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Flann brought lime and sand to the mixing-pan and he mixed them in bullock's blood and new milk. He carried stones to Crom Duv. And so he worked until it was dark. Then Crom Duv got down from where he was building and told Flann to go into the house. The yellow cats were there and Flann counted sixteen of them. Eight more were outside, in the branches or around the stem of the Rowan Tree.
When Caintigern had come, when she knew her son Flann, and when it was known to her and to the Spae-Woman that the token Morag had given him held the seven drops of heart's blood that would bring back to their own forms the seven wild geese that were Caintigern's brothers when all this was known the Spae-Woman sent her most secret messenger to the marshes to give word to the seven wild geese that they were to fly to her house on the night when the moon was full.
"Seven years," said she, "but you will remember will you not that I loved you for bringing them to me?" "Will you remember me until I come back from my seven years' service?" "Oh, yes," said Flame-of-Wine, and she put the girdle around her waist as she spoke. "Someone said to me," said Flann, "that I should ask the maiden who loved me for seven drops of her heart's blood."
But he took the box out of his pack, and let Flann take the girdle. Flame-of-Wine saw him. She walked slowly down the orchard path so that all might notice the stateliness of her appearance. "I am glad to see you again, Flann," said she. "Have your comrades yet come back to my father's town?" Flann told her that one of them had returned. "Bid him come see me," said Flame-of-Wine.
He slept soundly, although he dreamed of the twenty-four yellow cats within, and the tremendous Bull of the Mound outside Crom Duv's Keep. This is how the days were spent in the house of Crom Duv. The Giant and his two servants, Flann and Morag, were out of their beds at the mouth of the day. Crom Duv sounded his horn and the Bull of the Mound bellowed an answer.
Gilveen had come into the room and she saw Flann and Morag give each other a true-lover's kiss. She went away.
"Bring the Comb of Magnificence to me too," said she. "I could not be proud of this rose, and I could not love you so well for bringing it to me if I thought that any other maiden had the Comb of Magnificence. Bring it to me, Flann." "I will bring it to you," said Flann. He was at the gate of the town when the King of Ireland's Son rode back on the Slight Red Steed.
It had the head and crest of a cock and the body of a black serpent. The cockatrice lifted itself up on its tail and looked at him with red eyes. The sight of that head made Flann dizzy and he fell down on the floor. Then it went down and the Hags put the hearthstone above it. "What will we do with the fellow?" said one of the Hags, looking at Flann who was in a swoon on the floor.
And at night, when the only stir in the forest was that of the leaves whispering to the Secret People, Gilveen arose from where she lay and came to the other bothie and whispered Flann's name. Then Gilveen ran back to her own bothie. And Flann did not know whether he had awakened or whether he had remained in a dream. But when he arose the next morning no thought of Morag was in his mind.
And when the King looked into Flann's eyes he knew he was his son and the son of Sheen, now known as Caintigern. He gave Flann a father's clasp of welcome. And the queen brought him to her own three brothers who had been estranged from human companionship from before he knew her.
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