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the foot of one of the men that had been hanged. Then the man spoke to him.
    “It is a good courage you have,” he said, “and bring me with you to where I can get a drink for I was very thirsty when I was hanged.” So Nera brought him where he could get a drink, and then he put him on the gallows again and went back to Cruachan.
    But what he saw was the whole palace as if it was on fire before him and the heads of the people lying on the ground and then he thought he saw an army going into the Hill of Cruachan and he followed after the army.
    “There is a man on our track,” the last man said.
    “The track is the heavier,” said the [man] next to him and each said that word to the other from the last to the first. Then they went into the Hill of Cruachan. And they said to their king:
    “What shall be done to the man that is come in?”
    “Let him come here till I speak with him,” said the king. So Nera came and the king asked him who it was had brought him in.
    “I came in with your army,” said Nera.
    “Go to that house beyond,” said the king. “There is a woman there that will make you welcome. Tell her it is I, myself, sent you to her. And come every day,” he said, “to this house with a load of firing.”
    So Nera went where he was told and the woman said: “A welcome before you if it is the king sent you.” So he stopped there and took the woman for his wife. And every day for three days, he brought a load of firing to the king’s house, and on each day he saw a blind man and a lame man on his back coming out of the house before him. They would go on until they were at the brink of the well before the hill.
    “Is it there?” the blind man would say.
    “It is indeed,” the lame man would say. “Let us go away,” the lame man would say then.
    And at the end of three days, as he thought, Nera asked the woman about this.
    “Why do the blind man and the lame man go every day to the well?” he said.
    “They go to know is the crown safe that is in the well. It is where the king’s crown is kept.”
    “Why do these two go?” said Nera.
    “It is easy to tell that,” she said, “they are trusted by the king to visit the crown, and one of them was blinded by him and the other was lamed. And another thing,” she said, “go and give a warning to your people to mind themselves next Samhain night, unless they will come and attack the hill, for it is only at Samhain,” she said, “the army of the Sidhe can go out, for it is at that time all the hills of the Sidhe of Ireland are opened. But if they will come, I will promise them this, the crown of Briun to be carried off by Ailell and by Maeve.”
    “How can I give them that message,” said Nera, “when I saw the whole dun of Cruachan burned and destroyed and all the people destroyed with it?”
    “You did not see that indeed,” she said. “It was the host of the Sidhe came and put that appearance before your eyes. And go back to them now,” she said, “and you willfind them sitting round the same great pot, and the meat not yet taken off the fire.”
    “How will it be believed that I have gone into the Hill?” said Nera.
    “Bring flowers of summer with you,” said the woman. So he brought wild garlic with him, and primroses and golden fern.
    So he went back to the palace and he found his people round the same great pot, and he told them all that had happened to him, and the sword was given to him, and he stopped with his people to the end of a year.
    At the end of the year, Ailell said to Nera: “We are going now against the Hill of the Sidhe, and let you go back,” he said, “if you have anything to bring out of it.” So he went back to see the woman and she bade him welcome.
    “Go now,” she said, “and bring a load of firing to the king, for I went in myself every day for the last year with the load on my back, and I said there was sickness on you.” So he did that.
    Then the men of Connaught and the black host of the