The giant, finding no escape possible, promised to go. They set out soon, taking all the arms needed. As the mountain was not far distant, they reached the place without great delay. The giant showed them the lair of the oxen, but after a promise that he should be free to escape should danger threaten.
“I know all the rest now,” said the forester. “Do you,” said he to Dyeermud, “stand straight in front of the lair, and I, with Faolan, will stand with drawn swords, one on each side of the entrance; and do you,” said he to the four brothers, “knock down the entrance, and open the place for the oxen to rush out. If the head of each ox is not cut off when he stands in the entrance, the world would not kill him from that out.”
All was done at the forester’s word. The entrance was not long open, when out rushed an ox; but his head was knocked off by the forester. Faolan slew the second ox; but the third ox followed the second so quickly that he broke away, took Dyeermud on his horns, and went like a flash to the top of the Mountain of Happiness. This mountain stood straight in front of the lair, but was far away. On the mountain, the ox attacked Dyeermud; and they fought for seven days and nights in a savage encounter. At the end of seven days, Dyeermud remembered that there was no help for him there, that he was far from his mother and sister, who were all he had living, and that if he himself did not slay the fierce ox, he would never see home again; so, with one final effort, he drove his sword through the heart of the ox. He himself was so spent from the struggle and blood-loss that he fainted, and would have died on the mountain, but for his companions, who came now. They were seven days on the road over which the ox passed in a very few minutes.
The forester rubbed Dyeermud with ointment, and all his strength came to him. They opened the ox, took out all the tallow, and, going back to the other two oxen, did in like manner, saving the tallow of each of them separately. They went next to the castle of the Black-Blue Giant.
“Will you set out for home to-morrow?” asked the forester, turning to Dyeermud.
“We will,” answered Dyeermud.
“Oh, foolish people!” said the forester. “Those three oxen were brothers of Grainne, and were living in enchantment; should she get the tallow of each ox by itself and entire, she would bring back the three brothers to life, and they would destroy all the Fenians of Erin. We will hang up the tallow in the smoke of the Black-Blue Giant’s chimney; it will lose some of itself there. When she gets it, it will not have full weight. We will change your beds and your tables while you are waiting, so as to observe the injunction. You must do this; for if you do not make an end of Grainne, Grainne will make an end of you.”
All was done as the forester said. At the end of a week, when Faolan and his friend were setting out for Erin, the giant and his wife fell to weeping and wailing after their daughter, who was going with Dyeermud.
“We will come back again soon,” said Dyeermud, “and then will have a great feast for this marriage.”