entered the wood they had come to a high grassy
mound. And standing on that grassy mound was the most tremendous bull
that Flann had ever seen.

"What bull is that, Giant?" said Flann.

"My own bull," said Crom Duv, "the Bull of the Mound. Look back at him,
little fellow. If ever you try to escape from my service my Bull of the
Mound will toss you into the air and trample you into the ground." Crom
Duv blew on a horn that he had across his chest. The Bull of the Mound
rushed down the slope snorting. Crom Duv shouted and the bull stood
still with his tremendous head bent down.

Flann's heart, I tell you, sank, when he saw the bull that guarded Crom
Duv's house. They went through the deep wood then, and came to the gate
of the Giant's Keep. Only a chain was across it, and Crom Duv lifted
up the chain. The courtyard was filled with cattle black and red and
striped. The Giant tied Flann to a stone pillar. "Are you there, Morag,
my byre-maid?" he shouted.

"I am here," said a voice from the byre. More cattle were in the byre
and someone was milking them.

There was straw on the ground of the courtyard and Crom Duv lay down on
it and went to sleep with the cattle trampling around him. A great stone
wall was being built all round the Giant's Keep--a wall six feet thick
and built as high as twenty feet in some places and in others as high
as twelve. The wall was still being built, for heaps of stones and great
mixing-pans were about. And just before the door of the Keep was a
Rowan Tree that grew to a great height. At the very top of the tree were
bunches of red berries. Cats were lying around the stems of the tree and
cats were in its branches--great yellow cats. More yellow cats stepped
out of the house and came over to him. They looked Flann all over and
went back, mewing to each other.

The cattle that were in the courtyard went into the byre one by one as
they were called by the voice of the byre-maid. Crom Duv still slept. By
and by a little red hen that was picking about the courtyard came near
him and holding up her head looked Flann all over.

When the last cow had gone in and the last stream of milk had sounded in
the milking-vessel the byre-maid came into the courtyard. Flann thought
he would see a long-armed creature like Crom Duv himself. Instead he saw
a girl with good and kind eyes, whose disfigurements were that her face
was pitted and her hair was bushy. "I am Morag, Crom Duv's byre-maid,"
said she.