor who would clear for him the tarnished blade of the Sword of Light and would show him the way to where the King of the Land of Mist had his dominion.
Mogue spent his time with the ballad-singers and the story-tellers around the market-stake, and when he came back to his tent he wanted to drink ale and go to sleep, but Flann turned him from the ale-pot by saying to him, “I want the Comb of Magnificence from you, Mogue.”
“By my skin,” said Mogue, “it’s my blood you’ll want next, my lad.”