“Why are all those people assembled?” asked Cud.
“I have no knowledge of that,” said the king’s son; “but if you’ll let your two brothers go with me and my brothers, we’ll find out the reason.”
They anchored the ship, put down a long-boat, and Cad and Micad went into it with the three sons of the King of Hadone. Cud and his sister-in-law stayed behind on the ship. Cud never took his eyes off his brothers as they sat in the boat. He watched them when near the shore, and saw them both killed. With one bound he sprang from the bowsprit to land, and went through all there as a hawk through small birds. Two hours had not passed when the head was off every man in the kingdom. Whatever trouble he had in taking the heads, he had twice as much in finding his brothers. When he had the brothers found, it failed him to know how to bury them. At last he saw on the beach an old ship with three masts. He pulled out the masts, drew the ship further on land, and said to himself, “I will have my brothers under this ship turned bottom upward, and come back to take them whenever I can.”
He put the bodies on the ground, turned the ship over them, and went his way.
The woman saw all the slaughter. “Never am I to see Cud alive,” thought she, and fell dead from sorrow.
Cud took the woman to shore, and put her under the ship with his brothers. He went to his ship then, sailed away alone, and never stopped till he came to the kingdom where lived Mucan Mor Mac Ri na Sorach. Cud went ashore, and while walking and looking for himself, he came to a castle. He was wondering at the pole of combat, such a terribly big one, and he gave a small blow to it. The messenger came out, and looked up and down to know could he find the man who gave the blow. Not a soul could he see but a white-haired young child standing near the pole. He went into the castle again.
“Who struck the pole?” asked Mucan Mor.
“I saw no one but a small child with white hair; there is no danger from him.”
Cud gave a harder blow.