At last he left them, and was making straight across to a small field where Conan Mail’s horses were grazing by themselves, intending to play the same tricks among them. But Conan, seeing this, shouted in great alarm to the Gilla Dacker to bring away his horse, and not let him work any more mischief; and threatening, if he did not do so at once, to go himself and knock the brains out of the vicious old brute on the spot.
ut the Gilla Dacker told Conan that he saw no way of preventing his horse from joining the others, except someone put the halter on him. “And,” said he to Conan, “there is the halter; and if you are in any fear for your own animals, you may go yourself and bring him away from the field.”
Conan was in a mighty rage when he heard this; and as he saw the big horse just about to cross the fence, he snatched up the halter, and, running forward with long strides, he threw it over the animal’s head and thought to lead him back. But in a moment the horse stood stock still, and his body and legs became as stiff as if they were made of wood; and though Conan pulled and tugged with might and main, he was not able to stir him an inch from his place.
At last Fergus Finnvel, the poet, spoke to Conan and said, “I never would have believed, Conan Mail, that you could be brought to do horse-service for any knight or noble in the whole world; but now, indeed, I see that you have made yourself a horse-boy to an ugly foreign giant, so hateful-looking and low-born that not a man of the Feni would have anything to say to him. As you have, however, to mind this old horse in order to save your own, would it not be better for you to mount him and revenge yourself for all the trouble he is giving you, by riding him across the country, over the hill-tops, and down into the deep glens and valleys, and through stones and bogs and all sorts of rough places, till you have broken the heart in his big ugly body?”
onan, stung by the cutting words of the poet and by the jeers of his companions, jumped upon the horse’s back, and began to beat him mightily with his heels and with his two big heavy fists to make him go; but the horse seemed not to take the least notice, and never stirred.
“I know the reason he does not go,” said Fergus Finnvel; “he has been accustomed to carry a horseman far heavier than you—that is to say, the Gilla Dacker; and he will not move till he has the same weight on his back.”
At this Conan Mail called out to his companions, and asked which of them would mount with him and help to avenge the damage done to their horses.
“I will go,” said Coil Croda the Battle Victor, son of Criffan; and up he went. But the horse never moved.