And he made a rush
through the Fianna to break them up entirely and to tear them into
strings, and they gave way before him. And great shame came on Fidach,
son of the King of the Bretons, and he said: "Come here and praise me,
Fergus of the True Lips, till I go out and fight with the foreigner."
"It is easy to praise you, son," said Fergus, and he was praising him
for a long time.
Then the two looked at one another and used fierce, proud words. And
then Mongach of the Sea raised his iron flail and made a great blow at
the King of the Bretons' son. But he made a quick leap to one side and
gave him a blow of his sword that cut off his two hands at the joint;
and he did not stop at that, but made a blow at his middle that cut him
into two halves. But as he fell, an apple of the flail with its deadly
thorns went into Fidach's comely mouth and through his brain, and it was
foot to foot those two fell, and lip to lip.
And the next that came to fight on the strand was the King of Lochlann
himself, Caisel of the Feathers. And he came to the battle having his
shield on his arm; and it is the way the shield was, that was made for
him by the smith of the Fomor, there were red flames coming from it; and
if it was put under the sea itself, not one of its flames would stop
blazing. And when he had that shield on his arm no man could come near
him.
And there was never such destruction done on the men of Ireland as on
that day, for the flames of fire that he sent from his shield went
through the bodies of men till they blazed up like a splinter of oak
that was after hanging through the length of a year in the smoke of a
chimney; and any one that would touch the man that was burning would
catch fire himself.
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