I have imagined as good, when I had as much ale, and believed it too.
I tell you, Cuchulain, you never did. You never imagined a story like this.
Why must you be always putting yourself up against Leagerie and myself? and what is more, it was no imagination at all. We said to ourselves that all came out of the flagon, and we laughed, and we said we will tell nobody about it. We made an oath to tell nobody. But twelve months after when we were sitting by this table, the flagon between us—
The thought of that story had put us from our drinking—
Suddenly that man came in with his head on his shoulders again, and the big sword in his hand. He asked for payment of his debt, and because neither I nor Leagerie would let him cut off our heads he began abusing us and making little of us, and saying that we were a disgrace, and that all Ireland was disgraced because of us. We had not a word to say.
If you had been here you would have been as silent as we were.
At last he said he would come again in twelve months and give us one more chance to keep our word and pay our debt. After that he went down into the sea again. Will he tell the whole world of the disgrace that has come upon us, do you think?
Whether he does or does not, we will stand there in the door with our swords out and drive him down to the sea again.
What is the use of fighting with a man whose head laughs when it has been cut off?
We might run away, but he would follow us everywhere.
He is coming; the sea is beginning to splash and rumble as it did before he came the last time.
Let us shut the door and put our backs against it.
It is too late. Look, there he is at the door. He is standing on the threshold.
[_A MAN dressed in red, with a great sword and red ragged hair, and having a Golden Helmet on his head, is standing on the threshold._
Go back into the sea, old red head! If you will take off heads, take off the head of the sea turtle of Muirthemne, or of the pig of Connaught that has a moon in his belly, or of that old juggler Manannan, son of the sea, or of the red man of the Boyne, or of the King of the Cats, for they are of your own sort, and it may be they understand your ways. Go, I say, for when a man’s head is off it does not grow again. What are you standing there for? Go down, I say. If I cannot harm you with the sword I will put you down into the sea with my hands. Do you laugh at me, old red head? Go down before I lay my hands upon you.