initial commit of ebook 14465HEADmain

7 files changed, 50209 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/14465-8.txt b/old/14465-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc482be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14465-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,16590 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gods and Fighting Men, by Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gods and Fighting Men
+
+Author: Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14465]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODS AND FIGHTING MEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Ledger and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+GODS AND FIGHTING MEN:
+
+THE STORY OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN
+AND OF THE FIANNA OF IRELAND,
+
+ARRANGED AND PUT INTO ENGLISH BY LADY GREGORY.
+
+WITH A PREFACE BY W.B. YEATS
+
+1905
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION TO THE MEMBERS OF THE IRISH LITERARY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
+
+
+My Friends, those I know and those I do not know, I am glad in the year
+of the birth of your Society to have this book to offer you.
+
+It has given great courage to many workers here--working to build up
+broken walls--to know you have such friendly thoughts of them in your
+minds. A few of you have already come to see us, and we begin to hope
+that one day the steamers across the Atlantic will not go out full, but
+come back full, until some of you find your real home is here, and say
+as some of us say, like Finn to the woman of enchantments--
+
+[Illustration: Irish Gaelic]
+
+"We would not give up our own country--Ireland--if we were to get the
+whole world as an estate, and the Country of the Young along with it."
+
+AUGUSTA GREGORY.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+I
+
+A few months ago I was on the bare Hill of Allen, "wide Almhuin of
+Leinster," where Finn and the Fianna lived, according to the stories,
+although there are no earthen mounds there like those that mark the
+sites of old buildings on so many hills. A hot sun beat down upon
+flowering gorse and flowerless heather; and on every side except the
+east, where there were green trees and distant hills, one saw a level
+horizon and brown boglands with a few green places and here and there
+the glitter of water. One could imagine that had it been twilight and
+not early afternoon, and had there been vapours drifting and frothing
+where there were now but shadows of clouds, it would have set stirring
+in one, as few places even in Ireland can, a thought that is peculiar to
+Celtic romance, as I think, a thought of a mystery coming not as with
+Gothic nations out of the pressure of darkness, but out of great spaces
+and windy light. The hill of Teamhair, or Tara, as it is now called,
+with its green mounds and its partly wooded sides, and its more gradual
+slope set among fat grazing lands, with great trees in the hedgerows,
+had brought before one imaginations, not of heroes who were in their
+youth for hundreds of years, or of women who came to them in the
+likeness of hunted fawns, but of kings that lived brief and politic
+lives, and of the five white roads that carried their armies to the
+lesser kingdoms of Ireland, or brought to the great fair that had given
+Teamhair its sovereignty, all that sought justice or pleasure or had
+goods to barter.
+
+
+II
+
+It is certain that we must not confuse these kings, as did the mediæval
+chroniclers, with those half-divine kings of Almhuin. The chroniclers,
+perhaps because they loved tradition too well to cast out utterly much
+that they dreaded as Christians, and perhaps because popular imagination
+had begun the mixture, have mixed one with another ingeniously, making
+Finn the head of a kind of Militia under Cormac MacArt, who is supposed
+to have reigned at Teamhair in the second century, and making Grania,
+who travels to enchanted houses under the cloak of Angus, god of Love,
+and keeps her troubling beauty longer than did Helen hers, Cormac's
+daughter, and giving the stories of the Fianna, although the impossible
+has thrust its proud finger into them all, a curious air of precise
+history. It is only when one separates the stories from that mediæval
+pedantry, as in this book, that one recognises one of the oldest worlds
+that man has imagined, an older world certainly than one finds in the
+stories of Cuchulain, who lived, according to the chroniclers, about the
+time of the birth of Christ. They are far better known, and one may be
+certain of the antiquity of incidents that are known in one form or
+another to every Gaelic-speaking countryman in Ireland or in the
+Highlands of Scotland. Sometimes a labourer digging near to a cromlech,
+or Bed of Diarmuid and Crania as it is called, will tell one a tradition
+that seems older and more barbaric than any description of their
+adventures or of themselves in written text or story that has taken form
+in the mouths of professed story-tellers. Finn and the Fianna found
+welcome among the court poets later than did Cuchulain; and one finds
+memories of Danish invasions and standing armies mixed with the
+imaginations of hunters and solitary fighters among great woods. One
+never hears of Cuchulain delighting in the hunt or in woodland things;
+and one imagines that the story-teller would have thought it unworthy in
+so great a man, who lived a well-ordered, elaborate life, and had his
+chariot and his chariot-driver and his barley-fed horses to delight in.
+If he is in the woods before dawn one is not told that he cannot know
+the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of the oak; and when Emer
+laments him no wild creature comes into her thoughts but the cuckoo that
+cries over cultivated fields. His story must have come out of a time
+when the wild wood was giving way to pasture and tillage, and men had no
+longer a reason to consider every cry of the birds or change of the
+night. Finn, who was always in the woods, whose battles were but hours
+amid years of hunting, delighted in the "cackling of ducks from the Lake
+of the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of Doire an
+Cairn; the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries; the
+whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories or from the rough
+branches of the Ridge of the Stream; the grouse of the heather of
+Cruachan; the call of the otter of Druim re Coir." When sorrow comes
+upon the queens of the stories, they have sympathy for the wild birds
+and beasts that are like themselves: "Credhe wife of Cael came with the
+others and went looking through the bodies for her comely comrade, and
+crying as she went. And as she was searching she saw a crane of the
+meadows and her two nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watching
+the nestlings; and when the crane covered one of the birds to save it,
+he would make a rush at the other bird, the way she had to stretch
+herself out over the birds; and she would sooner have got her own death
+by the fox than the nestlings to be killed by him. And Credhe was
+looking at that, and she said: 'It is no wonder I to have such love for
+my comely sweetheart, and the bird in that distress about her
+nestlings.'"
+
+
+III
+
+One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that
+howls at something a man's eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive
+lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious of many
+things that we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly,
+more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away. Although the
+gods come to Cuchulain, and although he is the son of one of the
+greatest of them, their country and his are far apart, and they come to
+him as god to mortal; but Finn is their equal. He is continually in
+their houses; he meets with Bodb Dearg, and Angus, and Manannan, now as
+friend with friend, now as with an enemy he overcomes in battle; and
+when he has need of their help his messenger can say: "There is not a
+king's son or a prince, or a leader of the Fianna of Ireland, without
+having a wife or a mother or a foster-mother or a sweetheart of the
+Tuatha de Danaan." When the Fianna are broken up at last, after hundreds
+of years of hunting, it is doubtful that he dies at all, and certain
+that he comes again in some other shape, and Oisin, his son, is made
+king over a divine country. The birds and beasts that cross his path in
+the woods have been fighting men or great enchanters or fair women, and
+in a moment can take some beautiful or terrible shape. One thinks of him
+and of his people as great-bodied men with large movements, that seem,
+as it were, flowing out of some deep below the narrow stream of personal
+impulse, men that have broad brows and quiet eyes full of confidence in
+a good luck that proves every day afresh that they are a portion of the
+strength of things. They are hardly so much individual men as portions
+of universal nature, like the clouds that shape themselves and re-shape
+themselves momentarily, or like a bird between two boughs, or like the
+gods that have given the apples and the nuts; and yet this but brings
+them the nearer to us, for we can remake them in our image when we will,
+and the woods are the more beautiful for the thought. Do we not always
+fancy hunters to be something like this, and is not that why we think
+them poetical when we meet them of a sudden, as in these lines in
+"Pauline":
+
+                              "An old hunter
+    Talking with gods; or a nigh-crested chief
+    Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos"
+
+
+IV
+
+One must not expect in these stories the epic lineaments, the many
+incidents, woven into one great event of, let us say, the story of the
+War for the Brown Bull of Cuailgne, or that of the last gathering at
+Muirthemne. Even Diarmuid and Grania, which is a long story, has nothing
+of the clear outlines of Deirdre, and is indeed but a succession of
+detached episodes. The men who imagined the Fianna had the imagination
+of children, and as soon as they had invented one wonder, heaped another
+on top of it. Children--or, at any rate, it is so I remember my own
+childhood--do not understand large design, and they delight in little
+shut-in places where they can play at houses more than in great expanses
+where a country-side takes, as it were, the impression of a thought. The
+wild creatures and the green things are more to them than to us, for
+they creep towards our light by little holes and crevices. When they
+imagine a country for themselves, it is always a country where one can
+wander without aim, and where one can never know from one place what
+another will be like, or know from the one day's adventure what may meet
+one with to-morrow's sun. I have wished to become a child again that I
+might find this book, that not only tells one of such a country, but is
+fuller than any other book that tells of heroic life, of the childhood
+that is in all folk-lore, dearer to me than all the books of the western
+world.
+
+Children play at being great and wonderful people, at the ambitions
+they will put away for one reason or another before they grow into
+ordinary men and women. Mankind as a whole had a like dream once;
+everybody and nobody built up the dream bit by bit, and the ancient
+story-tellers are there to make us remember what mankind would have been
+like, had not fear and the failing will and the laws of nature tripped
+up its heels. The Fianna and their like are themselves so full of power,
+and they are set in a world so fluctuating and dream-like, that nothing
+can hold them from being all that the heart desires.
+
+I have read in a fabulous book that Adam had but to imagine a bird, and
+it was born into life, and that he created all things out of himself by
+nothing more important than an unflagging fancy; and heroes who can make
+a ship out of a shaving have but little less of the divine prerogatives.
+They have no speculative thoughts to wander through eternity and waste
+heroic blood; but how could that be otherwise, for it is at all times
+the proud angels who sit thinking upon the hill-side and not the people
+of Eden. One morning we meet them hunting a stag that is "as joyful as
+the leaves of a tree in summer-time"; and whatever they do, whether they
+listen to the harp or follow an enchanter over-sea, they do for the sake
+of joy, their joy in one another, or their joy in pride and movement;
+and even their battles are fought more because of their delight in a
+good fighter than because of any gain that is in victory. They live
+always as if they were playing a game; and so far as they have any
+deliberate purpose at all, it is that they may become great gentlemen
+and be worthy of the songs of poets. It has been said, and I think the
+Japanese were the first to say it, that the four essential virtues are
+to be generous among the weak, and truthful among one's friends, and
+brave among one's enemies, and courteous at all times; and if we
+understand by courtesy not merely the gentleness the story-tellers have
+celebrated, but a delight in courtly things, in beautiful clothing and
+in beautiful verse, one understands that it was no formal succession of
+trials that bound the Fianna to one another. Only the Table Round, that
+is indeed, as it seems, a rivulet from the same river, is bound in a
+like fellowship, and there the four heroic virtues are troubled by the
+abstract virtues of the cloister. Every now and then some noble knight
+builds himself a cell upon the hill-side, or leaves kind women and
+joyful knights to seek the vision of the Grail in lonely adventures. But
+when Oisin or some kingly forerunner--Bran, son of Febal, or the
+like--rides or sails in an enchanted ship to some divine country, he but
+looks for a more delighted companionship, or to be in love with faces
+that will never fade. No thought of any life greater than that of love,
+and the companionship of those that have drawn their swords upon the
+darkness of the world, ever troubles their delight in one another as it
+troubles Iseult amid her love, or Arthur amid his battles. It is one of
+the ailments of our speculation that thought, when it is not the
+planning of something, or the doing of something or some memory of a
+plain circumstance separates us from one another because it makes us
+always more unlike, and because no thought passes through another's ear
+unchanged. Companionship can only be perfect when it is founded on
+things, for things are always the same under the hand, and at last one
+comes to hear with envy of the voices of boys lighting a lantern to
+ensnare moths, or of the maids chattering in the kitchen about the fox
+that carried off a turkey before breakfast. This book is full of
+fellowship untroubled like theirs, and made noble by a courtesy that has
+gone perhaps out of the world. I do not know in literature better
+friends and lovers. When one of the Fianna finds Osgar dying the proud
+death of a young man, and asks is it well with him, he is answered, "I
+am as you would have me be." The very heroism of the Fianna is indeed
+but their pride and joy in one another, their good fellowship. Goll, old
+and savage, and letting himself die of hunger in a cave because he is
+angry and sorry, can speak lovely words to the wife whose help he
+refuses. "'It is best as it is,' he said, 'and I never took the advice
+of a woman east or west, and I never will take it. And oh, sweet-voiced
+queen,' he said, 'what ails you to be fretting after me? and remember
+now your silver and your gold, and your silks ... and do not be crying
+tears after me, queen with the white hands,' he said, 'but remember your
+constant lover Aodh, son of the best woman of the world, that came from
+Spain asking for you, and that I fought on Corcar-an-Dearg; and go to
+him now,' he said, 'for it is bad when a woman is without a good man.'"
+
+
+VI
+
+They have no asceticism, but they are more visionary than any ascetic,
+and their invisible life is but the life about them made more perfect
+and more lasting, and the invisible people are their own images in the
+water. Their gods may have been much besides this, for we know them from
+fragments of mythology picked out with trouble from a fantastic history
+running backward to Adam and Eve, and many things that may have seemed
+wicked to the monks who imagined that history, may have been altered or
+left out; but this they must have been essentially, for the old stories
+are confirmed by apparitions among the country-people to-day. The Men of
+Dea fought against the mis-shapen Fomor, as Finn fights against the
+Cat-Heads and the Dog-Heads; and when they are overcome at last by men,
+they make themselves houses in the hearts of hills that are like the
+houses of men. When they call men to their houses and to their country
+Under-Wave they promise them all that they have upon earth, only in
+greater abundance. The god Midhir sings to Queen Etain in one of the
+most beautiful of the stories: "The young never grow old; the fields and
+the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's eggs;
+warm streams of mead and wine flow through that country; there is no
+care or no sorrow on any person; we see others, but we ourselves are not
+seen." These gods are indeed more wise and beautiful than men; but men,
+when they are great men, are stronger than they are, for men are, as it
+were, the foaming tide-line of their sea. One remembers the Druid who
+answered, when some one asked him who made the world, "The Druids made
+it." All was indeed but one life flowing everywhere, and taking one
+quality here, another there. It sometimes seems to one as if there is a
+kind of day and night of religion, and that a period when the influences
+are those that shape the world is followed by a period when the greater
+power is in influences that would lure the soul out of the world, out of
+the body. When Oisin is speaking with S. Patrick of the friends and the
+life he has outlived, he can but cry out constantly against a religion
+that has no meaning for him. He laments, and the country-people have
+remembered his words for centuries: "I will cry my fill, but not for
+God, but because Finn and the Fianna are not living."
+
+
+VII
+
+Old writers had an admirable symbolism that attributed certain energies
+to the influence of the sun, and certain others to the lunar influence.
+To lunar influence belong all thoughts and emotions that were created by
+the community, by the common people, by nobody knows who, and to the sun
+all that came from the high disciplined or individual kingly mind. I
+myself imagine a marriage of the sun and moon in the arts I take most
+pleasure in; and now bride and bridegroom but exchange, as it were, full
+cups of gold and silver, and now they are one in a mystical embrace.
+From the moon come the folk-songs imagined by reapers and spinners out
+of the common impulse of their labour, and made not by putting words
+together, but by mixing verses and phrases, and the folk-tales made by
+the capricious mixing of incidents known to everybody in new ways, as
+one deals out cards, never getting the same hand twice over. When one
+hears some fine story, one never knows whether it has not been hazard
+that put the last touch of adventure. Such poetry, as it seems to me,
+desires an infinity of wonder or emotion, for where there is no
+individual mind there is no measurer-out, no marker-in of limits. The
+poor fisher has no possession of the world and no responsibility for it;
+and if he dreams of a love-gift better than the brown shawl that seems
+too common for poetry, why should he not dream of a glove made from the
+skin of a bird, or shoes made from the skin of a fish, or a coat made
+from the glittering garment of the salmon? Was it not Aeschylus who said
+he but served up fragments from the banquet of Homer?--but Homer himself
+found the great banquet on an earthen floor and under a broken roof. We
+do not know who at the foundation of the world made the banquet for the
+first time, or who put the pack of cards into rough hands; but we do
+know that, unless those that have made many inventions are about to
+change the nature of poetry, we may have to go where Homer went if we
+are to sing a new song. Is it because all that is under the moon thirsts
+to escape out of bounds, to lose itself in some unbounded tidal stream,
+that the songs of the folk are mournful, and that the story of the
+Fianna, whenever the queens lament for their lovers, reminds us of songs
+that are still sung in country-places? Their grief, even when it is to
+be brief like Grania's, goes up into the waste places of the sky. But
+in supreme art or in supreme life there is the influence of the sun too,
+and the sun brings with it, as old writers tell us, not merely
+discipline but joy; for its discipline is not of the kind the multitudes
+impose upon us by their weight and pressure, but the expression of the
+individual soul turning itself into a pure fire and imposing its own
+pattern, its own music, upon the heaviness and the dumbness that is in
+others and in itself. When we have drunk the cold cup of the moon's
+intoxication, we thirst for something beyond ourselves, and the mind
+flows outward to a natural immensity; but if we have drunk from the hot
+cup of the sun, our own fullness awakens, we desire little, for wherever
+one goes one's heart goes too; and if any ask what music is the
+sweetest, we can but answer, as Finn answered, "what happens." And yet
+the songs and stories that have come from either influence are a part,
+neither less than the other, of the pleasure that is the bride-bed of
+poetry.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Gaelic-speaking Ireland, because its art has been made, not by the
+artist choosing his material from wherever he has a mind to, but by
+adding a little to something which it has taken generations to invent,
+has always had a popular literature. One cannot say how much that
+literature has done for the vigour of the race, for one cannot count the
+hands its praise of kings and high-hearted queens made hot upon the
+sword-hilt, or the amorous eyes it made lustful for strength and beauty.
+One remembers indeed that when the farming people and the labourers of
+the towns made their last attempt to cast out England by force of arms
+they named themselves after the companions of Finn. Even when Gaelic has
+gone, and the poetry with it, something of the habit of mind remains in
+ways of speech and thought and "come-all-ye"s and poetical saying; nor
+is it only among the poor that the old thought has been for strength or
+weakness. Surely these old stories, whether of Finn or Cuchulain, helped
+to sing the old Irish and the old Norman-Irish aristocracy to their end.
+They heard their hereditary poets and story-tellers, and they took to
+horse and died fighting against Elizabeth or against Cromwell; and when
+an English-speaking aristocracy had their place, it listened to no
+poetry indeed, but it felt about it in the popular mind an exacting and
+ancient tribunal, and began a play that had for spectators men and women
+that loved the high wasteful virtues. I do not think that their own
+mixed blood or the habit of their time need take all, or nearly all,
+credit or discredit for the impulse that made our modern gentlemen fight
+duels over pocket-handkerchiefs, and set out to play ball against the
+gates of Jerusalem for a wager, and scatter money before the public eye;
+and at last, after an epoch of such eloquence the world has hardly seen
+its like, lose their public spirit and their high heart and grow
+querulous and selfish as men do who have played life out not heartily
+but with noise and tumult. Had they understood the people and the game a
+little better, they might have created an aristocracy in an age that has
+lost the meaning of the word. When one reads of the Fianna, or of
+Cuchulain, or of some great hero, one remembers that the fine life is
+always a part played finely before fine spectators. There also one
+notices the hot cup and the cold cup of intoxication; and when the fine
+spectators have ended, surely the fine players grow weary, and
+aristocratic life is ended. When O'Connell covered with a dark glove the
+hand that had killed a man in the duelling field, he played his part;
+and when Alexander stayed his army marching to the conquest of the world
+that he might contemplate the beauty of a plane-tree, he played his
+part. When Osgar complained as he lay dying, of the keening of the women
+and the old fighting men, he too played his part; "No man ever knew any
+heart in me," he said, "but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered with
+iron; but the howling of the dogs beside me," he said, "and the keening
+of the old fighting men and the crying of the women one after another,
+those are the things that are vexing me." If we would create a great
+community--and what other game is so worth the labour?--we must recreate
+the old foundations of life, not as they existed in that splendid
+misunderstanding of the eighteenth century, but as they must always
+exist when the finest minds and Ned the beggar and Seaghan the fool
+think about the same thing, although they may not think the same thought
+about it.
+
+
+IX
+
+When I asked the little boy who had shown me the pathway up the Hill of
+Allen if he knew stories of Finn and Oisin, he said he did not, but that
+he had often heard his grandfather telling them to his mother in Irish.
+He did not know Irish, but he was learning it at school, and all the
+little boys he knew were learning it. In a little while he will know
+enough stories of Finn and Oisin to tell them to his children some day.
+It is the owners of the land whose children might never have known what
+would give them so much happiness. But now they can read this book to
+their children, and it will make Slieve-na-man, Allen, and Benbulben,
+the great mountain that showed itself before me every day through all my
+childhood and was yet unpeopled, and half the country-sides of south and
+west, as populous with memories as are Dundealgan and Emain Macha and
+Muirthemne; and after a while somebody may even take them to some famous
+place and say, "This land where your fathers lived proudly and finely
+should be dear and dear and again dear"; and perhaps when many names
+have grown musical to their ears, a more imaginative love will have
+taught them a better service.
+
+
+X
+
+I need say nothing about the translation and arrangement of this book
+except that it is worthy to be put beside "Cuchulain of Muirthemne."
+Such books should not be commended by written words but by spoken words,
+were that possible, for the written words commending a book, wherein
+something is done supremely well, remain, to sound in the ears of a
+later generation, like the foolish sound of church bells from the tower
+of a church when every pew is full.
+
+W.B. YEATS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I. THE GODS
+
+  Book I. The Coming of the Tuatha de Danaan
+
+    Chap.    I. The Fight with the Firbolgs
+            II. The Reign of Bres
+
+  Book II. Lugh of the Long Hand
+
+    Chap.    I. The Coming of Lugh
+            II. The Sons of Tuireann
+           III. The Great Battle of Magh Tuireadh
+            IV. The Hidden House of Lugh
+
+  Book III. The Coming of the Gael
+
+    Chap.    I. The Landing
+            II. The Battle of Tailltin
+
+  Book IV. The Ever-Living Living Ones
+
+    Chap.    I. Bodb Dearg
+            II. The Dagda
+           III. Angus Og
+            IV. The Morrigu
+             V. Aine
+            VI. Aoibhell
+           VII. Midhir and Etain
+          VIII. Manannan
+            IX. Manannan at play
+             X. His Call to Bran
+            XI. His Three Calls to Cormac
+           XII. Cliodna's Wave
+          XIII. His Call to Connla
+           XIV. Tadg in Manannan's Islands
+        XV. Laegaire in the Happy Plain
+
+  Book V. The Fate of The Children of Lir
+
+
+PART II. THE FIANNA
+
+  Book I. Finn, Son of Cumhal
+
+    Chap.   I. The Coming of Finn
+           II. Finn's Household
+          III. Birth of Bran
+           IV. Oisin's Mother
+            V. The Best Men of the Fianna
+
+  Book II. Finn's Helpers
+
+    Chap.   I. The Lad of the Skins
+           II. Black, Brown, and Grey
+          III. The Hound
+           IV. Red Ridge
+
+  Book III. The Battle of the White Strand
+
+    Chap.    I. The Enemies of Ireland
+            II. Cael and Credhe
+           III. Conn Crither
+            IV. Glas, Son of Dremen
+             V. The Help of the Men of Dea
+            VI. The March of the Fianna
+           VII. The First Fighters
+          VIII. The King of Ulster's Son
+            IX. The High King's Son
+             X. The King of Lochlann and his Sons
+            XI. Labran's Journey
+           XII. The Great Fight
+          XIII. Credhe's Lament
+
+  Book IV. Huntings and Enchantments
+
+    Chap.     I. The King of Britain's Son
+             II. The Cave of Ceiscoran
+            III. Donn, Son of Midhir
+             IV. The Hospitality of Cuanna's House
+              V. Cat-Heads and Dog-Heads
+             VI. Lomna's Head
+            VII. Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh
+           VIII. The Cave of Cruachan
+             IX. The Wedding at Ceann Slieve
+              X. The Shadowy One
+             XI. Finn's Madness
+            XII. The Red Woman
+           XIII. Finn and the Phantoms
+            XIV. The Pigs of Angus
+             XV. The Hunt of Slieve Cuilinn
+
+  Book V. Oisin's Children
+
+
+  Book VI. Diarmuid
+
+    Chap.     I. Birth of Diarmuid
+             II. How Diarmuid got his Love-Spot
+            III. The Daughter of King Under-Wave
+             IV. The Hard Servant
+              V. The House of the Quicken Trees
+
+  Book VII. Diarmuid and Grania
+
+    Chap.     I. The Flight from Teamhair
+             II. The Pursuit
+            III. The Green Champions
+             IV. The Wood of Dubhros
+              V. The Quarrel
+             VI. The Wanderers
+            VII. Fighting and Peace
+           VIII. The Boar of Beinn Gulbain
+
+  Book VIII. Cnoc-an-Air
+
+    Chap.    I. Tailc, Son of Treon
+            II. Meargach's Wife
+           III. Ailne's Revenge
+
+  Book IX. The Wearing Away of the Fianna
+
+    Chap.    I. The Quarrel with the Sons of Morna
+            II. Death of Goll
+           III. The Battle of Gabhra
+
+  Book X. The End of the Fianna
+
+    Chap.    I. Death of Bran
+            II. The Call of Oisin
+           III. The Last of the Great Men
+
+  Book XI. Oisin and Patrick
+
+    Chap.    I. Oisin's Story
+            II. Oisin in Patrick's House
+           III. The Arguments
+            IV. Oisin's Laments
+
+
+
+
+GODS AND FIGHTING MEN.
+
+PART ONE: THE GODS.
+
+BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE FIGHT WITH THE FIRBOLGS
+
+
+It was in a mist the Tuatha de Danaan, the people of the gods of Dana,
+or as some called them, the Men of Dea, came through the air and the
+high air to Ireland.
+
+It was from the north they came; and in the place they came from they
+had four cities, where they fought their battle for learning: great
+Falias, and shining Gorias, and Finias, and rich Murias that lay to the
+south. And in those cities they had four wise men to teach their young
+men skill and knowledge and perfect wisdom: Senias in Murias; and Arias,
+the fair-haired poet, in Finias; and Urias of the noble nature in
+Gorias; and Morias in Falias itself. And they brought from those four
+cities their four treasures: a Stone of Virtue from Falias, that was
+called the Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny; and from Gorias they brought
+a Sword; and from Finias a Spear of Victory; and from Murias the fourth
+treasure, the Cauldron that no company ever went away from unsatisfied.
+
+It was Nuada was king of the Tuatha de Danaan at that time, but
+Manannan, son of Lir, was greater again. And of the others that were
+chief among them were Ogma, brother to the king, that taught them
+writing, and Diancecht, that understood healing, and Neit, a god of
+battle, and Credenus the Craftsman, and Goibniu the Smith. And the
+greatest among their women were Badb, a battle goddess; and Macha, whose
+mast-feeding was the heads of men killed in battle; and the Morrigu,
+the Crow of Battle; and Eire and Fodla and Banba, daughters of the
+Dagda, that all three gave their names to Ireland afterwards; and Eadon,
+the nurse of poets; and Brigit, that was a woman of poetry, and poets
+worshipped her, for her sway was very great and very noble. And she was
+a woman of healing along with that, and a woman of smith's work, and it
+was she first made the whistle for calling one to another through the
+night. And the one side of her face was ugly, but the other side was
+very comely. And the meaning of her name was Breo-saighit, a fiery
+arrow. And among the other women there were many shadow-forms and great
+queens; but Dana, that was called the Mother of the Gods, was beyond
+them all.
+
+And the three things they put above all others were the plough and the
+sun and the hazel-tree, so that it was said in the time to come that
+Ireland was divided between those three, Coll the hazel, and Cecht the
+plough, and Grian the sun.
+
+And they had a well below the sea where the nine hazels of wisdom were
+growing; that is, the hazels of inspiration and of the knowledge of
+poetry. And their leaves and their blossoms would break out in the same
+hour, and would fall on the well in a shower that raised a purple wave.
+And then the five salmon that were waiting there would eat the nuts, and
+their colour would come out in the red spots of their skin, and any
+person that would eat one of those salmon would know all wisdom and all
+poetry. And there were seven streams of wisdom that sprang from that
+well and turned back to it again; and the people of many arts have all
+drank from that well.
+
+It was on the first day of Beltaine, that is called now May Day, the
+Tuatha de Danaan came, and it was to the north-west of Connacht they
+landed. But the Firbolgs, the Men of the Bag, that were in Ireland
+before them, and that had come from the South, saw nothing but a mist,
+and it lying on the hills.
+
+Eochaid, son of Erc, was king of the Firbolgs at that time, and
+messengers came to him at Teamhair, and told him there was a new race of
+people come into Ireland, but whether from the earth or the skies or on
+the wind was not known, and that they had settled themselves at Magh
+Rein.
+
+They thought there would be wonder on Eochaid when he heard that news;
+but there was no wonder on him, for a dream had come to him in the
+night, and when he asked his Druids the meaning of the dream, it is what
+they said, that it would not be long till there would be a strong enemy
+coming against him.
+
+Then King Eochaid took counsel with his chief advisers, and it is what
+they agreed, to send a good champion of their own to see the strangers
+and to speak with them. So they chose out Sreng, that was a great
+fighting man, and he rose up and took his strong red-brown shield, and
+his two thick-handled spears, and his sword, and his head-covering, and
+his thick iron club, and he set out from Teamhair, and went on towards
+the place the strangers were, at Magh Rein.
+
+But before he reached it, the watchers of the Tuatha de Danaan got sight
+of him, and they sent out one of their own champions, Bres, with his
+shield and his sword and his two spears, to meet him and to talk with
+him.
