“Eilin Og, I must take one drink. I’ll drink it whomsoever it vexes.”
He took a draught hard and strong from the vessel; and that moment the two legs dropped off Micky Mor from the knees down.
When Eilin Og saw this, she fell to wailing and weeping.
“Hold, hold, Eilin Og! silence your grief; a head or a leg will not be in the country unless I get my two legs again.”
The fog now dispersed, and the sky became clear. When he saw the sky clear, he knew where to go; and he put his knife and spear and wife on the point of his shoulder. Then his strength and activity were greater, and he was swifter on his two knees than nine times nine other men that had the use of their whole legs.
While he was going on, he saw huntsmen coming toward him. A deer passed him. He threw the spear that he had in his hand; it went through the deer, in one side and out through the other. A white dog rushed straightway after the deer. Micky Mor caught the deer and the dog, and kept them.
Now a young Gruagach, light and loose, was the first of the huntsmen to follow the white dog. “Micky Mor,” said he, “give me the white dog and the deer.”
“I will not,” said Micky. “For it is myself that did the slaughter, strong and fierce, that threw the spear out of my right hand and put it through the two sides of the deer; and whoever it be, you or I, who has the strongest hand, let him have the white dog and the deer.”
“Micky Mor,” said Eilin Og, “yield up the white dog and the deer.”
“I will,” said he, “and more if you ask; for had I obeyed you in the glen, the two legs from the knees down would not have gone from me.”