“No matter what he did,” said the youngest; “he will give you trouble yet if ye let him go. Follow him, put an end to him, or he will put an end to us.”
They sent men after Dianvir. As Dianvir was a stranger in Erin he had no knowledge of the roads: when a lake was before him he was long going around it; when he came to a deep river he was long finding a ford.
Dianvir’s men were cut off, most of them fell, and he himself fell with others. A small number escaped to the ships, took one of them, and sailed to the land of Gallowna. They told the queen the whole story, told how they had been treated with treachery.
“I will have satisfaction for my son,” said the mother. “I will have it without waiting long.” With that she had ships and boats prepared, and went herself with her other sons, and strong forces, to take vengeance on the brothers. The queen and her forces were six weeks sailing hither and over, driven by strong winds, when one morning a sailor at the topmast cried, “I see land!”
“Is it more or less of it that you see?” asked the queen.
“I see land, the size of a pig’s back,” said the sailor, “and a black back it is.”
They sailed three days and nights longer, and on the fourth morning they were near shore, and landed in Bantry (White Strand). The queen fixed her house at Ardneevy, and prepared for action; but instead of the three brothers it was the sons of Balor she had against her.
War began, and the Lochlin men were getting the upper hand the first days. At some distance from their camp was a well of venom, and into this well they dipped their swords and spears before going to battle, and the man of the enemy who was barely grazed by a weapon dipped in the well was as badly off as the man whose head was taken from him. There was no chance now for the queen’s forces, so she called her sons and said to them, “We’ll be destroyed to the last one unless we find help against this venom. Go to the Old Blind Sage, and ask advice of him.”
The sons went to the sage, and the advice they got was this,—