The bird was coming nearer, and gaining; but the wind favored, filled every sail, and sent them bounding along till they were within five leagues of land; then they made one spring, and came down in Ferriter’s Cove.
No sooner had they landed, than the bird perched on the boat, turned it over, stood on the bottom, and from that saw Fin and Dyeermud on land. She made for them; and the moment she touched shore became a woman.
She rushed to Fin, caught him in her arms most lovingly, and said, turning to Dyeermud, “You are the wicked man who put words between me and my husband and parted us.”
Then, turning to Fin, she said, “Now, my darling, come home with me. You will be King of the White Nation, and I, your loving wife.”
“Right and true for you,” said Dyeermud. “It’s the good wife and friend you were to this man; and now I ask how long must he be your husband?”
“Till a shovel puts seven of its fulls of earth on his head.”
Dyeermud drew his sword, and struck a champion’s blow on a ridge of land that was near him; he was so enraged that he made a deep glen with that blow; then he caught Fin, and, stretching him in the glen, thrust his sword in the earth, and, throwing it as with a shovel on Fin, counted one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. “Your time is up with Fin,” said he to the king’s daughter; “he is in his own country, and you are a stranger. Take him a second time if you can, and I pledge you the faith of a champion that I will not put words between you.”
The woman stooped down to put away the seven shovels of earth, and said to Fin while she was working, “We’ll both be happy this time.”
With that Dyeermud gave her one blow of his fist on the left ear, and sent her spinning through the air. She never stopped till she fell at the edge of the ocean, and became Fail Mahisht; and not another cliff in Erin has so many limpets and periwinkles on it as that one.