nnot do," said
Diarmuid. But she put the rushes about him, and lifted him on her back,
and when she got to the room she let down the bundle. "O come here to
me," said the daughter of King Under-Wave, and Diarmuid went over to
her, and they took one another's hands, and were very joyful at that
meeting. "Three parts of my sickness is gone from me now," she said
then; "but I am not well yet, and I never will be, for every time I
thought of you, Diarmuid, on my journey, I lost a drop of the blood of
my heart." "I have got those three drops here in this napkin," said
Diarmuid, "and take them now in a drink and you will be healed of your
sickness." "They would do nothing for me," she said, "since I have not
the one thing in the world that I want, and that is the thing I will
never get," she said. "What thing is that?" said Diarmuid. "It is the
thing you will never get, nor any man in the world," she said, "for it
is a long time they have failed to get it." "If it is in any place on
the whole ridge of the world I will get it," said Diarmuid. "It is three
draughts from the cup of the King of Magh an Ionganaidh, the Plain of
Wonder," she said, "and no man ever got it or ever will get it." "Tell
me where that cup is to be found," said Diarmuid, "for there are not as
many men as will keep it from me on the whole ridge of the world." "That
country is not far from the boundary of my father's country," she said;
"but there is a little river between, and you would be sailing on that
river in a ship, having the wind behind it, for a year and a day before
you would reach to the Plain of Wonder."

Diarmuid set out then, and he came to the little river, and he was a
good while walking beside it, and he saw no way to cross it. But at last
he saw a low-sized, reddish man that was standing in the middle of the
river. "You are in straits, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," he said;
"and come here and put your foot in the palm of my hand and I will bring
you through." Diarmuid did as he bade him, and put his foot in the red
man's palm, and he brought him across the river. "It is going to the
King of the Plain of Wonder you are," he said, "to bring away his cup
from him; and I myself will go with you."

They went on then till they came to the king's dun, and Diarmuid called
out that the cup should be sent out to him, or else champions to fight
with him should be sent out. It was not the cup was sent out, but twice
eight hundred fighting men; and