"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."
Then the woman goes to him.
"I know not," says he, "whether it is a fly or a gnat, or an ant that
nips me in the wound."
It happened that it was a hairy wolf that was there, as far as its two
shoulders in the wound!
The woman seized it by the tail, and dragged it out of the wound, and it
takes the full of its jaws out of him.
"Truly," says the woman, "this is 'an ant of ancient land.'"
Says Mac cecht "I swear to God what my people swears, I deemed it no
bigger than a fly, or a gnat, or an ant."
And Mac cecht took the wolf by the throat, and struck it a blow on the
forehead, and killed it with a single blow.
Then Le fri flaith, son of Conaire, died under Mac cecht's armpit, for
the warrior's heat and sweat had dissolved him.
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