'Have a care,' answered the queen, 'for it is not with a smile as
on the other days that he will greet you. Furiously he will meet
you, and will ask you in his wrath if you have got the sword, and
you will reply that you have got it. Next he will want to know
how you got it, and to this you must say that but for the knob
you had not got it at all. Then he will raise his head to look at
the knob, and you must stab him in the mole which is on the right
side of his neck; but take heed, for if you miss the mole with
the point of the sword, then my death and your death are certain.
He is brother to the king of the oak windows, and sure will he be
that the king must be head, or the sword would not be in your
hands.' After that she kissed him, and bade him good speed.

'Didst thou get the sword?' asked the Gruagach, when they met in
the usual place.

'I got the sword.'

'And how didst thou get it?'

'If it had not had a knob on the top, then I had not got it,'
answered the king.

'Give me the sword to look at,' said the Gruagach, peering
forward; but like a flash the king had drawn it from under his
nose and pierced the mole, so that the Gruagach rolled over on
the ground.

'Now I shall be at peace,' thought the king. But he was wrong,