Thereafter Tairchell fared forth on the road, and carried two wallets with him, to wit, a wallet on his back and a wallet on his breast. In his hand he took his fosterer's staff, and in that wise went on a circuit. Now in one of the two wallets he would put grain and bread; and in the other wallet, biestings and butter and bacon. In his left hand (he held) a cup. Thus he continued until his sixteen years were complete, serving his fosterer and his foster-brothers.
Then he went, one day, to make a circuit of the Luachair, and on that day he searched it all. As he was singing his prayer he saw a misshapen, ugly monster athwart the path before him. This was the Evil Spectre with his black, ugly, misshapen household, human beings, to wit, in forms of spectres.19 And they used to give no sanctuary to anyone on earth, namely, the Evil Spectre himself and his wife, his gillie, his hound, and his nine followers.
When they were there on the road, they saw coming towards them the scholar, with his burden upon him, wending his way towards the church. Said the Spectre to his household: ‘Bide ye there till I go to converse with yon solitary person. And I give my word that, since I took to robbery and marauding, I never wished to protect anyone save him yonder alone.’
Then he seized his weapons and came forward to
‘Naught, indeed, will be the scholar,’ quoth he. ‘I will put this spear through thy heart, so that thou wilt find death and extinction and a tragic ending.’ ‘I give my word,’ says Tairchell, ‘that I will rap thy head with this staff which is in my hand, to wit, my fosterer's staff; and he has promised that it would not be left in a single combat.’ Whereupon Tairchell said:
‘An ashen staff, heavy its crushing on the side of the cheek of the furious mad champion:
Thick its shaft, strong its neck: no grasp of a man's hand surrounds it.’
And after that the cleric said (to the Spectres): ‘Grant me a boon.’ ‘What boon dost thou ask?’ say they. ‘Easy (to say): to let me have my three steps of pilgrimage towards the King of heaven and earth, and my three steps of folly also, so that death may be the further from me.’ ‘Let it be granted to thee,’ says the hag, ‘for thou wilt never get away from us; since we ourselves are as swift as wild deer, and our hound is as swift as the wind.’
Then he bound that (boon) on the Spectre's hand. Thereafter he leapt his three steps of pilgrimage and his three leaps of folly. The first leap that he leapt he seemed
‘He has gone yonder,’ says the Spectre's hag. Whereupon they ran, both hound and human, so that their outcry and their storm and their pursuit upon (Tairchell) were heard beyond a thousand paces in the air above him.21 But the hounds and the small folk of the town came forth, each to save the boy from them, for they were sure that the Spectres were pursuing him. 'Tis then he leapt from the wall, and reached the church, and sat in his place of prayer, so that he was chanting psalms opposite his fosterer. Until he had finished his order and his mass Collanach did not look at Tairchell. After that he looked at the boy, and thus he was, with the glow of the anger and the going upon him, and the radiance of the Godhead in his countenance.
‘Well, my, son,’ says the priest; ‘what is the rage of wrath that is in thy face?’ ‘Easy (to say); the evil Spectres attacked me and hunted me.’ And Tairchell related to him the whole story, how he had leapt the Luachair in his three leaps. ‘That is true,’ says the priest. ‘Thou art the prophesied one, whom the angel Victor foretold: thou wilt be (called) Molling of Luachair from the leaps that thou hast leapt (ro-lingis).’