+
+So the two champions went one towards the other slowly, and keeping a
+good watch on one another, and wondering at one another's arms, till
+they came near enough for talking; and then they stopped, and each put
+his shield before his body and struck it hard into the ground, and they
+looked at one another over the rim. Bres was the first to speak, and
+when Sreng heard it was Irish he was talking, his own tongue, he was
+less uneasy, and they drew nearer, and asked questions as to one
+another's family and race.
+
+And after a while they put their shields away, and it was what Sreng
+said, that he had raised his in dread of the thin, sharp spears Bres had
+in his hand. And Bres said he himself was in dread of the thick-handled
+spears he saw with Sreng, and he asked were all the arms of the Firbolgs
+of the same sort. And Sreng took off the tyings of his spears to show
+them better, and Bres wondered at them, being so strong and so heavy,
+and so sharp at the sides though they had no points. And Sreng told him
+the name of those spears was Craisech, and that they would break through
+shields and crush flesh and bones, so that their thrust was death or
+wounds that never healed. And then he looked at the sharp, thin,
+hard-pointed spears that were with Bres. And in the end they made an
+exchange of spears, the way the fighters on each side would see the
+weapons the others were used to. And it is the message Bres sent to the
+Firbolgs, that if they would give up one half of Ireland, his people
+would be content to take it in peace; but if they would not give up that
+much, there should be a battle. And he and Sreng said to one another
+that whatever might happen in the future, they themselves would be
+friends.
+
+Sreng went back then to Teamhair and gave the message and showed the
+spear; and it is what he advised his people, to share the country and
+not to go into battle with a people that had weapons so much better than
+their own. But Eochaid and his chief men consulted together, and they
+said in the end: "We will not give up the half of the country to these
+strangers; for if we do," they said, "they will soon take the whole."
+
+Now as to the Men of Dea, when Bres went back to them, and showed them
+the heavy spear, and told them of the strong, fierce man he had got it
+from, and how sturdy he was and well armed, they thought it likely there
+would soon be a battle. And they went back from where they were to a
+better place, farther west in Connacht, and there they settled
+themselves, and made walls and ditches on the plain of Magh Nia, where
+they had the great mountain, Belgata, in their rear. And while they were
+moving there and putting up their walls, three queens of them, Badb and
+Macha and the Morrigu, went to Teamhair where the Firbolgs were making
+their plans. And by the power of their enchantments they brought mists
+and clouds of darkness over the whole place, and they sent showers of
+fire and of blood over the people, the way they could not see or speak
+with one another through the length of three days. But at the end of
+that time, the three Druids of the Firbolgs, Cesarn and Gnathach and
+Ingnathach, broke the enchantment.
+
+The Firbolgs gathered their men together then, and they came with their
+eleven battalions and took their stand at the eastern end of the plain
+of Magh Nia.
+
+And Nuada, king of the Men of Dea, sent his poets to make the same offer
+he made before, to be content with the half of the country if it was
+given up to him. King Eochaid bade the poets to ask an answer of his
+chief men that were gathered there; and when they heard the offer they
+would not consent. So the messengers asked them when would they begin
+the battle. "We must have a delay," they said; "for we want time to put
+our spears and our armour in order, and to brighten our helmets and to
+sharpen our swords, and to have spears made like the ones you have. And
+as to yourselves," they said, "you will be wanting to have spears like
+our Craisechs made for you." So they agreed then to make a delay of a
+quarter of a year for preparation.
+
+It was on a Midsummer day they began the battle. Three times nine
+hurlers of the Tuatha de Danaan went out against three times nine
+hurlers of the Firbolgs, and they were beaten, and every one of them was
+killed. And the king, Eochaid, sent a messenger to ask would they have
+the battle every day or every second day. And it is what Nuada answered
+that they would have it every day, but there should be just the same
+number of men fighting on each side. Eochaid agreed to that, but he was
+not well pleased, for there were more men of the Firbolgs than of the
+Men of Dea.
+
+So the battle went on for four days, and there were great feats done on
+each side, and a great many champions came to their death. But for those
+that were alive at evening, the physicians on each side used to make a
+bath of healing, with every sort of healing plant or herb in it, the way
+they would be strong and sound for the next day's fight.
+
+And on the fourth day the Men of Dea got the upper hand, and the
+Firbolgs were driven back. And a great thirst came on Eochaid, their
+king, in the battle, and he went off the field looking for a drink, and
+three fifties of his men protecting him; but three fifties of the Tuatha
+de Danaan followed after them till they came to the strand that is
+called Traigh Eothaile, and they had a fierce fight there, and at the
+last King Eochaid fell, and they buried him there, and they raised a
+great heap of stones over his grave.
+
+And when there were but three hundred men left of the eleven battalions
+of the Firbolgs, and Sreng at the head of them, Nuada offered them
+peace, and their choice among the five provinces of Ireland. And Sreng
+said they would take Connacht; and he and his people lived there and
+their children after them. It is of them Ferdiad came afterwards that
+made such a good fight against Cuchulain, and Erc, son of Cairbre, that
+gave him his death. And that battle, that was the first fought in
+Ireland by the Men of Dea, was called by some the first battle of Magh
+Tuireadh.
+
+And the Tuatha de Danaan took possession of Teamhair, that was sometimes
+called Druim Cain, the Beautiful Ridge, and Liathdruim, the Grey Ridge,
+and Druim na Descan, the Ridge of the Outlook, all those names were
+given to Teamhair. And from that time it was above all other places, for
+its king was the High King over all Ireland. The king's rath lay to the
+north, and the Hill of the Hostages to the north-east of the High Seat,
+and the Green of Teamhair to the west of the Hill of the Hostages. And
+to the north-east, in the Hill of the Sidhe, was a well called Nemnach,
+and out of it there flowed a stream called Nith, and on that stream the
+first mill was built in Ireland.
+
+And to the north of the Hill of the Hostages was the stone, the Lia
+Fail, and it used to roar under the feet of every king that would take
+possession of Ireland. And the Wall of the Three Whispers was near the
+House of the Women that had seven doors to the east, and seven doors to
+the west; and it is in that house the feasts of Teamhair used to be
+held. And there was the Great House of a Thousand Soldiers, and near it,
+to the south, the little Hill of the Woman Soldiers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE REIGN OF BRES
+
+
+But if Nuada won the battle, he lost his own arm in it, that was struck
+off by Sreng; and by that loss there came troubles and vexation on his
+people.
+
+For it was a law with the Tuatha de Danaan that no man that was not
+perfect in shape should be king. And after Nuada had lost the battle he
+was put out of the kingship on that account.
+
+And the king they chose in his place was Bres, that was the most
+beautiful of all their young men, so that if a person wanted to praise
+any beautiful thing, whether it was a plain, or a dun, or ale, or a
+flame, or a woman, or a man, or a horse, it is what he would say, "It is
+as beautiful as Bres." And he was the son of a woman of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, but who his father was no one knew but herself.
+
+But in spite of Bres being so beautiful, his reign brought no great good
+luck to his people; for the Fomor, whose dwelling-place was beyond the
+sea, or as some say below the sea westward, began putting tribute on
+them, the way they would get them under their own rule.
+
+It was a long time before that the Fomor came first to Ireland; dreadful
+they were to look at, and maimed, having but one foot or one hand, and
+they under the leadership of a giant and his mother. There never came to
+Ireland an army more horrible or more dreadful than that army of the
+Fomor. And they were friendly with the Firbolgs and content to leave
+Ireland to them, but there was jealousy between them and the Men of Dea.
+
+And it was a hard tax they put on them, a third part of their corn they
+asked, and a third part of their milk, and a third part of their
+children, so that there was not smoke rising from a roof in Ireland but
+was under tribute to them. And Bres made no stand against them, but let
+them get their way.
+
+And as to Bres himself, he put a tax on every house in Ireland of the
+milk of hornless dun cows, or of the milk of cows of some other single
+colour, enough for a hundred men. And one time, to deceive him, Nechtan
+singed all the cows of Ireland in a fire of fern, and then he smeared
+them with the ashes of flax seed, the way they were all dark brown. He
+did that by the advice of the Druid Findgoll, son of Findemas. And
+another time they made three hundred cows of wood with dark brown pails
+in place of udders, and the pails were filled with black bog stuff. Then
+Bres came to look at the cows, and to see them milked before him, and
+Cian, father of Lugh, was there. And when they were milked it was the
+bog stuff that was squeezed out; and Bres took a drink of it thinking it
+to be milk, and he was not the better of it for a long time.
+
+And there was another thing against Bres; he was no way open-handed, and
+the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan grumbled against him, for their
+knives were never greased in his house, and however often they might
+visit him there was no smell of ale on their breath. And there was no
+sort of pleasure or merriment in his house, and no call for their poets,
+or singers, or harpers, or pipers, or horn-blowers, or jugglers, or
+fools. And as to the trials of strength they were used to see between
+their champions, the only use their strength was put to now was to be
+doing work for the king. Ogma himself, the shining poet, was under
+orders to bring firing to the palace every day for the whole army from
+the Islands of Mod; and he so weak for want of food that the sea would
+sweep away two-thirds of his bundle every day. And as to the Dagda, he
+was put to build raths, for he was a good builder, and he made a trench
+round Rath Brese. And he used often to be tired at the work, and one
+time he nearly gave in altogether for want of food, and this is the way
+that happened. He used to meet in the house an idle blind man, Cridenbel
+his name was, that had a sharp tongue, and that coveted the Dagda's
+share of food, for he thought his own to be small beside it. So he said
+to him: "For the sake of your good name let the three best bits of your
+share be given to me." And the Dagda gave in to that every night; but he
+was the worse of it, for what the blind man called a bit would be the
+size of a good pig, and with his three bits he would take a full third
+of the whole.
+
+But one day, as the Dagda was in the trench, he saw his son, Angus Og,
+coming to him. "That is a good meeting," said Angus; "but what is on
+you, for you have no good appearance to-day?" "There is a reason for
+that," said the Dagda, "for every evening, Cridenbel, the blind man,
+makes a demand for the three best bits of my share of food, and takes
+them from me." "I will give you an advice," said Angus. He put his hand
+in his bag then, and took out three pieces of gold and gave them to him.
+
+"Put these pieces of gold into the three bits you will give this evening
+to Cridenbel," he said, "and they will be the best bits in the dish, and
+the gold will turn within him the way he will die."
+
+So in the evening the Dagda did that; and no sooner had Cridenbel
+swallowed down the gold than he died. Some of the people said then to
+the king: "The Dagda has killed Cridenbel, giving him some deadly herb."
+The king believed that, and there was anger on him against the Dagda,
+and he gave orders he should be put to death. But the Dagda said: "You
+are not giving the right judgment of a prince." And he told all that had
+happened, and how Cridenbel used to say, "Give me the three best bits
+before you, for my own share is not good to-night." "And on this
+night," he said, "the three pieces of gold were the best things before
+me, and I gave them to him, and he died."
+
+The king gave orders then to have the body cut open. And they found the
+gold inside it, and they knew it was the truth the Dagda had told.
+
+And Angus came to him again the next day, and he said: "Your work will
+soon be done, and when you are given your wages, take nothing they may
+offer you till the cattle of Ireland are brought before you, and choose
+out a heifer then, black and black-maned, that I will tell you the signs
+of."
+
+So when the Dagda had brought his work to an end, and they asked him
+what reward he wanted, he did as Angus had bidden him. And that seemed
+folly to Bres; he thought the Dagda would have asked more than a heifer
+of him.
+
+There came a day at last when a poet came to look for hospitality at the
+king's house, Corpre, son of Etain, poet of the Tuatha de Danaan. And it
+is how he was treated, he was put in a little dark narrow house where
+there was no fire, or furniture, or bed; and for a feast three small
+cakes, and they dry, were brought to him on a little dish. When he rose
+up on the morrow he was no way thankful, and as he was going across the
+green, it is what he said: "Without food ready on a dish; without milk
+enough for a calf to grow on; without shelter; without light in the
+darkness of night; without enough to pay a story-teller; may that be the
+prosperity of Bres."
+
+And from that day there was no good luck with Bres, but it is going down
+he was for ever after. And that was the first satire ever made in
+Ireland.
+
+Now as to Nuada: after his arm being struck off, he was in his sickness
+for a while, and then Diancecht, the healer, made an arm of silver for
+him, with movement in every finger of it, and put it on him. And from
+that he was called Nuada Argat-lamh, of the Silver Hand, for ever after.
+
+Now Miach, son of Diancecht, was a better hand at healing than his
+father, and had done many things. He met a young man, having but one
+eye, at Teamhair one time, and the young man said: "If you are a good
+physician you will put an eye in the place of the eye I lost." "I could
+put the eye of that cat in your lap in its place," said Miach. "I would
+like that well," said the young man. So Miach put the cat's eye in his
+head; but he would as soon have been without it after, for when he
+wanted to sleep and take his rest, it is then the eye would start at the
+squeaking of the mice, or the flight of the birds, or the movement of
+the rushes; and when he was wanting to watch an army or a gathering, it
+is then it was sure to be in a deep sleep.
+
+And Miach was not satisfied with what his father had done to the king,
+and he took Nuada's own hand that had been struck off, and brought it to
+him and set it in its place, and he said: "Joint to joint, and sinew to
+sinew." Three days and three nights he was with the king; the first day
+he put the hand against his side, and the second day against his breast,
+till it was covered with skin, and the third day he put bulrushes that
+were blackened in the fire on it, and at the end of that time the king
+was healed.
+
+But Diancecht was vexed when he saw his son doing a better cure than
+himself, and he threw his sword at his head, that it cut the flesh, but
+the lad healed the wound by means of his skill. Then Diancecht threw it
+a second time, that it reached the bone, but the lad was able to cure
+the wound. Then he struck him the third time and the fourth, till he cut
+out the brain, for he knew no physician could cure him after that blow;
+and Miach died, and he buried him.
+
+And herbs grew up from his grave, to the number of his joints and
+sinews, three hundred and sixty-five. And Airmed, his sister, came and
+spread out her cloak and laid out the herbs in it, according to their
+virtue. But Diancecht saw her doing that, and he came and mixed up the
+herbs, so that no one knows all their right powers to this day.
+
+Then when the Tuatha de Danaan saw Nuada as well as he was before, they
+gathered together to Teamhair, where Bres was, and they bade him give up
+the kingship, for he had held it long enough. So he had to give it up,
+though he was not very willing, and Nuada was put back in the kingship
+again.
+
+There was great vexation on Bres then, and he searched his mind to know
+how could he be avenged on those that had put him out, and how he could
+gather an army against them; and he went to his mother, Eri, daughter of
+Delbaith, and bade her tell him what his race was.
+
+"I know that well," she said; and she told him then that his father was
+a king of the Fomor, Elathan, son of Dalbaech, and that he came to her
+one time over a level sea in some great vessel that seemed to be of
+silver, but she could not see its shape, and he himself having the
+appearance of a young man with yellow hair, and his clothes sewed with
+gold, and five rings of gold about his neck. And she that had refused
+the love of all the young men of her own people, gave him her love, and
+she cried when he left her. And he gave her a ring from his hand, and
+bade her give it only to the man whose finger it would fit, and he went
+away then the same way as he had come.
+
+And she brought out the ring then to Bres, and he put it round his
+middle finger, and it fitted him well. And they went then together to
+the hill where she was the time she saw the silver vessel coming, and
+down to the strand, and she and Bres and his people set out for the
+country of the Fomor.
+
+And when they came to that country they found a great plain with many
+gatherings of people on it, and they went to the gathering that looked
+the best, and the people asked where did they come from, and they said
+they were come from Ireland. "Have you hounds with you?" they asked them
+then, for it was the custom at that time, when strangers came to a
+gathering, to give them some friendly challenge. "We have hounds," said
+Bres. So the hounds were matched against one another, and the hounds of
+the Tuatha de Danaan were better than the hounds of the Fomor. "Have you
+horses for a race?" they asked then. "We have," said Bres. And the
+horses of the Tuatha de Danaan beat the horses of the Fomor.
+
+Then they asked was any one among them a good hand with the sword, and
+they said Bres was the best. But when he put his hand to his sword,
+Elathan, his father, that was among them, knew the ring, and he asked
+who was this young man. Then his mother answered him and told the whole
+story, and that Bres was his own son.
+
+There was sorrow on his father then, and he said: "What was it drove you
+out of the country you were king over?" And Bres said: "Nothing drove me
+out but my own injustice and my own hardness; I took away their
+treasures from the people, and their jewels, and their food itself. And
+there were never taxes put on them before I was their king."
+
+"That is bad," said his father; "it is of their prosperity you had a
+right to think more than of your own kingship. And their good-will
+would be better than their curses," he said; "and what is it you are
+come to look for here?" "I am come to look for fighting men," said Bres,
+"that I may take Ireland by force." "You have no right to get it by
+injustice when you could not keep it by justice," said his father. "What
+advice have you for me then?" said Bres.
+
+And Elathan bade him go to the chief king of the Fomor, Balor of the
+Evil Eye, to see what advice and what help would he give him.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO: LUGH OF THE LONG HAND.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF LUGH
+
+
+Now as to Nuada of the Silver Hand, he was holding a great feast at
+Teamhair one time, after he was back in the kingship. And there were two
+door-keepers at Teamhair, Gamal, son of Figal, and Camel, son of
+Riagall. And a young man came to the door where one of them was, and
+bade him bring him in to the king. "Who are you yourself?" said the
+door-keeper. "I am Lugh, son of Cian of the Tuatha de Danaan, and of
+Ethlinn, daughter of Balor, King of the Fomor," he said; "and I am
+foster-son of Taillte, daughter of the King of the Great Plain, and of
+Echaid the Rough, son of Duach." "What are you skilled in?" said the
+door-keeper; "for no one without an art comes into Teamhair." "Question
+me," said Lugh; "I am a carpenter." "We do not want you; we have a
+carpenter ourselves, Luchtar, son of Luachaid." "Then I am a smith." "We
+have a smith ourselves, Colum Cuaillemech of the Three New Ways." "Then
+I am a champion." "That is no use to us; we have a champion before,
+Ogma, brother to the king." "Question me again," he said; "I am a
+harper." "That is no use to us; we have a harper ourselves, Abhean, son
+of Bicelmos, that the Men of the Three Gods brought from the hills." "I
+am-a poet," he said then, "and a teller of tales." "That is no use to
+us; we have a teller of tales ourselves, Ere, son of Ethaman." "And I am
+a magician." "That is no use to us; we have plenty of magicians and
+people of power." "I am a physician," he said. "That is no use; we have
+Diancecht-for our physician." "Let me be a cup-bearer," he said. "We do
+not want you; we have nine cup-bearers ourselves." "I am a good worker
+in brass." "We have a worker in brass ourselves, that is Credne Cerd."
+
+Then Lugh said: "Go and ask the king if he has any one man that can do
+all these things, and if he has, I will not ask to come into Teamhair."
+The door-keeper went into the king's house then and told him all that.
+"There is a young man at the door," he said, "and his name should be the
+Ildánach, the Master of all Arts, for all the things the people of your
+house can do, he himself is able to do every one of them." "Try him with
+the chess-boards," said Nuada. So the chess-boards were brought out, and
+every game that was played, Lugh won it. And when Nuada was told that,
+he said: "Let him in, for the like of him never came into Teamhair
+before."
+
+Then the door-keeper let him pass, and he came into the king's house and
+sat down in the seat of knowledge. And there was a great flag-stone
+there that could hardly be moved by four times twenty yoke of oxen, and
+Ogma took it up and hurled it out through the house, so that it lay on
+the outside of Teamhair, as a challenge to Lugh. But Lugh hurled it back
+again that it lay in the middle of the king's house. He played the harp
+for them then, and he had them laughing and crying, till he put them
+asleep at the end with a sleepy tune. And when Nuada saw all the things
+Lugh could do, he began to think that by his help the country might get
+free of the taxes and the tyranny put on it by the Fomor. And it is what
+he did, he came down from his throne, and he put Lugh on it in his
+place, for the length of thirteen days, the way they might all listen to
+the advice he would give.
+
+This now is the story of the birth of Lugh. The time the Fomor used to
+be coming to Ireland, Balor of the Strong Blows, or, as some called
+him, of the Evil Eye, was living on the Island of the Tower of Glass.
+There was danger for ships that went near that island, for the Fomor
+would come out and take them. And some say the sons of Nemed in the old
+time, before the Firbolgs were in Ireland, passed near it in their
+ships, and what they saw was a tower of glass in the middle of the sea,
+and on the tower something that had the appearance of men, and they went
+against it with Druid spells to attack it. And the Fomor worked against
+them with Druid spells of their own; and the sons of Nemed attacked the
+tower, and it vanished, and they thought it was destroyed. But a great
+wave rose over them then, and all their ships went down and all that
+were in them.
+
+And the tower was there as it was before, and Balor living in it. And it
+is the reason he was called "of the Evil Eye," there was a power of
+death in one of his eyes, so that no person could look at it and live.
+It is the way it got that power, he was passing one time by a house
+where his father's Druids were making spells of death, and the window
+being open he looked in, and the smoke of the poisonous spells was
+rising up, and it went into his eye. And from that time he had to keep
+it closed unless he wanted to be the death of some enemy, and then the
+men that were with him would lift the eyelid with a ring of ivory.
+
+Now a Druid foretold one time that it was by his own grandson he would
+get his death. And he had at that time but one child, a daughter whose
+name was Ethlinn; and when he heard what the Druid said, he shut her up
+in the tower on the island. And he put twelve women with her to take
+charge of her and to guard her, and he bade them never to let her see a
+man or hear the name of a man.
+
+So Ethlinn was brought up in the tower, and she grew to be very
+beautiful; and sometimes she would see men passing in the currachs, and
+sometimes she would see a man in her dreams. But when she would speak of
+that to the women, they would give her no answer.
+
+So there was no fear on Balor, and he went on with war and robbery as he
+was used, seizing every ship that passed by, and sometimes going over to
+Ireland to do destruction there.
+
+Now it chanced at that time there were three brothers of the Tuatha de
+Danaan living together in a place that was called Druim na Teine, the
+Ridge of the Fire, Goibniu and Samthainn and Cian. Cian was a lord of
+land, and Goibniu was the smith that had such a great name. Now Cian had
+a wonderful cow, the Glas Gaibhnenn, and her milk never failed. And
+every one that heard of her coveted her, and many had tried to steal her
+away, so that she had to be watched night and day.
+
+And one time Cian was wanting some swords made, and he went to Goibniu's
+forge, and he brought the Glas Gaibhnenn with him, holding her by a
+halter. When he came to the forge his two brothers were there together,
+for Samthainn had brought some steel to have weapons made for himself;
+and Cian bade Samthainn to hold the halter while he went into the forge
+to speak with Goibniu.
+
+Now Balor had set his mind for a long time on the Glas Gaibhnenn, but he
+had never been able to get near her up to this time. And he was watching
+not far off, and when he saw Samthainn holding the cow, he put on the
+appearance of a little boy, having red hair, and came up to him and told
+him he heard his two brothers that were in the forge saying to one
+another that they would use all his steel for their own swords, and make
+his of iron. "By my word," said Samthainn, "they will not deceive me so
+easily. Let you hold the cow, little lad," he said, "and I will go in to
+them." With that he rushed into the forge, and great anger on him. And
+no sooner did Balor get the halter in his hand than he set out, dragging
+the Glas along with him, to the strand, and across the sea to his own
+island.
+
+When Cian saw his brother coming in he rushed out, and there he saw
+Balor and the Glas out in the sea. And he had nothing to do then but to
+reproach his brother, and to wander about as if his wits had left him,
+not knowing what way to get his cow back from Balor. At last he went to
+a Druid to ask an advice from him; and it is what the Druid told him,
+that so long as Balor lived, the cow would never be brought back, for no
+one would go within reach of his Evil Eye.
+
+Cian went then to a woman-Druid, Birog of the Mountain, for her help.
+And she dressed him in a woman's clothes, and brought him across the sea
+in a blast of wind, to the tower where Ethlinn was. Then she called to
+the women in the tower, and asked them for shelter for a high queen she
+was after saving from some hardship, and the women in the tower did not
+like to refuse a woman of the Tuatha de Danaan, and they let her and her
+comrade in. Then Birog by her enchantments put them all into a deep
+sleep, and Cian went to speak with Ethlinn. And when she saw him she
+said that was the face she had seen in her dreams. So she gave him her
+love; but after a while he was brought away again on a blast of wind.
+
+And when her time came, Ethlinn gave birth to a son. And when Balor knew
+that, he bade his people put the child in a cloth and fasten it with a
+pin, and throw him into a current of the sea. And as they were carrying
+the child across an arm of the sea, the pin dropped out, and the child
+slipped from the cloth into the water, and they thought he was drowned.
+But he was brought away by Birog of the Mountain, and she brought him to
+his father Cian; and he gave him to be fostered by Taillte, daughter of
+the King of the Great Plain. It is thus Lugh was born and reared.
+
+And some say Balor came and struck the head off Cian on a white stone,
+that has the blood marks on it to this day; but it is likely it was some
+other man he struck the head off, for it was by the sons of Tuireann
+that Cian came to his death.
+
+And after Lugh had come to Teamhair, and made his mind up to join with
+his father's people against the Fomor, he put his mind to the work; and
+he went to a quiet place in Grellach Dollaid, with Nuada and the Dagda,
+and with Ogma; and Goibniu and Diancecht were called to them there. A
+full year they stopped there, making their plans together in secret, the
+way the Fomor would not know they were going to rise against them till
+such time as all would be ready, and till they would know what their
+strength was. And it is from that council the place got the name
+afterwards of "The Whisper of the Men of Dea."
+
+And they broke up the council, and agreed to meet again that day three
+years, and every one of them went his own way, and Lugh went back to his
+own friends, the sons of Manannan.
+
+And it was a good while after that, Nuada was holding a great assembly
+of the people on the Hill of Uisnech, on the west side of Teamhair. And
+they were not long there before they saw an armed troop coming towards
+them from the east, over the plain; and there was a young man in front
+of the troop, in command over the rest, and the brightness of his face
+was like the setting sun, so that they were not able to look at him
+because of its brightness.
+
+And when he came nearer they knew it was Lugh Lamh-Fada, of the Long
+Hand, that had come back to them, and along with him were the Riders of
+the Sidhe from the Land of Promise, and his own foster-brothers, the
+sons of Manannan, Sgoith Gleigeil, the White Flower, and Goitne
+Gorm-Shuileach, the Blue-eyed Spear, and Sine Sindearg, of the Red Ring,
+and Donall Donn-Ruadh, of the Red-brown Hair. And it is the way Lugh
+was, he had Manannan's horse, the Aonbharr, of the One Mane, under him,
+that was as swift as the naked cold wind of spring, and the sea was the
+same as dry land to her, and the rider was never killed off her back.
+And he had Manannan's breast-plate on him, that kept whoever was wearing
+it from wounds, and a helmet on his head with two beautiful precious
+stones set in the front of it and one at the back, and when he took it
+off, his forehead was like the sun on a dry summer day. And he had
+Manannan's sword, the Freagarthach, the Answerer, at his side, and no
+one that was wounded by it would ever get away alive; and when that
+sword was bared in a battle, no man that saw it coming against him had
+any more strength than a woman in child-birth.
+
+And the troop came to where the King of Ireland was with the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and they welcomed one another.
+
+And they were not long there till they saw a surly, slovenly troop
+coming towards them, nine times nine of the messengers of the Fomor,
+that were coming to ask rent and taxes from the men of Ireland; and the
+names of the four that were the hardest and the most cruel were Eine and
+Eathfaigh and Coron and Compar; and there was such great dread of these
+four on the Tuatha de Danaan, that not one of them would so much as
+punish his own son or his foster-son without leave from them.
+
+They came up then to where the King of Ireland was with the Riders of
+the Sidhe, and the king and all the Tuatha de Danaan stood up before
+them. And Lugh of the Long Hand said: "Why do you rise up before that
+surly, slovenly troop, when you did not rise up before us?"
+
+"It is needful for us to do it," said the king; "for if there was but a
+child of us sitting before them, they would not think that too small a
+cause for killing him." "By my word," said Lugh, "there is a great
+desire coming on me to kill themselves." "That is a thing would bring
+harm on us," said the king, "for we would meet our own death and
+destruction through it." "It is too long a time you have been under this
+oppression," said Lugh. And with that he started up and made an attack
+on the Fomor, killing and wounding them, till he had made an end of
+eight nines of them, but he let the last nine go under the protection of
+Nuada the king. "And I would kill you along with the others," he said,
+"but I would sooner see you go with messages to your own country than my
+own people, for fear they might get any ill-treatment."
+
+So the nine went back then till they came to Lochlann, where the men of
+the Fomor were, and they told them the story from beginning to end, and
+how a young well-featured lad had come into Ireland and had killed all
+the tax-gatherers but themselves, "and it is the reason he let us off,"
+they said, "that we might tell you the story ourselves."
+
+"Do you know who is the young man?" said Balor of the Evil Eye then.
+
+"I know well," said Ceithlenn, his wife; "he is the son of your
+daughter and mine. And it was foretold," she said, "that from the time
+he would come into Ireland, we would never have power there again for
+ever."
+
+Then the chief men of the Fomor went into a council, Eab, son of Neid,
+and Seanchab, grandson of Neid, and Sital Salmhor, and Liath, son of
+Lobais, and the nine poets of the Fomor that had learning and the gift
+of foreknowledge, and Lobais the Druid, and Balor himself and his twelve
+white-mouthed sons, and Ceithlenn of the Crooked Teeth, his queen.
+
+And it was just at that time Bres and his father Elathan were come to
+ask help of the Fomor, and Bres said: "I myself will go to Ireland, and
+seven great battalions of the Riders of the Fomor along with me, and I
+will give battle to this Ildánach, this master of all arts, and I will
+strike his head off and bring it here to you, to the green of Berbhe."
+"It would be a fitting thing for you to do," said they all. "Let my
+ships be made ready for me," said Bres, "and let food and provisions be
+put in them."
