“I put you under bonds and under curse of a year to go to the eastern world and to bring the sword of light belonging to the King of Rye from the eastern world, and not to sleep a wink, but one night only, in the one house before you come back again.”
She went with herself, and stopped not till she came to the castle of the King of Rye in the eastern world, and knocked at the Cuillë Coric, and the King of Rye came out and asked her what she was seeking.
“I am seeking,” said she, “your sword of light and the divided stone of your druidism.”
“Well, do you not see on the hill yonder all the heads of the champions who came to seek them from me, and never went man of them back to tell the story? and you are come, a woman, to seek!”
“Well,” said she, “it was not under protection of your shield I came at all, but under the protection of my own shield and blade.”
She and the King of Rye then went at one another, and the King of Rye was getting the better of her, and she asked him to give her quarter for her life till morning.
“Hold out your hand till I cut off the tips of your little finger that I may be able to recognise you, and you will not get quarter for your life but this turn, (not) if you come to-morrow.”
She went with herself and stopped that night at the smith’s house; and the smith said to her,—
“It’s a bad journey you’ve come on your two feet. Many’s the good champion I’ve seen crossing yonder bridge, and a man of them to tell the story came back never. Unless you do the thing I tell you, you will get the like death. Go to-night,” said he, “and rise in the morning, and I will give you a sword if you pay me for my service; and I will cut off the tip of the little finger on your other hand, and you will go to the hall-door at the time when he is at his breakfast, and he will ask you, ‘Haven’t you a sudden desire to die that you come to me so early?’”
She went in the morning to the hall-door of the King of Rye, and he said to her,—