By good fortune it did not reach the vessel, but the sea hissed and boiled where it fell. As for the warriors, they swiftly fled into mid-ocean.
After that they voyaged until they came to a sea, thin and misty like a cloud, so that it seemed as if it could not support their boat. As they sailed over, it was transparent to their gaze, and they beheld underneath it roofed strongholds and a beautiful country. Also they saw a huge, monstrous beast, in a tree that was surrounded by herds and flocks, beside which sat a man armed with shield, spear, and sword. And when the armed man beheld the beast he immediately fled. As for the beast, it seized the largest ox of the herd, and, dragging it into the tree, devoured it in the twinkling of an eye; upon that flocks and herds took to flight. When Maelduin and his people saw these things they were yet more terrified, for they feared they should never cross this sea without falling through it, so fine and vaporlike was it.
Only after much danger did they succeed in skimming its surface.
Now a strange thing was to be seen on the next island they came to, a great stream rising out of the beach, and arching rainbow-wise over the whole land, until it fell into the beach on the opposite side. To and fro the wanderers passed underneath the stream without being wet. And when they pierced the arch with their spears
