here is only one of him," said Cuillen.

"And each of us three is the match for an hundred," said Iaran.

The uncanny, misbehaved, and outrageous harridans advanced then to meet
the son of Morna, and when he saw these three Goll whipped the sword
from his thigh, swung his buckler round, and got to them in ten great
leaps.

Silence fell on the world during that conflict. The wind went down; the
clouds stood still; the old hill itself held its breath; the warriors
within ceased to be men and became each an ear; and the dogs sat in
a vast circle round the combatants, with their heads all to one side,
their noses poked forward, their mouths half open, and their tails
forgotten. Now and again a dog whined in a whisper and snapped a
little snap on the air, but except for that there was neither sound nor
movement.

It was a long fight. It was a hard and a tricky fight, and Goll won it
by bravery and strategy and great good luck; for with one shrewd slice
of his blade he carved two of these mighty termagants into equal halves,
so that there were noses and whiskers to his right hand and knees and
toes to his left: and that stroke was known afterwards as one of the
three great sword-strokes of Ireland. The third hag, however, had
managed to get behind Goll, and she leaped on to his back with the bound
of a panther, and hung here with the skilful, many-legged, tight-twisted
clutching of a spider. But the great champion gave a twist of his hips
and a swing of his shoulders that whirled her around him like a sack.
He got her on the ground and tied her hands with the straps of a shield,
and he was going to give her the last blow when she appealed to his
honour and bravery.

"I put my life under your protection," said she. "And if you let me go
free I will lift the enchantment from the Fianna-Finn and will give them
all back to you again."

"I agree to that," said Goll, and he untied her straps. The harridan did
as she had promised, and in a short time Fionn and Oisi'n and Oscar and
Cona'n were released, and after that all the Fianna were released.

CHAPTER VI

As each man came out of the cave he gave a jump and a shout; the courage
of the world went into him and he felt that he could fight twenty. But
while they were talking over the adventure and explaining how it had
happened, a vast figure strode over the side of the hill and descended
among them. It was Conaran's fourth daughter.

If the other three had been terrib