Then Glas, son of Dremen, gave out a challenge of fight from Cuban’s son, and the King of Greece answered it.  And the two fought hand to hand, and the King of Greece made a great cast of his thick spear at Cuban’s son, that went through his body and broke his back in two.  But he did not take that blow as a gift, but he paid for it with a strong cast of his own golden spear that went through the ringed armour of the King of Greece.  And those two fell together, sole to sole, and lip to lip.  “There is grief on me, Cuban’s son to have fallen,” said Finn, “for no one ever went from his house unsatisfied; and a man that I would not keep, or the High King of Ireland would not keep for a week, he would keep him in his house through the length of a year.  And let Follamain, his son, be called to me now,” he said, “and I will give him his father’s name and place.”

They stopped there then till the next morning.  “Who will go and fight to-day?” said Finn then.  “I will do that,” said Goll Garb, son of the King of Alban and of the daughter of Goll, son of Morna.

So he put on his battle dress, and there came against him the three kings from the rising of the sun in the east, and their three battalions with them.  And Goll Garb rushed among their men, and wounded and maimed and destroyed them, and blinded their eyes for ever, so that their wits went from them, and they called to him to stop his deadly sword for a while.  So he did that; and it is what they agreed to take their three kings and to give them over to Goll Garb that he might stop doing destruction with his sword.

“Who will go out and fight to-day?” said Finn, on the morning of the morrow.  “I will go,” said Oisin, “and the chief men of the sons of Baiscne with me; for we get the best share of all the pleasant things of Ireland, and we should be first to defend her.”  “I will answer that challenge,” said the King of France, “for it is against Finn I am come to Ireland, on account of my wife that he brought away from me; and these men will fall by me now,” he said, “and Finn himself at the last; for when the branches of a tree are cut off, it is not hard to cut down the tree itself.”

So the King of France and Oisin met one another at the eastern end of the strand, and they struck their banners of soft silk into the green hill, and bared their swords and made a quick attack on one another.  And at one time the king struck such a great blow that he knocked a groan out of Oisin.  But for all that he was worsted in the end, and great fear came on him, like the fear of a hundred horses at the sound of thunder, and he ran from Oisin, and he rose like a swallow, that his feet never touched the earth at all; and he never stopped till he came to Gleann na-n Gealt, the Valley of Wild Men.  And ever since that time, people that have lost their wits make for that valley; and every mad person in Ireland, if he had his way, would go there within twenty-four hours.