+
+So they made no delay, but went and got the ships ready, and they put
+plenty of food and drink in them, and the two swift Luaths were sent out
+to gather the army to Bres. And when they were all gathered, they made
+ready their armour and their weapons, and they set out for Ireland.
+
+And Balor the king followed them to the harbour, and he said: "Give
+battle to that Ildánach, and strike off his head; and tie that island
+that is called Ireland to the back of your ships, and let the destroying
+water take its place, and put it on the north side of Lochlann, and not
+one of the Men of Dea will follow it there to the end of life and time."
+
+Then they pushed out their ships and put up their painted sails, and
+went out from the harbour on the untilled country, on the ridges of the
+wide-lying sea, and they never turned from their course till they came
+to the harbour of Eas Dara. And from that they sent out an army through
+West Connacht and destroyed it altogether, through and through. And the
+King of Connacht at that time was Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE SONS OF TUIREANN
+
+
+And Lugh of the Long Hand was at that time at Teamhair with the King of
+Ireland, and it was showed to him that the Fomor were after landing at
+Eas Dara. And when he knew that, he made ready Manannan's horse, the
+Aonbharr, at the time of the battle of the day and night; and he went
+where Nuada the king was, and told him how the Fomor had landed at Eas
+Dara and had spoiled Bodb Dearg's country; "and it is what I want," he
+said, "to get help from you to give battle to them." But Nuada was not
+minded to avenge the destruction that was done on Bodb Dearg and not on
+himself, and Lugh was not well pleased with his answer, and he went
+riding out of Teamhair westward. And presently he saw three armed men
+coming towards him, his own father Cian, with his brothers Cu and
+Ceithen, that were the three sons of Cainte, and they saluted him. "What
+is the cause of your early rising?" they said. "It is good cause I have
+for it," said Lugh, "for the Fomor are come into Ireland and have robbed
+Bodb Dearg; and what help will you give me against them?" he said.
+
+"Each one of us will keep off a hundred from you in the battle," said
+they. "That is a good help," said Lugh; "but there is a help I would
+sooner have from you than that: to gather the Riders of the Sidhe to me
+from every place where they are."
+
+So Cu and Ceithen went towards the south, and Cian set out northward,
+and he did not stop till he reached the Plain of Muirthemne. And as he
+was going across the plain he saw three armed men before him, that were
+the three sons of Tuireann, son of Ogma. And it is the way it was
+between the three sons of Tuireann and the three sons of Cainte, they
+were in hatred and enmity towards one another, so that whenever they met
+there was sure to be fighting among them.
+
+Then Cian said: "If my two brothers had been here it is a brave fight we
+would make; but since they are not, it is best for me to fall back."
+Then he saw a great herd of pigs near him, and he struck himself with a
+Druid rod that put on him the shape of a pig of the herd, and he began
+rooting up the ground like the rest.
+
+Then Brian, one of the sons of Tuireann, said to his brothers: "Did you
+see that armed man that was walking the plain a while ago?" "We did see
+him," said they. "Do you know what was it took him away?" said Brian.
+"We do not know that," said they. "It is a pity you not to be keeping a
+better watch over the plains of the open country in time of war," said
+Brian; "and I know well what happened him, for he struck himself with
+his Druid rod into the shape of a pig of these pigs, and he is rooting
+up the ground now like any one of them; and whoever he is, he is no
+friend to us." "That is bad for us," said the other two, "for the pigs
+belong to some one of the Tuatha de Danaan, and even if we kill them
+all, the Druid pig might chance to escape us in the end."
+
+"It is badly you got your learning in the city of learning," said Brian,
+"when you cannot tell an enchanted beast from a natural beast." And
+while he was saying that, he struck his two brothers with his Druid
+rod, and he turned them into two thin, fast hounds, and they began to
+yelp sharply on the track of the enchanted pig.
+
+And it was not long before the pig fell out from among the others, and
+not one of the others made away but only itself, and it made for a wood,
+and at the edge of the wood Brian gave a cast of his spear that went
+through its body. And the pig cried out, and it said: "It is a bad thing
+you have done to have made a cast at me when you knew me." "It seems to
+me you have the talk of a man," said Brian. "I was a man indeed," said
+he; "I am Cian, son of Cainte, and give me your protection now." "I
+swear by the gods of the air," said Brian, "that if the life came back
+seven times to you, I would take it from you every time." "If that is
+so," said Cian, "give me one request: let me go into my own shape
+again." "We will do that," said Brian, "for it is easier to me to kill a
+man than a pig."
+
+So Cian took his own shape then, and he said: "Give me mercy now." "We
+will not give it," said Brian. "Well, I have got the better of you for
+all that," said Cian; "for if it was in the shape of a pig you had killed
+me there would only be the blood money for a pig on me; but as it is in
+my own shape you will kill me, there never was and never will be any
+person killed for whose sake a heavier fine will be paid than for
+myself. And the arms I am killed with," he said, "it is they will tell
+the deed to my son."
+
+"It is not with weapons you will be killed, but with the stones lying on
+the ground," said Brian. And with that they pelted him with stones,
+fiercely and roughly, till all that was left of him was a poor,
+miserable, broken heap; and they buried him the depth of a man's body in
+the earth, and the earth would not receive that murder from them, but
+cast it up again. Brian said it should go into the earth again, and they
+put it in the second time, and the second time the earth would not take
+it. And six times the sons of Tuireann buried the body, and six times it
+was cast up again; but the seventh time it was put underground the earth
+kept it. And then they went on to join Lugh of the Long Hand for the
+battle.
+
+Now as to Lugh; upon parting with his father he went forward from
+Teamhair westward, to the hills that were called afterwards Gairech and
+Ilgairech, and to the ford of the Shannon that is now called Athluain,
+and to Bearna nah-Eadargana, the Gap of Separation, and over Magh Luirg,
+the Plain of Following, and to Corr Slieve na Seaghsa, the Round
+Mountain of the Poet's Spring, and to the head of Sean-Slieve, and
+through the place of the bright-faced Corann, and from that to Magh Mor
+an Aonaigh, the Great Plain of the Fair, where the Fomor were, and the
+spoils of Connacht with them.
+
+It is then Bres, son of Elathan, rose up and said: "It is a wonder to me
+the sun to be rising in the west to-day, and it rising in the east every
+other day." "It would be better for us it to be the sun," said the
+Druids. "What else is it?" said he. "It is the shining of the face of
+Lugh, son of Ethlinn," said they.
+
+Lugh came up to them then and saluted them. "Why do you come like a
+friend to us?" said they. "There is good cause for that," he said, "for
+there is but one half of me of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the other half
+of yourselves. And give me back now the milch cows of the men of
+Ireland," he said. "May early good luck not come to you till you get
+either a dry or a milch cow here," said a man of them, and anger on him.
+
+But Lugh stopped near them for three days and three nights, and at the
+end of that time the Riders of the Sidhe came to him. And Bodb Dearg,
+son of the Dagda, came with twenty-nine hundred men, and he said:
+
+"What is the cause of your delay in giving battle?"
+
+"Waiting for you I was," said Lugh.
+
+Then the kings and chief men of the men of Ireland took their armour on
+them, and they raised the points of their spears over their heads, and
+they made close fences of their shields. And they attacked their enemies
+on Magh Mor an Aonaigh, and their enemies answered them, and they threw
+their whining spears at one another, and when their spears were broken
+they drew their swords from their blue-bordered sheaths and began to
+strike at one another, and thickets of brown flames rose above them from
+the bitterness of their many-edged weapons.
+
+And Lugh saw the battle pen where Bres, son of Elathan, was, and he made
+a fierce attack on him and on the men that were guarding him, till he
+had made an end of two hundred of them.
+
+When Bres saw that, he gave himself up to Lugh's protection. "Give me my
+life this time," he said, "and I will bring the whole race of the Fomor
+to fight it out with you in a great battle; and I bind myself to that,
+by the sun and the moon, the sea and the land," he said.
+
+On that Lugh gave him his life, and then the Druids that were with him
+asked his protection for themselves. "By my word," said Lugh, "if the
+whole race of the Fomor went under my protection they would not be
+destroyed by me." So then Bres and the Druids set out for their own
+country.
+
+Now as to Lugh and the sons of Tuireann. After the battle of Magh Mor an
+Aonaigh, he met two of his kinsmen and asked them did they see his
+father in the fight. "We did not," said they. "I am sure he is not
+living," said Lugh; "and I give my word," he said, "there will no food
+or drink go into my mouth till I get knowledge by what death my father
+died."
+
+Then he set out, and the Riders of the Sidhe after him, till they came
+to the place where he and his father parted from one another, and from
+that to the place where his father went into the shape of a pig when he
+saw the sons of Tuireann.
+
+And when Lugh came to that place the earth spoke to him, and it said:
+"It is in great danger your father was here, Lugh, when he saw the sons
+of Tuireann before him, and it is into the shape of a pig he had to go,
+but it is in his own shape they killed him."
+
+Then Lugh told that to his people, and he found the spot where his
+father was buried, and he bade them dig there, the way he would know by
+what death the sons of Tuireann had made an end of him.
+
+Then they raised the body out of the grave and looked at it, and it was
+all one bed of wounds. And Lugh said: "It was the death of an enemy the
+sons of Tuireann gave my dear father." And he gave him three kisses, and
+it is what he said: "It is bad the way I am myself after this death, for
+I can hear nothing with my ears, and I can see nothing with my eyes, and
+there is not a living pulse in my heart, with grief after my father. And
+you gods I worship," he said, "it is a pity I not to have come here the
+time this thing was done. And it is a great thing that has been done
+here," he said, "the people of the gods of Dana to have done treachery
+on one another, and it is long they will be under loss by it and be
+weakened by it. And Ireland will never be free from trouble from this
+out, east and west," he said.
+
+Then they put Cian under the earth again, and after that there was
+keening made over his grave, and a stone was raised on it, and his name
+was written in Ogham, And Lugh said: "This hill will take its name from
+Cian, although he himself is stripped and broken. And it was the sons of
+Tuireann did this thing," he said, "and there will grief and anguish
+fall on them from it, and on their children after them. And it is no
+lying story I am telling you," he said; "and it is a pity the way I am,
+and my heart is broken in my breast since Cian, the brave man, is not
+living."
+
+Then he bade his people to go before him to Teamhair, "But do not tell
+the story till I tell it myself," he said.
+
+And when Lugh came to Teamhair he sat in the high seat of the king, and
+he looked about him and he saw the three sons of Tuireann. And those
+were the three that were beyond all others at Teamhair at that time for
+quickness and skill, for a good hand in battle, for beauty and an
+honourable name.
+
+Then Lugh bade his people to shake the chain of silence, and they did
+so, and they all listened. And Lugh said: "What are your minds fixed on
+at this time, Men of Dea?" "On yourself indeed," said they. "I have a
+question to ask of you," he said. "What is the vengeance each one of you
+would take on the man that would kill your father?"
+
+There was great wonder on them when they heard that, and one of the
+chief men among them said: "Tell us was it your own father that was
+killed?" "It was indeed," said Lugh; "and I see now in this house," he
+said, "the men that killed him, and they know themselves what way they
+killed him better than I know it." Then the king said: "It is not a
+death of one day only I would give the man that had killed my father, if
+he was in my power, but to cut off one of his limbs from day to day till
+I would make an end of him." All the chief men said the same, and the
+sons of Tuireann like the rest.
+
+"There are making that answer," said Lugh, "the three men that killed my
+father; and let them pay the fine for him now, since you are all
+together in the one place. And if they will not," he said, "I will not
+break the protection of the king's house, but they must make no attempt
+to quit this house till they have settled with me."
+
+"If it was I myself had killed your father," said the king, "I would be
+well content you to take a fine from me for him."
+
+"It is at us Lugh is saying all this," said the sons of Tuireann among
+themselves. "Let us acknowledge the killing of his father to him," said
+Iuchar and Iucharba. "I am in dread," said Brian, "that it is wanting an
+acknowledgment from us he is, in the presence of all the rest, and that
+he will not let us off with a fine afterwards." "It is best to
+acknowledge it," said the others; "and let you speak it out since you
+are the eldest."
+
+Then Brian, son of Tuireann, said: "It is at us you are speaking, Lugh,
+for you are thinking we went against the sons of Cainte before now; and
+we did not kill your father," he said, "but we will pay the fine for him
+the same as if we did kill him." "I will take a fine from you that you
+do not think of," said Lugh, "and I will say here what it is, and if it
+is too much for you, I will let you off a share of it." "Let us hear it
+from you," said they. "Here it is," said Lugh; "three apples, and the
+skin of a pig, and a spear, and two horses, and a chariot, and seven
+pigs, and a dog's whelp, and a cooking-spit, and three shouts on a hill.
+That is the fine I am asking," he said; "and if it is too much for you,
+a part of it will be taken off you presently, and if you do not think it
+too much, then pay it"
+
+"It is not too much," said Brian, "or a hundred times of it would not be
+too much. And we think it likely," he said, "because of its smallness
+that you have some treachery towards us behind it." "I do not think it
+too little of a fine," said Lugh; "and I give you the guarantee of the
+Tuatha de Danaan I will ask no other thing, and I will be faithful to
+you, and let you give the same pledge to me." "It is a pity you to ask
+that," said Brian, "for our own pledge is as good as any pledge in the
+world." "Your own pledge is not enough," said Lugh, "for it is often the
+like of you promised to pay a fine in this way, and would try to back
+out of it after."
+
+So then the sons of Tuireann bound themselves by the King of Ireland,
+and by Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and by the chief men of the Tuatha
+de Danaan, that they would pay that fine to Lugh.
+
+"It would be well for me now," said Lugh, "to give you better knowledge
+of the fine." "It would be well indeed," said they.
+
+"This is the way of it then," said Lugh. "The three apples I asked of
+you are the three apples from the Garden in the East of the World, and
+no other apples will do but these, for they are the most beautiful and
+have most virtue in them of the apples of the whole world. And it is
+what they are like, they are of the colour of burned gold, and they are
+the size of the head of a child a month old, and there is the taste of
+honey on them, and they do not leave the pain of wounds or the vexation
+of sickness on any one that eats them, and they do not lessen by being
+eaten for ever. And the skin I asked of you," he said, "is the pig skin
+of Tuis, King of Greece, and it heals all the wounds and all the
+sickness of the world, and whatever danger a man may be in, if it can
+but overtake the life in him, it will cure him; and it is the way it was
+with that pig, every stream of water it would go through would be turned
+into wine to the end of nine days after, and every wound it touched was
+healed; and it is what the Druids of Greece said, that it is not in
+itself this virtue was, but in the skin, and they skinned it, and the
+skin is there ever since. And I think, too, it will not be easy for you
+to get it, with or without leave."
+
+"And do you know what is the spear I am asking of you?" he said. "We do
+not," said they. "It is a very deadly spear belonging to the King of
+Persia, the Luin it is called, and every choice thing is done by it, and
+its head is kept steeped in a vessel of water, the way it will not burn
+down the place where it is, and it will be hard to get it. And do you
+know what two horses and what chariot I am asking of you? They are the
+chariot and the two wonderful horses of Dobar, King of Siogair, and the
+sea is the same as land to them, and there are no faster horses than
+themselves, and there is no chariot equal to that one in shape and in
+strength.
+
+"And do you know what are the seven pigs I asked of you? They are the
+pigs of Easal, King of the Golden Pillars; and though they are killed
+every night, they are found alive again the next day, and there will be
+no disease or no sickness on any person that will eat a share of them.
+
+"And the whelp I asked of you is Fail-Inis, the whelp belonging to the
+King of Ioruaidh, the Cold Country. And all the wild beasts of the world
+would fall down at the sight of her, and she is more beautiful than the
+sun in his fiery wheels, and it will be hard to get her.
+
+"And the cooking-spit I asked of you is a spit of the spits of the women
+of Inis Cenn-fhinne, the Island of Caer of the Fair Hair. And the three
+shouts you are to give on a hill must be given on the Hill of Miochaoin
+in the north of Lochlann. And Miochaoin and his sons are under bonds not
+to allow any shouts to be given on that hill; and it was with them my
+father got his learning, and if I would forgive you his death, they
+would not forgive you. And if you get through all your other voyages
+before you reach to them, it is my opinion they themselves will avenge
+him on you. And that is the fine I have asked of you," said Lugh.
+
+There was silence and darkness on the sons of Tuireann when they heard
+that. And they went to where their father was, and told him the fine
+that had been put on them. "It is bad news that is," said Tuireann; "and
+it is to your death and your destruction you will be going, looking for
+those things. But for all that, if Lugh himself had a mind to help you,
+you could work out the fine, and all the men of the world could not do
+it but by the power of Manannan or of Lugh. Go then and ask the loan of
+Manannan's horse, the Aonbharr, from Lugh, and if he has any wish to get
+the fine, he will give it to you; but if he does not wish it he will say
+the horse is not his, and that he would not give the loan of a loan. Ask
+him then for the loan of Manannan's curragh, the Scuabtuinne, the
+Sweeper of the Waves. And he will give that, for he is under bonds not
+to refuse a second request, and the curragh is better for you than the
+horse," he said.
+
+So the sons of Tuireann went to where Lugh was, and they saluted him,
+and they said they could not bring him the fine without his own help,
+and for that reason it would be well for them to get a loan of the
+Aonbharr. "I have that horse only on loan myself," said Lugh, "and I
+will not give a loan of a loan."
+
+"If that is so, give us the loan of Manannan's curragh," said Brian. "I
+will give that," said Lugh. "What place is it?" said they. "At Brugh na
+Boinn," said Lugh.
+
+Then they went back again to where Tuireann was, and his daughter Ethne,
+their sister, with him, and they told him they had got the curragh. "It
+is not much the better you will be for it," said Tuireann, "although
+Lugh would like well to get every part of this fine he could make use of
+before the battle with the Fomor. But he would like yourselves to come
+to your death looking for it."
+
+Then they went away, and they left Tuireann sorrowful and lamenting, and
+Ethne went with them to where the curragh was. And Brian got into it,
+and he said: "There is place but for one other person along with me
+here." And he began to find fault with its narrowness. "You ought not to
+be faulting the curragh," said Ethne; "and O my dear brother," she said,
+"it was a bad thing you did, to kill the father of Lugh of the Long
+Hand; and whatever harm may come to you from it, it is but just." "Do
+not say that, Ethne," they said, "for we are in good heart, and we will
+do brave deeds. And we would sooner be killed a hundred times over,"
+they said, "than to meet with the death of cowards." "My grief," said
+Ethne, "there is nothing more sorrowful than this, to see you driven out
+from your own country."
+
+Then the three pushed out their curragh from the beautiful clear-bayed
+shore of Ireland. "What course shall we take first?" said they. "We will
+go look for the apples," said Brian, "as they were the first thing we
+were bade bring. And so we ask of you, curragh of Manannan that is under
+us, to sail to the Garden in the East of the World."
+
+And the curragh did not neglect that order, but it sailed forward over
+the green-sided waves and deep places till it came to its harbour in the
+east of the world.
+
+And then Brian asked his brothers: "What way have you a mind to get into
+the garden? for I think," he said, "the king's champions and the
+fighting men of the country are always guarding it, and the king himself
+is chief over them." "What should we do," said his brothers, "but to
+make straight at them and attack them, and bring away the apples or fall
+ourselves, since we cannot escape from these dangers that are before us
+without meeting our death in some place." "It would be better," said
+Brian, "the story of our bravery and our craftiness to be told and to
+live after us, than folly and cowardice to be told of us. And what is
+best for us to do now," he said, "is to go in the shape of swift hawks
+into the garden, and the watchers have but their light spears to throw
+at us, and let you take good care to keep out of their reach; and after
+they have thrown them all, make a quick flight to the apples and let
+each of you bring away an apple of them in your claws, and I will bring
+away the third."
+
+They said that was a good advice, and Brian struck himself and the
+others with his Druid rod, and changed them into beautiful hawks. And
+they flew towards the garden, and the watchers took notice of them and
+shouted on every side of them, and threw showers of spears and darts,
+but the hawks kept out of their reach as Brian had bade them, till all
+the spears were spent, and then they swept down bravely on the apples,
+and brought them away with them, without so much as a wound.
+
+And the news went through the city and the whole district, and the king
+had three wise, crafty daughters, and they put themselves into the shape
+of three ospreys, and they followed the hawks to the sea, and sent
+flashes of lightning before them and after them, that scorched them
+greatly.
+
+"It is a pity the way we are now," said the sons of Tuireann, "for we
+will be burned through and through with this lightning if we do not get
+some relief." "If I can give you relief I will do it," said Brian. With
+that he struck himself and his brothers with the Druid rod, and they
+were turned into three swans, and they went down quickly into the sea,
+and the ospreys went away from them then, and the sons of Tuireann went
+into their boat.
+
+After that they consulted together, and it is what they agreed, to go to
+Greece and to bring away the skin of the pig, with or without leave. So
+they went forward till they came near to the court of the King of
+Greece.
+
+"What appearance should we put on us going in here?" said Brian. "What
+appearance should we go in with but our own?" said the others. "That is
+not what I think best," said Brian; "but to go in with the appearance of
+poets from Ireland, the way the high people of Greece will hold us in
+respect and in honour." "It would be hard for us to do that," they said,
+"and we without a poem, and it is little we know how to make one."
+
+However, they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they knocked at the
+door of the court, and the door-keeper asked who was in it. "We are
+poets of Ireland," said Brian, "and we are come with a poem to the
+king."
+
+The door-keeper went in and told the king that there were poets from
+Ireland at the door. "Let them in," said the king, "for it is in search
+of a good man they came so far from their own country." And the king
+gave orders that everything should be well set out in the court, the way
+they would say they had seen no place so grand in all their travels.
+
+The sons of Tuireann were let in then, having the appearance of poets,
+and they fell to drinking and pleasure without delay; and they thought
+they had never seen, and there was not in the world, a court so good as
+that or so large a household, or a place where they had met with better
+treatment.
+
+Then the king's poets got up to give out their poems and songs. And then
+Brian, son of Tuireann, bade his brothers to say a poem for the king.
+"We have no poem," said they; "and do not ask any poem of us, but the
+one we know before, and that is to take what we want by the strength of
+our hand if we are the strongest, or to fall by those that are against
+us if they are the strongest." "That is not a good way to make a poem,"
+said Brian. And with that he rose up himself and asked a hearing. And
+they all listened to him, and it is what he said:
+
+"O Tuis, we do not hide your fame; we praise you as the oak among kings;
+the skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I ask for
+it.
+
+"The war of a neighbour against an ear; the fair ear of his neighbour
+will be against him; he who gives us what he owns, his court will not be
+the scarcer for it.
+
+"A raging army and a sudden sea are a danger to whoever goes against
+them. The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I
+ask, O Tuis."
+
+"That is a good poem," said the king; "but I do not know a word of its
+meaning." "I will tell you its meaning," said Brian. "'O Tuis, we do not
+hide your fame; we praise you as the oak above the kings.' That is, as
+the oak is beyond the kingly trees of the wood, so are you beyond the
+kings of the world for open-handedness and for grandeur.
+
+"'The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness.' That is, the skin of a
+pig you own is what I would wish to get from you as a reward for my
+poem.
+
+"'The war of a neighbour against an ear, the fair ear of his neighbour
+will be against him.' That is, you and I will be by the ears about the
+skin, unless I get it with your consent.
+
+"And that is the meaning of the poem," said Brian.
+
+"I would praise your poem," said the king, "if there was not so much
+about my pig-skin in it; and you have no good sense, man of poetry," he
+said, "to be asking that thing of me, and I would not give it to all
+the poets and the learned men and the great men of the world, since they
+could not take it away without my consent. But I will give you three
+times the full of the skin of gold as the price of your poem," he said.
+
+"May good be with you, king," said Brian, "and I know well it was no
+easy thing I was asking, but I knew I would get a good ransom for it.
+And I am that covetous," he said, "I will not be satisfied without
+seeing the gold measured myself into the skin."
+
+The king sent his servants with them then to the treasure-house to
+measure the gold. "Measure out the full of it to my brothers first,"
+said Brian, "and then give good measure to myself, since it was I made
+the poem."
+
+But when the skin was brought out, Brian made a quick sudden snatch at
+it with his left hand, and drew his sword and made a stroke at the man
+nearest him, and made two halves of him. And then he kept a hold of the
+skin and put it about himself, and the three of them rushed out of the
+court, cutting down every armed man before them, so that not one escaped
+death or wounding. And then Brian went to where the king himself was,
+and the king made no delay in attacking him, and they made a hard fight
+of it, and at the end the King of Greece fell by the hand of Brian, son
+of Tuireann.
+
+The three brothers rested for a while after that, and then they said
+they would go and look for some other part of the fine. "We will go to
+Pisear, King of Persia," said Brian, "and ask him for the spear."
+
+So they went into their boat, and they left the blue streams of the
+coast of Greece, and they said: "We are well off when we have the apples
+and the skin." And they stopped nowhere till they came to the borders of
+Persia.
+
+"Let us go to the court with the appearance of poets," said Brian, "the
+same as we went to the King of Greece." "We are content to do that,"
+said the others, "as all turned out so well the last time we took to
+poetry; not that it is easy for us to take to a calling that does not
+belong to us."
+
+So they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they were as well treated
+as they were at the other court; and when the time came for poems Brian
+rose up, and it is what he said:
+
+"It is little any spear looks to Pisear; the battles of enemies are
+broken, it is not too much for Pisear to wound every one of them.
+
+"A yew, the most beautiful of the wood, it is called a king, it is not
+bulky. May the spear drive on the whole crowd to their wounds of death."
+
+"That is a good poem," said the king, "but I do not understand why my
+own spear is brought into it, O Man of Poetry from Ireland."
+
+"It is because it is that spear of your own I would wish to get as the
+reward of my poem," said Brian. "It is little sense you have to be
+asking that of me," said the king; "and the people of my court never
+showed greater respect for poetry than now, when they did not put you to
+death on the spot."
+
+When Brian heard that talk from the king, he thought of the apple that
+was in his hand, and he made a straight cast and hit him in the
+forehead, so that his brains were put out at the back of his head, and
+he bared the sword and made an attack on the people about him. And the
+other two did not fail to do the same, and they gave him their help
+bravely till they had made an end of all they met of the people of the
+court. And then they found the spear, and its head in a cauldron of
+water, the way it would not set fire to the place.
+
+And after a while they said it was time for them to go and look for the
+rest of the great fine that was on them, and they asked one another what
+way should they go. "We will go to the King of the Island of Siogair,"
+said Brian, "for it is with him are the two horses and the chariot the
+Ildánach asked of us."
+
+They went forward then and brought the spear with them, and it is proud
+the three champions were after all they had done. And they went on till
+they were come to the court of the King of Siogair.
+
+"It is what we will do this time," said Brian, "we will go in with the
+appearance of paid soldiers from Ireland, and we will make friends with
+the king, the way we will get to know in what place the horses and the
+chariot are kept." And when they had settled on that they went forward
+to the lawn before the king's house.
+
+The king and the chief men that were with him rose up and came through
+the fair that was going on there, and they saluted the king, and he
+asked who were they. "We are trained fighting men from Ireland," they
+said, "and we are earning wages from the kings of the world." "Is it
+your wish to stop with me for a while?" said the king. "That is what we
+are wanting," said they. So then they made an agreement and took service
+with him.
+
+They stopped in the court a fortnight and a month, and they never saw
+the horses through that time. Then Brian said: "This is a bad way we are
+in, to have no more news of the horses now than the first day we came to
+the place." "What is best for us to do now?" said his brothers. "Let us
+do this," said Brian, "let us take our arms and gather our things
+together, and go to the king and tell him we will leave the country and
+this part of the world unless he will show us those horses."
+
+So they went to the king that very day, and he asked them what did they
+mean by getting themselves ready for a journey. "You will hear that,
+high king," said Brian; "it is because trained fighting men from
+Ireland, like ourselves, have always trust put in them by the kings they
+guard, and we are used to be told the secrets and the whispers of any
+person we are with, and that is not the way you have treated us since we
+came to you. For you have two horses and a chariot that are the best in
+the world, as we have been told, and we have not been given a sight of
+them yet." "It would be a pity you to go on that account," said the
+king, "when I would have showed them to you the first day, if I had
+known you had a wish to see them. And if you have a mind to see them
+now," he said, "you may see them; for I think there never came soldiers
+from Ireland to this place that were thought more of by myself and by my
+people than yourselves."
+
+He sent for the horses then, and they were yoked to the chariot, and
+their going was as fast as the cold spring wind, and the sea was the
+same as the land to them.
+
+And Brian was watching the horses closely, and on a sudden he took hold
+of the chariot and took the chariot driver out and dashed him against
+the nearest rock, and made a leap into his place himself, and made a
+cast of the Persian spear at the king, that went through his heart. And
+then he and his brothers scattered the people before them, and brought
+away the chariot.
+
+"We will go now to Easal, the King of the Golden Pillars," said Brian,
+"to look for the seven pigs the Ildánach bade us bring him."
+
+They sailed on then without delay or drawback to that high country. And
+it is the way the people of that country were, watching their harbours
+for fear of the sons of Tuireann, for the story of them had been told
+in all parts, how they had been sent out of Ireland by force, and how
+they were bringing away with them all the gifted treasures of the whole
+world.
+
+Easal came to the edge of the harbour to meet them, and he asked was it
+true what he heard, that the king of every country they had gone to had
+fallen by them. Brian said it was true, whatever he might wish to do to
+them for it. "What was it made you do that?" said Easal. Brian told him
+then it was the oppression and the hard sentence of another had put them
+to it; and he told him all that had happened, and how they had put down
+all that offered to stand against them until that time.
