n kept watch for them until the rising of
the day and the full light of the morrow.

Diarmuid rose up early, and he bade Grania keep watch for Muadhan, and
that he himself would go and take a walk around the country. He went out
then, and he went up on a hill that was near, and he was looking about
him, east and west, north and south. He was not long there till he saw a
great fleet of ships coming from the west, straight to the bottom of the
hill where he was. And when they were come to land, nine times nine of
the chief men of the ships came on shore, and Diarmuid went down and
greeted them, and asked news of them, and to what country they belonged.

"Three kings we are of the Green Champions of Muir-na-locht," said they;
"and Finn, son of Cumhal, sent looking for us by cause of a thief of the
woods, and an enemy of his own that has gone hiding from him; and it is
to hinder him we are come. And we are twenty hundred good fighting men,
and every one of us is a match for a hundred, and besides that," he
said, "we have three deadly hounds with us; fire will not burn them, and
water will not drown them, and arms will not redden on them, and we will
lay them on his track, and it will be short till we get news of him.
And tell us who you are yourself?" they said, "and have you any word of
the grandson of Duibhne?" "I saw him yesterday," said Diarmuid; "and I
myself," he said, "am but a fighting man, walking the world by the
strength of my hand and by the hardness of my sword. And by my word," he
said, "you will know Diarmuid's hand when you will meet it." "Well, we
found no one up to this," said they. "What are your own names?" said
Diarmuid. "Dubh-chosach, the Black-footed, Fionn-chosach, the
Fair-footed, and Treun-chosach, the Strong-footed," they said.

"Is there wine in your ships?" said Diarmuid. "There is," said they. "If
you have a mind to bring out a tun of wine," said Diarmuid, "I will do a
trick for you." They sent men to get the tun, and when it came Diarmuid
took it between his two hands and drank a drink out of it, and the
others drank what was left of it. Diarmuid took up the tun after that,
and brought it to the top of the hill, and he went up himself on the
tun, and let it go down the steep of the hill till it was at the bottom.
And then he brought the tun up the hill again, and he himself on it
coming and going, and he did that trick three times before the
strangers. But they said he was a man had never see