God heard Ronan's prayer, for when Suibhne came to the centre of Sliabh Fuaid he stopped still there, and a strange apparition appeared to him at midnight; even trunks, headless and red, and heads without bodies, and five bristling, rough-grey heads without body or trunk among them, screaming and leaping this way and that about the road. When he came among them he heard them talking to each other, and this is what they were saying: ‘He is a madman,’ said the first head; ‘a madman of Ulster,’ said the second head; ‘follow him well,’ said the third head; ‘may the pursuit be long,’ said the fourth head; ‘until he reaches the