+
+"What did you come to this country now for?" said the king. "For the
+pigs belonging to yourself," said Brian; "for to bring them away with us
+is a part of the fine." "What way do you think to get them?" said the
+king. "If we get them with good-will," said Brian, "we are ready to take
+them thankfully; and if we do not, we are ready to do battle with
+yourself and your people on the head of them, that you may fall by us,
+and we may bring away the pigs in spite of you." "If that is to be the
+end of it," said the king, "it would be a pity to bring my people into a
+battle." "It would be a pity indeed," said Brian.
+
+Then the king whispered and took advice with his people about the
+matter, and it is what they agreed, to give up the pigs of their own
+free will to the sons of Tuireann, since they could not see that any one
+had been able to stand against them up to that time.
+
+Then the sons of Tuireann gave their thanks to Easal, and there was
+wonder on them to have got the pigs like that, when they had to fight
+for every other part of the fine. And more than that, they had left a
+share of their blood in every other place till then.
+
+Easal brought them to his own house that night, and they were served
+with food, and drink, and good beds, and all they could wish for. And
+they rose up on the morrow and came into the king's presence, and the
+pigs were given to them. "It is well you have done by us, giving us
+these pigs," said Brian, "for we did not get any share of the fine
+without fighting but these alone." And he made a poem for the king then,
+praising him, and putting a great name on him for what he had done.
+
+"What journey are you going to make now, sons of Tuireann?" said Easal.
+"We are going," they said, "to the country of Ioruaidh, on account of a
+whelp that is there." "Give me one request," said Easal, "and that is to
+bring me with you to the King of Ioruaidh, for a daughter of mine is his
+wife, and I would wish to persuade him to give you the whelp without a
+battle." "That will please us well," they said.
+
+So the king's ship was made ready, and we have no knowledge of what
+happened till they came to the delightful, wonderful coast of Ioruaidh.
+The people and the armies were watching the harbours and landing-places
+before them, and they knew them at once and shouted at them.
+
+Then Easal went on shore peaceably, and he went to where his son-in-law,
+the king, was, and told him the story of the sons of Tuireann from
+beginning to end. "What has brought them to this country?" said the King
+of Ioruaidh. "To ask for the hound you have," said Easal. "It was a bad
+thought you had coming with them to ask it," said the king, "for the
+gods have not given that much luck to any three champions in the world,
+that they would get my hound by force or by good-will." "It would be
+better for you to let them have the hound," said Easal, "since they have
+put down so many of the kings of the world."
+
+But all he could say was only idleness to the king. So he went then to
+where the sons of Tuireann were, and gave them the whole account. And
+when they heard the king's answer, they made no delay, but put quick
+hands on their arms, and offered to give battle to the army of Ioruaidh.
+And when they met, there was a brave battle fought on both sides. And as
+for the sons of Tuireann, they began to kill and to strike at the men of
+Ioruaidh till they parted from one another in the fight, so that Iuchar
+and Iucharba chanced to be on one side, and Brian by himself on the
+other side. It was a gap of danger and a breaking of ranks was before
+Brian in every path he took, till he came to the King of Ioruaidh in the
+battle pen where he was. And then the two brave champions began a fierce
+fight together, and they did not spare one another in it. And at the
+last Brian overcame the king, and bound him, and brought him through the
+middle of the army, till he came to the place where Easal was, and it is
+what he said: "There is your son-in-law for you, and I swear by my hand
+of valour, I would think it easier to kill him three times than to bring
+him to you once like this."
+
+So then the whelp was given to the sons of Tuireann, and the king was
+unbound, and peace was made between them. And when they had brought all
+this to an end, they bade farewell to Easal and to all the rest.
+
+Now as to Lugh of the Long Hand, it was showed to him that the sons of
+Tuireann had got all the things that were wanting to him against the
+battle with the Fomor; and on that he sent a Druid spell after them to
+put forgetfulness on them of the rest of the fine that they had not got.
+And he put a great desire and longing on them to go back to Ireland; so
+they forgot that a part of the fine was wanting to them, and they turned
+back again toward home.
+
+And it is the place where Lugh was at the time, at a gathering of the
+people for a fair on the green outside Teamhair, and the King of Ireland
+along with him. And it was made known to Lugh that the sons of Tuireann
+were landed at Brugh na Boinn. And he went into the city of Teamhair,
+and shut the gate after him, and he put on Manannan's smooth armour, and
+the cloak, of the daughters of Flidais, and he took his own arms in his
+hand.
+
+And the sons of Tuireann came where the king was, and they were made
+welcome by him and by the Tuatha de Danaan. And the king asked them did
+they get the fine. "We did get it," said they; "and where is Lugh till
+we give it to him?" "He was here a while ago," said the king. And the
+whole fair was searched for him, but he was not found.
+
+"I know the place where he is," said Brian; "for it has been made known
+to him that we are come to Ireland, and these deadly arms with us, and
+he is gone into Teamhair to avoid us."
+
+Messengers were sent to him then, and it is the answer he gave them that
+he would not come, but that the fine should be given to the king.
+
+So the sons of Tuireann did that, and when the king had taken the fine
+they all went to the palace in Teamhair; and Lugh came out on the lawn
+and the fine was given to him, and it is what he said: "There is a good
+payment here for any one that ever was killed or that ever will be
+killed. But there is something wanting to it yet that it is not lawful
+to leave out. And where is the cooking-spit?" he said; "and where are
+the three shouts on the hill that you did not give yet?"
+
+And when the sons of Tuireann heard that there came clouds of weakness
+on them. And they left the place and went to their father's house that
+night, and they told him all they had done, and the way Lugh had treated
+them.
+
+There was grief and darkness on Tuireann then, and they spent the night
+together. And on the morrow they went to their ship, and Ethne, their
+sister, with them, and she was crying and lamenting, and it is what she
+said:
+
+"It is a pity, Brian of my life, it is not to Teamhair your going is,
+after all the troubles you have had before this, even if I could not
+follow you.
+
+"O Salmon of the dumb Boinn, O Salmon of the Lifé River, since I cannot
+keep you here I am loath to part from you.
+
+"O Rider of the Wave of Tuaidh, the man that stands best in the fight,
+if you come back again, I think it will not be pleasing to your enemy.
+
+"Is there pity with you for the sons of Tuireann leaning now on their
+green shields? Their going is a cause for pity, my mind is filled up
+with it.
+
+"You to be to-night at Beinn Edair till the heavy coming of the morning,
+you who have taken forfeits from brave men, it is you have increased our
+grief.
+
+"It is a pity your journey is from Teamhair, and from the pleasant
+plains, and from great Uisnech of Midhe; there is nothing so pitiful as
+this."
+
+After that complaint they went out on the rough waves of the green sea;
+and they were a quarter of a year on the sea without getting any news of
+the island.
+
+Then Brian put on his water dress and he made a leap, and he was a long
+time walking in the sea looking for the Island of the Fair-Haired Women,
+and he found it in the end. And he went looking for the court, and when
+he came to it, all he found was a troop of women doing needlework and
+embroidering borders. And among all the other things they had with them,
+there was the cooking-spit.
+
+And when Brian saw it, he took it up in his hand and he was going to
+bring it with him to the door. And all the women began laughing when
+they saw him doing that, and it is what they said: "It is a brave deed
+you put your hand to; for even if your brothers were along with you, the
+least of the three times fifty women of us would not let the spit go
+with you or with them. But for all that," they said, "take a spit of the
+spits with you, since you had the daring to try and take it in spite of
+us."
+
+Brian bade them farewell then, and went to look for the boat. And his
+brothers thought it was too long he was away from them, and just as they
+were going to leave the place they were, they saw him coming towards
+them, and that raised their courage greatly.
+
+And he went into the boat, and they went on to look for the Hill of
+Miochaoin. And when they came there, Miochaoin, that was the guardian of
+the hill, came towards them; and when Brian saw him he attacked him, and
+the fight of those two champions was like the fight of two lions, till
+Miochaoin fell at the last.
+
+And after Miochaoin had fallen, his three sons came out to fight with
+the three sons of Tuireann. And if any one ever came from the east of
+the world to look at any fight, it is to see the fight of these
+champions he had a right to come, for the greatness of their blows and
+the courage of their minds. The names of the sons of Miochaoin were Core
+and Conn and Aedh, and they drove their three spears through the bodies
+of the sons of Tuireann, and that did not discourage them at all and
+they put their own three spears through the bodies of the sons of
+Miochaoin, so that they fell into the clouds and the faintness of death.
+
+And then Brian said: "What way are you now, my dear brothers?" "We are
+near our death," said they. "Let us rise up," he said, "and give three
+shouts upon the hill, for I see the signs of death coming on us." "We
+are not able to do that," said they. Then Brian rose up and raised each
+of them with one hand, and he shedding blood heavily all the time,
+until they gave the three shouts.
+
+After that Brian brought them with him to the boat, and they were
+travelling the sea for a long time, but at last Brian said: "I see Beinn
+Edair and our father's dun, and Teamhair of the Kings." "We would have
+our fill of health if we could see that," said the others; "and for the
+love of your good name, brother," they said, "raise up our heads on your
+breast till we see Ireland again, and life or death will be the same to
+us after that. And O Brian," they said, "Flame of Valour without
+treachery, we would sooner death to bring ourselves away, than to see
+you with wounds upon your body, and with no physician to heal you."
+
+Then they came to Beinn Edair, and from that they went on to their
+father's house, and Brian said to Tuireann: "Go, dear father, to
+Teamhair, and give this spit to Lugh, and bring the skin that has
+healing in it for our relief. Ask it from him for the sake of
+friendship," he said, "for we are of the one blood, and let him not give
+hardness for hardness. And O dear father," he said, "do not be long on
+your journey, or you will not find us alive before you."
+
+Then Tuireann went to Teamhair, and he found Lugh of the Long Hand
+before him, and he gave him the spit, and he asked the skin of him to
+heal his children, and Lugh said he would not give it And Tuireann came
+back to them and told them he had not got the skin. And Brian said:
+"Bring me with you to Lugh, to see would I get it from him."
+
+So they went to Lugh, and Brian asked the skin of him. And Lugh said he
+would not give it, and that if they would give him the breadth of the
+earth in gold for it, he would not take it from them, unless he was sure
+their death would come on them in satisfaction for the deed they had
+done.
+
+When Brian heard that, he went to the place his two brothers were, and
+he lay down between them, and his life went out from him, and out from
+the other two at the same time.
+
+And their father cried and lamented over his three beautiful sons, that
+had the making of a king of Ireland in each of them, and his strength
+left him and he died; and they were buried in the one grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE GREAT BATTLE OF MAGH TUIREADH
+
+
+And it was not long after Lugh had got the fine from the sons of
+Tuireann that the Fomor came and landed at Scetne.
+
+The whole host of the Fomor were come this time, and their king, Balor,
+of the Strong Blows and of the Evil Eye, along with them; and Bres, and
+Indech, son of De Domnann, a king of the Fomor, and Elathan, son of
+Lobos, and Goll and Ingol, and Octriallach, son of Indech, and Elathan,
+son of Delbaeth.
+
+Then Lugh sent the Dagda to spy out the Fomor, and to delay them till
+such time as the men of Ireland would come to the battle.
+
+So the Dagda went to their camp, and he asked them for a delay, and they
+said he might have that. And then to make sport of him, the Fomor made
+broth for him, for he had a great love for broth. So they filled the
+king's cauldron with four times twenty gallons of new milk, and the same
+of meal and fat, and they put in goats and sheep and pigs along with
+that, and boiled all together, and then they poured it all out into a
+great hole in the ground. And they called him to it then, and told him
+he should eat his fill, the way the Fomor would not be reproached for
+want of hospitality the way Bres was. "We will make an end of you if
+you leave any part of it after you," said Indech, son of De Domnann.
+
+So the Dagda took the ladle, and it big enough for a man and a woman to
+lie in the bowl of it, and he took out bits with it, the half of a
+salted pig, and a quarter of lard a bit would be. "If the broth tastes
+as well as the bits taste, this is good food," he said. And he went on
+putting the full of the ladle into his mouth till the hole was empty;
+and when all was gone he put down his hand and scraped up all that was
+left among the earth and the gravel.
+
+Sleep came on him then after eating the broth, and the Fomor were
+laughing at him, for his belly was the size of the cauldron of a great
+house. But he rose up after a while, and, heavy as he was, he made his
+way home; and indeed his dress was no way sightly, a cape to the hollow
+of the elbows, and a brown coat, long in the breast and short behind,
+and on his feet brogues of horse hide, with the hair outside, and in his
+hand a wheeled fork it would take eight men to carry, so that the track
+he left after him was deep enough for the boundary ditch of a province.
+And on his way he saw the Battle-Crow, the Morrigu, washing herself in
+the river Unius of Connacht, and one of her two feet at Ullad Echne, to
+the south of the water, and the other at Loscuinn, to the north of the
+water, and her hair hanging in nine loosened locks. And she said to the
+Dagda, that she would bring the heart's blood of Indech, son of De
+Domnann, that had threatened him, to the men of Ireland.
+
+And while he was away Lugh had called together the Druids, and smiths,
+and physicians, and law-makers, and chariot-drivers of Ireland, to make
+plans for the battle.
+
+And he asked the great magician Mathgen what could he do to help them.
+"It is what I can do," said Mathgen, "through my power I can throw down
+all the mountains of Ireland on the Fomor, until their tops will be
+rolling on the ground. And the twelve chief mountains of Ireland will
+bring you their help," he said, "and will fight for you: Slieve Leag and
+Denda Ulad, and Bennai Boirche and Bri Ruri, and Slieve Bladma and
+Slieve Snechtae, and Slieve Mis and Blai-Slieve, and Nemthann and Slieve
+Macca Belgodon, and Segois and Cruachan Aigle."
+
+Then he asked the cup-bearers what help they could give. "We will put a
+strong thirst on the Fomor," they said, "and then we will bring the
+twelve chief lochs of Ireland before them, and however great their
+thirst may be, they will find no water in them: Derc-Loch, Loch
+Luimnech, Loch Orbsen, Loch Righ, Loch Mescdhae, Loch Cuan, Loch Laeig,
+Loch Echach, Loch Febail, Loch Decket, Loch Riach, Mor-Loch. And we will
+go," they said, "to the twelve chief rivers of Ireland: the Buas, the
+Boinn, the Banna, the Nem, the Laoi, the Sionnan, the Muaid, the
+Sligech, the Samair, the Fionn, the Ruirtech, the Siuir; and they will
+all be hidden away from the Fomor the way they will not find a drop in
+them. But as for the men of Ireland," they said, "there will be drink
+for them if they were to be in the battle to the end of seven years."
+
+And Figol, son of Mamos, the Druid, was asked then what he would do, and
+he said: "It is what I will do, I will cause three showers of fire to
+pour on the faces of the army of the Fomor, and I will take from them
+two-thirds of their bravery and their strength, and I will put sickness
+on their bodies, and on the bodies of their horses. But as to the men of
+Ireland," he said, "every breath they breathe will be an increase of
+strength and of bravery to them; and if they are seven years in the
+battle they will never be any way tired."
+
+Then Lugh asked his two witches, Bechulle and Dianan: "What power can
+you bring to the battle?" "It is easy to say that," they said. "We will
+put enchantment on the trees and the stones and the sods of the earth,
+till they become an armed host against the Fomor, and put terror on them
+and put them to the rout."
+
+Then Lugh asked Carpre, the poet, son of Etain, what could he do. "It is
+not hard to say that," said Carpre. "I will make a satire on them at
+sunrise, and the wind from the north, and I on a hill-top and my back to
+a thorn-tree, and a stone and a thorn in my hand. And with that satire,"
+he said, "I will put shame on them and enchantment, the way they will
+not be able to stand against fighting men."
+
+Then he asked Goibniu the Smith what would he be able to do. "I will do
+this," he said. "If the men of Ireland stop in the battle to the end of
+seven years, for every sword that is broken and for every spear that is
+lost from its shaft, I will put a new one in its place. And no
+spear-point that will be made by my hand," he said, "will ever miss its
+mark; and no man it touches will ever taste life again. And that is more
+than Dolb, the smith of the Fomor, can do," he said.
+
+"And you, Credne," Lugh said then to his worker in brass, "what help can
+you give to our men in the battle?" "It is not hard to tell that," said
+Credne, "rivets for their spears and hilts for their swords and bosses
+and rims for their shields, I will supply them all."
+
+"And you, Luchta," he said then to his carpenter, "what will you do?" "I
+will give them all they want of shields and of spear shafts," said
+Luchta.
+
+Then he asked Diancecht, the physician, what would he do, and it is what
+he said: "Every man that will be wounded there, unless his head is
+struck off, or his brain or his marrow cut through, I will make him
+whole and sound again for the battle of the morrow."
+
+Then the Dagda said: "Those great things you are boasting you will do,
+I will do them all with only myself." "It is you are the good god!" said
+they, and they all gave a great shout of laughter.
+
+Then Lugh spoke to the whole army and put strength in them, so that each
+one had the spirit in him of a king or a great lord.
+
+Then when the delay was at an end, the Fomor and the men of Ireland came
+on towards one another till they came to the plain of Magh Tuireadh.
+That now was not the same Magh Tuireadh where the first battle was
+fought, but it was to the north, near Ess Dara.
+
+And then the two armies threatened one another. "The men of Ireland are
+daring enough to offer battle to us," said Bres to Indech, son of De
+Domnann. "I give my word," said Indech, "it is in small pieces their
+bones will be, if they do not give in to us and pay their tribute."
+
+Now the Men of Dea had determined not to let Lugh go into the battle,
+because of the loss his death would be to them; and they left nine of
+their men keeping a watch on him.
+
+And on the first day none of the kings or princes went into the battle,
+but only the common fighting men, and they fierce and proud enough.
+
+And the battle went on like that from day to day with no great advantage
+to one or the other side. But there was wonder on the Fomor on account
+of one thing. Such of their own weapons as were broken or blunted in the
+fight lay there as they were, and such of their own men as were killed
+showed no sign of life on the morrow; but it was not so with the Tuatha
+de Danaan, for if their men were killed or their weapons were broken
+to-day, they were as good as before on the morrow.
+
+And this is the way that happened. The well of Slaine lay to the west
+of Magh Tuireadh to the east of Loch Arboch. And Diancecht and his son
+Octruil and his daughter Airmed used to be singing spells over the well
+and to be putting herbs in it; and the men that were wounded to death in
+the battle would be brought to the well and put into it as dead men, and
+they would come out of it whole and sound, through the power of the
+spells. And not only were they healed, but there was such fire put into
+them that they would be quicker in the fight than they were before.
+
+And as to the arms, it is the way they were made new every day. Goibniu
+the Smith used to be in the forge making swords and spears, and he would
+make a spear-head by three turns, and then Luchta the Carpenter would
+make the shaft by three cuts, and the third cut was a finish, and would
+set it in the ring of the spear. And when the spear-heads were stuck in
+the side of the forge, he would throw the shaft and the rings the way
+they would go into the spear-head and want no more setting. And then
+Credne the Brazier would make the rivets by three turns and would cast
+the rings of the spears to them, and with that they were ready and were
+set together.
+
+And all this went against the Fomor, and they sent one of their young
+men to spy about the camp and to see could he find out how these things
+were done. It was Ruadan, son of Bres and of Brigit daughter of the
+Dagda they sent, for he was a son and grandson of the Tuatha de Danaan.
+So he went and saw all that was done, and came back to the Fomor.
+
+And when they heard his story it is what they thought, that Goibniu the
+Smith was the man that hindered them most. And they sent Ruadan back
+again, and bade him make an end of him.
+
+So he went back again to the forge, and he asked Goibniu would he give
+him a spear-head. And then he asked rivets of Credne, and a shaft of
+the carpenter, and all was given to him as he asked. And there was a
+woman there, Cron, mother to Fianlug, grinding the spears.
+
+And after the spear being given to Ruadan, he turned and threw it at
+Goibniu, that it wounded him. But Goibniu pulled it out and made a cast
+of it at Ruadan, that it went through him and he died; and Bres, his
+father, and the army of the Fomor, saw him die. And then Brigit came and
+keened her son with shrieking and with crying.
+
+And as to Goibniu, he went into the well and was healed. But after that
+Octriallach, son of Indech, called to the Fomor and bade each man of
+them bring a stone of the stones of Drinnes and throw them into the well
+of Slane. And they did that till the well was dried up, and a cairn
+raised over it, that is called Octriallach's Cairn.
+
+And it was while Goibniu was making spear-heads for the battle of Magh
+Tuireadh, a charge was brought against his wife. And it was seen that it
+was heavy news to him, and that jealousy came on him. And it is what he
+did, there was a spear-shaft in his hand when he heard the story, Nes
+its name was; and he sang spells over the spear-shaft, and any one that
+was struck with that spear afterwards, it would burn him up like fire.
+
+And at last the day of the great battle came, and the Fomor came out of
+their camp and stood in strong ranks. And there was not a leader or a
+fighting man of them was without good armour to his skin, and a helmet
+on his head, a broad spear in his right hand, a heavy sword in his belt,
+a strong shield on his shoulder. And to attack the army of the Fomor
+that day was to strike the head against a rock, or to go up fighting
+against a fire.
+
+And the Men of Dea rose up and left Lugh and his nine comrades keeping
+him, and they went on to the battle; and Midhir was with them, and Bodb
+Dearg and Diancecht. And Badb and Macha and the Morrigu called out that
+they would go along with them.
+
+And it was a hard battle was fought, and for a while it was going
+against the Tuatha de Danaan; and Nuada of the Silver Hand, their King,
+and Macha, daughter of Emmass, fell by Balor, King of the Fomor. And
+Cass-mail fell by Octriallach, and the Dagda got a dreadful wound from a
+casting spear that was thrown by Ceithlenn, wife of Balor.
+
+But when the battle was going on, Lugh broke away from those that were
+keeping him, and rushed out to the front of the Men of Dea. And then
+there was a fierce battle fought, and Lugh was heartening the men of
+Ireland to fight well, the way they would not be in bonds any longer.
+For it was better for them, he said, to die protecting their own country
+than to live under bonds and under tribute any longer. And he sang a
+song of courage to them, and the hosts gave a great shout as they went
+into battle, and then they met together, and each of them began to
+attack the other.
+
+And there was great slaughter, and laying low in graves, and many comely
+men fell there in the stall of death. Pride and shame were there side by
+side, and hardness and red anger, and there was red blood on the white
+skin of young fighting men. And the dashing of spear against shield, and
+sword against sword, and the shouting of the fighters, and the whistling
+of casting spears and the rattling of scabbards was like harsh thunder
+through the battle. And many slipped in the blood that was under their
+feet, and they fell, striking their heads one against another; and the
+river carried away bodies of friends and enemies together.
+
+Then Lugh and Balor met in the battle, and Lugh called out reproaches to
+him; and there was anger on Balor, and he said to the men that were with
+him: "Lift up my eyelid till I see this chatterer that is talking to
+me." Then they raised Balor's eyelid, but Lugh made a cast of his red
+spear at him, that brought the eye out through the back of his head, so
+that it was towards his own army it fell, and three times nine of the
+Fomor died when they looked at it. And if Lugh had not put out that eye
+when he did, the whole of Ireland would have been burned in one flash.
+And after this, Lugh struck his head off.
+
+And as for Indech, son of De Domnann, he fell and was crushed in the
+battle, and blood burst from his mouth, and he called out for Leat Glas,
+his poet, as he lay there, but he was not able to help him. And then the
+Morrigu came into the battle, and she was heartening the Tuatha de
+Danaan to fight the battle well; and, as she had promised the Dagda, she
+took the full of her two hands of Indech's blood, and gave it to the
+armies that were waiting at the ford of Unius; and it was called the
+Ford of Destruction from that day.
+
+And after that it was not a battle any more, but a rout, and the Fomor
+were beaten back to the sea. And Lugh and his comrades were following
+them, and they came up with Bres, son of Elathan, and no guard with him,
+and he said: "It is better for you to spare my life than to kill me. And
+if you spare me now," he said, "the cows of Ireland will never go dry."
+"I will ask an advice about that from our wise men," said Lugh. So he
+told Maeltine Mor-Brethach, of the Great Judgments, what Bres was after
+saying. But Maeltine said: "Do not spare him for that, for he has no
+power over their offspring, though he has power so long as they are
+living."
+
+Then Bres said: "If you spare me, the men of Ireland will reap a harvest
+of corn every quarter." But Maeltine said: "The spring is for ploughing
+and sowing, and the beginning of summer for the strength of corn, and
+the beginning of autumn for its ripeness, and the winter for using it."
+
+"That does not save you," said Lugh then to Bres. But then to make an
+excuse for sparing him, Lugh said: "Tell us what is the best way for the
+men of Ireland to plough and to sow and to reap."
+
+"Let their ploughing be on a Tuesday, and their casting seed into the
+field on a Tuesday, and their reaping on a Tuesday," said Bres. So Lugh
+said that would do, and he let him go free after that.
+
+It was in this battle Ogma found Orna, the sword of Tethra, a king of
+the Fomor, and he took it from its sheath and cleaned it. And when the
+sword was taken out of the sheath, it told all the deeds that had been
+done by it, for there used to be that power in swords.
+
+And Lugh and the Dagda and Ogma followed after the Fomor, for they had
+brought away the Dagda's harp with them, that was called Uaitne. And
+they came to a feasting-house, and in it they found Bres and his father
+Elathan, and there was the harp hanging on the wall. And it was in that
+harp the Dagda had bound the music, so that it would not sound till he
+would call to it. And sometimes it was called Dur-da-Bla, the Oak of Two
+Blossoms, and sometimes Coir-cethar-chuin, the Four-Angled Music.
+
+And when he saw it hanging on the wall it is what he said: "Come summer,
+come winter, from the mouth of harps and bags and pipes." Then the harp
+sprang from the wall, and came to the Dagda, and it killed nine men on
+its way.
+
+And then he played for them the three things harpers understand, the
+sleepy tune, and the laughing tune, and the crying tune. And when he
+played the crying tune, their tearful women cried, and then he played
+the laughing tune, till their women and children laughed; and then he
+played the sleepy tune, and all the hosts fell asleep. And through that
+sleep the three went away through the Fomor that would have been glad to
+harm them. And when all was over, the Dagda brought out the heifer he
+had got as wages from Bres at the time he was making his dun. And she
+called to her calf, and at the sound of her call all the cattle of
+Ireland the Fomor had brought away as tribute, were back in their fields
+again.
+
+And Cé, the Druid of Nuada of the Silver Hand, was wounded in the
+battle, and he went southward till he came to Carn Corrslebe. And there
+he sat down to rest, tired with his wounds and with the fear that was on
+him, and the journey. And he saw a smooth plain before him, and it full
+of flowers, and a great desire came on him to reach to that plain, and
+he went on till he came to it, and there he died. And when his grave was
+made there, a lake burst out over it and over the whole plain, and it
+was given the name of Loch Cé. And there were but four men of the Fomor
+left in Ireland after the battle, and they used to be going through the
+country, spoiling corn and milk and fruit, and whatever came from the
+sea, till they were driven out one Samhain night by the Morrigu and by
+Angus Og, that the Fomor might never be over Ireland again.
+
+And after the battle was won, and the bodies were cleared away, the
+Morrigu gave out the news of the great victory to the hosts and to the
+royal heights of Ireland and to its chief rivers and its invers, and it
+is what she said: "Peace up to the skies, the skies down to earth, the
+earth under the skies; strength to every one."
+
+And as to the number of men that fell in the battle, it will not be
+known till we number the stars of the sky, or flakes of snow, or the dew
+on the grass, or grass under the feet of cattle, or the horses of the
+Son of Lir in a stormy sea.
+
+And Lugh was made king over the Men of Dea then, and it was at Nas he
+had his court.
+
+And while he was king, his foster-mother Taillte, daughter of Magh Mor,
+the Great Plain, died. And before her death she bade her husband Duach
+the Dark, he that built the Fort of the Hostages in Teamhair, to clear
+away the wood of Cuan, the way there could be a gathering of the people
+around her grave. So he called to the men of Ireland to cut down the
+wood with their wide-bladed knives and bill-hooks and hatchets, and
+within a month the whole wood was cut down.
+
+And Lugh buried her in the plain of Midhe, and raised a mound over her,
+that is to be seen to this day. And he ordered fires to be kindled, and
+keening to be made, and games and sports to be held in the summer of
+every year out of respect to her. And the place they were held got its
+name from her, that is Taillten.
+
+And as to Lugh's own mother, that was tall beautiful Ethlinn, she came
+to Teamhair after the battle of Magh Tuireadh, and he gave her in
+marriage to Tadg, son of Nuada. And the children that were born to them
+were Muirne, mother of Finn, the Head of the Fianna of Ireland, and
+Tuiren, that was mother of Bran.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE HIDDEN HOUSE OF LUGH
+
+
+And after Lugh had held the kingship for a long time, the Dagda was made
+king in his place.
+
+And Lugh went away out of Ireland, and some said he died at Uisnech, the
+place where the five provinces meet, and the first place there was ever
+a fire kindled in Ireland. It was by Mide, son of Brath, it was kindled,
+for the sons of Nemed, and it was burning through six years, and it was
+from that fire every chief fire was kindled in Ireland.
+
+But Lugh was seen again in Ireland at the time Conchubar and the Men of
+the Red Branch went following white birds southward to the Boinn at the
+time of Cuchulain's birth. And it was he came and kept watch over
+Cuchulain in his three days' sleep at the time of the War for the Bull
+of Cuailgne.
+
+And after that again he was seen by Conn of the Hundred Battles, and
+this is the way that happened.
+
+Conn was in Teamhair one time, and he went up in the early morning to
+the Rath of the Kings at the rising of the sun, and his three Druids
+with him, Maol and Bloc and Bhuice; and his three poets, Ethain and Corb
+and Cesarn. And the reason he had for going up there with them every
+day, was to look about on every side, the way if any men of the Sidhe
+would come into Ireland they would not come unknown to him. And on this
+day he chanced to stand upon a stone that was in the rath, and the stone
+screamed under his feet, that it was heard all over Teamhair and as far
+as Bregia.
