And with that he put off his arms and his
clothes, all but the shirt that was next his skin, and he struck the
Crann Buidhe, the spear of Manannan, into the earth with the point
upwards. And then he rose with a leap and lit on the point of the spear
as light as a bird, and came down off it again without a wound on him.
Then a young man of the Green Champions said: "It is a man has never
seen feats that would call that a feat"; and he put off his clothing and
made a leap, and if he did he came down heavily on the point of the
spear, and it went through his heart, and he fell to the ground. The
next day Diarmuid came again, and he brought two forked poles out of the
wood and put them standing upright on the hill, and he put the sword of
Angus Og, the Mor-alltach, the Big-fierce one, between the two forks on
its edge. Then he raised himself lightly over it, and walked on the
sword three times from the hilt to the point, and he came down and asked
was there a man of them could do that feat.
"That is a foolish question," said a man of them then, "for there was
never any feat done in Ireland but a man of our own would do it." And
with that he rose up to walk on the sword; but it is what happened, he
came down heavily on it the way he was cut in two halves.
The rest of the champions bade him take away his sword then, before any
more of their people would fall by it; and they asked him had he any
word of the grandson of Duibhne.
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