Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

MAGHACH COLGAR. I77
""Wniether wouldst thou rather, Cath Conan, go
with me or stay here ? "
" I would rather go with thee."
They went, and when they reached the place of
combat, no man met them. They reached where
they were ; they sat there, and what should Cath
Conan do but fall asleep, they were so long coming
out. It was not long after that till they began to
come, and the doors to open. There was a door
before every day in the year on every burgh, so that
they burst forth all together about the head of Diarmid.
Diarmid began at them, and with the sound of the
glaves and return of the men, Cath Conan awoke, and
he began thrusting his sword in the mid leg of Diarmid.
Then Diarmid felt a tickling in the middle of his leg.
He cast a glance from him, and what should he see
but Cath Conan worldng with his own sword.
" Wailing be on thee, Cath Conan," said Diarmid ;
" pass by thy own man and hit thy foe, for it is as well
for thee to thrust it into younder bundle* as to be
cramming it into my leg. Do not thou plague me
now till I hit my foe !"
They killed every man of the people.
They thought of those who were iu the burgh, and
they without food ; each one of them took with him
the full of his napldn, and liis breast, and his pouches.
" Wlio 's that Avithout ?" said Fionn.
" I am Diarmid, thy sister's son."
" How are the Greeks 1"
" Every man of them is dead, "without a soul."
" Oh, come and bring hither to me a deUverance
of food."
* There is a pun here, which cannot he rendered a boot .j,- a
bundle, as of hay, or a crowd of men.
VOL. II. N