from the Iron House in Ireland, when it was made red hot around them, and
fled hither. And it is a marvel to me that thou shouldst know nothing
concerning the matter." "Something I do know," said he, "and as much as
I know I will tell thee. One day I was hunting in Ireland, and I came to
the mound at the head of the lake, which is called the Lake of the
Cauldron. And I beheld a huge yellow-haired man coming from the lake
with a cauldron upon his back. And he was a man of vast size, and of
horrid aspect, and a woman followed after him. And if the man was tall,
twice as large as he was the woman, and they came towards me and greeted
me. 'Verily,' asked I, 'wherefore are you journeying?' 'Behold this,'
said he to me, 'is the cause that we journey. At the end of a month and
a fortnight this woman will have a son; and the child that will be born
at the end of the month and the fortnight will be a warrior fully armed.'
So I took them with me, and maintained them. And they were with me for a
year. And that year I had them with me not grudgingly. But thenceforth
was there murmuring, because that they were with me. For from the
beginning of the fourth month they had begun to make themselves hated and
to be disorderly in the land; committing outrages, and molesting and
harassing the nobles and ladies; and thenceforward my people rose up and
besought me to part with them, and they bade me to choose between them
and my dominions. And I applied to the council of my country to know
what should be done concerning them; for of their own free will they
would not go, neither could they be compelled against their will, through
fighting. And [the people of the country,] being in this strait, they
caused a chamber to be made all of iron. Now when the chamber was ready,
there came there every smith that was in Ireland, and every one who owned
tongs and hammer. And they caused coals to be piled up as high as the
top of the chamber. And they had the man, and the woman, and the
children, served with plenty of meat and drink; but when it was known
that they were drunk, they began to put fire to the coals about the
chamber, and they blew it with bellows until the house was red hot all
around them. Then was there a council held in the centre of the floor of
the chamber. And the man tarried until the plates of iron were all of a
white heat; and then, by reason of the great heat, the man dashed against
the plates with his shoulder