[1] One Samhain night when the warriors of Cruachan were feasting, King Aillil offered a prize to any man who was brave enough to put a wicker band around the ankle of a corpse that had been hanged.
On their third attempt, they were able to enter the house, and the corpse drank three cups of water, spitting the last out on the householders and killing them.
Inside the hill, he met a woman of the sidhe who told him that the destruction that he had seen was only a vision of what would happen on the next Samhain night unless the warriors of Medb and Aillil destroyed the Hill of Cruachan and defeated the sidhe army.
Nera returned to tell Medb and Aillil what he had heard and found that no time had passed since he had left the hall to put the wicker band around the corpse's foot.
In some versions of the legend, Nera spends a whole year in the hill and convinces Medb and Aillil of the truth of his story by bringing them summer flowers.