In a wall-circled isle a big monster they found, With a hide like an elephant, leathery and bare; He threw up his heels with a wonderful bound, And ran round the isle with the speed of a hare. But a feat more astounding has yet to be told: He turned round and round in his leathery skin; His bones and his flesh and his sinews he rolled-- He was resting outside while he twisted within! Then changing his practice with marvellous skill, His carcase stood rigid and round went his hide; It whirled round his bones like the wheel of a mill-- He was resting within while he twisted outside! Next, standing quite near on a green little hill, After galloping round in the very same track, While the skin of his breast remained perfectly still, Like a millstone he twisted the skin of his back! But Maildune and his men put to sea in their boat, For they saw his two eyes looking over the wall; And they knew by the way that he opened his throat, He intended to swallow them, curragh and all! THE SILVER PILLAR OF THE SEA. The next wonderful thing the voyagers came across was an immense silver pillar standing in the sea. It had eight sides, each of which was the width of an oar-stroke of the curragh, so that its whole circumference was eight oar-strokes. It rose out of the sea without any land or earth about it, nothing but the boundless ocean; and they could not see its base deep down in the water, neither were they able to see the top on account of its vast height. A silver net hung from the top down to the very water, extending far out at one side of the pillar; and the meshes were so large that the curragh in full sail went through one of them. When they were passing through it, Diuran, one of Maildune's companions, struck the mesh with the edge of his spear, and with the blow cut a large piece off it. "Do not destroy the net," said Maildune; "for what we see is the work of great men." "What I have done," answered Diuran, "is for the honour of my God, and in order that the story of our adventures may be more readily believed; and I shall lay this silver as an offering on the altar of Armagh, if I ever reach Erin." That piece of silver weighed two ounces and a half, as it was reckoned afterwards by the people of the church of Armagh. After this the voyagers heard someone speaking on the top of the pillar, in a loud, clear, glad voice; but they knew neither what he said, nor in what language he spoke. XXXVI. MAILDUNE MEETS HIS ENEMY, IS RECONCILED TO HIM, AND ARRIVES HOME. The next land the travellers sighted was a small island. On a near approach they recognised it as the very same island they had seen in the beginning of their voyage, in which they had heard the man in the great house boast that he had slain Maildune's father, and from which the storm had driven them out into the great ocean.