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Updated: May 12, 2025
He saw then over Duv Laca's shoulder a little black-faced, tufty-headed cleric leaning against the door-post inside the room. "What are you doing there?" said Mongan. "What are you doing there yourself?" said the little black-faced cleric. "Indeed, I have a right to be in my own house," said Mongan. "Indeed I do not agree with you," said the cleric. "Where ought I be, then?" said Mongan.
Then Mongan puffed out his cheeks till his face looked like a bladder, and he blew a magic breath at the hag, so that she seemed to be surrounded by a fog, and when she looked through that breath everything seemed to be different to what she had thought. Then she began to beg everybody's pardon. "I had an evil vision," said she, "I saw crossways.
And then the king cried out in dismay: "I have beaten Tibraide''s people." He rushed from the room. "Send for Tibraide' till I apologise," he cried. "Tell him it was all a mistake. Tell him it was Mongan." But at the end of a time that pleasure was worn out, and Mongan grew at first dispirited and then sullen, and after that as ill as he had been on the previous occasion.
But every time he sent anything to the hag, mac an Da'v snatched it out of her lap and put it in his pocket. "Now," said Mongan to the hag, "tell the servant to say that you would not leave your own husband for all the wealth of the world." She told the servant that, and the servant told it to the king.
"But," sobbed mac an Da'v, "what right have I to complain? I am only the servant, and although I didn't make any bargain with the King of Leinster or with any king of them all, yet my wife is gone away as if she was the consort of a potentate the same as Duv Laca is." Mongan was sorry then for his servant, and he roused himself. "I am going to send you to Duv Laca."
Two days passed, and half the third, and Mongan did nothing, but remained at his ease entirely, never troubling in the world. As for his wife, poor woman, from the moment he made the wager her tears had not ceased to flow. "Make an end of weeping," said he; "help will certainly come to us." Forgoll came to claim his bond. "Wait you till the evening," said Mongan.
"Do you see this woman sitting beside me?" he continued, pointing to Duv Laca. "I do indeed," said Mongan. "Well," said Branduv, "this woman is Duv Laca of the White Hand that I took away from Mongan; she is just going to marry me, but if you will make an exchange, you can marry this Duv Laca here, and I will marry that Ivell of the Shining Cheeks yonder." Mongan pretended to be very angry then.
He set off then, and the others followed, staring about them cautiously, and each man keeping a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Are we in Faery?" the Flame Lady asked. "We are," said Mongan. When they had gone a little distance they came to a grove of ancient trees. Mightily tail and well grown these trees were, and the trunk of each could not have been spanned by ten broad men.
Minutes would pass and only a few travellers would come, and minutes more would go when nobody was in sight at all. Then two men came down the road: they were clerics. "I never saw that kind of uniform before," said mac an Da'v. "Even if you didn't," said Mongan, "there are plenty of them about. They are men that don't believe in our gods," said he. "Do they not, indeed?" said mac an Da'v.
The King of Leinster at that time was Branduv, the son of Echach. He welcomed Mongan and treated him well, and that night Mongan slept in his palace. When he awoke in the morning he looked out of a lofty window, and he saw on the sunny lawn before the palace a herd of cows.
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