mthainn had brought some steel to have weapons made for himself;
and Cian bade Samthainn to hold the halter while he went into the forge
to speak with Goibniu.

Now Balor had set his mind for a long time on the Glas Gaibhnenn, but he
had never been able to get near her up to this time. And he was watching
not far off, and when he saw Samthainn holding the cow, he put on the
appearance of a little boy, having red hair, and came up to him and told
him he heard his two brothers that were in the forge saying to one
another that they would use all his steel for their own swords, and make
his of iron. "By my word," said Samthainn, "they will not deceive me so
easily. Let you hold the cow, little lad," he said, "and I will go in to
them." With that he rushed into the forge, and great anger on him. And
no sooner did Balor get the halter in his hand than he set out, dragging
the Glas along with him, to the strand, and across the sea to his own
island.

When Cian saw his brother coming in he rushed out, and there he saw
Balor and the Glas out in the sea. And he had nothing to do then but to
reproach his brother, and to wander about as if his wits had left him,
not knowing what way to get his cow back from Balor. At last he went to
a Druid to ask an advice from him; and it is what the Druid told him,
that so long as Balor lived, the cow would never be brought back, for no
one would go within reach of his Evil Eye.

Cian went then to a woman-Druid, Birog of the Mountain, for her help.
And she dressed him in a woman's clothes, and brought him across the sea
in a blast of wind, to the tower where Ethlinn was. Then she called to
the women in the tower, and asked them for shelter for a high queen she
was after saving from some hardship, and the women in the tower did not
like to refuse a woman of the Tuatha de Danaan, and they let her and her
comrade in. Then Birog by her enchantments put them all into a deep
sleep, and Cian went to speak with Ethlinn. And when she saw him she
said that was the face she had seen in her dreams. So she gave him her
love; but after a while he was brought away again on a blast of wind.

And when her time came, Ethlinn gave birth to a son. And when Balor knew
that, he bade his people put the child in a cloth and fasten it with a
pin, and throw him into a current of the sea. And as they were carrying
the child across an arm of the sea, the pin dropped out, and the child
slipped from the cloth into the wat