Diarmuid and Gráinne (Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne)

A woman refuses the old man she is promised to, and sixteen years of pursuit follow.

Fionn mac Cumhaill, long widowed and no longer young, was promised Gráinne, daughter of the high king. At the betrothal feast she looked at the men around her, saw Diarmuid Ua Duibhne among the Fianna, and decided.

Diarmuid had a ball seirce, a love spot, on his forehead, got from a woman at a well, and no woman who saw it could help loving him. He wanted nothing to do with any of this. Gráinne settled it by putting him under geis, a binding of obligation that no honourable man could refuse, to take her away that night.

So they ran, and Fionn followed, and the pursuit lasted sixteen years. The two of them never slept twice in the same place, and the tradition says the dolmens scattered across the country are their beds, Leaba Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne. Diarmuid, who had never wanted to wrong Fionn, left signs behind at each camp to show Fionn that nothing had happened between them, until eventually something did.

Peace was made in the end, or appeared to be. Then Fionn brought Diarmuid hunting on Ben Bulben after a boar that was under the same enchantment as Diarmuid's own foster brother, and the boar gored him. Fionn had healing in his hands: water carried from a well in his palms would save a dying man. He went for water three times and let it run out through his fingers each time, and on the third Diarmuid was dead.