It was midsummer. The air was warm about them, the lake-shores and the
plain clothed in green of many gently blended shades. The sun shone down
upon them, and the lakes mirrored the clear blue above. From their hill
of encampment descended the De Danaans, with their long slender spears
gleaming like bright gold, their swords of golden bronze firmly grasped,
their left hands griping the thong of their shields. Golden-haired, with
flowing tresses, they descended to the fight; what stately battle-song
they chanted, what Powers they called on for a blessing, we cannot tell;
nor in what terms the dark-browed Firbolgs answered them as they
approached across the plain. All that day did the hosts surge together,
spear launched against spear, and bronze sword clashing against shield;
all that day and for three days more, and then the fate of the Firbolgs
was decided. Great and dire was the slaughter of them, so that Erc's son
Eocaid saw that all was lost. Withdrawing with a hundred of his own men
about him, Eocaid was seeking water to quench his thirst, for the heat
of the battle was upon him, when he was pursued by a greater band of
the De Danaans, under the three sons of Nemed, one of their chieftains.

Eocaid and his bodyguard fled before Nemed's sons, making their way
northeastward along the Moy river, under the shadow of the Mountains of
Storms, now wrongly named Ox Mountains. They came at last to the great
strand called Traig Eotaile, but now Ballysadare, the Cataract of the
Oaks,--where the descending river is cloven into white terraces by the
rocks, and the sea, retreating at low tide, leaves a world of wet sand
glinting under the moonlight. At the very sea's margin a great battle
was fought between the last king of the Firbolgs with his men, and the
De Danaans under Nemed's sons; so relentless was the fight along the
tideways that few remained to tell of it, for Erc's son Eocaid fell, but
Nemed's three sons fell likewise, The three De Danaan brothers were
buried at the western end of the strand, and the place was called The