Conall Cernach answered this in the house—­and cruel he deemed the contention, and afterwards he had always a feud with Mac cecht.—­“Leave the defence of the King to us,” says Conall, “and go thou to seek the drink, for of thee it is demanded.”

So then Mac cecht fared forth to seek the drink, and he took Conaire’s son, Le fri flaith, under his armpit, and Conaire’s golden cup, in which an ox with a bacon-pig would be boiled; and he bore his shield and his two spears and his sword, and he carried the caldron-spit, a spit of iron.

He burst forth upon them, and in front of the Hostel he dealt nine blows of the iron spit, and at every blow nine reavers fell.  Then he makes a sloping feat of the shield and an edge-feat of the sword about his head, and he delivered a hostile attack upon them.  Six hundred fell in his first encounter, and after cutting down hundreds he goes through the band outside.

The doings of the folk of the Hostel, this is what is here examined, presently.

Conall Cernach arises, and takes his weapons, and wends over the door of the Hostel, and goes round the house.  Three hundred fell by him, and he hurls back the reavers over three ridges out from the Hostel, and boasts of triumph over a king, and returns, wounded, into the Hostel.

Cormac Condlongas sallies out, and his nine comrades with him, and they deliver their onsets on the reavers.  Nine enneads fall by Cormac and nine enneads by his people, and a man for each weapon and a man for each man.  And Cormac boasts of the death of a chief of the reavers.  They succeed in escaping though they be wounded.

The trio of Picts sally forth from the Hostel, and take to plying their weapons on the reavers.  And nine enneads fall by them, and they chance to escape though they be wounded.

The nine pipers sally forth and dash their warlike work on the reavers; and then they succeed in escaping.

Howbeit then, but it is long to relate, ’tis weariness of mind, ’tis confusion of the senses, ’tis tediousness to hearers, ’tis superfluity of narration to go over the same things twice.  But the folk of the Hostel came forth in order, and fought their combats with the reavers, and fell by them, as Fer rogain and Lomna Druth had said to Ingcel, to wit, that the folk of every room would sally forth still and deliver their combat, and after that escape.  So that none were left in the Hostel in Conaire’s company save Conall and Sencha and Dubthach.

Now from the vehement ardour and the greatness of the contest which Conaire had fought, his great drouth of thirst attacked him, and he perished of a consuming fever, for he got not his drink.  So when the king died those three sally out of the Hostel, and deliver a wily stroke of reaving on the reavers, and fare forth from the Hostel, wounded, to-broken and maimed.

Touching Mac cecht, however, he went his way till he reached the Well of Casair, which was near him in Crich Cualann; but of water he found not therein the full of his cup, that is, Conaire’s golden cup which he had brought in his hand.  Before morning he had gone round the chief rivers of Erin, to wit, Bush, Boyne, Bann, Barrow, Neim, Luae, Laigdae, Shannon, Suir, Sligo, Samair, Find, Ruirthech, Slaney, and in them he found not the full of his cup of water.