Caoilte and the rest of the chief men of the Fianna set out then looking for Finn, and they got word of him; and at last they came to Slieve Cuilinn, and there they saw a withered old man sitting beside the lake, and they thought him to be a fisherman.  “Tell us, old man,” said Caoilte, “did you see a fawn go by, and two hounds after her, and a tall fair-faced man along with them?” “I did see them,” he said, “and it is not long since they left me.”  “Tell us where are they now?” said Caoilte.  But Finn made no answer, for he had not the courage to say to them that he himself was Finn their leader, being as he was an ailing, downhearted old man, without leaping, without running, without walk, grey and sorrowful.

Caoilte took out his sword from the sheath then, and he said:  “It is short till you will have knowledge of death unless you will tell us what happened those three.”

Then Finn told them the whole story; and when the seven battalions of the Fianna heard him, and knew it was Finn that was in it, they gave three loud sorrowful cries.  And to the lake they gave the name of Loch Doghra, the Lake of Sorrow.

But Conan of the sharp tongue began abusing Finn and all the Fianna by turns.  “You never gave me right praise for my deeds, Finn, son of Cumhal,” he said, “and you were always the enemy of the sons of Morna; but we are living in spite of you,” he said, “and I have but the one fault to find with your shape, and that is, that it was not put on the whole of the Fianna the same as on yourself.”  Caoilte made at him then; “Bald, senseless Conan,” he said, “I will break your mouth to the bone.”  But Conan ran in then among the rest of the Fianna and asked protection from them, and peace was made again.

And as to Finn, they asked him was there any cure to be found for him.  “There is,” he said; “for I know well the enchantment was put on me by a woman of the Sidhe, Miluchradh, daughter of Cuilinn, through jealousy of her sister Aine.  And bring me to the hill that belongs to Cuilinn of Cuailgne,” he said, “for he is the only one can give me my shape again.”

They came around him then, and raised him up gently on their shields, and brought him on their shoulders to the hill of the Sidhe in Cuailgne, but no one came out to meet them.  Then the seven battalions began digging and rooting up the whole hill, and they went on digging through the length of three nights and three days.  And at the end of that time Cuilinn of Cuailgne, that some say was Manannan, son of Lir, came out of the hill, holding in his hand a vessel of red gold, and he gave the vessel into Finn’s hand.  And no sooner did Finn drink what was in the vessel than his own shape and his appearance came back to him.  But only his hair, that used to be so fair and so beautiful, like the hair of a woman, never got its own colour again, for the lake that Cuilinn’s daughter had made for Finn would have turned all the men of the whole world grey if they had gone into it.