Then once again, the louder for the mourning pause, we hear the din of battle.

“As roll a thousand waves to the rocks, so Swaran’s host came on.  As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Erin met Swaran of spears.  Death raises all his voices around, and mixes with the sounds of shields.  Each hero is a pillar of darkness; the sword a beam of fire in his hand.  The field echoes from wing to wing, as a hundred hammers that rise by turn, on the red son of the furnace.”

But now the day is waning.  To the noise and horror of battle the mystery of darkness is added.  Friend and foe are wrapped in the dimness of twilight.

But the fight was not ended, for neither Cathullin nor Swaran had gained the victory, and ere gray morning broke the battle was renewed.

And in this second day’s fight Swaran was the victor, but while the battle still raged white-sailed ships appeared upon the sea.  It was Fingal who came, and Swaran had to fight a second foe.

“Now from the gray mists of the ocean, the white-sailed ships of Fingal appeared.  High is the grove of their masts, as they nod by turns on the rolling wave.”

Swaran saw them from the hill on which he fought, and turning from the pursuit of the men of Erin, he marched to meet Fingal.  But Cathullin, beaten and ashamed, fled to hide himself:  “bending, weeping, sad and slow, and dragging his long spear behind, Cathullin sank in Cromla’s wood, and mourned his fallen friends.  He feared the face of Fingal, who was wont to greet him from the fields of renown.”

But although Cathullin fled, between Fingal and Swaran battle was renewed till darkness fell.  A second day dawned, and again and again the hosts closed in deadly combat until at length Fingal and Swaran met face to face.

“There was a clang of arms! their every blow like the hundred hammers of the furnace.  Terrible is the battle of the kings; dreadful the look of their eyes.  Their dark brown shields are cleft in twain.  Their steel flies, broken from their helms.

“They fling their weapons down.  Each rushes to his hero’s grasp.  Their sinewy arms bend round each other:  they turn from side to side, and strain and stretch their large and spreading limbs below.  But when the pride of their strength arose they shook the hills with their heels.  Rocks tumble from their places on high; the green-headed bushes are overturned.  At length the strength of Swaran fell; the king of the groves is bound.”

The warriors of Swaran fled then, pursued by the sons of Fingal, till the hero bade the fighting cease, and darkness once more fell over the dreadful field.

“The clouds of night come rolling down.  Darkness rests on the steeps of Cromla.  The stars of the north arise over the rolling of Erin’s waves:  they shew their heads of fire, through the flying mist of heaven.  A distant wind roars in the wood.  Silent and dark is the plain of death.”