He said he had found. He told the children to come down out of the room. They came down to the king. The king took hold of the children with his hands. He viewed them. “Well,” said the king, “wherever it is the children have come from, there is royal blood in them.” The king had no child but one little girl.
“Give me the children. I will give them better care than you. I will support yourself and your old woman as long as you are alive.”
He could not refuse. The king took the children with him. He cared for them till they grew to be young men. The king’s daughter thought they were her brothers. The king put learning on them. They were the two champions. They were fowling every day that was fine. At that time there was a great hurling match to come off. The King of Lochlann sent a challenge to the King of Greece for a hurling match, kingdom to be staked against kingdom. There was a pretty strand under the court and castle of the King of Greece. When the day of the hurling match came, the King of Greece ordered the two champions to go hunting. They went hunting. They were not long gone from the house when they met five young men, every one of them with a hurling stick. “I don’t know where they can be going,” said the champion of the red belt.
“I don’t know,” said the champion of the black belt. They saw five others coming the same way. He said to one of them he wondered where they were going. “I will tell you; and it is a great wonder that you are going fowling to-day.”
“Why is that?” said the champion. “I believe you have heard all about it yourself.”
“I have heard nothing.”
“The kingdom of your father is staked against the kingdom of the King of Lochlann in a hurling match to-day. We are going to the hurling match on behalf of your father.”
They returned home. They said to the King of Greece they would not lose his kingdom, but would play on his behalf. They threw off their hunting suits. They put on light suits for running. They got two hurls. They went to the strand. There was a great crowd on the strand. The ball was going out. There were twenty-four men on each side. They said their father’s kingdom should not be lost, that they would play on his behalf. Two were then put out, and they were put then in their place. There were riders keeping the strand clear. The ball was put in the middle of the strand down in the sand. The forty-eight men came round the ball. The champion of the red belt got the ball. He struck it. When it fell again he was shaking it, and he struck it again. He sent it to the other end. He said to the King of Lochlann that his kingdom was lost. The King of Lochlann said his men had not got fair play in the hurling. “I will give you fair play,” said the champion of the red belt; “myself and my brother to hurl against your four-and-twenty; and this is the bargain I’ll make with you:—Whoever it is that sends the ball to the goal is to have a blow with his hurl on the others: if your four-and-twenty men win the goal against us, they have four-and-twenty blows to strike on us. If we win the goal, we have a blow on every one of them.”
The ball was put in the sand. They gathered round it. The champion of the red belt had the ball. He struck it. When it fell he was shaking it again. Not one man on the strand got a blow at it till he put it to the goal.