and bald and
red, that used to be doing tricks in Manannan's house. And one of these
tricks was, a man of them to take nine straight willow rods, and to
throw them up to the rafters of the house, and to catch them again as
they came down, and he standing on one leg, and having but one hand
free. And they thought no one could do that trick but themselves, and
they were used to ask strangers to do it, the way they could see them
fail.

So this night when one of them had done the trick, he came up to
Ciabhan, that was beyond all the Men of Dea or the Sons of the Gael that
were in the house, in shape and in walk and in name, and he put the nine
rods in his hand. And Ciabhan stood up and he did the feat before them
all, the same as if he had never learned to do any other thing.

Now Gebann, that was a chief Druid in Manannan's country, had a
daughter, Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that had never given her love to any
man. But when she saw Ciabhan she gave him her love, and she agreed to
go away with him on the morrow.

And they went down to the landing-place and got into a curragh, and they
went on till they came to Teite's Strand in the southern part of
Ireland. It was from Teite Brec the Freckled the strand got its name,
that went there one time for a wave game, and three times fifty young
girls with her, and they were all drowned in that place.

And as to Ciabhan, he came on shore, and went looking for deer, as was
right, under the thick branches of the wood; and he left the young girl
in the boat on the strand.

But the people of Manannan's house came after them, having forty ships.
And Iuchnu, that was in the curragh with Cliodna, did treachery, and he
played music to her till she lay down in the boat and fell asleep. And
then a great wave came up on the strand and swept her away.

And the wave got its name from Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that will be
long remembered.

CHAPTER XIII. HIS CALL TO CONNLA

And it is likely it was Manannan sent his messenger for Connla of the
Red Hair the time he went away out of Ireland, for it is to his country
Connla was brought; and this is the way he got the call.

It chanced one day he was with his father Conn, King of Teamhair, on the
Hill of Uisnach, and he saw a woman having wonderful clothing coming
towards him. "Where is it you come from?" he asked her. "I come," she
said, "from Tir-nam-Beo, the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, where no
death comes. We use feasts that