Then before morning he had travelled to the chief lakes of Erin, to wit, Lough Derg, Loch Luimnig, Lough Foyle, Lough Mask, Long Corrib, Loch Laig, Loch Cuan, Lough Neagh, Morloch, and of water he found not therein the full of his cup.

He went his way till he reached Uaran Garad on Magh Ai.  It could not hide itself from him:  so he brought thereout the full of his cup, and the boy fell under his covering.

After this he went on and reached Da Derga’s Hostel before morning.

When Mac cecht went across the third ridge towards the house, ’tis there were twain striking off Conaire’s head.  Then Mac cecht strikes off the head of one of the two men who were beheading Conaire.  The other man then was fleeing forth with the king’s head.  A pillar-stone chanced to be under Mac cecht’s feet on the floor of the Hostel.  He hurls it at the man who had Conaire’s head and drove it through his spine, so that his back broke.  After this Mac cecht beheads him.  Mac cecht then spilt the cup of water into Conaire’s gullet and neck.  Then said Conaire’s head, after the water had been put into its neck and gullet: 

     “A good man Mac cecht! an excellent man Mac cecht! 
     A good warrior without, good within,
     He gives a drink, he saves a king, he doth a deed. 
     Well he ended the champions I found. 
     He sent a flagstone on the warriors. 
     Well he hewed by the door of the Hostel ...  Fer le,
     So that a spear is against one hip. 
     Good should I be to far-renowned Mac cecht
     If I were alive.  A good man!”

After this Mac cecht followed the routed foe.

’Tis this that some books relate, that but a very few fell around Conaire, namely, nine only.  And hardly a fugitive escaped to tell the tidings to the champions who had been at the house.

Where there had been five thousand—­and in every thousand ten hundred—­only one set of five escaped, namely Ingcel, and his two brothers Echell and Tulchinne, the “Yearling of the Reavers”—­three great-grandsons of Conmac, and the two Reds of Roiriu who had been the first to wound Conaire.

Thereafter Ingcel went into Alba, and received the kingship after his father, since he had taken home triumph over a king of another country.

This, however, is the recension in other books, and it is more probably truer.  Of the folk of the Hostel forty or fifty fell, and of the reavers three fourths and one fourth of them only escaped from the Destruction.

Now when Mac cecht was lying wounded on the battle-field, at the end of the third day, he saw a woman passing by.

“Come hither, O woman!” says Mac cecht.

“I dare not go thus,” says the woman, “for horror and fear of thee.”

“There was a time when I had this, O woman, even horror and fear of me on some one.  But now thou shouldst fear nothing.  I accept thee on the truth of my honour and my safeguard.”