+
+Then Conn asked his chief Druid how the stone came there, and what it
+screamed for. And the Druid said he would not answer that till the end
+of fifty-three days. And at the end of that time, Conn asked him again,
+and it is what the Druid said: "The Lia Fail is the name of the stone;
+it is out of Falias it was brought, and it is in Teamhair it was set up,
+and in Teamhair it will stay for ever. And as long as there is a king in
+Teamhair it is here will be the gathering place for games, and if there
+is no king to come to the last day of the gathering, there will be
+hardness in that year. And when the stone screamed under your feet," he
+said, "the number of the screams it gave was a foretelling of the number
+of kings of your race that would come after you. But it is not I myself
+will name them for you," he said.
+
+And while they were in the same place, there came a great mist about
+them and a darkness, so that they could not know what way they were
+going, and they heard the noise of a rider coming towards them. "It
+would be a great grief to us," said Conn, "to be brought away into a
+strange country." Then the rider threw three spears at them, and every
+one came faster than the other. "It is the wounding of a king indeed,"
+said the Druids, "any one to cast at Conn of Teamhair."
+
+The rider stopped casting his spears on that, and he came to them and
+bade Conn welcome, and asked him to come to his house. They went on then
+till they came to a beautiful plain, and there they saw a king's rath,
+and a golden tree at its door, and inside the rath a grand house with a
+roof of white bronze. So they went into the house, and the rider that
+had come to meet them was there before them, in his royal seat, and
+there had never been seen a man like him in Teamhair for comeliness or
+for beauty, or the wonder of his face.
+
+And there was a young woman in the house, having a band of gold on her
+head, and a silver vessel with hoops of gold beside her, and it full of
+red ale, and a golden bowl on its edge, and a golden cup at its mouth.
+She said then to the master of the house: "Who am I to serve drink to?"
+"Serve it to Conn of the Hundred Battles," he said, "for he will gain a
+hundred battles before he dies." And after that he bade her to pour out
+the ale for Art of the Three Shouts, the son of Conn; and after that he
+went through the names of all the kings of Ireland that would come after
+Conn, and he told what would be the length of their lifetime. And the
+young woman left the vessel with Conn, and the cup and the bowl, and she
+gave him along with that the rib of an ox and of a hog; twenty-four feet
+was the length of the ox-rib.
+
+And the master of the house told them the young woman was the Kingship
+of Ireland for ever. "And as for myself," he said, "I am Lugh of the
+Long Hand, son of Ethlinn."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE: THE COMING OF THE GAEL.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE LANDING
+
+
+It is not known, now, for what length of time the Tuatha de Danaan had
+the sway over Ireland, and it is likely it was a long time they had it,
+but they were put from it at last.
+
+It was at Inver Slane, to the north of Leinster, the sons of Gaedhal of
+the Shining Armour, the Very Gentle, that were called afterwards the
+Sons of the Gael, made their first attempt to land in Ireland to avenge
+Ith, one of their race that had come there one time and had met with his
+death.
+
+It is under the leadership of the sons of Miled they were, and it was
+from the south they came, and their Druids had told them there was no
+country for them to settle in till they would come to that island in the
+west. "And if you do not get possession of it yourselves," they said,
+"your children will get possession of it."
+
+But when the Tuatha de Danaan saw the ships coming, they flocked to the
+shore, and by their enchantments they cast such a cloud over the whole
+island that the sons of Miled were confused, and all they could see was
+some large thing that had the appearance of a pig.
+
+And when they were hindered from landing there by enchantments, they
+went sailing along the coast till at last they were able to make a
+landing at Inver Sceine in the west of Munster.
+
+From that they marched in good order as far as Slieve Mis. And there
+they were met by a queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, and a train of
+beautiful women attending on her, and her Druids and wise men following
+her. Amergin, one of the sons of Miled, spoke to her then, and asked her
+name, and she said it was Banba, wife of Mac Cuill, Son of the Hazel.
+
+They went on then till they came to Slieve Eibhline, and there another
+queen of the Tuatha de Danaan met them, and her women and her Druids
+after her, and they asked her name, and she said it was Fodhla, wife of
+Mac Cecht, Son of the Plough.
+
+They went on then till they came to the hill of Uisnech, and there they
+saw another woman coming towards them. And there was wonder on them
+while they were looking at her, for in the one moment she would be a
+wide-eyed most beautiful queen, and in another she would be a
+sharp-beaked, grey-white crow. She came on to where Eremon, one of the
+sons of Miled, was, and sat down before him, and he asked her who was
+she, and she said: "I am Eriu, wife of Mac Greine, Son of the Sun."
+
+And the names of those three queens were often given to Ireland in the
+after time.
+
+The Sons of the Gael went on after that to Teamhair, where the three
+sons of Cermait Honey-Mouth, son of the Dagda, that had the kingship
+between them at that time held their court. And these three were
+quarrelling with one another about the division of the treasures their
+father had left, and the quarrel was so hot it seemed likely it would
+come to a battle in the end.
+
+And the Sons of the Gael wondered to see them quarrelling about such
+things, and they having so fruitful an island, where the air was so
+wholesome, and the sun not too strong, or the cold too bitter, and where
+there was such a plenty of honey and acorns, and of milk, and of fish,
+and of corn, and room enough for them all.
+
+Great grandeur they were living in, and their Druids about them, at the
+palace of Teamhair. And Amergin went to them, and it is what he said,
+that they must give up the kingship there and then, or they must leave
+it to the chance of a battle. And he said he asked this in revenge for
+the death of Ith, of the race of the Gael, that had come to their court
+before that time, and that had been killed by treachery.
+
+When the sons of Cermait Honey-Mouth heard Amergin saying such fierce
+words, there was wonder on them, and it is what they said, that they
+were not willing to fight at that time, for their army was not ready.
+"But let you make an offer to us," they said, "for we see well you have
+good judgment and knowledge. But if you make an offer that is not fair,"
+they said, "we will destroy you with our enchantments."
+
+At that Amergin bade the men that were with him to go back to Inver
+Sceine, and to hurry again into their ships with the rest of the Sons of
+the Gael, and to go out the length of nine waves from the shore. And
+then he made his offer to the Tuatha de Danaan, that if they could
+hinder his men from landing on their island, he and all his ships would
+go back again to their own country, and would never make any attempt to
+come again; but that if the Sons of the Gael could land on the coast in
+spite of them, then the Tuatha de Danaan should give up the kingship and
+be under their sway.
+
+The Tuatha de Danaan were well pleased with that offer, for they thought
+that by the powers of their enchantments over the winds and the sea, and
+by their arts, they would be well able to keep them from ever setting
+foot in the country again.
+
+So the Sons of the Gael did as Amergin bade them and they went back into
+their ship and drew up their anchors, and moved out to the length of
+nine waves from the shore. And as soon as the Men of Dea saw they had
+left the land, they took to their enchantments and spells, and they
+raised a great wind that scattered the ships of the Gael, and drove them
+from one another. But Amergin knew it was not a natural storm was in
+it, and Arranan, son of Miled, knew that as well, and he went up in the
+mast of his ship to look about him. But a great blast of wind came
+against him, and he fell back into the ship and died on the moment. And
+there was great confusion on the Gael, for the ships were tossed to and
+fro, and had like to be lost. And the ship that Donn, son of Miled, was
+in command of was parted from the others by the dint of the storm, and
+was broken in pieces, and he himself and all with him were drowned,
+four-and-twenty men and women in all. And Ir, son of Miled, came to his
+death in the same way, and his body was cast on the shore, and it was
+buried in a small island that is now called Sceilg Michill. A brave man
+Ir was, leading the Sons of the Gael to the front of every battle, and
+their help and their shelter in battle, and his enemies were in dread of
+his name.
+
+And Heremon, another of the sons of Miled, with his share of the ships,
+was driven to the left of the island, and it is hardly he got safe to
+land. And the place where he landed was called Inver Colpa, because
+Colpa of the Sword, another of the sons of Miled, was drowned there, and
+he trying to get to land. Five of the sons of Miled in all were
+destroyed by the storm and the winds the Men of Dea had raised by their
+enchantments, and there were but three of them left, Heber, and Heremon,
+and Amergin.
+
+And one of them, Donn, before he was swept into the sea, called out: "It
+is treachery our knowledgeable men are doing on us, not to put down this
+wind." "There is no treachery," said Amergin, his brother. And he rose
+up then before them, and whatever enchantment he did on the winds and
+the sea, he said these words along with it:
+
+"That they that are tossing in the great wide food-giving sea may reach
+now to the land.
+
+"That they may find a place upon its plains, its mountains, and its
+valleys; in its forests that are full of nuts and of all fruits; on its
+rivers and its streams, on its lakes and its great waters.
+
+"That we may have our gatherings and our races in this land; that there
+may be a king of our own in Teamhair; that it may be the possession of
+our many kings.
+
+"That the sons of Miled may be seen in this land, that their ships and
+their boats may find a place there.
+
+"This land that is now under darkness, it is for it we are asking; let
+our chief men, let their learned wives, ask that we may come to the
+noble woman, great Eriu."
+
+After he had said this, the wind went down and the sea was quiet again
+on the moment.
+
+And those that were left of the sons of Miled and of the Sons of the
+Gael landed then at Inver Sceine.
+
+And Amergin was the first to put his foot on land, and when he stood on
+the shore of Ireland, it is what he said:
+
+    "I am the wind on the sea;
+     I am the wave of the sea;
+     I am the bull of seven battles;
+     I am the eagle on the rock;
+     I am a flash from the sun;
+     I am the most beautiful of plants;
+     I am a strong wild boar;
+     I am a salmon in the water;
+     I am a lake in the plain;
+     I am the word of knowledge;
+     I am the head of the spear in battle;
+     I am the god that puts fire in the head;
+     Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
+     Who can tell the ages of the moon?
+     Who can tell the place where the sun rests?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE BATTLE OF TAILLTIN
+
+
+And three days after the landing of the Gael, they were attacked by
+Eriu, wife of Mac Greine, Son of the Sun, and she having a good share of
+men with her. And they fought a hard battle, and many were killed on
+both sides. And this was the first battle fought between the Sons of the
+Gael and the Men of Dea for the kingship of Ireland.
+
+It was in that battle Fais, wife of Un, was killed in a valley at the
+foot of the mountain, and it was called after her, the Valley of Fais.
+And Scota, wife of Miled, got her death in the battle, and she was
+buried in a valley on the north side of the mountain near the sea. But
+the Sons of the Gael lost no more than three hundred men, and they beat
+back the Men of Dea and killed a thousand of them. And Eriu was beaten
+back to Tailltin, and as many of her men as she could hold together; and
+when she came there she told the people how she had been worsted in the
+battle, and the best of her men had got their death. But the Gael
+stopped on the battle-field, and buried their dead, and they gave a
+great burial to two of their Druids, Aer and Eithis, that were killed in
+the fight.
+
+And after they had rested for a while, they went on to Inver Colpa in
+Leinster, and Heremon and his men joined them there. And then they sent
+messengers to the three kings of Ireland, the three sons of Cermait
+Honey-Mouth, and bade them to come out and fight a battle that would
+settle the ownership of the country once for all.
+
+So they came out, and the best of the fighters of the Tuatha de Danaan
+with them, to Tailltin. And there they attacked one another, and the
+Sons of the Gael remembered the death of Ith, and there was great anger
+on them, and they fell on the Men of Dea to avenge him, and there was a
+fierce battle fought. And for a while neither side got the better of the
+other, but at the last the Gael broke through the army of the Men of Dea
+and put them to the rout, with great slaughter, and drove them out of
+the place. And their three kings were killed in the rout, and the three
+queens of Ireland, Eriu and Fodhla and Banba. And when the Tuatha de
+Danaan saw their leaders were dead they fell back in great disorder, and
+the Sons of the Gael followed after them. But in following them they
+lost two of their best leaders, Cuailgne, son of Breagan, at Slieve
+Cuailgne, and Fuad, his brother, at Slieve Fuad. But they were no way
+daunted by that, but followed the Men of Dea so hotly that they were
+never able to bring their army together again, but had to own themselves
+beaten, and to give up the country to the Gael.
+
+And the leaders, the sons of Miled, divided the provinces of Ireland
+between them. Heber took the two provinces of Munster, and he gave a
+share of it to Amergin; and Heremon got Leinster and Connacht for his
+share, and Ulster was divided between Eimhir, son of Ir, son of Miled,
+and some others of their chief men. And it was of the sons of Eimhir,
+that were called the Children of Rudraighe, and that lived in Emain
+Macha for nine hundred years, some of the best men of Ireland came;
+Fergus, son of Rogh, was of them, and Conall Cearnach, of the Red Branch
+of Ulster.
+
+And from the sons of Ith, the first of the Gael to get his death in
+Ireland, there came in the after time Fathadh Canaan, that got the sway
+over the whole world from the rising to the setting sun, and that took
+hostages of the streams and the birds and the languages.
+
+And it is what the poets of Ireland used to be saying, that every brave
+man, good at fighting, and every man that could do great deeds and not
+be making much talk about them, was of the Sons of the Gael; and that
+every skilled man that had music and that did enchantments secretly,
+was of the Tuatha de Danaan. But they put a bad name on the Firbolgs and
+the men of Domnand and the Gaileoin, for lies and for big talk and
+injustice. But for all that there were good fighters among them, and
+Ferdiad, that made so good a stand against Cuchulain, in the war for the
+Bull of Cuailgne was one of them. And the Gaileoin fought well in the
+same war; but the men of Ireland had no great liking for them, and their
+Druids drove them out of the country afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR: THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES.
+
+CHAPTER I. BODB DEARG
+
+
+But as to the Tuatha de Danaan after they were beaten, they would not go
+under the sway of the sons of Miled, but they went away by themselves.
+And because Manannan, son of Lir, understood all enchantments, they left
+it to him to find places for them where they would be safe from their
+enemies. So he chose out the most beautiful of the hills and valleys of
+Ireland for them to settle in; and he put hidden walls about them, that
+no man could see through, but they themselves could see through them and
+pass through them.
+
+And he made the Feast of Age for them, and what they drank at it was the
+ale of Goibniu the Smith, that kept whoever tasted it from age and from
+sickness and from death. And for food at the feast he gave them his own
+swine, that though they were killed and eaten one day, would be alive
+and fit for eating again the next day, and that would go on in that way
+for ever.
+
+And after a while they said: "It would be better for us one king to be
+over us, than to be scattered the way we are through the whole of
+Ireland."
+
+Now the men among them that had the best chance of getting the kingship
+at that time were Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda; and Ilbrech of Ess
+Ruadh; and Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, the Hill of the White Field, on
+Slieve Fuad; and Midhir the Proud of Bri Leith, and Angus Og, son of the
+Dagda; but he did not covet the kingship at all, but would sooner be
+left as he was. Then all the chief men but those five went into council
+together, and it is what they agreed, to give the kingship to Bodb
+Dearg, for the sake of his father, for his own sake, and because he was
+the eldest among the children of the Dagda.
+
+It was in Sidhe Femen Bodb Dearg had his house, and he put great
+enchantments about it. Cliach, the Harper of the King of the Three
+Rosses in Connacht, went one time to ask one of his daughters in
+marriage, and he stayed outside the place through the whole length of a
+year, playing his harp, and able to get no nearer to Bodb or to his
+daughter. And he went on playing till a lake burst up under his feet,
+the lake that is on the top of a mountain, Loch Bel Sead.
+
+It was Bodb's swineherd went to Da Derga's Inn, and his squealing pig
+along with him, the night Conaire, the High King of Ireland, met with
+his death; and it was said that whatever feast that swineherd would go
+to, there would blood be shed before it was over.
+
+And Bodb had three sons, Angus, and Artrach, and Aedh. And they used
+often to be living among men in the time of the Fianna afterwards.
+Artrach had a house with seven doors, and a free welcome for all that
+came, and the king's son of Ireland, and of Alban, used to be coming to
+Angus to learn the throwing of spears and darts; and troops of poets
+from Alban and from Ireland used to be with Aedh, that was the comeliest
+of Bodb's sons, so that his place used to be called "The Rath of Aedh of
+the Poets." And indeed it was a beautiful rath at that time, with
+golden-yellow apples in it and crimson-pointed nuts of the wood. But
+after the passing away of the Fianna, the three brothers went back to
+the Tuatha de Danaan.
+
+And Bodb Dearg was not always in his own place, but sometimes he was
+with Angus at Brugh na Boinn.
+
+Three sons of Lugaidh Menn, King of Ireland, Eochaid, and Fiacha, and
+Ruide, went there one time, for their father refused them any land till
+they would win it for themselves. And when he said that, they rose with
+the ready rising of one man, and went and sat down on the green of Brugh
+na Boinn, and fasted there on the Tuatha de Danaan, to see if they
+could win some good thing from them.
+
+And they were not long there till they saw a young man, quiet and with
+pleasant looks, coming towards them, and he wished them good health, and
+they answered him the same way. "Where are you come from?" they asked
+him then. "From the rath beyond, with the many lights," he said. "And I
+am Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda," he said, "and come in with me now to
+the rath."
+
+So they went in, and supper was made ready for them, but they did not
+use it. Bodb Dearg asked them then why was it they were using nothing.
+"It is because our father has refused land to us," said they; "and there
+are in Ireland but the two races, the Sons of the Gael and the Men of
+Dea, and when the one failed us we are come to the other."
+
+Then the Men of Dea consulted together. And the chief among them was
+Midhir of the Yellow Hair, and it is what he said: "Let us give a wife
+to every one of these three men, for it is from a wife that good or bad
+fortune comes."
+
+So they agreed to that, and Midhir's three daughters, Doirenn, and Aife,
+and Aillbhe, were given to them. Then Midhir asked Bodb to say what
+marriage portion should be given to them. "I will tell you that," said
+Bodb. "We are three times fifty sons of kings in this hill; let every
+king's son give three times fifty ounces of red gold. And I myself," he
+said, "will give them along with that, three times fifty suits of
+clothing of all colours." "I will give them a gift," said a young man of
+the Tuatha de Danaan, from Rachlainn in the sea. "A horn I will give
+them, and a vat. And there is nothing wanting but to fill the vat with
+pure water, and it will turn into mead, fit to drink, and strong enough
+to make drunken. And into the horn," he said, "you have but to put salt
+water from the sea, and it will turn into wine on the moment." "A gift
+to them from me," said Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, "three times fifty
+swords, and three times fifty well-riveted long spears." "A gift from
+me," said Angus Og, son of the Dagda, "a rath and a good town with high
+walls, and with bright sunny houses, and with wide houses, in whatever
+place it will please them between Rath Chobtaige and Teamhair." "A gift
+to them from me," said Aine, daughter of Modharn, "a woman-cook that I
+have, and there is _geasa_ on her not to refuse food to any; and
+according as she serves it out, her store fills up of itself again."
+"Another gift to them from me," said Bodb Dearg, "a good musician that I
+have, Fertuinne, son of Trogain; and although there were women in the
+sharpest pains of childbirth, and brave men wounded early in the day, in
+a place where there were saws going through wood, they would sleep at
+the sweetness of the music he makes. And whatever house he may be in,
+the people of the whole country round will hear him."
+
+So they stopped in Brugh na Boinne three days and three nights, and when
+they left it, Angus bade them bring away from the oak-wood three
+apple-trees, one in full bloom, and one shedding its blossom, and the
+third covered with ripe fruit.
+
+They went then to their own dun that was given them, and it is a good
+place they had there, and a troop of young men, and great troops of
+horses and of greyhounds; and they had three sorts of music that comely
+kings liked to be listening to, the music of harps and of lutes, and the
+chanting of Trogain's son; and there were three great sounds, the
+tramping on the green, and the uproar of racing, and the lowing of
+cattle; and three other sounds, the grunting of good pigs with the fat
+thick on them, and the voices of the crowd on the green lawn, and the
+noise of men drinking inside the house. And as to Eochaid, it was said
+of him that he never took a step backwards in flight, and his house was
+never without music or drinking of ale. And it was said of Fiacha that
+there was no man of his time braver than himself, and that he never said
+a word too much. And as to Ruide, he never refused any one, and never
+asked anything at all of any man.
+
+And when their lifetime was over, they went back to the Tuatha de
+Danaan, for they belonged to them through their wives, and there they
+have stopped ever since.
+
+And Bodb Dearg had a daughter, Scathniamh, the Flower of Brightness,
+that gave her love to Caoilte in the time of the Fianna; and they were
+forced to part from one another, and they never met again till the time
+Caoilte was, old and withered, and one of the last that was left of the
+Fianna. And she came to him out of the cave of Cruachan, and asked him
+for the bride-price he had promised her, and that she was never able to
+come and ask for till then. And Caoilte went to a cairn that was near
+and that was full up of gold, that was wages earned by Conan Maol and
+hidden there, and he gave the gold to Bodb Dearg's daughter. And the
+people that were there wondered to see the girl so young and comely, and
+Caoilte so grey and bent and withered. "There is no wonder in that,"
+said Caoilte, "for I am of the sons of Miled that wither and fade away,
+but she is of the Tuatha de Danaan that never change and that never
+die."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE DAGDA
+
+
+And it was at Brugh na Boinne the Dagda, the Red Man of all Knowledge,
+had his house. And the most noticeable things in it were the Hall of the
+Morrigu, and the Bed of the Dagda, and the Birthplace of Cermait
+Honey-Mouth, and the Prison of the Grey of Macha that was Cuchulain's
+horse afterwards. And there was a little hill by the house that was
+called the Comb and the Casket of the Dagda's wife; and another that was
+called the Hill of Dabilla, that was the little hound belonging to
+Boann. And the Valley of the Mata was there, the Sea-Turtle that could
+suck down a man in armour.
+
+And it is likely the Dagda put up his cooking oven there, that Druimne,
+son of Luchair, made for him at Teamhair. And it is the way it was, the
+axle and the wheel were of wood, and the body was iron, and there were
+twice nine wheels in its axle, that it might turn the faster; and it was
+as quick as the quickness of a stream in turning, and there were three
+times nine spits from it, and three times nine pots. And it used to lie
+down with the cinders and to rise to the height of the roof with the
+flame.
+
+The Dagda himself made a great vat one time for Ainge, his daughter, but
+she was not well satisfied with it, for it would not stop from dripping
+while the sea was in flood, though it would not lose a drop during the
+ebb-tide. And she gathered a bundle of twigs to make a new vat for
+herself, but Gaible, son of Nuada of the Silver Hand, stole it from her
+and hurled it away. And in the place where it fell a beautiful wood grew
+up, that was called Gaible's Wood.
+
+And the Dagda had his household at Brugh na Boinne, and his steward was
+Dichu, and Len Linfiaclach was the smith of the Brugh. It was he lived
+in the lake, making the bright vessels of Fand, daughter of Flidhais;
+and every evening when he left off work he would make a cast of the
+anvil eastward to Indeoin na Dese, the Anvil of the Dese, as far as the
+Grave End. Three showers it used to cast, a shower of fire, and a shower
+of water, and a shower of precious stones of pure purple.
+
+But Tuirbe, father of Goibniu the Smith, used to throw better again, for
+he would make a cast of his axe from Tulach na Bela, the Hill of the
+Axe, in the face of the flood tide, and he would put his order on the
+sea, and it would not come over the axe.
+
+And Corann was the best of the harpers of the household; he was harper
+to the Dagda's son, Diancecht. And one time he called with his harp to
+Cailcheir, one of the swine of Debrann. And it ran northward with all
+the strength of its legs, and the champions of Connacht were following
+after it with all their strength of running, and their hounds with them,
+till they got as far as Ceis Corain, and they gave it up there, all
+except Niall that went on the track of the swine till he found it in the
+oak-wood of Tarba, and then it made away over the plain of Ai, and
+through a lake. And Niall and his hound were drowned in following it
+through the lake. And the Dagda gave Corann a great tract of land for
+doing his harping so well.
+
+But however great a house the Dagda had, Angus got it away from him in
+the end, through the help of Manannan, son of Lir. For Manannan bade him
+to ask his father for it for the length of a day and a night, and that
+he by his art would take away his power of refusing. So Angus asked for
+the Brugh, and his father gave it to him for a day and a night. But when
+he asked it back again, it is what Angus said, that it had been given to
+him for ever, for the whole of life and time is made up of a day and a
+night, one following after the other.
+
+So when the Dagda heard that he went away and his people and his
+household with him, for Manannan had put an enchantment on them all.
+
+But Dichu the Steward was away at the time, and his wife and his son,
+for they were gone out to get provisions for a feast for Manannan and
+his friends. And when he came back and knew his master was gone, he took
+service with Angus.
+
+And Angus stopped in Brugh na Boinne, and some say he is there to this
+day, with the hidden walls about him, drinking Goibniu's ale and eating
+the pigs that never fail.
+
+As to the Dagda, he took no revenge, though he had the name of being
+revengeful and quick in his temper. And some say it was at Teamhair he
+made his dwelling-place after that, but wherever it was, a great
+misfortune came on him.
+
+It chanced one time Corrgenn, a great man of Connacht, came to visit
+him, and his wife along with him. And while they were there, Corrgenn
+got it in his mind that there was something that was not right going on
+between his wife and Aedh, one of the sons of the Dagda. And great
+jealousy and anger came on him, and he struck at the young man and
+killed him before his father's face.
+
+Every one thought the Dagda would take Corrgenn's life then and there in
+revenge for his son's life. But he would not do that, for he said if his
+son was guilty, there was no blame to be put on Corrgenn for doing what
+he did. So he spared his life for that time, but if he did, Corrgenn did
+not gain much by it. For the punishment he put on him was to take the
+dead body of the young man on his back, and never to lay it down till he
+would find a stone that would be its very fit in length and in breadth,
+and that would make a gravestone for him; and when he had found that, he
+could bury him in the nearest hill.
+
+So Corrgenn had no choice but to go, and he set out with his load; but
+he had a long way to travel before he could find a stone that would fit,
+and it is where he found one at last, on the shore of Loch Feabhail. So
+then he left the body up on the nearest hill, and he went down and
+raised the stone and brought it up and dug a grave and buried the
+Dagda's son. And it is many an Ochone! he gave when he was putting the
+stone over him, and when he had that done he was spent, and he dropped
+dead there and then.
+
+And the Dagda brought his two builders, Garbhan and Imheall, to the
+place, and he bade them build a rath there round the grave. It was
+Garbhan cut the stones and shaped them, and Imheall set them all round
+the house till the work was finished, and then he closed the top of the
+house with a slab. And the place was called the Hill of Aileac, that is,
+the Hill of Sighs and of a Stone, for it was tears of blood the Dagda
+shed on account of the death of his son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. ANGUS OG
+
+
+And as to Angus Og, son of the Dagda, sometimes he would come from Brugh
+na Boinn and let himself be seen upon the earth.
+
+It was a long time after the coming of the Gael that he was seen by
+Cormac, King of Teamhair, and this is the account he gave of him.
+
+He was by himself one day in his Hall of Judgment, for he used to be
+often reading the laws and thinking how he could best carry them out.
+And on a sudden he saw a stranger, a very comely young man, at the end
+of the hall; and he knew on the moment it was Angus Og, for he had often
+heard his people talking of him, but he himself used to be saying he did
+not believe there was any such person at all. And when his people came
+back to the hall, he told them how he had seen Angus himself, and had
+talked with him, and Angus had told him his name, and had foretold what
+would happen him in the future. "And he was a beautiful young man," he
+said, "with high looks, and his appearance was more beautiful than all
+beauty, and there were ornaments of gold on his dress; in his hand he
+held a silver harp with strings of red gold, and the sound of its
+strings was sweeter than all music under the sky; and over the harp were
+two birds that seemed to be playing on it. He sat beside me pleasantly
+and played his sweet music to me, and in the end he foretold things that
+put drunkenness on my wits."
+
+The birds, now, that used to be with Angus were four of his kisses that
+turned into birds and that used to be coming about the young men of
+Ireland, and crying after them. "Come, come," two of them would say, and
+"I go, I go," the other two would say, and it was hard to get free of
+them. But as to Angus, even when he was in his young youth, he used to
+be called the Frightener, or the Disturber; for the plough teams of the
+world, and every sort of cattle that is used by men, would make away in
+terror before him.
+
+And one time he appeared in the shape of a land-holder to two men, Ribh
+and Eocho, that were looking for a place to settle in. The first place
+they chose was near Bregia on a plain that was belonging to Angus; and
+it was then he came to them, leading his horse in his hand, and told
+them they should not stop there. And they said they could not carry away
+their goods without horses. Then he gave them his horse, and bade them
+to put all they had a mind to on that horse and he would carry it, and
+so he did. But the next place they chose was Magh Find, the Fine Plain,
+that was the playing ground of Angus and of Midhir. And that time Midhir
+came to them in the same way and gave them a horse to put their goods
+on, and he went on with them as far as Magh Dairbthenn.
+
+And there were many women loved Angus, and there was one Enghi, daughter
+of Elcmair, loved him though she had not seen him. And she went one time
+looking for him to the gathering for games between Cletech and Sidhe in
+Broga; and the bright troops of the Sidhe used to come to that gathering
+every Samhain evening, bringing a moderate share of food with them, that
+is, a nut. And the sons of Derc came from the north, out of Sidhe
+Findabrach, and they went round about the young men and women without
+their knowledge and they brought away Elcmair's daughter. There were
+great lamentations made then, and the name the place got was Cnoguba,
+the Nut Lamentation, from the crying there was at that gathering.
+
+And Derbrenn, Eochaid Fedlech's daughter, was another that was loved by
+Angus, and she had six fosterlings, three boys and three girls. But the
+mother of the boys, Dalb Garb, the Rough, put a spell on them she made
+from a gathering of the nuts of Caill Ochuid, that turned them into
+swine.
