Here, at the further side, stood a huge man clad in rusty armour, who when he saw Oisin rushed upon him, silent and furious, and swinging a great battleaxe in his hand.  But doubt and langour weighed upon Oisin’s heart, and it seemed to him as if he were in an evil dream, which he knew was but a dream, and would be less than nothing when the hour of awakening should come.  Yet he raised his shield and gripped the fairy sword, striving to shout the Fian battle-cry as he closed with Fovor.  But soon a heavy blow smote him to the ground, and his armour clanged harshly on the stones.  Then a cloud seemed to pass from his spirit, and he leaped to his feet quicker than an arrow flies from the string, and thrusting fiercely at the giant his sword-point gashed the under side of Fovor’s arm when it was raised to strike, and Oisin saw his enemy’s blood.  Then the fight raged hither and thither about the wide courtyard, with trampling of feet and clash of steel and ringing of armour and shouts of onset as the heroes closed; Oisin, agile as a wild stag, evading the sweep of the mighty axe and rushing in with flickering blade at every unguarded moment, his whole soul bent on one fierce thought, to drive his point into some gap at shoulder or neck in Fovor’s coat of mail.  At length, when both were weary and wounded men, with hacked and battered armour, Oisin’s blade cut the thong of Fovor’s headpiece and it fell clattering to the ground.  Another blow laid the giant prostrate, and Oisin leaned, dizzy and panting, upon his sword, while Fovor’s serving-men took off their master in a litter, and Niam came to aid her lord.  Then Oisin stripped off his armour in the great hall, and Niam tended to his wounds, healing them with magic herbs and murmured incantations, and they saw that one of the seven rusty chains that had bound the princess hung loose from its iron staple in the wall.

All night long Oisin lay in deep and healing slumber, and next day he arose, whole and strong, and hot to renew the fray.  And the giant was likewise healed and his might and fierceness returned to him.  So they fought till they were breathless and weary, and then to it again, and again, till in the end Oisin drove his sword to the hilt in the giant’s shoulder where it joins the collar bone, and he fell aswoon, and was borne away as before.  And another chain of the seven fell from the girdle of the captive maiden.

Thus for seven days went on the combat, and Oisin had seven nights of healing and rest, with the tenderness and beauty of Niam about his couch; and on the seventh day the maiden was free, and her folk brought her away, rejoicing, with banners and with music that made a brightness for a while in that forlorn and evil place.