“Let out,” said one man, “twelve hares in a field with twelve gaps in it, and I will not let a hare out through any gap of the twelve.”
“Take a sieve full of chaff,” said a second man, “to the top of a mountain; let the chaff go out with the wind; and I will gather all in again before as much as one bit of it comes to the ground.”
“When I run at full speed,” said a third man, “my tread is so light that the dry, withered grass is not crushed underneath me.”
“Now, Dyeermud,” said Ceadach, “I think that you were the swiftest of all when I was the guest of Fin MacCool and the Fenians of Erin; tell me, how swift are you now?”
“I am swifter,” said Dyeermud, “than the thought of a woman when she is thinking of two men.”
“Oh, you will do,” said Ceadach; “you are the fleetest of the Fenians; come with me.”
Fin and the Fenians remained near the ship, while Ceadach and Dyeermud went off to face the Red Ox.
The Red Ox’s resting-place was enclosed by a wall and a hedge; outside was a lofty stone pillar; on this pillar the Red Ox used to rub his two sides. The Ox had but one horn, and that in the middle of his forehead. With that horn, which was four feet in length, he let neither fly, wasp, gnat, nor biting insect come near, and whatever creature came toward him, he sniffed from a distance.
When he sniffed the two champions, he rushed at them. Ceadach bounded toward the pillar.