In the castle were three chambers, in each chamber a cross-beam as high from the floor as a man’s throat; in the middle of each cross-beam was a hole, through this hole passed a chain, at each end of the chain was an iron loop; above the hole and lengthwise with the beam was a sword with a keen edge on it. Each pair of champions was to take one room of the three, and each man of them was to place a loop on his own neck; each then was to pull the other to the hole if he could, and then pull till the sword cut his head off.
The Sprisawn and the Dark King took one room, Miach Lay and the King of Mangling another, Red Bow and the Gruagach of Shields took the third.
The first pair were not long at each other, as the Sprisawn was greatly anxious for the other two, and with the second pull that he gave he had the head off the Dark King. He ran then to see how it fared with Miach Lay. Miach Lay was tired and nearly beaten.
“Come out of that for me,” said the Sprisawn. “What playing is it you have with him?”
“Fully satisfied am I to give this place to you,” said Miach Lay, raising the loop; and the Sprisawn put it quickly on his own neck.
With the first pull the Sprisawn gave he had the head off the King of Mangling. They ran then to Red Bow, whose head was within two feet of the sword.
“Go on out of this,” said the Sprisawn, putting the loop on his own neck. The Gruagach, by reason of having Red Bow so near the beam, was himself at a distance, but at the first pull which the Sprisawn gave he drew the Gruagach within a foot of the beam. Fearing that if he killed the third man there would be no one to give an account of those carried off by the Dark King, the Sprisawn offered the Gruagach his life if he told him where Manus and the other two husbands of the king’s daughter were.
“If I tell you that,” said the Gruagach, “the Dark King will knock the head off me.”
“If you saw the head of the Dark King would you tell me?”