The King of Spain was out of doors, and he saw the ship coming in without permission. He sent a messenger down to ask who was the champion.
The messenger came back and said to the king, “There is but one man on board, and handsomest of all men that ever I saw is he.”
“Oh! give him an invitation to the court.”
The messenger went and gave the invitation. Bioultach spent a day and a year at the court.
“Well,” said the king, “you are at my court for a year, and I have never asked who you are.”
“If you asked me I would have told you. Bioultach am I, son of the High King of Erin, who left my father’s court and pleasant home, since I thought little of the learning he was giving me; and I think I will stay here no longer.”
“I don’t know,” said the king, “where you will go; but I believe there is not a place in the world better than Greece, for there is no champion at all, who is a good man, that it is not in Greece he is, in company with the king.”
Bioultach took leave of the king, and raised his ship with him, and stopped not till he came to Greece. The King of Greece was on a height (above the sea), and with him a pair of champions—his own son, Splendour, and Splendour-of-the-Sun, son of the King of the Castle of the Stream.
“Go down,” said the king to Splendour-of-the-Sun, “and bring me word who is the champion that has come in without permission.”
He went down at the command of the king, and saluted the man in the ship. Said he, “The king has sent me to get word who you are.”
“Well, I never took from my ship word to give you, unless you get it from me by force.”
“I will be there now, but I must secure my ship, that neither storm nor sun may hurt her.”
Bioultach went out, and he and the man on shore took hold of each other. Bioultach threw him and tied him tightly, and he fastened the five knots together, and threw him behind him. The king was looking on.
“Go down, Splendour, son of the King of Greece,” said he, “and bring me word who is the champion that has tied the other man.”
The son of the King of Greece went down, and he and Bioultach took hold of each other, and Bioultach threw him and tied him more tightly than the other, and laid him along with him. The king had nothing for it but to send a messenger down with a branch of green yew. When Bioultach saw the yew coming, he loosed the men, and the messengers bade him come with them to the palace. Bioultach went with them, and he spent a day and a year with the King of Greece, learning everything the king could teach him, and the king never asked who he was or whence he came. But at the end of a year the king asked,—