“I with my men will go for that horn,” said Red Bow.
“Not you nor all the men like you living on earth could bring that horn from the castle of the Dark King,” replied the Sprisawn. “That castle is surrounded by three walls. Each wall is four feet in thickness and twenty feet high. Each wall has a gate as high and as thick as the wall is itself. How could you pass through those walls? Remain here and watch over this body; I will bring the horn hither myself.”
Off went the Sprisawn, and he had more control over magic than even the Dark King. When he arrived at the castle, he struck the gate with the heel of his wooden foot and it opened before him; the second and third gate opened too, in like manner, when he struck them. In he went to the room where the king and his two friends were drinking. There he found them raising toasts to each other. He was himself invisible. As soon as they rested the horn on the table, he snatched it and made off for the place where Miach Lay was lying dead. Then Red Bow and his men raised up the dead man, and poured down his throat some of the wine or whatever liquor was held in the horn.
After a time Miach Lay opened his eyes, and yawned. They were all so delighted that they raised three shouts of joy.
“Come on with me now,” said the Sprisawn, “to the castle of the Dark King. We will have a trial of strength with him. I will take the Dark King in hand myself. Do you, Miach Lay, take the King of Mangling, and you, Red Bow, take the Gruagach of Shields.”
“This will be very good for us to keep,” said Red Bow, when he saw the virtue of the horn.
“No,” said the Sprisawn; “it is good for the man who owns it, and I will return it.”
The Sprisawn, who could travel as swiftly as his own thought, vanished with the horn, placed it on the table from which he had snatched it, and came back to the others. No one had missed the horn; when they turned to use it, it was there on the table before them, in the chamber of the Dark King. Miach Lay and his friends went on together, and never stopped till they stood in the chamber where the Dark King was sitting with his friends. The gates had remained open since the Sprisawn opened them. When the Dark King saw the dead man alive, standing in his chamber before him, he said, “Never a welcome to you, you miserable creature with the wooden foot. What brought you hither, or how did you come?”
“I have come to you with combat,” said the Sprisawn; “and now do you choose the manner of fighting.”