They sighted each other and halted, each setting his shield in the earth, peering at his adversary above its rim.  Then, reassured, they came together, and Breas first spoke to Sreng.  After the first words they fell, warrior-like, to examining each other’s weapons; Sreng saw that the two spears of Breas the De Danaan were thin, slender and long, and sharp-pointed, while his own were heavy, thick and point-less, but sharply rounded.

Here we have a note of reality, for spears of these two types are well known to us; those of Sreng were chisel-shaped, round-edged, socketed celts; the De Danaan lances were long and slender, like our spears.  There are two materials also—­a beautiful golden bronze, shining and gleaming in the sunlight, and a darker, ruddier metal, dull and heavy; and these darker spears have sockets for greatly thicker hafts.  Both also carried swords, made, very likely, the one of golden, the other of dull, copper-colored bronze.

Then, putting these pleasant things aside, they turned to weightier matters, and Breas made a proposal for the De Danaan men.  The island was large, the forests wide and full of game, the waters sweet and well-stocked with fish.  Might they not share it between them, and join hands to keep out all future comers?  Sreng could give no final answer; he could only put the matter before the Firbolg chiefs; so, exchanging spears in sign of friendship and for a token between them, they returned each to his own camp.

Sreng of the Firbolgs retraced his path some four-score miles among the central forests, and came to the Beautiful Eminence, where the Firbolgs had their settlement.  Eocaid, Erc’s son, their chieftain, called the lesser chiefs around him, and Sreng made full report of what he had seen and heard.  The Firbolgs, pressed on by their fate, decided to refuse all terms with the De Danaans, but to give them battle, and drive them from the island.  So they made ready, each man seeing to the straps of his shield, the burnishing of his thick sword and heavy spear.  Eyes gleamed out beneath lowering brows all about the dwellings of Tara, and hot words were muttered of the coming fight.  The dark faces of the Firbolgs were full of wrath.

Breas, returning to the camp of the Tuata De Danaan, gave such account of the fierceness and strength of Sreng, and the weight and sturdiness of his weapons, that the hearts of the golden-haired newcomers misgave them, and they drew away westward to the strip of land that lies between the lakes of Corrib and Mask.  There, tradition tells us, they made an encampment upon the hill of Belgadan, near the stream that flows through caverns beneath the rocks from the northern to the southern lake.  From their hill-top they had clear view of the plain stretching eastward, across which the Firbolg warriors must come; to the right hand and to the left were spread the great white waters of the lakes, stretching far away to the northern and southern verge of the sky.  Islands dotted the lakes, and trees mirrored themselves in the waters.  Behind them, to the westward, rose a square-topped mountain, crowned by a clear tarn; and, behind that, tier upon tier of hills, stretching dark and sombre along Lough Mask to the north, and spreading westward to the twelve crystal hills of Connemara.