“I put you, O Fin, under bonds of heavy enchantment to be my husband till a shovel puts seven of its fulls of earth on your head.”
“Soften the sentence, good woman,” said Fin; “for this cannot be.”
“The gad may tighten on my throat if I do,” said the woman; “for you did not soften your sentence on me.”
“Do you stop here,” said Fin to the woman, “till I give my men the steeds, tell them how I am, and return. But where are the steeds?”
“If I was bound by sentence to bring you the steeds, I was not bound to keep them.”
Fin went his way to Parcnagri, where the Fenians were waiting, and though dinner was ready, no man tasted it from that day to this.
Fin posted his men on watch at various harbors, left Dyeermud on Beann Dyeermud (Dyeermud’s peak), just above the harbor of Ard na Conye, and went to the woman. She took his hand; they sprang together, and came down in the woman’s boat, which was four miles from land.
The woman weighed anchor, raised sails, and never stopped ploughing the weighty sea till she came to the White Nation in the Eastern World, where her father was king. She entered the harbor, cast anchor, and landed.
“When you were at home,” said the woman to Fin, “you were Chief of the Fenians of Erin, and held in great honor; I will not that men in this kingdom belittle you, and I am the king’s only daughter. From the place where we are standing to my father’s castle there is a narrow and a short path. I’ll hasten forward on that. There is another way, a broad and long one; do you choose that. I fear that for you there will not be suitable seat and a place in the castle, unless I am there to prepare it before you.”