Fin’s men were not slow in preparing a dinner. When the dinner was eaten, the knight turned to Fin and inquired, “Why have you come to my castle, Chief of the Fenians of Erin?”
“I will tell you,” said Fin. Then he related his story, and all his adventures with Ceadach.
“Well,” said the knight, “it will shorten my life by seven years to give the tale of my sufferings; for they will be as fresh to me now, as when first I went through them. But as you are under bonds to know them, I will tell you.
“I was here in wealth and prosperity, myself and my three sons. We used to hunt beasts and birds with our dogs when it pleased us. On a May morning a hare came, and frisked before my hall-door. Myself and my three sons then followed her with dogs, and followed all day till the height of the evening. Then we saw the hare enter an old fairy fort. The opening was wide; we were able to follow. In we rushed, all of us, and the next thing we saw was a fine roomy building. We went in, looked around for the hare, but saw not a sight of her. There was no one within but an old man and woman. We were not long inside till three gruagachs came, each with a wild boar on his shoulders. They threw the wild boars on the floor, and told me to clean them, and cook them for dinner. One of my sons fell to cleaning a boar; but for every hair that he took from him, ten new ones came out, so the sooner he stopped work the better.
“Then one of the old gruagach’s sons placed the boars in a row, the head of the one near the tail of the other, and, taking a reed, blew once, the hair was gone from all three; twice, the three boars were dressed; a third time, all were swept into one caldron.
“When the meal was cooked and ready, a gruagach brought two spits to me, one of dull wood, the other formed of sharp iron. The old man asked, ‘Which will you choose?’
“I chose the sharp iron spit, went to the caldron, and thrust in the spit; but if I did, I raised only a poor, small bit of meat, mostly bone. That was what I and my three sons had for dinner.
“After dinner, the old man said, ‘Your sons may perform now a feat for amusement.’
“In three rooms were three cross-beams, as high from the floor as a man’s throat. In the middle of each beam was a hole. Through this hole passed a chain, with a loop at each end of it. In front of the hole on each side of the beam was a knife, broad and sharp. One loop of each chain was put on the neck of a son of mine, and one on the neck of a gruagach. Then each of the six was striving to save his own throat, and to cut off the head of the other man; but the gruagachs pulled my three sons to the cross-beams, and took the three heads off them.