thee until the time came when Eochaid might permit it. 'Tis not
through any will of thine that I have won thee." "I myself told thee,"
said Etain, "that until Eochaid should resign me to thee I would grant
thee nothing. Take me then for my part, if Eochaid is willing to
resign me to thee."

"But I will not resign thee!" said Eochaid; "nevertheless he shall take
thee in his arms upon the floor of this house as thou art."

"It shall be done!" said Mider.

He took his weapons into his left hand and the woman beneath his right
shoulder; and he carried her off through the skylight of the house.
And the hosts rose up around the king, for they felt that they had been
disgraced, and they saw two swans circling round Tara, and the way that
they took was the way to the elf-mound of Femun. And Eochaid with an
army of the men of Ireland went to the elf-mound of Femun, which men
call the mound of the Fair-haired-Women. And he followed the counsel
of the men of Ireland, and he dug up each of the elf-mounds that he
might take his wife from thence. [And Mider and his host opposed them
and the war between them was long: again and again the trenches made by
Eochaid were destroyed, for nine years as some say lasted the strife of
the men of Ireland to enter into the fairy palace. And when at last
the armies of Eochaid came by digging to the borders of the fairy
mansion, Mider sent to the side of the palace sixty women all in the
shape of Etain, and so like to her that none could tell which was the
queen. And Eochaid himself was deceived, and he chose, instead of
Etain, her daughter Messbuachalla (or as some say Esa.) But when he
found that he had been deceived, he returned again to sack Bri Leith,
and this time Etain made herself known to Eochaid, by proofs that he