“You will think it too soon when you hear it,” said Fin, “but here it is for you. I place you under bonds of weighty druidic spells to stand on the top of that gable above there, to have a sheaf of oats fixed on the gable beyond you, and to have no earthly food while I’m gone, except what the wind will blow through the eye of a needle fixed in front of you.”
“Hard is your sentence, O Fin,” said the fish-hag. “Forgive me, and I’ll take from your head my sentence.”
“Never,” said Fin. “Go to your place without waiting.”
Before Fin departed, the fish hag had mounted the gable.
The fame of the Red Ox had spread through all lands in the world, and no man could go near him without losing life. The Fenians were greatly unwilling to face the Red Ox, and thought that no man could match him, unless, perhaps, Ceadach.
Though they knew not where Ceadach was living, nor where they were likely to find him, they started in search of that champion. They played with a ball, as they travelled, driving it forward before them, knowing that if Ceadach saw the ball he would give it a blow.
While passing the forest where Ceadach and his wife, the knight’s daughter, were hiding, one of the Fenians gave the ball a great blow; but as he aimed badly, the ball flew to one side, went far away, and fell into the forest.
Ceadach was walking away from his house when the ball fell, and he saw it. He pulled down a tree-branch, and, giving a strong, direct blow, drove the ball high in the air, and out of the forest.
“No one struck that blow,” said the Fenians, “but Ceadach, and he is here surely.” They went then toward the point from which they had seen the ball coming, and there they found Ceadach.
“A thousand welcomes, Fin MacCool,” said Ceadach. “Where are you going?”