Page:Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland (Curtin).djvu/272

 They went a short distance from the castle of the king and pitched a tent.

Said Gilla to Fin, "Now we are hungry, and I must find food for you and myself."

So Gilla na Grakin went to the castle and asked food of the king of the Flood.

"You 'll get nothing to eat from me. I have no food in this place to give you or the like of you; but there is a wild bull in the wood outside. Find him: if you kill him, you 'll have something to eat; if not you 'll go fasting," said the king of the Flood to Gilla na Grakin.

Gilla went out to the wood, and when the wild bull saw a man coming towards him he drove his horns into the ground, and put an acre of land over his own back. Then he threw up an oak-tree, roots and all, till it nearly reached the sky, and made at Gilla na Grakin. But if he did, Gilla was ready for him and faced him, and when the bull came up, he caught him by the horns and threw him to the ground; then putting a foot on one horn, he took the other in his two hands, split the bull from muzzle to tail, and made two halves of him.

Gilla carried the carcass to the tent, and when he had taken off the skin he said to Fin, "We have no pot to boil the meat in. Well, I 'll go to the king again."