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Her heart sank like a pool-lily at shadow, when she saw that Morag had woven a wreath of brown tangled seaweed into her hair.
"He's sharpening a knife to kill a bullock in the morning," said Morag. "Come now, and I'll give you your supper." She took him to the kitchen at the back of the house. She gave him porridge and milk and he ate his supper. Then she showed him a ladder to a room above, and he went up there and made a bed for himself.
"Halt, Pooka," said Flann in a commanding voice. The black horse halted and the Pooka that was its rider slipped down to its tail. Flann held the snorting horse and Morag got on its back. Then Flann sprang up between Morag and the horse's head. Crom Duv was just beside them. "Away, Pooka, away," said Flann, and the horse started through the wood like the wind of March.
Morag was taken to the Stone House by strong-armed bondswomen, and Baun and Deelish sat in corners and cried and did not go near her. That night the King's foster-daughters kept awake for long, and after Baun had sung to them they asked her to tell them what had happened in the Castle. Then Baun remembered the tumult in the kitchen that had come from the name given to Breas.
They crossed the river that marked the bounds of Crom Duv's domain and they were safe. Flann pulled up the horse and jumped on to the ground. Morag sprang down with the Little Red Hen. Then the Pooka swung forward and whispered into his horse's ear. Instantly it struck fire out of its hooves and sprang down the side of a hill.
Flann put the two berries into her hand, they jumped across the chain, and ran from the house of the Giant Crom Duv. They went into the wood, Flann and Morag, and the Little Red Hen was under Morag's arm. They thought they would hide behind trees until they heard the coming of the Pooka and his horse. But they were not far in the wood when they heard Crom Duv coming towards his house.
And as they went Morag told Flann of the life she had there when she and her foster-sisters were growing up, and Flann told Morag of the things he did when he was in the house of the Spae-Woman after she and her foster-sisters had left it. They climbed the heather-covered knowe on which was the Spae-Woman's house and the Little Red Hen went flitting and fluttering towards the gate.
"Hush," said Morag, and she pointed to seven yellow cats that were standing at Crom Duv's door, watching them. "The cats," said she, "are Crom Duv's watchers here and the Bull of the Mound is his watcher out-side." "And is this Little Red Hen a watcher too?" said Flann, for the Little Red Hen was watching them sideways.
The basket was left down and Gilveen began to tell MacStairn's wife how she wanted them cut, stitched and embroidered. Morag took up the crimson doth and let her scissors the scissors that the Queen of Senlabor gave her run through it. It cut out the pattern exactly. "What a wonderful scissors," said Gilveen.
I have heard that she has been away and has come back." "How did she fare?" said the Queen. "We have not heard that," said the maiden who spoke. The Queen went to where Baun and Deelish were and from them she heard that Morag had been put into the Stone House on the charge that she had broken the King's dish when she had been in the Castle before.
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