"Ah me! what is this I see? Surely if Dermat were alive, it is not by Finn that Mac-an-coill would be led to his home!"
And as she spoke she fell forward off the rampart, and lay long in a swoon as if her spirit had fled, while her handmaid stood over her, weeping and distracted. And when at last she opened her eyes, then indeed they told her that Dermat was dead; and she uttered a long and piteous cry, so that her women and all the people of the court came round her to ask the cause of her sorrow. And when they were told that Dermat had perished by the wild boar of Ben-Gulban, they raised three loud, bitter cries of lamentation, which were heard in the glens and wildernesses around, and which pierced the clouds of heaven.
When at length Grania became calm, she ordered that five hundred of her people should go to Ben-Gulban, to bring home the body of Dermat. Then, turning to Finn, who still held Mac-an-coill in his hand, she asked him to leave her Dermat's hound; but Finn refused, saying that a hound was a small matter, and that he might be allowed to inherit at least so much of Dermat's riches. When Oisin heard this, he came forward and took the hound from the hand of Finn and gave him to Grania.
At the time that the men left Rath-Grania to go for the body of Dermat, it was revealed to Angus that the hero was lying dead on Ben-Gulban. And he set out straightway, and travelling on the pure, cool wind, soon reached the mountain; so that when Grania's people came up, they found him standing over the body, sorrowing, with his people behind him. And they held forward the wrong sides of their shields in token of peace.
Then both companies, having viewed the dead hero, raised three mighty cries of sorrow, so loud and piercing that they were heard in the wastes of the firmament, and over the five provinces of Erin.
And when they had ceased, Angus spoke and said, "Alas! why did I abandon thee, even for once, O my son? For from the day I took thee to Bruga, a tender child, I have watched over thee and guarded thee from thy foes, until last night. Ah! why did I abandon thee to be decoyed to thy doom by the guileful craft of Finn? By my neglect hast thou suffered, O Dermat; and now, indeed, I shall for ever feel the bitter pangs of sorrow!"
Then Angus asked Grania's people what they had come for. And when they told him that Grania had sent them to bring the body of Dermat to Rath-Grania, he said—
"I will bring the body of Dermat with me to Bruga of the Boyne; and I will keep him on his bier, where he shall be preserved by my power, as if he lived. And though I cannot, indeed, restore him to life, yet I will breathe a spirit into him, so that for a little while each day he shall talk with me."
Then he caused the body to be placed on a golden bier, with the hero's javelins fixed one on each side, points upwards. And his people raised the bier and carried it before him; and in this manner they marched slowly to Bruga of the Boyne.
Grania's people then returned; and when they had told her the whole matter, though she was grieved at first, yet in the end she was content, knowing how Angus loved Dermat.