And Finn rose up and gave his thanks to Fiachu, son of Eoghan, and he and his people set out to the house of Cacher at Cluain-da-loch.  And they stopped three days feasting in Cacher’s house, and then Finn gave him the price of his feast and of his ale, fifty rings, and fifty horses and fifty cows.

And he himself and the Fianna went on from that over Luachair to the strand at Berramain.  And Finn went trying his black horse on the strand, and Caoilte and Oisin went racing against him; but it was only folly for them to do that, for he gave a blow to his horse, and away with him to Traigh Liath and over the Plain of Health to the Old Yew of the Old Valley, and to the inver of the Flesc and the inver of the Lemain to Loch Lein, till he came to the hill of Bairnech, and Caoilte and Oisin after him.

“Night is coming on us,” said Finn then; “and go look for some place where we can sleep,” he said.  He looked round then at the rocks on his left hand and he saw a house, and a fire shining out from it in the valley below.  “I never knew of a house in this valley,” he said.

“It is best for us to go see it,” said Caoilte, “for there are many things we have no knowledge of.”

The three went on then to the house, and they heard screams and crying from it; and when they came to the house, the people of it were very fierce and rough; and a big grey man took hold of their horses and brought them in and shut the door of the house with iron hooks.  “My welcome to you, Finn of the great name,” he said then; “it is a long time you were in coming here.”

They sat down then on the hard boards of a bed, and the grey man kindled a fire, and he threw logs of elder-wood on it, till they went near being smothered with the smoke.  They saw a hag in the house then having three heads on her lean neck; and there was on the other side a man without a head, having one eye, and it in his breast.  “Rise up, you that are in the house, and make music for the King of the Fianna,” said the grey man then.

With that nine bodies rose up out of the corner nearest the Fianna, and nine heads rose up on the other side of the bed, and they raised nine harsh screeches together, that no one would like to be listening to.  And then the hag answered to them, and the headless man answered; and if all of that music was harsh, there was none of it that you would not wish to hear sooner than the music of the one-eyed man.  And the music that was sung went near to breaking the bones of their heads; and indeed it is no sweet music that was.

Then the big grey man rose up and took the axe that was for cutting logs, and he began striking at the horses, flaying and destroying them.  Then there were brought fifty pointed spits of the rowan-tree, and he put a piece of the horse’s flesh on each one of the spits, and settled them on the hearth.  But when he took the spits from the fire and put them before Finn, it is raw the flesh was on them yet.  “Take your food away,” said Finn then, “for I have never eaten meat that was raw, and I never will eat it because of being without food for one day.”  “If you are come into our house to refuse our food,” said the grey man, “we will surely go against yourselves, Finn and Caoilte and Oisin.”