ing's Son, and he flourished the sword
at them.

"Come into our cave, King's Son," said the old fellow, "we will give you
refreshment there, and the children will attend to your steed."

He went into the cave with certain of the Swallow People. They were all
unmannerly. They kept screaming and crying to each other; they pulled
at the clothes of the King's Son and pinched him. One of them bit his
hands. When they came into the cave they all sat down on black stones.
One pulled in a black ass loaded with nets. They took the nets off its
back, and before the King's Son knew that anything was about to happen
they threw the nets around him. The meshes of the nets were sticky. He
felt himself caught. He ran at the Swallow People and fell over a stone.
Then they drew more nets around his legs.

The old fellow whom he had commanded took up the Sword of Light. Then
the Swallow People pulled up the ass that had carried the nets and
rubbed its hard hoof on the Sword. The King's Son did not know what
happened to it. Then he heard them cry, "The brightness is gone off the
thing now." They left the Sword on a black rock, and now no light came
from it. Then all the Swallow People scrambled out of the cave.

They came back eating eels and crab-apples out of their hands. They paid
no attention to the King of Ireland's Son, but climbed into a cave above
where he was lying.

He broke the nets that were round him. He found the Sword on the black
stones, with the brightness all gone from it because of the rubbing with
the ass's hoof. He climbed up the wall of the other cave to punish the
Swallow People. They saw him before he could see them in the darkness,
and they all went into holes and hid themselves as if they were rats and
mice.

With the blackened sword in his hands the King of Ireland's Son went out
of the Cave, and the horse he had left behind, the Slight Red Steed, was
not to be found.

III

Without a steed and with a blackened sword the King of Ireland's Son
came to where the Gobaun Saor had set up his forge and planted his
anvil. No water nor sand would clean the Sword, but he left it down
before the Gobaun Saor, hoping that he would show him a way to dean it.
"The Sword must be bright that will kill the King of the Land of Mist
and cut the tress that will awaken the Enchanter's daughter," said the
Gobaun Saor. "You have let the Sword be blackened. Carry the blackened
Sword with you now."

"Brighten it for me and I