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Trotting by the side of Cael, the Carl thrust a hand into the tail of his coat and pulled out a fistfull of red bones. "Here, my heart, is a meaty bone," said he, "for you fasted all night, poor friend, and if you pick a bit off the bone your stomach will get a rest." "Keep your filth, beggarman," the other replied, "for I would rather be hanged than gnaw on a bone that you have browsed."
"And during my absence," Fionn continued, "I leave this as a compact, that you make friends with the Fianna here present, and that you observe all the conditions and ceremonies of friendship." Cael agreed to that. "I will not hurt any of these people until you return," he said.
"I give it up," the Carl mumbled. "It's yourself, beggarman," jeered Cael. "I am myself," the Carl gurgled through a mouthful of blackberries, "and as I am myself, how can it be myself? That is a silly riddle," he burbled. "Look at your coat, tub of grease?" The Carl did so. "My faith," said he, "where are the two tails of my coat?"
"Be reassured, my darling, I am no beggarman, and my quality is not more gross than is the blood of the most delicate prince in this assembly. You will not evade your challenge in that way, my love, and you shall run with me or you shall run to your ship with me behind you. What length of course do you propose, dear heart?" "I never run less than sixty miles," Cael replied sullenly.
"Why don't you run, my pulse?" said the Carl earnestly; "why don't you try to win the race?" Cael then began to move his limbs as if they were the wings of a fly, or the fins of a little fish, or as if they were the six legs of a terrified spider. "I am running," he gasped.
"If all the Fianna who have died in the last seven years were added to all that are now here," the stranger asserted, "I would treat all of these and those grievously, and would curtail their limbs and their lives." "It is no small boast," Cona'n murmured, staring at him. "It is no boast at all," said Cael, "and, to show my quality and standing, I will propose a deed to you."
"Not half a second will I wait," Cael replied, and he began to run towards Ben Edair as a lover runs to his maiden or as a bee flies to his hive. "I haven't had half my share of blackberries either," the Carl lamented as he started to run backwards for his coat-tails.
These two set out then for Munster, and as the sun was setting they reached Slieve Luachra and prepared to spend the night there. "Cael, my pulse," said the Carl, "we had better build a house or a hut to pass the night in." "I'Il build nothing," Cael replied, looking on the Carl with great disfavour. "No!"
"Let me go home," groaned Cael, "I want to go home." "Swear by the sun and moon, if I let you go home, that you will send to Fionn, yearly and every year, the rent of the land of Thessaly." "I swear that," said Cael, "and I would swear anything to get home." The Carl lifted him then and put him sitting into his ship.
Sore to me, O sore to me Cael to be a dead man beside me, the waves to have gone over his white body; it is his pleasantness that has put my wits astray. A woeful shout, O a woeful shout the waves are making on the strand; they that took hold of comely Cael, a pity it is he went to meet them.
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