The next morning Finn asked who would lead the battle that day.  “I will,” said Dubhan, son of Donn.  “Do not,” said Finn, “but let some other one go.”

But Dubhan went to the strand, and a hundred men along with him; and there was no one there before him but Dolar Durba, and he said he was there to fight with the whole of them.  And Dubhan’s men gave a great shout of laughter when they heard that; but Dolar Durba rushed on them, and he made an end of the whole hundred, without a man of them being able to put a scratch on him.  And then he took a hurling stick and a ball, and he threw up the ball and kept it in the air with the hurl from the west to the east of the strand without letting it touch the ground at all.  And then he put the ball on his right foot and kicked it high into the air, and when it was coming down he gave it a kick of his left foot and kept it in the air like that, and he rushing like a blast of March wind from one end of the strand to the other.  And when he had done that he walked up and down on the strand making great boasts, and challenging the men of Ireland to do the like of those feats.  And every day he killed a hundred of the men that were sent against him.

CHAPTER VIII.  THE KING OF ULSTER’S SON

Now it chanced at that time that news of the great battle that was going on reached to the court of the King of Ulster.  And the king’s son, that was only twelve years of age, and that was the comeliest of all the young men of Ireland, said to his father:  “Let me go to help Finn, son of Cumhal, and his men.”  “You are not old enough, or strong enough, boy; your bones are too soft,” said the king.  And when the boy went on asking, his father shut him up in some close place, and put twelve young men, his foster-brothers, in charge of him.

There was great anger on the young lad then, and he said to his foster-brothers:  “It is through courage and daring my father won a great name for himself in his young youth, and why does he keep me from winning a name for myself?  And let you help me now,” he said, “and I will be a friend to you for ever.”  And he went on talking to them and persuading them till he got round them all, and they agreed to go with him to join Finn and the Fianna.  And when the king was asleep, they went into the house where the arms were kept, and every lad of them brought away with him a shield and a sword and a helmet and two spears and two greyhound whelps.  And they went across Ess Ruadh in the north, and through Connacht of many tribes, and through Caille an Chosanma, the Woods of Defence, that were called the choice of every king and the true honour of every poet, and into Ciarraighe, and so on to the White Strand.

And when they came there Dolar Durba was on the strand, boasting before the men of Ireland.  And Oisin was rising up to go against him, for he said he would sooner die fighting with him than see the destruction he was doing every day on his people.  And all the wise men and the fighting men and the poets and the musicians of the Fianna gave a great cry of sorrow when they heard Oisin saying that.