ive me the ring,” says the old King.
“Indeed, I won’t give it,” says he. “I fought hard for it. But do you give me my wife; I want to be going.”
The old King brought him in, and said, “My three daughters are in that room before you. The hand of each of them is stretched out, and she on whom you will keep your hold until I open the door, that one is your wife.”
The King’s son thrust his hand through the hole that was in the door, and caught hold of the hand with the broken little finger, and kept a tight hold of it until the old King opened the door of the room.
“This is my wife,” said the King’s son. “Give me now your daughter’s fortune.”
“She has no fortune to get, but the brown slender steed to bring you home, and that ye may never come back, alive or dead!”
The King’s son and Finnuala went riding on the brown slender steed, and it was not long till they came to the wood where the King’s son left his hound and his hawk. They were there before him, together with his fine black horse. He sent the brown slender steed back then. He set Finnuala riding on his horse, and leaped up himself—
His hound at his heel,
His hawk on his hand—
and he never stopped till he came to Rathcroghan.
There was great welcome before him there, and it was not long till himself and Finnuala were married. They spent a long, prosperous life. But it is scarcely that even the track of this old castle is to be found to-day in Rathcroghan of Connacht.