as on the green, and they
gave three gloomy screeches, that if such a thing could be, would have
brought the dead out of the earth or the hair off the head of the
listeners; and as it was, they took the courage out of the whole
gathering.

Then Cascorach, son of Caincenn, took a man of the chessmen and made a
cast at one of the ravens that struck his beak and his throat, and made
an end of him; and Fermaise killed the second of them, and Caoilte the
third of them in the same way.

"Let my cure be done now," said Caoilte, "for I have paid my fee for it,
and it is time." "You have paid it indeed," said Ilbrec. "And where is
Bebind, daughter of Elcmar?" he said. "I am here," said she.

"Bring Caoilte, son of Ronan, with you into some hidden place," he said,
"and do his cure, and let him be well served, for he has driven every
danger from the Men of Dea and from the Sons of the Gael. And let
Cascorach make music for him, and let Fermaise, son of Eogabil, be
watching him and guarding him and attending him."

So Elcmar's daughter went to the House of Arms, and her two sons with
her, and a bed of healing was made ready for Caoilte, and a bowl of pale
gold was brought to her, and it full of water. And she took a crystal
vessel and put herbs into it, and she bruised them and put them in the
water, and gave the bowl to Caoilte, and he drank a great drink out of
it, that made him cast up the poison of the spear that was in him. Five
drinks of it he took, and after that she gave him new milk to drink; but
with the dint of the reaching he was left without strength through the
length of three days and three nights.

"Caoilte, my life," she said then, "in my opinion you have got relief."
"I have got it indeed," he said, "but that the weakness of my head is
troubling me." "The washing of Flann, daughter of Flidais, will be done
for you now," she said, "and the head that washing is done for will
never be troubled with pain, or baldness, or weakness of sight." So that
cure was done to him for a while; and the people of the hill divided
themselves into three parts; the one part of their best men and great
nobles, and another of their young men, and another of their women and
poets, to be visiting him and making mirth with him as long as he would
be on his bed of healing. And everything that was best from their
hunting, it was to him they would bring it.

And one day, when Elcmar's daughter and her two sons and Cascorach and
Fermais