e were with Caoilte, there was heard a sound of music coming
towards them from the waters of Ess Ruadh, and any one would leave the
music of the whole world for that music. And they put their harps on the
corners of the pillars and went out, and there was wonder on Caoilte
that they left him. And he took notice that his strength and the
strength of his hands was not come to him yet, and he said: "It is many
a rough battle and many a hard fight I went into, and now there is not
enough strength in me so much as to go out along with the rest," and he
cried tears down.

And the others came back to him then, and he asked news of them. "What
was that sound of music we heard?" he said. "It was Uaine out of the
hill of the Sidhe, at the Wave of Cliodna in the south," said they; "and
with her the birds of the Land of Promise; and she is musician to the
whole of that country. And every year she goes to visit one of the hills
of the Sidhe, and it is our turn this time." Then the woman from the
Land of Promise came into the house, and the birds came in along with
her, and they pitched on the pillars and the beams, and thirty of them
came in where Caoilte was, began singing together. And Cascorach took
his harp, and whatever he would play, the birds would sing to it. "It is
much music I have heard," said Caoilte, "but music so good as that I
never heard before."

And after that Caoilte asked to have the healing of his thigh done, and
the daughter of Elcmar gave herself to that, and all that was bad was
sucked from the wound by her serving people till it was healed. And
Caoilte stopped on where he was for three nights after that.

And then the people of the hill rose up and went into the stream to
swim. And Caoilte said: "What ails me now not to go swim, since my
health has come back to me?" And with that he went into the water. And
afterwards they went back into the hill, and there was a great feast
made that night.

And Caoilte bade them farewell after that, and Cascorach, but Fermaise
stopped with them for a while. And the people of the hill gave good
gifts to Caoilte; a fringed crimson cloak of wool from the seven sheep
of the Land of Promise; and a fish-hook that was called Aicil mac Mogha,
and that could not be set in any river or inver but it would take fish;
and along with that they gave him a drink of remembrance, and after that
drink there would be no place he ever saw, or no battle or fight he ever
was in, but it would