Introduction

It is Samain night in Ráith Cruachan and Ailill promises a reward to whichever of his warriors will dare the terrors of the night to go and place a looped twig around the ankle of one of the prisoners who had been hanged the day before. Nera goes out and does the deed, after which the dead prisoner requests that Nera take him on his back to a nearby house so that he can slake his thirst. Nera takes the man on his back, and they approach three houses. The dead man is unable to enter the first or second house; at the third, the dead man goes inside where there is dirty washing and bathing water. He takes a drink from each and spits it into the face of each inhabitant, which kills them. Nera then returns the prisoner to his gibbet.

When Nera returns to Ráith Cruachan, he finds that it has been burnt and its people killed. He follows the army responsible into the cave of Cruachu. When inside, the king of the sid sets him to carrying firewood every day, and tells him to go and stay with a woman in a house nearby. Each day, he sees a blind man carrying a lame man on his back go to a spring. Each day, the blind man asks the lame man, “Is it there?” and the lame man replies, “It is indeed.” And then they go their way.

One day, Nera asks the woman about it, and she explains that they go to the spring to confirm that the king of the sid's golden crown is still there. Then, she tells him that the destruction of Ráith Cruachan he had seen on Samain night was only a vision, but that it would become true the following Samain if he did not warn his people, because of a prophecy that the people of Ráith Cruachan [that is, the forces of Ailill and Medb] would ravage the sid and steal the crown. She sends him back to his people to warn them, bearing the ‘fruits of summer’ – wild garlic, primroses, and buttercups – as proof he has been in the sid, since no time has passed for his people though he has been in the sid for three days.

Nera returns to Ráith Cruachan and tells his people his story.