+
+And Angus gave them into the care of Buichet, the Hospitaller of
+Leinster, and they stopped a year with him. But at the end of that time
+there came a longing On Buichet's wife to eat a bit of the flesh of one
+of them. So she gathered a hundred armed men and a hundred hounds to
+take them. But the pigs made away, and went to Brugh na Boinn, to Angus,
+and he bade them welcome, and they asked him to give them his help. But
+he said he could not do that till they had shaken the Tree of Tarbga,
+and eaten the salmon of Inver Umaill.
+
+So they went to Glascarn, and stopped a year in hiding with Derbrenn.
+And then they shook the Tree of Tarbga, and they went on towards Inver
+Umaill. But Maeve gathered the men of Connacht to hunt them, and they
+all fell but one, and their heads were put in a mound, and it got the
+name of Duma Selga, the Mound of the Hunting.
+
+And it was in the time of Maeve of Cruachan that Angus set his love on
+Caer Ormaith, of the Province of Connacht, and brought her away to Brugh
+na Boinn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE MORRIGU
+
+
+As to the Morrigu, the Great Queen, the Crow of Battle, where she lived
+after the coming of the Gael is not known, but before that time it was
+in Teamhair she lived. And she had a great cooking-spit there, that held
+three sorts of food on it at the one time: a piece of raw meat, and a
+piece of dressed meat, and a piece of butter. And the raw was dressed,
+and the dressed was not burned, and the butter did not melt, and the
+three together on the spit.
+
+Nine men that were outlaws went to her one time and asked for a spit to
+be made for themselves. And they brought it away with them, and it had
+nine ribs in it, and every one of the outlaws would carry a rib in his
+hand wherever he would go, till they would all meet together at the
+close of day. And if they wanted the spit to be high, it could be raised
+to a man's height, and at another time it would not be more than the
+height of a fist over the fire, without breaking and without lessening.
+
+And Mechi, the son the Morrigu had, was killed by Mac Cecht on Magh
+Mechi, that till that time had been called Magh Fertaige. Three hearts
+he had, and it is the way they were, they had the shapes of three
+serpents through them. And if Mechi had not met with his death, those
+serpents in him would have grown, and what they left alive in Ireland
+would have wasted away. And Mac Cecht burned the three hearts on Magh
+Luathad, the Plain of Ashes, and he threw the ashes into the stream; and
+the rushing water of the stream stopped and boiled up, and every
+creature in it died.
+
+And the Morrigu used often to be meddling in Ireland in Cuchulain's
+time, stirring up wars and quarrels. It was she came and roused up
+Cuchulain one time when he was but a lad, and was near giving in to some
+enchantment that was used against him. "There is not the making of a
+hero in you," she said to him, "and you lying there under the feet of
+shadows." And with that Cuchulain rose up and struck off the head of a
+shadow that was standing over him, with his hurling stick. And the time
+Conchubar was sending out Finched to rouse up the men of Ulster at the
+time of the war for the Bull of Cuailgne, he bade him to go to that
+terrible fury, the Morrigu, to get help for Cuchulain. And she had a
+dispute with Cuchulain one time he met her, and she bringing away a cow
+from the Hill of Cruachan; and another time she helped Talchinem, a
+Druid of the household of Conaire Mor, to bring away a bull his wife had
+set her mind on. And indeed she was much given to meddling with cattle,
+and one time she brought away a cow from Odras, that was of the
+household of the cow-chief of Cormac Hua Cuined, and that was going
+after her husband with cattle. And the Morrigu brought the cow away with
+her to the Cave of Cruachan, and the Hill of the Sidhe. And Odras
+followed her there till sleep fell on her in the oak-wood of Falga; and
+the Morrigu awoke her and sang spells over her, and made of her a pool
+of water that went to the river that flows to the west of Slieve Buane.
+
+And in the battle of Magh Rath, she fluttered over Congal Claen in the
+shape of a bird, till he did not know friend from foe. And after that
+again at the battle of Cluantarbh, she was flying over the head of
+Murchadh, son of Brian; for she had many shapes, and it was in the shape
+of a crow she would sometimes fight her battles.
+
+And if it was not the Morrigu, it was Badb that showed herself in the
+battle of Dunbolg, where the men of Ireland were fighting under Aedh,
+son of Niall; and Brigit was seen in the same battle on the side of the
+men of Leinster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. AINE
+
+
+And as to Aine, that some said was a daughter of Manannan, but some said
+was the Morrigu herself, there was a stone belonging to her that was
+called Cathair Aine. And if any one would sit on that stone he would be
+in danger of losing his wits, and any one that would sit on it three
+times would lose them for ever. And people whose wits were astray would
+make their way to it, and mad dogs would come from all parts of the
+country, and would flock around it, and then they would go into the sea
+to Aine's place there. But those that did cures by herbs said she had
+power over the whole body; and she used to give gifts of poetry and of
+music, and she often gave her love to men, and they called her the
+Leanan Sidhe, the Sweet-heart of the Sidhe.
+
+And it was no safe thing to offend Aine, for she was very revengeful.
+Oilioll Oluim, a king of Ireland, killed her brother one time, and it is
+what she did, she made a great yew-tree by enchantment beside the river
+Maigh in Luimnech, and she put a little man in it, playing sweet music
+on a harp. And Oilioll's son was passing the river with his
+step-brother, and they saw the tree and heard the sweet music from it.
+And first they quarrelled as to which of them would have the little
+harper, and then they quarrelled about the tree, and they asked a
+judgment from Oilioll, and he gave it for his own son. And it was the
+bad feeling about that judgment that led to the battle of Magh
+Mucruimhe, and Oilioll and his seven sons were killed there, and so Aine
+got her revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. AOIBHELL
+
+
+And Aoibhell, another woman of the Sidhe, made her dwelling-place in
+Craig Liath, and at the time of the battle of Cluantarbh she set her
+love on a young man of Munster, Dubhlaing ua Artigan, that had been sent
+away in disgrace by the King of Ireland. But before the battle he came
+back to join with Murchadh, the king's son, and to fight for the Gael.
+And Aoibhell came to stop him; and when he would not stop with her she
+put a Druid covering about him, the way no one could see him.
+
+And he went where Murchadh was fighting, and he made a great attack on
+the enemies of Ireland, and struck them down on every side. And Murchadh
+looked around him, and he said; "It seems to me I hear the sound of the
+blows of Dubhlaing ua Artigan, but I do not see himself." Then Dubhlaing
+threw off the Druid covering that was about him, and he said: "I will
+not keep this covering upon me when you cannot see me through it. And
+come now across the plain to where Aoibhell is," he said, "for she can
+give us news of the battle."
+
+So they went where she was, and she bade them both to quit the battle,
+for they would lose their lives in it. But Murchadh said to her, "I will
+tell you a little true story," he said; "that fear for my own body will
+never make me change my face. And if we fall," he said, "the strangers
+will fall with us; and it is many a man will fall by my own hand, and
+the Gael will be sharing their strong places." "Stop with me,
+Dubhlaing," she said then, "and you will have two hundred years of happy
+life with myself." "I will not give up Murchadh," he said, "or my own
+good name, for silver or gold." And there was anger on Aoibhell when he
+said that, and she said: "Murchadh will fall, and you yourself will
+fall, and your proud blood will be on the plain to-morrow." And they
+went back into the battle, and got their death there.
+
+And it was Aoibhell gave a golden harp to the son of Meardha the time
+he was getting his learning at the school of the Sidhe in Connacht and
+that he heard his father had got his death by the King of Lochlann. And
+whoever heard the playing of that harp would not live long after it. And
+Meardha's son went where the three sons of the King of Lochlann were,
+and played on his harp for them, and they died.
+
+It was that harp Cuchulain heard the time his enemies were gathering
+against him at Muirthemne, and he knew by it that his life was near its
+end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. MIDHIR AND ETAIN
+
+
+And Midhir took a hill for himself, and his wife Fuamach was with him
+there, and his daughter, Bri. And Leith, son of Celtchar of Cualu, was
+the most beautiful among the young men of the Sidhe of Ireland at that
+time, and he loved Bri, Midhir's daughter. And Bri went out with her
+young girls to meet him one time at the Grave of the Daughters beside
+Teamhair. And Leith came and his young men along with him till he was on
+the Hill of the After Repentance. And they could not come nearer to one
+another because of the slingers on Midhir's hill that were answering one
+another till their spears were as many as a swarm of bees on a day of
+beauty. And Cochlan, Leith's servant, got a sharp wound from them and he
+died.
+
+Then the girl turned back to Midhir's hill, and her heart broke in her
+and she died. And Leith said: "Although I am not let come to this girl,
+I will leave my name with her." And the hill was called Bri Leith from
+that time.
+
+After a while Midhir took Etain Echraide to be his wife. And there was
+great jealousy on Fuamach, the wife he had before, when she saw the
+love that Midhir gave to Etain, and she called to the Druid, Bresal
+Etarlaim to help her, and he put spells on Etain the way Fuamach was
+able to drive her away.
+
+And when she was driven out of Bri Leith, Angus Og, son of the Dagda,
+took her into his keeping; and when Midhir asked her back, he would not
+give her up, but he brought her about with him to every place he went.
+And wherever they rested, he made a sunny house for her, and put
+sweet-smelling flowers in it, and he made invisible walls about it, that
+no one could see through and that could not be seen.
+
+But when news came to Fuamach that Etain was so well cared by Angus,
+anger and jealousy came on her again, and she searched her mind for a
+way to destroy Etain altogether.
+
+And it is what she did, she persuaded Midhir and Angus to go out and
+meet one another and to make peace, for there had been a quarrel between
+them ever since the time Etain was sent away. And when Angus was away
+from Brugh na Boinn, Fuamach went and found Etain there, in her sunny
+house. And she turned her with Druid spells into a fly, and then she
+sent a blast of wind into the house, that swept her away through the
+window.
+
+But as to Midhir and Angus, they waited a while for Fuamach to come and
+join them. And when she did not come they were uneasy in their minds,
+and Angus hurried back to Brugh na Boinn. And when he found the sunny
+house empty, he went in search of Fuamach, and it was along with
+Etarlaim, the Druid, he found her, and he struck her head off there and
+then.
+
+And for seven years Etain was blown to and fro through Ireland in great
+misery. And at last she came to the house of Etar, of Inver Cechmaine,
+where there was a feast going on, and she fell from a beam of the roof
+into the golden cup that was beside Etar's wife. And Etar's wife drank
+her down with the wine, and at the end of nine months she was born again
+as Etar's daughter.
+
+And she had the same name as before, Etain; and she was reared as a
+king's daughter, and there were fifty young girls, daughters of princes,
+brought up with her to keep her company.
+
+And it happened one day Etain and all the rest of the young girls were
+out bathing in the bay at Inver Cechmaine, and they saw from the water a
+man, with very high looks, coming towards them over the plain, and he
+riding a bay horse with mane and tail curled. A long green cloak he had
+on him, and a shirt woven with threads of red gold, and a brooch of gold
+that reached across to his shoulders on each side. And he had on his
+back a shield of silver with a rim of gold and a boss of gold, and in
+his hand a sharp-pointed spear covered with rings of gold from heel to
+socket. Fair yellow hair he had, coming over his forehead, and it bound
+with a golden band to keep it from loosening.
+
+And when he came near them he got down from his horse, and sat down on
+the bank, and it is what he said:
+
+"It is here Etain is to-day, at the Mound of Fair Women. It is among
+little children is her life on the strand of Inver Cechmaine.
+
+"It is she healed the eye of the king from the well of Loch da Lig; it
+is she was swallowed in a heavy drink by the wife of Etar.
+
+"Many great battles will happen for your sake to Echaid of Midhe;
+destruction will fall upon the Sidhe, and war on thousands of men."
+
+And when he had said that, he vanished, and no one knew where he went.
+And they did not know the man that had come to them was Midhir of Bri
+Leith.
+
+And when Etain was grown to be a beautiful young woman, she was seen by
+Eochaid Feidlech, High King of Ireland, and this is the way that
+happened.
+
+He was going one time over the fair green of Bri Leith, and he saw at
+the side of a well a woman, with a bright comb of gold and silver, and
+she washing in a silver basin having four golden birds on it, and little
+bright purple stones set in the rim of the basin. A beautiful purple
+cloak she had, and silver fringes to it, and a gold brooch; and she had
+on her a dress of green silk with a long hood, embroidered in red gold,
+and wonderful clasps of gold and silver on her breasts and on her
+shoulder. The sunlight was falling on her, so that the gold and the
+green silk were shining out. Two plaits of hair she had, four locks in
+each plait, and a bead at the point of every lock, and the colour of her
+hair was like yellow flags in summer, or like red gold after it is
+rubbed.
+
+There she was, letting down her hair to wash it, and her arms out
+through the sleeve-holes of her shift. Her soft hands were as white as
+the snow of a single night, and her eyes as blue as any blue flower, and
+her lips as red as the berries of the rowan-tree, and her body as white
+as the foam of a wave. The bright light of the moon was in her face, the
+highness of pride in her eyebrows, a dimple of delight in each of her
+cheeks, the light of wooing in her eyes, and when she walked she had a
+step that was steady and even like the walk of a queen.
+
+And Eochaid sent his people to bring her to him, and he asked her name,
+and she told him her name was Etain, daughter of Etar, King of the
+Riders of the Sidhe. And Eochaid gave her his love, and he paid the
+bride-price, and brought her home to Teamhair as his wife, and there was
+a great welcome before her there.
+
+And after a while there was a great feast made at Teamhair, and all the
+chief men of Ireland came to it, and it lasted from the fortnight before
+Samhain to the fortnight after it. And King Eochaid's brother Ailell,
+that was afterwards called Ailell Anglonach, of the Only Fault, came to
+the feast. And when he saw his brother's wife Etain, he fell in love
+with her on the moment, and all through the length of the feast he was
+not content unless he could be looking at her. And a woman, the daughter
+of Luchta Lamdearg, of the Red Hand, took notice of it, and she said:
+"What far thing are you looking at, Ailell? It is what I think, that to
+be looking the way you are doing is a sign of love." Then Ailell checked
+himself, and did not look towards Etain any more.
+
+But when the feast was at an end, and the gathering broken up, great
+desire and envy came on Ailell, so that he fell sick, and they brought
+him to a house in Teffia. And he stopped there through the length of a
+year, and he was wasting away, but he told no one the cause of his
+sickness. And at the end of the year, Eochaid came to visit his brother,
+and he passed his hand over his breast, and Ailell let a groan. "What
+way are you?" said Eochaid then. "Are you getting any easier, for you
+must not let this illness come to a bad end." "By my word," said Ailell,
+"it is not easier I am, but worse and worse every day and every night."
+"What is it ails you?" said Eochaid. "And what is it that is coming
+against you." "By my word, I cannot tell you that," said Ailell. "I will
+bring one here that will know the cause of your sickness," said the
+king.
+
+With that he sent Fachtna, his own physician, to Ailell; and when he
+came he passed his hand over Ailell's heart, and at that he groaned
+again. "This sickness will not be your death," said Fachtna then; "and I
+know well what it comes from. It is either from the pains of jealousy,
+or from love you have given, and that you have not found a way out of."
+But there was shame on Ailell, and he would not confess to the physician
+that what he said was right. So Fachtna went away then and left him.
+
+As to King Eochaid, he went away to visit all the provinces of Ireland
+that were under his kingship, and he left Etain after him, and it is
+what he said: "Good Etain," he said, "take tender care of Ailell so long
+as he is living; and if he should die from us, make a sodded grave for
+him, and raise a pillar stone over it, and write his name on it in
+Ogham." And with that he went away on his journey.
+
+One day, now, Etain went into the house where Ailell was lying in his
+sickness, and they talked together, and then she made a little song for
+him, and it is what she said:
+
+"What is it ails you, young man, for it is a long time you are wasted
+with this sickness, and it is not the hardness of the weather has
+stopped your light footstep."
+
+And Ailell answered her in the same way, and he said: "I have good cause
+for my hurt; the music of my own harp does not please me; there is no
+sort of food is pleasant to me, and so I am wasted away." Then Etain
+said: "Tell me what is it ails you, for I am a woman that is wise. Tell
+me is there anything that would cure you, the way I may help you to it?"
+And Ailell answered her: "O kind, beautiful woman, it is not good to
+tell a secret to a woman, but sometimes it may be known through the
+eyes." And Etain said: "Though it is bad to tell a secret, yet it ought
+to be told now, or how can help be given to you?" And Ailell answered:
+"My blessing on you, fair-haired Etain. It is not fit I am to be spoken
+with; my wits have been no good help to me; my body is a rebel to me.
+All Ireland knows, O king's wife, there is sickness in my head and in my
+body." And Etain said: "If there is a woman of the fair-faced women of
+Ireland tormenting you this way, she must come to you here if it
+pleases you; and it is I myself will woo her for you," she said.
+
+Then Ailell said to her: "Woman, it would be easy for you yourself to
+put my sickness from me. And my desire," he said, "is a desire that is
+as long as a year; but it is love given to an echo, the spending of
+grief on a wave, a lonely fight with a shadow, that is what my love and
+my desire have been to me."
+
+And it is then Etain knew what was the sickness that was on him, and it
+was a heavy trouble to her.
+
+But she came to him every day to tend him, and to make ready his food,
+and to pour water over his hands, and all she could do she did for him,
+for it was a grief to her, he to wither away and to be lost for her
+sake. And at last one day she said to him: "Rise up, Ailell, son of a
+king, man of high deeds, and I will do your healing."
+
+Then he put his arms about her, and she kissed him, and she said: "Come
+at the morning of to-morrow at the break of day to the house outside the
+dun, and I will give you all your desire."
+
+That night Ailell lay without sleep until the morning was at hand. And
+at the very time he should have risen to go to her, it was at that time
+his sleep settled down upon him, and he slept on till the full light of
+day.
+
+But Etain went to the house outside the dun, and she was not long there
+when she saw a man coming towards her having the appearance of Ailell,
+sick and tired and worn. But when he came near and she looked closely at
+him, she saw it was not Ailell that was in it. Then he went away, and
+after she had waited a while, she herself went back into the dun.
+
+And it was then Ailell awoke, and when he knew the morning had passed
+by, he would sooner have had death than life, and he fretted greatly.
+And Etain came in then, and he told her what had happened him. And she
+said: "Come to-morrow to the same place."
+
+But the same thing happened the next day. And when it happened on the
+third day, and the same man came to meet Etain, she said to him: "It is
+not you at all I come to meet here, and why is it that you come to meet
+me? And as to him I came to meet," she said, "indeed it is not for gain
+or through lightness I bade him come to me, but to heal him of the
+sickness he is lying under for my sake." Then the man said: "It would be
+more fitting for you to come to meet me than any other one. For in the
+time long ago," he said, "I was your first husband, and your first man."
+"What is it you are saying," she said, "and who are you yourself?" "It
+is easy to tell that," he said; "I am Midhir of Bri Leith." "And what
+parted us if I was your wife?" said Etain. "It was through Fuamach's
+sharp jealousy and through the spells of Bresal Etarlaim, the Druid, we
+were parted. And will you come away with me now?" he said. But Etain
+said: "It is not for a man whose kindred is unknown I will give up the
+High King of Ireland." And Midhir said: "Surely it was I myself put that
+great desire for you on Ailell, and it was I hindered him from going to
+meet you, the way you might keep your good name."
+
+And when she went back to Ailell's house, she found his sickness was
+gone from him, and his desire. And she told him all that had happened,
+and he said: "It has turned out well for us both: I am well of my
+sickness and your good name is not lessened." "We give thanks to our
+gods for that," said Etain, "for we are well pleased to have it so."
+
+And just at that time Eochaid came back from his journey, and they told
+him the whole story, and he was thankful to his wife for the kindness
+she had showed to Ailell.
+
+It was a good while after that, there was a great fair held at Teamhair,
+and Etain was out on the green looking at the games and the races. And
+she saw a rider coming towards her, but no one could see him but
+herself; and when he came near she saw he had the same appearance as
+the man that came and spoke with her and her young girls the time they
+were out in the sea at Inver Cechmaine. And when he came up to her he
+began to sing words to her that no one could hear but herself. And it is
+what he said:
+
+"O beautiful woman, will you come with me to the wonderful country that
+is mine? It is pleasant to be looking at the people there, beautiful
+people without any blemish; their hair is of the colour of the
+flag-flower, their fair body is as white as snow, the colour of the
+foxglove is on every cheek. The young never grow old there; the fields
+and the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's
+eggs; warm, sweet streams of mead and of wine flow through that country;
+there is no care and no sorrow on any person; we see others, but we
+ourselves are not seen.
+
+"Though the plains of Ireland are beautiful, it is little you would
+think of them after our great plain; though the ale of Ireland is heady,
+the ale of the great country is still more heady. O beautiful woman, if
+you come to my proud people it is the flesh of pigs newly killed I will
+give you for food; it is ale and new milk I will give you for drink; it
+is feasting you will have with me there; it is a crown of gold you will
+have upon your hair, O beautiful woman!
+
+"And will you come there with me, Etain?" he said. But Etain said she
+would not leave Eochaid the High King. "Will you come if Eochaid gives
+you leave?" Midhir said then. "I will do that," said Etain.
+
+One day, after that time, Eochaid the High King was looking out from his
+palace at Teamhair, and he saw a strange man coming across the plain.
+Yellow hair he had, and eyes blue and shining like the flame of a
+candle, and a purple dress on him, and in his hand a five-pronged spear
+and a shield having gold knobs on it.
+
+He came up to the king, and the king bade him welcome. "Who are you
+yourself?" he said; "and what are you come for, for you are a stranger
+to me?" "If I am a stranger to you, you are no stranger to me, for I
+have known you this long time," said the strange man. "What is your
+name?" said the king. "It is nothing very great," said he; "I am called
+Midhir of Bri Leith." "What is it brings you here?" said Eochaid. "I am
+come to play a game of chess with you," said the stranger. "Are you a
+good player?" said the king. "A trial will tell you that," said Midhir.
+"The chessboard is in the queen's house, and she is in her sleep at this
+time," said Eochaid. "That is no matter," said Midhir, "for I have with
+me a chess-board as good as your own." And with that he brought out his
+chessboard, and it made of silver, and precious stones shining in every
+corner of it. And then he brought out the chessmen, and they made of
+gold, from a bag that was of shining gold threads.
+
+"Let us play now," said Midhir. "I will not play without a stake," said
+the king. "What stake shall We play for?" said Midhir. "We can settle
+that after the game is over," said the king.
+
+They played together then, and Midhir was beaten, and it is what the
+king asked of him, fifty brown horses to be given to him. And then they
+played the second time, and Midhir was beaten again, and this time the
+king gave him four hard things to do: to make a road over Moin Lamraide,
+and to clear Midhe of stones, and to cover the district of Tethra with
+rushes, and the district of Darbrech with trees.
+
+So Midhir brought his people from Bri Leith to do those things, and it
+is bard work they had doing them. And Eochaid used to be out watching
+them, and he took notice that when the men of the Sidhe yoked their
+oxen, it was by the neck and the shoulder they used to yoke them, and
+not by the forehead and the head. And it was after Eochaid taught his
+people to yoke them that way, he was given the name of Eochaid Airem,
+that is, of the Plough.
+
+And when all was done, Midhir came to Eochaid again, looking thin and
+wasted enough with the dint of the hard work he had been doing, and he
+asked Eochaid to play the third game with him. Eochaid agreed, and it
+was settled as before, the stake to be settled by the winner. It was
+Midhir won the game that time, and when the king asked him what he
+wanted, "It is Etain, your wife, I want," said he. "I will not give her
+to you," said the king. "All I will ask then," said Midhir, "is to put
+my arms about her and to kiss her once." "You may do that," said the
+king, "if you will wait to the end of a month." So Midhir agreed to
+that, and went away for that time.
+
+At the end of the month he came back again, and stood in the great hall
+at Teamhair, and no one had ever seen him look so comely as he did that
+night. And Eochaid had all his best fighting men gathered in the hall,
+and he shut all the doors of the palace when he saw Midhir come in, for
+fear he would try to bring away Etain by force.
+
+"I am come to be paid what is due to me," said Midhir. "I have not been
+thinking of it up to this time," said Eochaid, and there was anger on
+him. "You promised me Etain, your wife," said Midhir. The redness of
+shame came on Etain when she heard that, but Midhir said: "Let there be
+no shame on you, Etain, for it is through the length of a year I have
+been asking your love, and I have offered you every sort of treasure and
+riches, and you refused to come to me till such a time as your husband
+would give you leave." "It is true I said that," said Etain, "I will go
+if Eochaid gives me up to you." "I will not give you up," said Eochaid;
+"I will let him do no more than put his arms about you in this place, as
+was promised him." "I will do that," said Midhir.
+
+With that he took his sword in his left hand, and he took Etain in his
+right arm and kissed her. All the armed men in the house made a rush at
+him then, but he rose up through the roof bringing Etain with him, and
+when they rushed out of the house to follow him, all they could see was
+two swans high up in the air, linked together by a chain of gold.
+
+There was great anger on Eochaid then, and he went and searched all
+through Ireland, but there were no tidings of them to be had, for they
+were in the houses of the Sidhe.
+
+It was to the Brugh of Angus on the Boinn they went first, and after
+they had stopped there a while they went to a hill of the Sidhe in
+Connacht. And there was a serving-maid with Etain at that time, Cruachan
+Croderg her name was, and she said to Midhir: "Is this your own place we
+are in?" "It is not," said Midhir; "my own place is nearer to the rising
+of the sun." She was not well pleased to stop there when she heard that,
+and Midhir said to quiet her: "It is your own name will be put on this
+place from this out." And the hill was called the Hill of Cruachan from
+that time.
+
+Then they went to Bri Leith; and Etain's daughter Esa came to them
+there, and she brought a hundred of every sort of cattle with her, and
+Midhir fostered her for seven years. And all through that time Eochaid
+the High King was making a search for them.
+
+But at last Codal of the Withered Breast took four rods of yew and wrote
+Oghams on them, and through them and through his enchantments he found
+out that Etain was with Midhir in Bri Leith.
+
+So Eochaid went there, and made an attack on the place, and he was for
+nine years besieging it, and Midhir was driving him away. And then his
+people began digging through the hill; and when they were getting near
+to where Etain was, Midhir sent three times twenty beautiful women,
+having all of them the appearance of Etain, and he bade the king choose
+her out from among them. And the first he chose was his own daughter
+Esa. But then Etain called to him, and he knew her, and he brought her
+home to Teamhair.
+
+And Eochaid gave his daughter Esa her choice of a place for herself. And
+she chose it, and made a rath there, that got the name of Rath Esa. And
+from it she could see three notable places, the Hill of the Sidhe in
+Broga, and the Hill of the Hostages in Teamhair, and Dun Crimthain on
+Beinn Edair.
+
+But there was great anger on Midhir and his people because of their hill
+being attacked and dug into. And it was in revenge for that insult they
+brought Conaire, High King of Ireland, that was grandson of Eochaid and
+of Etain, to his death afterwards at Da Derga's Inn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. MANANNAN
+
+
+Now as to Manannan the Proud, son of Lir, after he had made places for
+the rest of the Tuatha de Danaan to live in, he went away out of Ireland
+himself. And some said he was dead, and that he got his death by Uillenn
+Faebarderg, of the Red Edge, in battle. And it is what they said, that
+the battle was fought at Magh Cuilenn, and that Manannan was buried
+standing on his feet, and no sooner was he buried than a great lake
+burst up under his feet in the place that was a red bog till that time.
+And the lake got the name of Loch Orbson, from one of the names of
+Manannan. And it was said that red Badb was glad and many women were
+sorry at that battle.
+
+But he had many places of living, and he was often heard of in Ireland
+after. It was he sent a messenger to Etain, mother of Conaire the High
+King, the time she was hidden in the cowherd's house. And it was he
+brought up Deirdre's children in Emhain of the Apple Trees, and it was
+said of that place, "a house of peace is the hill of the Sidhe of
+Emhain." And it was he taught Diarmuid of the Fianna the use of weapons,
+and it was he taught Cuchulain the use of the Gae Bulg, and some say it
+was he was Deirdre's father, and that he brought Conchubar, king of
+Ulster, to the place she was hidden, and he running with the appearance
+of a hare before the hounds of the men of Ulster to bring them there.
+
+And it is what they say, that the time Conchubar had brought the sons of
+Usnach to Emain Macha, and could not come at them to kill them because
+of their bravery, it was to Manannan he went for help. And Manannan said
+he would give him no help, for he had told him at the time he brought
+Deirdre away that she would be the cause of the breaking up of his
+kingdom, and he took her away in spite of him. But Conchubar asked him
+to put blindness for a while on the sons of Usnach, or the whole army
+would be destroyed with their blows. So after a while he consented to
+that. And when the sons of Usnach came out again against the army of
+Ulster, the blindness came on them, and it was at one another they
+struck, not seeing who was near them, and it was by one another's hands
+they fell. But more say Manannan had no hand in it, and that it was
+Cathbad, the Druid, put a sea about them and brought them to their death
+by his enchantments.
+
+And some say Culain, the Smith, that gave his name to Cuchulain
+afterwards, was Manannan himself, for he had many shapes.
+
+Anyway, before Culain came to Ulster, he was living in the Island of
+Falga, that was one of Manannan's places. And one time before Conchubar
+came into the kingdom, he went to ask advice of a Druid, and the Druid
+bade him to go to the Island of Falga and to ask Culain, the smith he
+would find there, to make arms for him. So Conchubar did so, and the
+smith promised to make a sword and spear and shield for him.
+
+And while he was working at them Conchubar went out one morning early to
+walk on the strand, and there he saw a sea-woman asleep on the shore.
+And he put bonds on her in her sleep, the way she would not make her
+escape. But when she awoke and saw what had happened, she asked him to
+set her free. "And I am Tiabhal," she said, "one of the queens of the
+sea. And bid Culain," she said, "that is making your shield for you, to
+put my likeness on it and my name about it. And whenever you will go
+into a battle with that shield the strength of your enemies will lessen,
+and your own strength and the strength of your people will increase."
