His father asked him to take nine times nine nines of men with him, if he was bent on fulfilling his geasa.
But Ciad said: “No. I shall not take nine men. Give me a ship, and let my brothers Ceud and Mith-Ceud go along with me. If it is possible to get the bottle of loca of the Queen of the Island of the Riches of the World, I, with Ceud and Mith-Ceud, will get it. If it is impossible, then your nine times nine nines of men would be lost to you, as well as we.”
His father gave him the best ship in the harbor, and with Ceud and Mith-Ceud, Ciad, on the morrow, set out on his quest.
They sailed for two days and two nights without meeting any adventure; and on the third day they saw a speck on the sea, far off. Very soon they saw it was a ship coming towards them. As they came nearer to it they found that it was very large, and when they came very near they saw that in the ship was one person, a great giant, greater than any giant in Norway.
When the strange ship came up beside them, the giant asked Ciad who he was and what right he had to sail these waters.
Ciad said: “My name I’m not ashamed of. I am Ciad, the son of the King of Norway, a hero. Who are you, and by what right do you question me?”
He said: “I am the Giant of the Great Seas, and I allow no ship upon these waters.”
Said Ciad: “If that is your law I am sorry for you, for it’s going to be broken this day.”
The giant raised his spear, and Ciad, without waiting, leaped aboard the giant’s ship with his spear in his hand and with his shield before him.
Ciad and the Giant of the Great Seas fell to, and fought as two men never fought before. Their fight was so loud and so fierce and so terrible that the seals came from the North Seas and the whales came from the deeps of the ocean, and the little red fishes came up from the sea-meadows and gathered around the ships to watch the fight. The giant was brave and a great fighter, without doubt; his strength and skill were wonderful; but the courageous spirit of Ciad was greater than the giant’s strength and skill. When the sun was two hours above the Eastern waters they had begun the fight, and when it was going down into the Western waters the fight was not ended. But it was very nearly so, for the giant was weakening, and soon he would have been beaten, but he gave three calls, and a blue mist came down from the skies and wrapped his ship round.
When the mist cleared away, the giant and the ship were gone, and Ciad was struggling in the water.
Ceud and Mith-Ceud took him aboard and found he was so badly abused and so weak from fighting and loss of blood, that there was nothing for it but to return home; so home they went.
At home Ciad lay in his bed for three days, with his father’s doctors attending him. At the end of that time he got up and asked his father to give him thirty men and another ship, that he might set out on his journey again.
His father tried to persuade him not to go, but it was of no use. Ciad said if he did not fulfill his geasa, he could never hold up his head with men again.
Then he set out with two ships. Ceud, Mith-Ceud, and himself were in one ship, and his father’s thirty men in the other.
They sailed for three days and three nights in the same direction in which they had gone before, and on the morning of the fourth day, he saw two specks on the waters, far off. They were coming towards him. They got larger every moment. He saw they were two ships. When they came nearer, he saw the giant standing in one, and a host of men in the other. When they came quite close, Ciad hailed the Giant of the Great Seas and asked him did he mean battle.
The giant replied: “If you do not mean battle, I do not.”
“Where are you going, then?” Ciad asked.
The giant said: “I’m going in search of the Riches of the World.”
“Where is that to be found?” said Ciad.
“It’s on an island in the Far World,” the giant said, “and is owned by the Queen of the Island of the Riches of the World.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” Ciad said.
The giant agreed to this, and all sailed off.
They sailed away and away, far further than I could tell you, and twice as far as you could tell me, until at length they reached the island.
The giant said to Ciad: “Send your men on the island first, and demand the Riches of the World.”
Ciad agreed to this, and sent his men on the island on a morning, but when night fell they had not come back. Next day Ciad himself landed, and went in search of them. In the second valley, he found his thirty men lying in blood. He said: “This is the giant’s doing.”
So he went back to his ship and told his two brothers if they would engage the giant’s men, he would engage the giant himself. This was agreed to, and they attacked the giant and his men.
A fiercer and bloodier battle was never fought on sea or land. The noise and the din were so loud, and the battling was so fierce, that the seals came down from the North Seas, the whales up from the deeps of the ocean, and the little red fishes, too, from the sea-meadows, gathering around the ship to watch the fight. For the length of a day they battled, and when the sun was one hour above the Western waters, Ceud, Mith-Ceud, and the giant’s men were all of them dead, but Ciad and the giant still battled. When the hoop of the sun was on the waters, the giant, finding himself weakening too fast, gave three calls. Ciad saw the blue mist coming down; he gave a bound into the air and drove his spear to the giant’s heart, and killed him.
Then he went on the island, and stood his two brothers up against a rock facing the east, with helmets on their heads, and shields and spears in their hands. On the next morning he set out to travel over the island, and at night he came to a little hut, where he found one old hag. He asked her if she had no company.
She said: “Yes, I have plenty of that.”
He asked to see her company.
She struck her staff on the hearthstone, and up sprang nine other hags as old and as ugly as herself. She struck the staff again upon the hearthstone, and then they were the nine most beautiful damsels Ciad had ever seen. The hag said: “If you stay with me, you can have your choice of these nine beautiful damsels for your wife.”
But Ciad remembered Dark Eye of France, and also remembered his geasa, and he said to the hag, he would have none of them.
Then she struck her staff upon the ground angrily, and they all disappeared.
He asked for supper and a bed for the night, and the old hag gave him the toes and the tongue of a rabbit for supper. She gave him a heather bed that scored and cut him, and an old black cat for a bedfellow.
In the morning he told the hag that he was looking for the queen of this island.
She said : “I am the queen.”
“If that is so,” he said, “I demand the bottle of loca and the Riches of the World.”
“That,” she said, “I am glad you cannot have.”
“If I cannot have it,” he said, “I will take your staff and break your old bones.”
“It’s like a hero to do that,” she said scoffingly; “but even if you made meal of my old bones, you would not be nearer the bottle of loca and the Riches of the World.”
Ciad asked how that was.
She said: “Feach-An-Chruic [the Terrible Man of the Hill] took away the bottle of loca and the Riches of the World from me two hundred years ago.”
“I do not believe it,” said Ciad.
But she took him outside and showed him the hoof tracks of the Feach’s horses, where last night’s rains were still lying in them.
“Where does Feach-An-Chruic live?” Ciad asked.
“He lives a third part of the world from here,” the hag said.
“How may I get there?” Ciad said.