game. It was played from
the rising of the sun until the high tide of noon, and neither side won
a goal. Then the players stopped to eat the refreshment that Mananaun
had provided.

This is what Mananaun had brought from his own country, Silver-Cloud
Plain: a branch of bright-red rowan berries. Whoever ate one of these
rowan berries his hunger and his weariness left him in a moment. The
berries were to be eaten by the players, Mananaun said, and not one of
them was to be taken into the world of the mortals or the world of the
Fairies.

When they stopped playing at the high tide of noon the mortal Fergus saw
Aine' and saw her for the first time. A spirit that he had never felt
before flowed into him at the sight of Mananaun's daughter. He forgot to
eat the berry he was given and held it in his mouth by the stalk.

He went into the hurling-match again and now he was like a hawk amongst
small birds. Curoi defended the goal and drove the ball back. Fergus
drove it to the goal again; the two champions met and Curoi's hurl, made
out of rhinoceros' horn, did not beat down Fergus's hurl made out of the
ash of the wood. The hosts stood aside and left the game to Fergus and
Curoi. Curoi's hurl jerked the ball upward; then Fergus gave it the
double stroke first with the handle and then with the weighted end
of the hurl and drove it, beautifully as a flying bird, between the
goal-marks that Mananaun had set up. The match was won by the goal that
Fergus had gained.

The Fianna then invited the Fairies of Munster to a feast that they were
giving to Fergus and his bride. The Fairies went, and Mananaun and Aine'
went before them all. Fergus marched at the head of his troop with the
rowan berry still hanging from his mouth. And as he went he bit the
stalk and the berry fell to the ground. Fergus never heeded that.

When the feast was over he went to where Mananaun stood with his
daughter. Aine' gave him her hand. "And it is well," said Conan, the
Fool of the Fianna, "that this thick-witted Fergus has at last dropped
the berry out of his mouth." "What berry?" said Curoi, who was standing
by. "The rowan berry," said Conan, "that he carried across two townlands
the same as if he were a bird."

When Mananaun heard this he asked about the berry that Fergus had
carried. It was not to be found. Then the Fianna and the Fairies of
Munster started back to look for a trace of it. What they found was a
wonderful Rowan Tree. It had grown out