nd she used high words
when she saw so young a man coming to fight with her, and he alone. But
he made an end of her for all her high talk, and left her lying on the
strand with the sea foam washing up to her.

And as to Caoilte, he went out in a chariot belonging to Midhir of the
Yellow Hair, son of the Dagda, and a spear was given him that was called
Ben-badb, the War-Woman, and he made a cast of the spear that struck the
King of Lochlann, that he fell in the middle of his army, and the life
went from him. And Fermaise went looking for the king's brother, Eolus,
that was the comeliest of all the men of the world; and he knew him by
the band of gold around his head, and his green armour, and his red
shield, and he killed him with a cast of a five-pronged spear. And when
the men of Lochlann saw their three leaders were gone, they went into
their ships and back to their own country. And there was great joy
through the whole country, both among the men of Ireland and the Tuatha
de Danaan, the men of Lochlann to have been driven away by the deeds of
Caoilte and Fermaise and Cascorach.

And that was not all they did, for it was at that time there came three
flocks of beautiful red birds from Slieve Fuad in the north, and began
eating the green grass before the hill of the Sidhe. "What birds are
those?" said Caoilte. "Three flocks they are that come and destroy the
green every year, eating it down to the bare flag-stones, till they
leave us no place for our races," said Ilbrec. Then Caoilte and his
comrades took up three stones and threw them at the flocks and drove
them away. "Power and blessings to you," said the people of the Sidhe
then, "that is a good work you have done. And there is another thing you
can do for us," they said, "for there are three ravens come to us every
year out of the north, and the time the young lads of the hill are
playing their hurling, each one of the ravens carries off a boy of them.
And it is to-morrow the hurling will be," they said.

So when the full light of day was come on the morrow, the whole of the
Tuatha de Danaan went out to look at the hurling; and to every six men
of them was given a chess-board, and a board for some other game to
every five, and to every ten men a little harp, and a harp to every
hundred men, and pipes that were sharp and powerful to every nine.

Then they saw the three ravens from the north coming over the sea, and
they pitched on the great tree of power that w