And they said farewell to one another, and a grand ship was made ready for Finn and his people, and there was food put in it for using and gold for giving away.  The young men and the heroes took to their seats then, and took hold of the oars, and they set out over the restless hills and the dark valleys of the great sea.

And the sea rose up and bellowed, and there was madness on the broken green waters; but to Finn and his people it was a call in the morning and a sleepy time at night to be listening to the roaring and the crooning that was ever and always about the sides of the ship.

They went on like that for three days and three nights, and saw no country or island.  But at the end of that time a man of them went up into the head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough grey cliff.  They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an eel’s back.  And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to the foot of the rock.

Fergus of the True Lips said then to Diarmuid:  “It is no brave thing you are doing, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to hold back like this, for it was with Manannan the Powerful, son of Lir, you were reared and got your learning, in the Land of Promise and in the coasts of the harbours, and with Angus Og, the Dagda’s son.  And are you without any share of their skill and their daring now,” he said, “that would bring Finn and his people up this rock?”

Diarmuid’s face reddened when he heard those words, and he took hold of Manannan’s staves of power that were with him, and he reddened again, and he rose on the staves and gave a leap, and got a standing-place for his two feet on the overhanging rock.  He looked down from that on Finn and his people, but whatever wish he had to bring them up to where he was, he was not able to do it.

He left the rock behind him then, and he was not gone far when he saw a wild tangled place before him, with thick woods that were of all he had ever walked the most leafy and the fullest of the sounds of wind and streams and birds, and of the humming of bees.

He went on walking the plain, and as he was looking about him, he saw a great tree with many twigs and branches, and a rock beside it, and a smooth-pointed drinking-horn on it, and a beautiful fresh well at its foot.  And there was a great drouth on Diarmuid after the sea-journey, and he had a mind to drink a hornful of the water.  But when he stooped to it he heard a great noise coming towards him, and he knew then there was enchantment in the water.

“I will drink my fill of it for all that,” he said.  And it was not long after that till he saw a Man of Enchantments coming towards him armed, having no friendly look.  And it was in no friendly way he spoke to Diarmuid when he came up to him, but he gave him great abuse.  “It is no right thing,” he said, “to be walking through my thickets and to be drinking up my share of water.”  With that they faced one another angrily, and they fought till the end of the day.