+
+So Conchubar let her go, and bade the smith do as she had told him. And
+when he went back to Ireland he got the victory wherever he brought that
+shield.
+
+And he sent for Culain then, and offered him a place on the plains of
+Muirthemne. And whether he was or was not Manannan, it is likely he gave
+Cuchulain good teaching the time he stopped with him there after killing
+his great dog.
+
+Manannan had good hounds one time, but they went hunting after a pig
+that was destroying the whole country, and making a desert of it. And
+they followed it till they came to a lake, and there it turned on them,
+and no hound of them escaped alive, but they were all drowned or maimed.
+And the pig made for an island then, that got the name of Muc-inis, the
+Pigs Island afterwards; and the lake got the name of Loch Conn, the
+Lake of the Hounds.
+
+And it was through Manannan the wave of Tuaig, one of the three great
+waves of Ireland, got its name, and this is the way that happened.
+
+There was a young girl of the name of Tuag, a fosterling of Conaire the
+High King, was reared in Teamhair, and a great company of the daughters
+of the kings of Ireland were put about her to protect her, the way she
+would be kept for a king's asking. But Manannan sent Fer Ferdiad, of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, that was a pupil of his own and a Druid, in the shape
+of a woman of his own household, and he went where Tuag was, and sang a
+sleep-spell over her, and brought her away to Inver Glas. And there he
+laid her down while he went looking for a boat, that he might bring her
+away in her sleep to the Land of the Ever-Living Women. But a wave of
+the flood-tide came over the girl, and she was drowned, and Manannan
+killed Fer Ferdiad in his anger.
+
+And one time Manannan's cows came up out of the sea at Baile Cronin,
+three of them, a red, and a white, and a black, and the people that were
+there saw them standing on the strand for a while, as if thinking, and
+then they all walked up together, side by side, from the strand. And at
+that time there were no roads in Ireland, and there was great wonder on
+the people when they saw a good wide road ready before the three cows to
+walk on. And when they got about a mile from the sea they parted; the
+white cow went to the north-west, towards Luimnech, and the red cow went
+to the south-west, and on round the coast of Ireland, and the black cow
+went to the north-east, towards Lis Mor, in the district of Portlairge,
+and a road opened before each of them, that is to be seen to this day.
+
+And some say it was Manannan went to Finn and the Fianna in the form of
+the Gilla Decair, the Bad Servant, and brought them away to
+Land-under-Wave. Anyway, he used often to go hunting with them on Cnoc
+Aine, and sometimes he came to their help.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. MANANNAN AT PLAY
+
+
+And it was he went playing tricks through Ireland a long time after that
+again, the time he got the name of O'Donnell's Kern. And it is the way
+it happened, Aodh Dubh O'Donnell was holding a feast one time in
+Bel-atha Senaig, and his people were boasting of the goodness of his
+house and of his musicians.
+
+And while they were talking, they saw a clown coming towards them, old
+striped clothes he had, and puddle water splashing in his shoes, and his
+sword sticking out naked behind him, and his ears through the old cloak
+that was over his head, and in his hand he had three spears of hollywood
+scorched and blackened.
+
+He wished O'Donnell good health, and O'Donnell did the same to him, and
+asked where did he come from. "It is where I am," he said, "I slept last
+night at Dun Monaidhe, of the King of Alban; I am a day in Ile, a day in
+Cionn-tire, a day in Rachlainn, a day in the Watchman's Seat in Slieve
+Fuad; a pleasant, rambling, wandering man I am, and it is with yourself
+I am now, O'Donnell," he said. "Let the gate-keeper be brought to me,"
+said O'Donnell. And when the gate-keeper came, he asked was it he let in
+this man, and the gate-keeper said he did not, and that he never saw him
+before. "Let him off, O'Donnell," said the stranger, "for it was as easy
+for me to come in, as it will be to me to go out again." There was
+wonder on them all then, any man to have come into the house without
+passing the gate.
+
+The musicians began playing their music then, and all the best musicians
+of the country were there at the time, and they played very sweet tunes
+on their harps. But the strange man called out: "By my word, O'Donnell,
+there was never a noise of hammers beating on iron in any bad place was
+so bad to listen to as this noise your people are making."
+
+With that he took a harp, and he made music that would put women in
+their pains and wounded men after a battle into a sweet sleep, and it is
+what O'Donnell said: "Since I first heard talk of the music of the Sidhe
+that is played in the hills and under the earth below us, I never heard
+better music than your own. And it is a very sweet player you are," he
+said. "One day I am sweet, another day I am sour," said the clown.
+
+Then O'Donnell bade his people to bring him up to sit near himself. "I
+have no mind to do that," he said; "I would sooner be as I am, an ugly
+clown, making sport for high-up people." Then O'Donnell sent him down
+clothes, a hat and a striped shirt and a coat, but he would not have
+them. "I have no mind," he said, "to let high-up people be making a
+boast of giving them to me."
+
+They were afraid then he might go from them, and they put twenty armed
+horsemen and twenty men on foot to hold him back from leaving the house,
+and as many more outside at the gate, for they knew him not to be a man
+of this world. "What are these men for?" said he. "They are to keep you
+here," said O'Donnell. "By my word, it is not with you I will be eating
+my supper to-morrow," he said, "but at Cnoc Aine, where Seaghan, Son of
+the Earl is, in Desmumain." "If I find you giving one stir out of
+yourself, between this and morning, I will knock you into a round lump
+there on the ground," said O'Donnell.
+
+But at that the stranger took up the harp again, and he made the same
+sweet music as before. And when they were all listening to him, he
+called out to the men outside: "Here I am coming, and watch me well now
+or you will lose me." When the men that were watching the gate heard
+that, they lifted up their axes to strike at him, but in their haste it
+was at one another they struck, till they were all lying stretched in
+blood. Then the clown said to the gate-keeper: "Let you ask twenty cows
+and a hundred of free land of O'Donnell as a fee for bringing his people
+back to life. And take this herb," he said, "and rub it in the mouth of
+each man of them, and he will rise up whole and well again." So the
+gate-keeper did that, and he got the cows and the land from O'Donnell,
+and he brought all the people to life again.
+
+Now at that time Seaghan, Son of the Earl, was holding a gathering on
+the green in front of his dun, and he saw the same man coming towards
+him, and dressed in the same way, and the water splashing in his shoes.
+But when he asked who was he, he gave himself the name of a very learned
+man, Duartane O'Duartane, and he said it was by Ess Ruadh he was come,
+and by Ceiscorainn and from that to Corrslieve, and to Magh Lorg of the
+Dagda, and into the district of Hy'Conaill Gabhra, "till I came to
+yourself," he said, "by Cruachan of Magh Ai." So they brought him into
+the house, and gave him wine for drinking and water for washing his
+feet, and he slept till the rising of the sun on the morrow. And at that
+time Seaghan, Son of the Earl, came to visit him, and he said: "It is a
+long sleep you had, and there is no wonder in that, and your journey so
+long yesterday. But I often heard of your learning in books and of your
+skill on the harp, and I would like to hear you this morning," he said.
+"I am good in those arts indeed," said the stranger. So they brought him
+a book, but he could not read a word of it, and then they brought him a
+harp, and he could not play any tune. "It is likely your reading and
+your music are gone from you," said Seaghan; and he made a little rann
+on him, saying it was a strange thing Duartane O'Duartane that had such
+a great name not to be able to read a line of a book, or even to
+remember one. But when the stranger heard how he was being mocked at, he
+took up the book, and read from the top to the bottom of the page very
+well and in a sweet-sounding voice. And after that he took the harp and
+played and sang the same way he did at O'Donnell's house the day before.
+"It is a very sweet man of learning you are," said Seaghan. "One day I
+am sweet, another day I am sour," said the stranger.
+
+They walked out together then on Cnoc Aine, but while they were talking
+there, the stranger was gone all of a minute, and Seaghan, Son of the
+Earl, could not see where he went.
+
+And after that he went on, and he reached Sligach just at the time
+O'Conchubar was setting out with the men of Connacht to avenge the
+Connacht hag's basket on the hag of Munster. And this time he gave
+himself the name of the Gilla Decair, the Bad Servant. And he joined
+with the men of Connacht, and they went over the Sionnan westward into
+Munster, and there they hunted and drove every creature that could be
+made travel, cattle and horses and flocks, into one place, till they got
+the hornless bull of the Munster hag and her two speckled cows, and
+O'Conchubar brought them away to give to the Connacht hag in
+satisfaction for her basket.
+
+But the men of Munster made an attack on them as they were going back;
+and the Gilla Decair asked O'Conchubar would he sooner have the cows
+driven, or have the Munster men checked, and he said he would sooner
+have the Munster men checked. So the Gilla Decair turned on them, and
+with his bow and twenty-four arrows he kept them back till O'Conchubar
+and his people were safe out of their reach in Connacht.
+
+But he took some offence then, on account of O'Conchubar taking the
+first drink himself when they came to his house, and not giving it to
+him, that had done so much, and he took his leave and went from them on
+the moment.
+
+After that he went to where Tadg O'Cealaigh was, and having his old
+striped clothes and his old shoes as before. And when they asked him
+what art he had, he said: "I am good at tricks. And if you will give me
+five marks I will show you a trick," he said. "I will give that," said
+Tadg.
+
+With that the stranger put three rushes on the palm of his hand. "I will
+blow away the middle rush now," he said, "and the other two will stop as
+they are." So they told him to do that, and he put the tops of two of
+his fingers on the two outside rushes, and blew the middle one away.
+"There is a trick now for you, Tadg O'Cealaigh," he said then. "By my
+word, that is not a bad trick," said O'Cealaigh. But one of his men
+said: "That there may be no good luck with him that did it. And give me
+the half of that money now, Tadg," he said, "and I will do the same
+trick for you myself." "I will give you the half of what I got if you
+will do it," said the stranger. So the other put the rushes on his hand,
+but if he did, when he tried to do the trick, his two finger-tips went
+through the palm of his hand. "Ob-Ob-Ob!" said the stranger, "that is
+not the way I did the trick. But as you have lost the money," he said,
+"I will heal you again."
+
+"I could do another trick for you," he said; "I could wag the ear on
+one side of my head and the ear on the other side would stay still." "Do
+it then," said O'Cealaigh. So the man of tricks took hold of one of his
+ears and wagged it up and down. "That is a good trick indeed," said
+O'Cealaigh. "I will show you another one now," he said.
+
+With that he took from his bag a thread of silk, and gave a cast of it
+up into the air, that it was made fast to a cloud. And then he took a
+hare out of the same bag, and it ran up the thread; and then took out a
+little dog and laid it on after the hare, and it followed yelping on its
+track; and after that again he brought out a little serving-boy and bade
+him to follow dog and hare up the thread. Then out of another bag he had
+with him he brought out a beautiful, well-dressed young woman, and bade
+her to follow after the hound and the boy, and to take care and not let
+the hare be torn by the dog. She went up then quickly after them, and it
+was a delight to Tadg O'Cealaigh to be looking at them and to be
+listening to the sound of the hunt going on in the air.
+
+All was quiet then for a long time, and then the man of tricks said: "I
+am afraid there is some bad work going on up there." "What is that?"
+said O'Cealaigh. "I am thinking," said he, "the hound might be eating
+the hare, and the serving-boy courting the girl." "It is likely enough
+they are," said O'Cealaigh. With that the stranger drew in the thread,
+and it is what he found, the boy making love to the girl and the hound
+chewing the bones of the hare. There was great anger on the man of
+tricks when he saw that, and he took his sword and struck the head off
+the boy. "I do not like a thing of that sort to be done in my presence,"
+said Tadg O'Cealaigh. "If it did not please you, I can set all right
+again," said the stranger. And with that he took up the head and made a
+cast of it at the body, and it joined to it, and the young man stood
+up, but if he did his face was turned backwards. "It would be better for
+him to be dead than to be living like that," said O'Cealaigh. When the
+man of tricks heard that, he took hold of the boy and twisted his head
+straight, and he was as well as before.
+
+And with that the man of tricks vanished, and no one saw where was he
+gone.
+
+That is the way Manannan used to be going round Ireland, doing tricks
+and wonders. And no one could keep him in any place, and if he was put
+on a gallows itself, he would be found safe in the house after, and some
+other man on the gallows in his place. But he did no harm, and those
+that would be put to death by him, he would bring them to life again
+with a herb out of his bag.
+
+And all the food he would use would be a vessel of sour milk and a few
+crab-apples. And there never was any music sweeter than the music he
+used to be playing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. HIS CALL TO BRAN
+
+
+And there were some that went to Manannan's country beyond the sea, and
+that gave an account of it afterwards.
+
+One time Bran, son of Febal, was out by himself near his dun, and he
+heard music behind him. And it kept always after him, and at last he
+fell asleep with the sweetness of the sound. And when he awoke from his
+sleep he saw beside him a branch of silver, and it having white
+blossoms, and the whiteness of the silver was the same as the whiteness
+of the blossoms.
+
+And he brought the branch in his hand into the royal house, and when all
+his people were with him they saw a woman with strange clothing standing
+in the house.
+
+And she began to make a song for Bran, and all the people were looking
+at her and listening to her, and it is what she said:
+
+"I bring a branch of the apple-tree from Emhain, from the far island
+around which are the shining horses of the Son of Lir. A delight of the
+eyes is the plain where the hosts hold their games; curragh racing
+against chariot in the White Silver Plain to the south.
+
+"There are feet of white bronze under it, shining through life and time;
+a comely level land through the length of the world's age, and many
+blossoms falling on it.
+
+"There is an old tree there with blossoms, and birds calling from among
+them; every colour is shining there, delight is common, and music, in
+the Gentle-Voiced Plain, in the Silver Cloud Plain to the south.
+
+"Keening is not used, or treachery, in the tilled familiar land; there
+is nothing hard or rough, but sweet music striking on the ear.
+
+"To be without grief, without sorrow, without death, without any
+sickness, without weakness; that is the sign of Emhain; it is not common
+wonder that is.
+
+"There is nothing to liken its mists to, the sea washes the wave against
+the land; brightness falls from its hair.
+
+"There are riches, there are treasures of every colour in the Gentle
+Land, the Bountiful Land. Sweet music to be listening to; the best of
+wine to drink.
+
+"Golden chariots in the Plain of the Sea, rising up to the sun with the
+tide; silver chariots and bronze chariots on the Plain of Sports.
+
+"Gold-yellow horses on the strand, and crimson horses, and others with
+wool on their backs, blue like the colour of the sky.
+
+"It is a day of lasting weather, silver is dropping on the land; a pure
+white cliff on the edge of the sea, getting its warmth from the sun.
+
+"The host race over the Plain of Sports; it is beautiful and not weak
+their game is; death or the ebbing of the tide will not come to them in
+the Many-Coloured Land.
+
+"There will come at sunrise a fair man, lighting up the level lands; he
+rides upon the plain that is beaten by the waves, he stirs the sea till
+it is like blood.
+
+"An army will come over the clear sea, rowing to the stone that is in
+sight, that a hundred sounds of music come from.
+
+"It sings a song to the army; it is not sad through the length of time;
+it increases music with hundreds singing together; they do not look for
+death or the ebb-tide.
+
+"There are three times fifty far islands in the ocean to the west of us,
+and every one of them twice or three times more than Ireland.
+
+"It is not to all of you I am speaking, though I have made all these
+wonders known. Let Bran listen from the crowd of the world to all the
+wisdom that has been told him.
+
+"Do not fall upon a bed of sloth; do not be overcome by drunkenness; set
+out on your voyage over the clear sea, and you may chance to come to the
+Land of Women."
+
+With that the woman went from them, and they did not know where she
+went. And she brought away her branch with her, for it leaped into her
+hand from Bran's hand, and he had not the strength to hold it.
+
+Then on the morrow Bran set out upon the sea, and three companies of
+nine along with him; and one of his foster-brothers and comrades was set
+over each company of nine.
+
+And when they had been rowing for two days and two nights, they saw a
+man coming towards them in a chariot, over the sea. And the man made
+himself known to them, and he said that he was Manannan, son of Lir.
+
+And then Manannan spoke to him in a song, and it is what he said:
+
+"It is what Bran thinks, he is going in his curragh over the wonderful,
+beautiful clear sea; but to me, from far off in my chariot, it is a
+flowery plain he is riding on.
+
+"What is a clear sea to the good boat Bran is in, is a happy plain with
+many flowers to me in my two-wheeled chariot.
+
+"It is what Bran sees, many waves beating across the clear sea; it is
+what I myself see, red flowers without any fault.
+
+"The sea-horses are bright in summer-time, as far as Bran's eyes can
+reach; there is a wood of beautiful acorns under the head of your little
+boat.
+
+"A wood with blossom and with fruit, that has the smell of wine; a wood
+without fault, without withering, with leaves of the colour of gold.
+
+"Let Bran row on steadily, it is not far to the Land of Women; before
+the setting of the sun you will reach Emhain, of many-coloured
+hospitality."
+
+With that Bran went from him; and after a while he saw an island, and he
+rowed around it, and there was a crowd on it, wondering at them, and
+laughing; and they were all looking at Bran and at his people, but they
+would not stop to talk with them, but went on giving out gusts of
+laughter. Bran put one of his men on the island then, but he joined with
+the others, and began to stare the same way as the men of the island.
+And Bran went on rowing round about the island; and whenever they went
+past his own man, his comrades would speak to him, but he would not
+answer them, but would only stare and wonder at them. So they went away
+and left him on that island that is called the Island of Joy.
+
+It was not long after that they reached to the Land of Women. And they
+saw the chief one of the women at the landing-place, and it is what she
+said: "Come hither to land, Bran, son of Febal, it is welcome your
+coming is." But Bran did not dare to go on shore. Then the woman threw a
+ball of thread straight to him, and he caught it in his hand, and it
+held fast to his palm, and the woman kept the thread in her own hand,
+and she pulled the curragh to the landing-place.
+
+On that they went into a grand house, where there was a bed for every
+couple, three times nine beds. And the food that was put on every dish
+never came to an end, and they had every sort of food and of drink they
+wished for.
+
+And it seemed to them they were only a year there when the desire of
+home took hold on one of them, Nechtan, son of Collbrain, and his
+kinsmen were begging and praying Bran to go back with him to Ireland.
+The woman said there would be repentance on them if they went; but in
+spite of that they set out in the end. And the woman said to them not to
+touch the land when they would come to Ireland, and she bade them to
+visit and to bring with them the man they left in the Island of Joy.
+
+So they went on towards Ireland till they came to a place called Srub
+Bruin. And there were people on the strand that asked them who they were
+that were coming over the sea. And Bran said: "I am Bran, son of Febal."
+But the people said: "We know of no such man, though the voyage of Bran
+is in our very old stories."
+
+Then Nechtan, son of Collbrain, made a leap out of the curragh, and no
+sooner did he touch the shore of Ireland than he was a heap of ashes,
+the same as if he had been in the earth through hundreds of years.
+
+And then Bran told the whole story of his wanderings to the people,
+from the beginning. And after that he bade them farewell, and his
+wanderings from that time are not known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. HIS THREE CALLS TO CORMAC
+
+
+And another that went to Manannan's country was Cormac, grandson of
+Conn, King of Teamhair, and this is the way it happened. He was by
+himself in Teamhair one time, and he saw an armed man coming towards
+him, quiet, with high looks, and having grey hair; a shirt ribbed with
+gold thread next his skin, broad shoes of white bronze between his feet
+and the ground, a shining branch, having nine apples of red gold, on his
+shoulder. And it is delightful the sound of that branch was, and no one
+on earth would keep in mind any want, or trouble, or tiredness, when
+that branch was shaken for him; and whatever trouble there might be on
+him, he would forget it at the sound.
+
+Then Cormac and the armed man saluted one another, and Cormac asked
+where did he come from. "I come," he said, "from a country where there
+is nothing but truth, and where there is neither age nor withering away,
+nor heaviness, nor sadness, nor jealousy nor envy, nor pride." "That is
+not so with us," said Cormac, "and I would be well pleased to have your
+friendship," he said. "I am well pleased to give it," said the stranger.
+"Give me your branch along with it," said Cormac. "I will give it," said
+the stranger, "if you will give me the three gifts I ask in return." "I
+will give them to you indeed," said Cormac.
+
+Then the strange man left the branch and went away, and Cormac did not
+know where was he gone to.
+
+He went back then into the royal house, and there was wonder on all the
+people when they saw the branch. And he shook it at them, and it put
+them all asleep from that day to the same time on the morrow.
+
+At the end of a year the strange man came back again, and he asked for
+the first of his three requests. "You will get it," said Cormac. "I will
+take your daughter, Aille, to-day," said the stranger.
+
+So he brought away the girl with him, and the women of Ireland gave
+three loud cries after the king's daughter. But Cormac shook the branch
+at them, until it put away sorrow from them, and put them all into their
+sleep.
+
+That day month the stranger came again, and he brought Cormac's son,
+Carpre Lifecar, away with him. There was crying and lamenting without
+end in Teamhair after the boy, and on that night no one ate or slept,
+and they were all under grief and very downhearted. But when Cormac
+shook the branch their sorrow went from them.
+
+Then the stranger came the third time, and Cormac asked him what did he
+want. "It is your wife, Ethne, I am asking this time," he said. And he
+went away then, bringing Ethne, the queen, along with him.
+
+But Cormac would not bear that, and he went after them, and all his
+people were following him. But in the middle of the Plain of the Wall, a
+thick mist came on them, and when it was gone, Cormac found himself
+alone on a great plain. And he saw a great dun in the middle of the
+plain, with a wall of bronze around it, and in the dun a house of white
+silver, and it half thatched with the white wings of birds. And there
+was a great troop of the Riders of the Sidhe all about the house, and
+their arms full of white birds' wings for thatching. But as soon as they
+would put on the thatch, a blast of wind would come and carry it away
+again.
+
+Then he saw a man kindling a fire, and he used to throw a thick
+oak-tree upon it. And when he would come back with a second tree, the
+first one would be burned out. "I will be looking at you no longer,"
+Cormac said then, "for there is no one here to tell me your story, and I
+think I could find good sense in your meanings if I understood them," he
+said.
+
+Then he went on to where there was another dun, very large and royal,
+and another wall of bronze around it, and four houses within it. And he
+went in and saw a great king's house, having beams of bronze and walls
+of silver, and its thatch of the wings of white birds. And then he saw
+on the green a shining well, and five streams flowing from it, and the
+armies drinking water in turn, and the nine lasting purple hazels of
+Buan growing over it. And they were dropping their nuts into the water,
+and the five salmon would catch them and send their husks floating down
+the streams. And the sound of the flowing of those streams is sweeter
+than any music that men sing.
+
+Then he went into the palace, and he found there waiting for him a man
+and a woman, very tall, and having clothes of many colours. The man was
+beautiful as to shape, and his face wonderful to look at; and as to the
+young woman that was with him, she was the loveliest of all the women of
+the world, and she having yellow hair and a golden helmet. And there was
+a bath there, and heated stones going in and out of the water of
+themselves, and Cormac bathed himself in it.
+
+"Rise up, man of the house," the woman said after that, "for this is a
+comely traveller is come to us; and if you have one kind of food or meat
+better than another, let it be brought in." The man rose up then and he
+said: "I have but seven pigs, but I could feed the whole world with
+them, for the pig that is killed and eaten to-day, you will find it
+alive again to-morrow."
+
+Another man came into the house then, having an axe in his right hand,
+and a log in his left hand, and a pig behind him.
+
+"It is time to make ready," said the man of the house, "for we have a
+high guest with us to-day."
+
+Then the man struck the pig and killed it, and he cut the logs and made
+a fire and put the pig on it in a cauldron. "It is time for you to turn
+it," said the master of the house after a while. "There would be no use
+doing that," said the man, "for never and never will the pig be boiled
+until a truth is told for every quarter of it." "Then let you tell yours
+first," said the master of the house. "One day," said the man, "I found
+another man's cows in my land, and I brought them with me into a cattle
+pound. The owner of the cows followed me, and he said he would give me a
+reward to let the cows go free. So I gave them back to him, and he gave
+me an axe, and when a pig is to be killed, it is with the axe it is
+killed, and the log is cut with it, and there is enough wood to boil the
+pig, and enough for the palace besides. And that is not all, for the log
+is found whole again in the morning. And from that time till now, that
+is the way they are."
+
+"It is true indeed that story is," said the man of the house.
+
+They turned the pig in the cauldron then, and but one quarter of it was
+found to be cooked. "Let us tell another true story," they said. "I will
+tell one," said the master of the house. "Ploughing time had come, and
+when we had a mind to plough that field outside, it is the way we found
+it, ploughed, and harrowed, and sowed with wheat. When we had a mind to
+reap it, the wheat was found in the haggard, all in one thatched rick.
+We have been using it from that day to this, and it is no bigger and no
+less."
+
+Then they turned the pig, and another quarter was found to be ready. "It
+is my turn now," said the woman. "I have seven cows," she said, "and
+seven sheep. And the milk of the seven cows would satisfy the whole of
+the men of the world, if they were in the plain drinking it, and it is
+enough for all the people of the Land of Promise, and it is from the
+wool of the seven sheep all the clothes they wear are made." And at that
+story the third quarter of the pig was boiled.
+
+"If these stories are true," said Cormac to the man of the house, "you
+are Manannan, and this is Manannan's wife; for no one on the whole ridge
+of the world owns these treasures but himself. It was to the Land of
+Promise he went to look for that woman, and he got those seven cows with
+her."
+
+They said to Cormac that it was his turn now. So Cormac told them how
+his wife, and his son, and his daughter, had been brought away from him,
+and how he himself had followed them till he came to that place.
+
+And with that the whole pig was boiled, and they cut it up, and Cormac's
+share was put before him. "I never used a meal yet," said he, "having
+two persons only in my company." The man of the house began singing to
+him then, and put him asleep. And when he awoke, he saw fifty armed men,
+and his son, and his wife, and his daughter, along with them. There was
+great gladness and courage on him then, and ale and food were given out
+to them all. And there was a gold cup put in the hand of the master of
+the house, and Cormac was wondering at it, for the number of the shapes
+on it, and for the strangeness of the work. "There is a stranger thing
+yet about it," the man said; "let three lying words be spoken under it,
+and it will break into three, and then let three true words be spoken
+under it, and it will be as good as before." So he said three lying
+words under it, and it broke in three pieces. "It is best to speak truth
+now under it," he said, "and to mend it. And I give my word, Cormac," he
+said, "that until to-day neither your wife or your daughter has seen the
+face of a man since they were brought away from you out of Teamhair, and
+that your son has never seen the face of a woman." And with that the cup
+was whole again on the moment. "Bring away your wife and your children
+with you now," he said, "and this cup along with them, the way you will
+have it for judging between truth and untruth. And I will leave the
+branch with you for music and delight, but on the day of your death they
+will be taken from you again." "And I myself," he said, "am Manannan, son
+of Lir, King of the Land of Promise, and I brought you here by
+enchantments that you might be with me to-night in friendship.
+
+"And the Riders you saw thatching the house," he said, "are the men of
+art and poets, and all that look for a fortune in Ireland, putting
+together cattle and riches. For when they go out, all that they leave in
+their houses goes to nothing, and so they go on for ever.
+
+"And the man you saw kindling the fire," he said, "is a young lord that
+is more liberal than he can afford, and every one else is served while
+he is getting the feast ready, and every one else profiting by it.
+
+"And the well you saw is the Well of Knowledge, and the streams are the
+five streams through which all knowledge goes. And no one will have
+knowledge who does not drink a draught out of the well itself or out of
+the streams. And the people of many arts are those who drink from them
+all."
+
+And on the morning of the morrow, when Cormac rose up, he found himself
+on the green of Teamhair, and his wife, and his son, and his daughter,
+along with him, and he having his branch and his cup. And it was given
+the name of Cormac's Cup, and it used to judge between truth and
+falsehood among the Gael. But it was not left in Ireland after the night
+of Cormac's death, as Manannan had foretold him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. CLIODNA'S WAVE
+
+And it was in the time of the Fianna of Ireland that Ciabhan of the
+Curling Hair, the king of Ulster's son, went to Manannan's country.
+
+Ciabhan now was the most beautiful of the young men of the world at that
+time, and he was as far beyond all other kings' sons as the moon is
+beyond the stars. And Finn liked him well, but the rest of the Fianna
+got to be tired of him because there was not a woman of their women, wed
+or unwed, but gave him her love. And Finn had to send him away at the
+last, for he was in dread of the men of the Fianna because of the
+greatness of their jealousy.
+
+So Ciabhan went on till he came to the Strand of the Cairn, that is
+called now the Strand of the Strong Man, between Dun Sobairce and the
+sea. And there he saw a curragh, and it having a narrow stern of copper.
+And Ciabhan got into the curragh, and his people said: "Is it to leave
+Ireland you have a mind, Ciabhan?" "It is indeed," he said, "for in
+Ireland I get neither shelter or protection." He bade farewell to his
+people then, and he left them very sorrowful after him, for to part with
+him was like the parting of life from the body.
+
+And Ciabhan went on in the curragh, and great white shouting waves rose
+up about him, every one of them the size of a mountain; and the
+beautiful speckled salmon that are used to stop in the sand and the
+shingle rose up to the sides of the curragh, till great dread came on
+Ciabhan, and he said: "By my word, if it was on land I was I could make
+a better fight for myself"
+
+And he was in this danger till he saw a rider coming towards him on a
+dark grey horse having a golden bridle, and he would be under the sea
+for the length of nine waves, and he would rise with the tenth wave, and
+no wet on him at all. And he said: "What reward would you give to
+whoever would bring you out of this great danger?" "Is there anything in
+my hand worth offering you?" said Ciabhan. "There is," said the rider,
+"that you would give your service to whoever would give you his help."
