Cuchulain, a little after you went out of this country we were sitting here drinking. We were merry. It was late, close on to midnight, when a strange-looking man with red hair and a great sword in his hand came in through that door. He asked for ale and we gave it to him, for we were tired of drinking with one another. He became merry, and for every joke we made he made a better, and presently we all three got up and danced, and then we sang, and then he said he would show us a new game. He said he would stoop down and that one of us was to cut off his head, and afterwards one of us, or whoever had a mind for the game, was to stoop down and have his head whipped off. ‘You take off my head,’ said he, ‘and then I take off his head, and that will be a bargain and a debt between us. A head for a head, that is the game,’ said he. We laughed at him and told him he was drunk, for how could he whip off a head when his own had been whipped off? Then he began abusing us and calling us names, so I ran at him and cut his head off, and the head went on laughing where it lay, and presently he caught it up in his hands and ran out and plunged into the sea. CUCHULAIN [_laughs_]. I have imagined as good, when I had as much ale, and believed it too. LEAGERIE [_at table_]. I tell you, Cuchulain, you never did. You never imagined a story like this. CONAL. 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— LEAGERIE. But full up to the brim— CONAL. The thought of that story had put us from our drinking— LEAGERIE. We were telling it over to one another— CONAL. 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. LEAGERIE. If you had been here you would have been as silent as we were. CONAL. 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? CUCHULAIN. 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. CONAL. What is the use of fighting with a man whose head laughs when it has been cut off? LEAGERIE. We might run away, but he would follow us everywhere. CONAL. He is coming; the sea is beginning to splash and rumble as it did before he came the last time. CUCHULAIN.