Across the plain to the east, then called the Plain of Nia, but thereafter Mag Tuiread or Moytura, the Plain of the Pillars, lay the forests, and thence issued forth the hosts of the Firbolgs, encamping on the eastern verge of the open space.  Nuada, the De Danaan king, once more sought a peaceful issue to their meeting, but Erc’s son Eocaid refused all terms, and it was plain to all that they must fight.

It was midsummer.  The air was warm about them, the lake-shores and the plain clothed in green of many gently blended shades.  The sun shone down upon them, and the lakes mirrored the clear blue above.  From their hill of encampment descended the De Danaans, with their long slender spears gleaming like bright gold, their swords of golden bronze firmly grasped, their left hands griping the thong of their shields.  Golden-haired, with flowing tresses, they descended to the fight; what stately battle-song they chanted, what Powers they called on for a blessing, we cannot tell; nor in what terms the dark-browed Firbolgs answered them as they approached across the plain.  All that day did the hosts surge together, spear launched against spear, and bronze sword clashing against shield; all that day and for three days more, and then the fate of the Firbolgs was decided.  Great and dire was the slaughter of them, so that Erc’s son Eocaid saw that all was lost.  Withdrawing with a hundred of his own men about him, Eocaid was seeking water to quench his thirst, for the heat of the battle was upon him, when he was pursued by a greater band of the De Danaans, under the three sons of Nemed, one of their chieftains.

Eocaid and his bodyguard fled before Nemed’s sons, making their way northeastward along the Moy river, under the shadow of the Mountains of Storms, now wrongly named Ox Mountains.  They came at last to the great strand called Traig Eotaile, but now Ballysadare, the Cataract of the Oaks,—­where the descending river is cloven into white terraces by the rocks, and the sea, retreating at low tide, leaves a world of wet sand glinting under the moonlight.  At the very sea’s margin a great battle was fought between the last king of the Firbolgs with his men, and the De Danaans under Nemed’s sons; so relentless was the fight along the tideways that few remained to tell of it, for Erc’s son Eocaid fell, but Nemed’s three sons fell likewise, The three De Danaan brothers were buried at the western end of the strand, and the place was called The Gravestones of the Sons of Nemed, in their memory.  The son of Erc was buried on the strand, where the waves lap along the shore, and his cairn of Traig Eotaile still stands by the water-side, last resting-place of the last ruler of the Firbolgs.