It was the foreigner they had with them gave them the course up to this time, for he had been on the same track before.  But now they went on through the length of six weeks and never saw land, and he said then, “We are astray on the great ocean that has no boundaries.”  Then the wind with its sharp voice began to rise, and there was a noise like the tramping of feet in the sea, and it rose up into great mountains hard to climb, and there was great fear on Tadg’s people, for they had never seen the like.  But he began to stir them up and to rouse them, and he bade them to meet the sea like men.  “Do bravery,” he said, “young men of Munster, and fight for your lives against the waves that are rising up and coming at the sides of the curragh.”  Tadg took one side of the curragh then and his men took the other side, and he was able to pull it round against the whole twenty-nine of them, and to bale it out and keep it dry along with that.  And after a while they got a fair wind and put up their sail, the way less water came into the curragh, and then the sea went down and lay flat and calm, and there were strange birds of many shapes singing around them in every part.  They saw land before them then, with a good coast, and with that courage and gladness came on them.

And when they came nearer to the land they found a beautiful inver, a river’s mouth, with green hills about it, and the bottom of it sandy and as bright as silver, and red-speckled salmon in it, and pleasant woods with purple tree-tops edging the stream.  “It is a beautiful country this is,” said Tadg, “and it would be happy for him that would be always in it; and let you pull up the ship now,” he said, “and dry it out.”

A score of them went forward then into the country, and a score stopped to mind the curragh.  And for all the cold and discouragement and bad weather they had gone through, they felt no wish at all for food or for fire, but the sweet smell of the crimson branches in the place they were come to satisfied them.  They went on through the wood, and after a while they came to an apple garden having red apples in it, and leafy oak-trees, and hazels yellow with nuts.  “It is a wonder to me,” said Tadg, “to find summer here, and it winter time in our own country.”

It was a delightful place they were in, but they went on into another wood, very sweet smelling, and round purple berries in it, every one of them bigger than a man’s head, and beautiful shining birds eating the berries, strange birds they were, having white bodies and purple heads and golden beaks.  And while they were eating the berries they were singing sweet music, that would have put sick men and wounded men into their sleep.

Tadg and his men went farther on again till they came to a great smooth flowery plain with a dew of honey over it, and three steep hills on the plain, having a very strong dun on every one of them.  And when they got to the nearest hill they found a white-bodied woman, the best of the women of the whole world, and it is what she said:  “Your coming is welcome, Tadg, son of Cian, and there will be food and provision for you as you want it.”