Now Etain observed all this, and she bent her mind to discover the cause, and one day when they were in the house together, Etain asked of Ailill what was the cause of his sickness.  “My sickness,” said Ailill, “comes from my love for thee.” “’Tis pity,” said she, “that thou hast so long kept silence, for thou couldest have been healed long since, had we but known of its cause.”  “And even now could I be healed,” said Ailill, “did I but find favour in thy sight.”  “Thou shalt find favour,” she said.  Each day after they had spoken thus with each other, she came to him for the fomenting of his head, and for the giving of the portion of food that was required by him, and for the pouring of water over his hands; and three weeks after that, Ailill was whole.  Then he said to Etain:  “Yet is the completion of my cure at thy hands lacking to me; when may it be that I shall have it?” “’Tis to-morrow it shall be,” she answered him, “but it shall not be in the abode of the lawful monarch of the land that this felony shall be done.  Thou shalt come,” she said, “on the morrow to yonder hill that riseth beyond the fort:  there shall be the tryst that thou desirest.”

Now Ailill lay awake all that night, and he fell into a sleep at the hour when he should have kept his tryst, and he woke not from his sleep until the third hour of the day.  And Etain went to her tryst, and she saw a man before her; like was his form to the form of Ailill, he lamented the weakness that his sickness had caused him, and he gave to her such answers as it was fitting that Ailill should give.  But at the third hour of the day, Ailill himself awoke:  and he had for a long time remained in sorrow when Etain came into the house where he was; and as she approached him, “What maketh thee so sorrowful?” said Etain. “’Tis because thou wert sent to tryst with me,” said Ailill, “and I came not to thy presence, and sleep fell upon me, so that I have but now awakened from it; and surely my chance of being healed hath now gone from me.”  “Not so, indeed,” answered Etain, “for there is a morrow to follow to-day.”  And upon that night he took his watch with a great fire before him, and with water beside him to put upon his eyes.

At the hour that was appointed for the tryst, Etain came for her meeting with Ailill; and she saw the same man, like unto Ailill, whom she had seen before; and Etain went to the house, and saw Ailill still lamenting.  And Etain came three times, and yet Ailill kept not his tryst, and she found that same man there every time. “’Tis not for thee,” she said, “that I came to this tryst:  why comest thou to meet me?  And as for him whom I would have met, it was for no sin or evil desire that I came to meet him; but it was fitting for the wife of the king of Ireland to rescue the man from the sickness under which he hath so long been oppressed.”  “It were more fitting for thee to tryst with me myself,” said the man, “for when thou wert Etain of the Horses, the daughter of Ailill,