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He flew to acquaint his master, and Fergus himself came to the great door of the stronghold. "By my faith," he cried in amazement, "it is a dog." "A dog it is," growled the glum servant. "Go you away," said Fergus to Uct Dealv, "and when you have killed the dog come back to me and I will give you a present."
He guessed that Uct Dealv had a hand in the disappearance of his queen, and he begged that time should be given him in which to find the lost girl. He promised if he could not discover her within a certain period that he would deliver his body into Fionn's hands, and would abide by whatever judgement Fionn might pronounce. The great captain agreed to that.
"Tell the wife-loser that I will have the girl or I will have his head," said Fionn. Iollan set out then for Faery. He knew the way, and in no great time he came to the hill where Uct Dealv was. It was hard to get Uct Dealv to meet him, but at last she consented, and they met under the apple boughs of Faery. "Well!" said Uct Dealv. "Ah! Breaker of Vows and Traitor to Love," said she.
"Give me your pledge," said Uct Dealv, "that if I save you from this danger you will keep me as your sweetheart until the end of life and time." "I give that pledge," said Iollan.
News was brought to Tlr na n-Og of the marriage of Iollan and Tuiren, and when Uct Dealv heard that news her heart ceased to beat for a moment, and she closed her eyes. "Now!" said her sister of the Shi'. "That is how long the love of a mortal lasts," she added, in the voice of sad triumph which is proper to sisters.
But on Uct Dealv there came a rage of jealousy and despair such as no person in the Shi' had ever heard of, and from that moment she became capable of every ill deed; for there are two things not easily controlled, and they are hunger and jealousy. She determined that the woman who had supplanted her in Iollan's affections should rue the day she did it.
"Have you heard of Fergus Fionnliath," she said again, "the man who does not like dogs?" Tuiren had indeed heard of him. "It is to Fergus I shall bring you," cried Uct Dealv. "He will throw stones at you. You have never had a stone thrown at you. Ah, bad girl!
With what eagerness and anticipation he had gone there; the lover's whistle that he used to give was known to every person in that Shi', and he had been discussed by more than one of the delicate sweet ladies of Faery. "That is your whistle, Fair Breast," her sister of the Shi' would say. And Uct Dealv would reply: "Yes, that is my mortal, my lover, my pulse, and my one treasure."
"They feel other things," she murmured; and an endless conversation recommenced. Then for some time Iollan did not come to Faery, and Uct Dealv marvelled at that, while her sister made an hundred surmises, each one worse than the last. "He is not dead or he would be here," she said. "He has forgotten you, my darling."
You shall whine and squeal at the moon, and shiver in the cold, and you will never take another girl's sweetheart again." And it was in those terms and in that tone that she spoke to Tuiren as they journeyed forward, so that the hound trembled and shrank, and whined pitifully and in despair. They came to Fergus Fionnliath's stronghold, and Uct Dealv demanded admittance.
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