Grainne called her servant to bring a great golden cup, to fill it to the brim, and to pass it around the table. Finn drank, and Cormac drank, and so the cup went round until all had drunk except Diarmuid. Then Grainne stopped the cup, and soon all who had drunk were in a sleep like the sleep of death. Then Grainne rose softly and went down the hall to sit by Diarmuid.

'Receive my love, Diarmuid,' said she, 'and give me back your own.'

'I will not, and dare not,' said he, 'meddle with a woman who is promised to Finn Mac Cool.'

'Then, O Diarmuid, I will put you under a geasa, a spell of danger and destruction, if you do not take me out from this house tonight, before Finn and the king awake.'

'Those are evil bonds, woman,' replied Diarmuid, 'and why have you chosen me above many great men at the feast? Not one of them is less worthy of love than myself.'

'Do not question me. My eye fell on you, and my love followed my look.'

'But it is a hard burden you place on me. And do you not know that when Finn sleeps at Tara, he himself keeps the keys of the house?'

'All the world knows,' she replied, 'that a good warrior of Ireland can leap the wall by the shafts of his spear. You shall do that, and I shall follow through a little hidden door.'

Then Diarmuid took counsel among his own people. Oisin and Oscar and other companions told him to go with Grainne, for it was a bad stroke indeed to break the bond of a geasa, and the maiden herself was worthy to be loved. But Dering the druid spoke a warning.

'In the footsteps of that woman, death awaits you. But you must go with her, for the spell and the bond placed upon you shall not be broken.'

When he heard this, Diarmuid made one last appeal.

'My friends, is this your counsel?' he cried.

'Yea, it is so,' they said, one and all.

So, Diarmuid armed himself, and he wept some tears for his friends. Then he stood before the wall and thrust down on his spears, and with a light airy leap he cleared the wall of the fort and the ditch beyond. On the green of the field Grainne was waiting, but still Diarmuid held back.

'Tis a bad journey we are starting on,' said he. 'Much better for you would be Finn Mac Cool. Who in all Ireland can hide us from his anger? Return now, before the sleepers awake.'

'I will not go back,' she replied, 'and I will not part from you till death carries me away.'

There was not more to say. Away they went before the dawn, westward into Connacht. They crossed the ford on the Shannon and came to Two-Hut-Wood in Clanrickard. Diarmuid cut branches and made a fence with seven wattle doors, and in the middle he made for Grainne a bed of soft rushes and the tops of the birch-trees.