“What brought you here?” asked he of the men.
“We came looking for our master’s cattle; they are above on the mountain, driven to this place by you, as it seems. We have travelled hither and over till we found them.”
“Go and tell your master,” said Mor’s son, “that I brought the cattle; that Lear is my father, and Mor is my mother, and that I have his daughter here with me.”
“There is no use in sending them with that message,” said the young woman; “my father would not believe them.”
“Tell your master,” said Mor’s son, “that it is I who brought the cattle, and that I have his daughter here in good health, and ’tis by my bravery that I saved her.”
“If they go to my father with that message, he will kill them. I will give them a token for him.”
“What token will you give?”
“I will give them this ring with my name and my father’s name and my mother’s name written inside on it. Do not give the ring,” said she to the men, “till ye tell my father all ye have seen; if he will not believe you, then give the ring.”
Away went the men, and not a foot of the cattle did they take; and if all the men in Mayo had come, Mor’s son would not have let the cattle go with them, for he had risen to be the best champion in Erin. The men went home by the straightest roads; and they were not half the time going to the king’s castle that they were in finding the cattle.