+Ciabhan agreed to that, and he put his hand into the rider's hand.
+
+With that the rider drew him on to the horse, and the curragh came on
+beside them till they reached to the shore of Tir Tairngaire, the Land
+of Promise. They got off the horse there, and came to Loch Luchra, the
+Lake of the Dwarfs, and to Manannan's city, and a feast was after being
+made ready there, and comely serving-boys were going round with smooth
+horns, and playing on sweet-sounding harps till the whole house was
+filled with the music.
+
+Then there came in clowns, long-snouted, long-heeled, lean and bald and
+red, that used to be doing tricks in Manannan's house. And one of these
+tricks was, a man of them to take nine straight willow rods, and to
+throw them up to the rafters of the house, and to catch them again as
+they came down, and he standing on one leg, and having but one hand
+free. And they thought no one could do that trick but themselves, and
+they were used to ask strangers to do it, the way they could see them
+fail.
+
+So this night when one of them had done the trick, he came up to
+Ciabhan, that was beyond all the Men of Dea or the Sons of the Gael that
+were in the house, in shape and in walk and in name, and he put the nine
+rods in his hand. And Ciabhan stood up and he did the feat before them
+all, the same as if he had never learned to do any other thing.
+
+Now Gebann, that was a chief Druid in Manannan's country, had a
+daughter, Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that had never given her love to any
+man. But when she saw Ciabhan she gave him her love, and she agreed to
+go away with him on the morrow.
+
+And they went down to the landing-place and got into a curragh, and they
+went on till they came to Teite's Strand in the southern part of
+Ireland. It was from Teite Brec the Freckled the strand got its name,
+that went there one time for a wave game, and three times fifty young
+girls with her, and they were all drowned in that place.
+
+And as to Ciabhan, he came on shore, and went looking for deer, as was
+right, under the thick branches of the wood; and he left the young girl
+in the boat on the strand.
+
+But the people of Manannan's house came after them, having forty ships.
+And Iuchnu, that was in the curragh with Cliodna, did treachery, and he
+played music to her till she lay down in the boat and fell asleep. And
+then a great wave came up on the strand and swept her away.
+
+And the wave got its name from Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that will be
+long remembered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. HIS CALL TO CONNLA
+
+
+And it is likely it was Manannan sent his messenger for Connla of the
+Red Hair the time he went away out of Ireland, for it is to his country
+Connla was brought; and this is the way he got the call.
+
+It chanced one day he was with his father Conn, King of Teamhair, on the
+Hill of Uisnach, and he saw a woman having wonderful clothing coming
+towards him. "Where is it you come from?" he asked her. "I come," she
+said, "from Tir-nam-Beo, the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, where no
+death comes. We use feasts that are lasting," she said, "and we do every
+kind thing without quarrelling, and we are called the people of the
+Sidhe." "Who are you speaking to, boy?" said Conn to him then, for no
+one saw the strange woman but only Connla. "He is speaking to a high
+woman that death or old age will never come to," she said. "I am asking
+him to come to Magh Mell, the Pleasant Plain where the triumphant king
+is living, and there he will be a king for ever without sorrow or fret.
+Come with me, Connla of the Red Hair," she said, "of the fair freckled
+neck and of the ruddy cheek; come with me, and your body will not wither
+from its youth and its comeliness for ever."
+
+They could all hear the woman's words then, though they could not see
+her, and it is what Conn said to Coran his Druid: "Help me, Coran, you
+that sing spells of the great arts. There is an attack made on me that
+is beyond my wisdom and beyond my power, I never knew so strong an
+attack since the first day I was a king. There is an unseen figure
+fighting with me; she is using her strength against me to bring away my
+beautiful son; the call of a woman is bringing him away from the hands
+of the king."
+
+Then Coran, the Druid, began singing spells against the woman of the
+Sidhe, the way no one would hear her voice, and Connla could not see her
+any more. But when she was being driven away by the spells of the Druid,
+she threw an apple to Connla.
+
+And through the length of a month from that time, Connla used no other
+food nor drink but that apple, for he thought no other food or drink
+worth the using. And for all he ate of it, the apple grew no smaller,
+but was whole all the while. And there was great trouble on Connla on
+account of the woman he had seen.
+
+And at the end of a month Connla was at his father's side in Magh
+Archomnim, and he saw the same woman coming towards him, and it is what
+she said: "It is a high place indeed Connla has among dying people, and
+death before him. But the Ever-Living Living Ones," she said, "are
+asking you to take the sway over the people of Tethra, for they are
+looking at you every day in the gatherings of your country among your
+dear friends."
+
+When Conn, the king, heard her voice, he said to his people: "Call
+Coran, the Druid to me, for I hear the sound of the woman's voice
+again." But on that she said: "O Conn, fighter of a hundred, it is
+little love and little respect the wonderful tribes of Traig Mor, the
+Great Strand, have for Druids; and where its law comes, it scatters the
+spells on their lips."
+
+Then Conn looked to his son Connla to see what he would say, and Connla
+said: "My own people are dearer to me than any other thing, yet sorrow
+has taken hold of me because of this woman." Then the woman spoke to him
+again, and it is what she said: "Come now into my shining ship, if you
+will come to the Plain of Victory. There is another country it would not
+be worse for you to look for; though the bright sun is going down, we
+shall reach to that country before night. That is the country that
+delights the mind of every one that turns to me. There is no living race
+in it but women and girls only."
+
+And when the woman had ended her song, Connla made a leap from his
+people into the shining boat, and they saw him sailing away from them
+far off and as if in a mist, as far as their eyes could see. It is away
+across the sea they went, and they have never come back again, and only
+the gods know where was it they went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. TADG IN MANANNAN'S ISLANDS
+
+
+And another that went to the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, but that came
+back again, was Tadg, son of Cian, son of Olioll; and this is the way
+that happened.
+
+It was one time Tadg was going his next heir's round, into the west of
+Munster, and his two brothers, Airnelach and Eoghan, along with him. And
+Cathmann, son of Tabarn, that was king of the beautiful country of
+Fresen that lay to the south-east of the Great Plain, was searching the
+sea for what he could find just at that time, and nine of his ships with
+him. And they landed at Beire do Bhunadas, to the west of Munster, and
+the country had no stir in it, and so they slipped ashore, and no one
+took notice of them till all were surrounded, both men and cattle. And
+Tadg's wife Liban, daughter of Conchubar Abratrudh of the Red Brows, and
+his two brothers, and a great many of the people of Munster, were taken
+by the foreigners and brought away to the coasts of Fresen. And Cathmann
+took Liban to be his own wife, and he put hardship on Tadg's two
+brothers: Eoghan he put to work a common ferry across a channel of the
+coast, and Airnelach to cut firing and to keep up fires for all the
+people; and all the food they got was barley seed and muddy water.
+
+And as to Tadg himself, it was only by his courage and the use of his
+sword he made his escape, but there was great grief and discouragement
+on him, his wife and his brothers to have been brought away. But he had
+forty of his fighting men left that had each killed a man of the
+foreigners, and they had brought one in alive. And this man told them
+news of the country he came from. And when Tadg heard that, he made a
+plan in his own head, and he gave orders for a curragh to be built that
+would be fit for a long voyage. Very strong it was, and forty ox-hides
+on it of hard red leather, that was after being soaked in bark. And it
+was well fitted with masts, and oars, and pitch, and everything that was
+wanting. And they put every sort of meat, and drink, and of clothes in
+it, that would last them through the length of a year.
+
+When all was ready, and the curragh out in the tide, Tadg said to his
+people: "Let us set out now on the high sea, looking for our own people
+that are away from us this long time."
+
+They set out then over the stormy, heavy flood, till at last they saw no
+land before them or behind them, but only the hillsides of the great
+sea. And farther on again they heard the singing of a great flock of
+unknown birds; and pleasant white-bellied salmon were leaping about the
+curragh on every side, and seals, very big and dark, were coming after
+them, breaking through the shining wash of the oars; and great whales
+after them again, so that the young men liked to be looking at them, for
+they were not used to see the like before.
+
+They went on rowing through twenty days and twenty nights, and at the
+end of that time they got sight of a high land, having a smooth coast.
+And when they reached it they all landed, and they pulled up the curragh
+and lit their fires, and food was given out to them, and they were not
+long making an end of it. They made beds for themselves then on the
+beautiful green grass, and enjoyed their sleep till the rising of the
+sun on the morrow.
+
+Tadg rose up then and put on his arms, and went out, and thirty of his
+men along with him, to search the whole island.
+
+They went all through it, but they found no living thing on it, man or
+beast, but only flocks of sheep. And the size of the sheep was past all
+telling, as big as horses they were, and the whole island was filled
+with their wool. And there was one great flock beyond all the others,
+all of very big rams, and one of them was biggest of all, nine horns he
+had, and he charged on Tadg's chief men, attacking them and butting at
+them.
+
+There was vexation on them then, and they attacked him again, and there
+was a struggle between them. And at the first the ram broke through five
+of their shields. But Tadg took his spear that there was no escape from,
+and made a lucky cast at the ram and killed him. And they brought the
+ram to the curragh and made it ready for the young men to eat, and they
+stopped three nights on the island, and every night it was a sheep they
+had for their food. And they gathered a good share of the wool and put
+it in the curragh because of the wonder and the beauty of it. And they
+found the bones of very big men on the island, but whether they died of
+sickness or were killed by the rams they did not know.
+
+They left that island then and went forward till they found two strange
+islands where there were great flocks of wonderful birds, like
+blackbirds, and some of them the size of eagles or of cranes, and they
+red with green heads on them, and the eggs they had were blue and pure
+crimson. And some of the men began eating the eggs, and on the moment
+feathers began to grow out on them. But they went bathing after that,
+and the feathers dropped off them again as quick as they came.
+
+It was the foreigner they had with them gave them the course up to this
+time, for he had been on the same track before. But now they went on
+through the length of six weeks and never saw land, and he said then,
+"We are astray on the great ocean that has no boundaries." Then the wind
+with its sharp voice began to rise, and there was a noise like the
+tramping of feet in the sea, and it rose up into great mountains hard to
+climb, and there was great fear on Tadg's people, for they had never
+seen the like. But he began to stir them up and to rouse them, and he
+bade them to meet the sea like men. "Do bravery," he said, "young men of
+Munster, and fight for your lives against the waves that are rising up
+and coming at the sides of the curragh." Tadg took one side of the
+curragh then and his men took the other side, and he was able to pull it
+round against the whole twenty-nine of them, and to bale it out and keep
+it dry along with that. And after a while they got a fair wind and put
+up their sail, the way less water came into the curragh, and then the
+sea went down and lay flat and calm, and there were strange birds of
+many shapes singing around them in every part. They saw land before them
+then, with a good coast, and with that courage and gladness came on
+them.
+
+And when they came nearer to the land they found a beautiful inver, a
+river's mouth, with green hills about it, and the bottom of it sandy and
+as bright as silver, and red-speckled salmon in it, and pleasant woods
+with purple tree-tops edging the stream. "It is a beautiful country
+this is," said Tadg, "and it would be happy for him that would be always
+in it; and let you pull up the ship now," he said, "and dry it out."
+
+A score of them went forward then into the country, and a score stopped
+to mind the curragh. And for all the cold and discouragement and bad
+weather they had gone through, they felt no wish at all for food or for
+fire, but the sweet smell of the crimson branches in the place they were
+come to satisfied them. They went on through the wood, and after a while
+they came to an apple garden having red apples in it, and leafy
+oak-trees, and hazels yellow with nuts. "It is a wonder to me," said
+Tadg, "to find summer here, and it winter time in our own country."
+
+It was a delightful place they were in, but they went on into another
+wood, very sweet smelling, and round purple berries in it, every one of
+them bigger than a man's head, and beautiful shining birds eating the
+berries, strange birds they were, having white bodies and purple heads
+and golden beaks. And while they were eating the berries they were
+singing sweet music, that would have put sick men and wounded men into
+their sleep.
+
+Tadg and his men went farther on again till they came to a great smooth
+flowery plain with a dew of honey over it, and three steep hills on the
+plain, having a very strong dun on every one of them. And when they got
+to the nearest hill they found a white-bodied woman, the best of the
+women of the whole world, and it is what she said: "Your coming is
+welcome, Tadg, son of Cian, and there will be food and provision for you
+as you want it."
+
+"I am glad of that welcome," said Tadg; "and tell me now, woman of sweet
+words," he said, "what is that royal dun on the hill, having walls of
+white marble around it?" "That is the dun of the royal line of the kings
+of Ireland, from Heremon, son of Miled, to Conn of the Hundred Battles,
+that was the last to go into it." "What is the name of this country?"
+Tadg said then. "It is Inislocha, the Lake Island," she said, "and there
+are two kings over it, Rudrach and Dergcroche, sons of Bodb." And then
+she told Tadg the whole story of Ireland, to the time of the coming of
+the Sons of the Gael. "That is well," said Tadg then, "and you have good
+knowledge and learning. And tell me now," he said, "who is living in
+that middle dun that has the colour of gold?" "It is not myself will
+tell you that," she said, "but go on to it yourself and you will get
+knowledge of it." And with that she went from them into the dun of white
+marble.
+
+Tadg and his men went on then till they came to the middle dun, and
+there they found a queen of beautiful shape, and she wearing a golden
+dress. "Health to you, Tadg," she said. "I thank you for that," said
+Tadg. "It is a long time your coming on this journey was foretold," she
+said. "What is your name?" he asked then. "I am Cesair," she said, "the
+first that ever reached Ireland. But since I and the men that were with
+me came out of that dark, unquiet land, we are living for ever in this
+country."
+
+"Tell me, woman," said Tadg, "who is it lives in that dun having a wall
+of gold about it?" "It is not hard to tell that," she said, "every king,
+and every chief man, and every noble person that was in a high place of
+all those that had power in Ireland, it is in that dun beyond they are;
+Parthalon and Nemed, Firbolgs and Tuatha de Danaan." "It is good
+knowledge and learning you have," said Tadg. "Indeed I have good
+knowledge of the history of the world," she said, "and this island," she
+said, "is the fourth paradise of the world; and as to the others, they
+are Inis Daleb to the south, and Inis Ercandra to the north, and Adam's
+Paradise in the east of the world." "Who is there living in that dun
+with the silver walls?" said Tadg then. "I will not tell you that,
+although I have knowledge of it," said the woman; "but go to the
+beautiful hill where it is, and you will get knowledge of it."
+
+They went on then to the third hill, and on the top of the hill was a
+very beautiful resting-place, and two sweethearts there, a boy and a
+girl, comely and gentle. Smooth hair they had, shining like gold, and
+beautiful green clothes of the one sort, and any one would think them to
+have had the same father and mother. Gold chains they had around their
+necks, and bands of gold above those again. And Tadg spoke to them: "O
+bright, comely children," he said, "it is a pleasant place you have
+here." And they answered him back, and they were praising his courage
+and his strength and his wisdom, and they gave him their blessing.
+
+And it is how the young man was, he had a sweet-smelling apple, having
+the colour of gold, in his hand, and he would eat a third part of it,
+and with all he would eat, it would never be less. And that was the food
+that nourished the two of them, and neither age or sorrow could touch
+them when once they had tasted it.
+
+"Who are you yourself?" Tadg asked him then. "I am son to Conn of the
+Hundred Battles," he said. "Is it Connla you are?" said Tadg. "I am
+indeed," said the young man, "and it is this girl of many shapes that
+brought me here." And the girl said: "I have given him my love and my
+affection, and it is because of that I brought him to this place, the
+way we might be looking at one another for ever, and beyond that we have
+never gone."
+
+"That is a beautiful thing and a strange thing," said Tadg, "and a thing
+to wonder at. And who is there in that grand dun with the silver
+walls?" he said. "There is no one at all in it," said the girl. "What is
+the reason of that?" said Tadg. "It is for the kings that are to rule
+Ireland yet," she said; "and there will be a place in it for yourself,
+Tadg. And come now," she said, "till you see it."
+
+The lovers went on to the dun, and it is hardly the green grass was bent
+under their white feet. And Tadg and his people went along with them.
+
+They came then to the great wonderful house that was ready for the
+company of the kings; it is a pleasant house that was, and any one would
+like to be in it. Walls of white bronze it had, set with crystal and
+with carbuncles, that were shining through the night as well as through
+the day.
+
+Tadg looked out from the house then, and he saw to one side of him a
+great sheltering apple-tree, and blossoms and ripe fruit on it. "What is
+that apple tree beyond?" said Tadg. "It is the fruit of that tree is
+food for the host in this house," said the woman. "And it was an apple
+of that apple-tree brought Connla here to me; a good tree it is, with
+its white-blossomed branches, and its golden apples that would satisfy
+the whole house."
+
+And then Connla and the young girl left them, and they saw coming
+towards them a troop of beautiful women. And there was one among them
+was most beautiful of all, and when she was come to them she said: "A
+welcome to you, Tadg." "I thank you for that welcome," said Tadg; "and
+tell me," he said, "who are you yourself?" "I am Cliodna of the Fair
+Hair," she said, "daughter of Gebann, son of Treon, of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, a sweetheart of Ciabhan of the Curling Hair; and it is from me
+Cliodna's wave on the coast of Munster got its name; and I am a long
+time now in this island, and it is the apples of that tree you saw that
+we use for food." And Tadg was well pleased to be listening to her talk,
+but after a while he said: "It is best for us to go on now to look for
+our people." "We will be well pleased if you stop longer with us," said
+the woman.
+
+And while she was saying those words they saw three beautiful birds
+coming to them, one of them blue and his head crimson, and one was
+crimson and his head green, and the third was speckled and his head the
+colour of gold, and they lit on the great apple-tree, and every bird of
+them ate an apple, and they sang sweet music then, that would put sick
+men into their sleep.
+
+"Those birds will go with you," Cliodna said then; "they will give you
+guidance on your way, and they will make music for you, and there will
+be neither sorrow or sadness on you, by land or by sea, till you come to
+Ireland. And bring away this beautiful green cup with you," she said,
+"for there is power in it, and if you do but pour water into it, it will
+be turned to wine on the moment. And do not let it out of your hand,"
+she said, "but keep it with you; for at whatever time it will escape
+from you, your death will not be far away. And it is where you will meet
+your death, in the green valley at the side of the Boinn; and it is a
+wandering wild deer will give you a wound, and after that, it is
+strangers will put an end to you. And I myself will bury your body, and
+there will be a hill over it, and the name it will get is Croidhe Essu."
+
+They went out of the shining house then, and Cliodna of the Fair Hair
+went with them to the place they had left their ship, and she bade their
+comrades a kindly welcome; and she asked them how long had they been in
+that country. "It seems to us," they said, "we are not in it but one day
+only." "You are in it through the whole length of a year," said she,
+"and through all that time you used neither food nor drink. But however
+long you would stop here," she said, "cold or hunger would never come on
+you." "It would be a good thing to live this way always," said Tadg's
+people when they heard that. But he himself said: "It is best for us to
+go on and to look for our people. And we must leave this country,
+although it is displeasing to us to leave it."
+
+Then Cliodna and Tadg bade farewell to one another, and she gave her
+blessing to him and to his people. And they set out then over the ridges
+of the sea; and they were downhearted after leaving that country until
+the birds began to sing for them, and then their courage rose up, and
+they were glad and light-hearted.
+
+And when they looked back they could not see the island they had come
+from, because of a Druid mist that came on it and hid it from them.
+
+Then by the leading of the birds they came to the country of Fresen, and
+they were in a deep sleep through the whole voyage. And then they
+attacked the foreigners and got the better of them, and Tadg killed
+Cathmann, the king, after a hard fight; and Liban his wife made no
+delay, and came to meet her husband and her sweetheart, and it is glad
+she was to see him.
+
+And after they had rested a while they faced the sea again, and Tadg and
+his wife Liban, and his two brothers, and a great many other treasures
+along with them, and they came home to Ireland safely at the last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. LAEGAIRE IN THE HAPPY PLAIN
+
+
+And another that went to visit Magh Mell, the Happy Plain, was Laegaire,
+son of the King of Connacht, Crimthan Cass.
+
+He was out one day with the king, his father, near Loch na-n Ean, the
+Lake of Birds, and the men of Connacht with them, and they saw a man
+coming to them through the mist. Long golden-yellow hair he had, and it
+streaming after him, and at his belt a gold-hilted sword, and in his
+hand two five-barbed darts, a gold-rimmed shield on his back, a
+five-folded crimson cloak about his shoulders.
+
+"Give a welcome to the man that is coming towards you," said Laegaire,
+that had the best name of all the men of Connacht, to his people. And to
+the stranger he said: "A welcome to the champion we do not know."
+
+"I am thankful to you all," said he.
+
+"What is it you are come for, and where are you going?" said Laegaire
+then.
+
+"I am come to look for the help of fighting men," said the stranger.
+"And my name," he said, "is Fiachna, son of Betach, of the men of the
+Sidhe; and it is what ails me, my wife was taken from my pillow and
+brought away by Eochaid, son of Sal. And we fought together, and I
+killed him, and now she is gone to a brother's son of his, Goll, son of
+Dalbh, king of a people of Magh Mell. Seven battles I gave him, but they
+all went against me; and on this very day there is another to be fought,
+and I am come to ask help. And to every one that deserves it, I will
+give a good reward of gold and of silver for that help."
+
+And it is what he said:
+
+"The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the Two Mists; it is not
+far from this; it is a host of the men of the Sidhe full of courage are
+stirring up pools of blood upon it.
+
+"We have drawn red blood from the bodies of high nobles; many women are
+keening them with cries and with tears.
+
+"The men of the host in good order go out ahead of their beautiful king;
+they march among blue spears, white troops of fighters with curled hair.
+
+"They scatter the troops of their enemies, they destroy every country
+they make an attack on; they are beautiful in battle, a host with high
+looks, rushing, avenging.
+
+"It is no wonder they to have such strength: every one of them is the
+son of a king and a queen; manes of hair they have of the colour of
+gold.
+
+"Their bodies smooth and comely; their eyes blue and far-seeing; their
+teeth bright like crystal, within their thin red lips.
+
+"White shields they have in their hands, with patterns on them of white
+silver; blue shining swords, red horns set with gold.
+
+"They are good at killing men in battle; good at song-making, good at
+chess-playing.
+
+"The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the Two Mists; the men of
+the Sidhe are stirring up pools of blood on it; it is not far from this
+place."
+
+"It would be a shameful thing not to give our help to this man," said
+Laegaire.
+
+Fiachna, son of Betach, went down into the lake then, for it was out of
+it he had come, and Laegaire went down into it after him, and fifty
+fighting men along with him.
+
+They saw a strong place before them then, and a company of armed men,
+and Goll, son of Dalbh, at the head of them.
+
+"That is well," said Laegaire, "I and my fifty men will go out against
+this troop." "I will answer you," said Goll, son of Dalbh.
+
+The two fifties attacked one another then, and Goll fell, but Laegaire
+and his fifty escaped with their lives and made a great slaughter of
+their enemies, that not one of them made his escape.
+
+"Where is the woman now?" said Laegaire. "She is within the dun of Magh
+Mell, and a troop of armed men keeping guard about it," said Fiachna.
+"Let you stop here, and I and my fifty will go there," said Laegaire.
+
+So he and his men went on to the dun, and Laegaire called out to the men
+that were about it: "Your king has got his death, your chief men have
+fallen, let the woman come out, and I will give you your own lives." The
+men agreed to that, and they brought the woman out. And when she came
+out she made this complaint:
+
+"It is a sorrowful day that swords are reddened for the sake of the dear
+dead body of Goll, son of Dalbh. It was he that loved me, it was himself
+I loved, it is little Laegaire Liban cares for that.
+
+"Weapons were hacked and were split by Goll; it is to Fiachna, son of
+Betach, I must go; it is Goll son of Dalbh, I loved."
+
+And that complaint got the name of "The Lament of the Daughter of
+Eochaid the Dumb."
+
+Laegaire went back with her then till he put her hand in Fiachna's hand.
+And that night Fiachna's daughter, Deorgreine, a Tear of the Sun, was
+given to Laegaire as his wife, and fifty other women were given to his
+fifty fighting men, and they stopped with them there to the end of a
+year.
+
+And at the end of that time, Laegaire said: "Let us go and ask news of
+our own country." "If you have a mind to go," said Fiachna, "bring
+horses with you; but whatever happens," he said, "do not get off from
+them."
+
+So they set out then; and when they got back to Ireland, they found a
+great gathering of the whole of the men of Connacht that were keening
+them.
+
+And when the men of Connacht saw them coming they rose up to meet them,
+and to bid them welcome. But Laegaire called out: "Do not come to us,
+for it is to bid you farewell we are here." "Do not go from us again,"
+said Crimthan, his father, "and I will give you the sway over the three
+Connachts, their silver and their gold, their horses and their bridles,
+and their beautiful women, if you will not go from us."
+
+And it is what Laegaire said: "In the place we are gone to, the armies
+move from kingdom to kingdom, they listen to the sweet-sounding music of
+the Sidhe, they drink from shining cups, we talk with those we love, it
+is beer that falls instead of rain.
+
+"We have brought from the dun of the Pleasant Plain thirty cauldrons,
+thirty drinking horns; we have brought the complaint that was sung by
+the Sea, by the daughter of Eochaid the Dumb.
+
+"There is a wife for every man of the fifty; my own wife to me is the
+Tear of the Sun; I am made master of a blue sword; I would not give for
+all your whole kingdom one night of the nights of the Sidhe."
+
+With that Laegaire turned from them, and went back to the kingdom. And
+he was made king there along with Fiachna, son of Betach, and his
+daughter, and he did not come out of it yet.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIVE: THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR
+
+
+Now at the time when the Tuatha de Danaan chose a king for themselves
+after the battle of Tailltin, and Lir heard the kingship was given to
+Bodb Dearg, it did not please him, and he left the gathering without
+leave and with no word to any one; for he thought it was he himself had
+a right to be made king. But if he went away himself, Bodb was given the
+kingship none the less, for not one of the five begrudged it to him but
+only Lir, And it is what they determined, to follow after Lir, and to
+burn down his house, and to attack himself with spear and sword, on
+account of his not giving obedience to the king they had chosen. "We
+will not do that," said Bodb Dearg, "for that man would defend any place
+he is in; and besides that," he said, "I am none the less king over the
+Tuatha de Danaan, although he does not submit to me."
+
+All went on like that for a good while, but at last a great misfortune
+came on Lir, for his wife died from him after a sickness of three
+nights. And that came very hard on Lir, and there was heaviness on his
+mind after her. And there was great talk of the death of that woman in
+her own time.
+
+And the news of it was told all through Ireland, and it came to the
+house of Bodb, and the best of the Men of Dea were with him at that
+time. And Bodb said: "If Lir had a mind for it," he said, "my help and
+my friendship would be good for him now, since his wife is not living to
+him. For I have here with me the three young girls of the best shape,
+and the best appearance, and the best name in all Ireland, Aobh, Aoife,
+and Ailbhe, the three daughters of Oilell of Aran, my own three
+nurselings." The Men of Dea said then it was a good thought he had, and
+that what he said was true.
+
+Messages and messengers were sent then from Bodb Dearg to the place Lir
+was, to say that if he had a mind to join with the Son of the Dagda and
+to acknowledge his lordship, he would give him a foster-child of his
+foster-children. And Lir thought well of the offer, and he set out on
+the morrow with fifty chariots from Sidhe Fionnachaidh; and he went by
+every short way till he came to Bodb's dwelling-place at Loch Dearg, and
+there was a welcome before him there, and all the people were merry and
+pleasant before him, and he and his people got good attendance that
+night.
+
+And the three daughters of Oilell of Aran were sitting on the one seat
+with Bodb Dearg's wife, the queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was
+their foster-mother. And Bodb said: "You may have your choice of the
+three young girls, Lir." "I cannot say," said Lir, "which one of them is
+my choice, but whichever of them is the eldest, she is the noblest, and
+it is best for me to take her." "If that is so," said Bodb, "it is Aobh
+is the eldest, and she will be given to you, if it is your wish." "It is
+my wish," he said. And he took Aobh for his wife that night, and he
+stopped there for a fortnight, and then he brought her away to his own
+house, till he would make a great wedding-feast.
+
+And in the course of time Aobh brought forth two children, a daughter
+and a son, Fionnuala and Aodh their names were. And after a while she
+was brought to bed again, and this time she gave birth to two sons, and
+they called them Fiachra and Conn. And she herself died at their birth.
+And that weighed very heavy on Lir, and only for the way his mind was
+set on his four children he would have gone near to die of grief.
+
+The news came to Bodb Dearg's place, and all the people gave out three
+loud, high cries, keening their nursling. And after they had keened her
+it is what Bodb Dearg said: "It is a fret to us our daughter to have
+died, for her own sake and for the sake of the good man we gave her to,
+for we are thankful for his friendship and his faithfulness. However,"
+he said, "our friendship with one another will not be broken, for I will
+give him for a wife her sister Aoife."
+
+When Lir heard that, he came for the girl and married her, and brought
+her home to his house. And there was honour and affection with Aoife for
+her sister's children; and indeed no person at all could see those four
+children without giving them the heart's love.
+
+And Bodb Dearg used often to be going to Lir's house for the sake of
+those children; and he used to bring them to his own place for a good
+length of time, and then he would let them go back to their own place
+again. And the Men of Dea were at that time using the Feast of Age in
+every hill of the Sidhe in turn; and when they came to Lir's hill those
+four children were their joy and delight, for the beauty of their
+appearance; and it is where they used to sleep, in beds in sight of
+their father Lir. And he used to rise up at the break of every morning,
+and to lie down among his children.
+
+But it is what came of all this, that a fire of jealousy was kindled in
+Aoife, and she got to have a dislike and a hatred of her sister's
+children.
+
+Then she let on to have a sickness, that lasted through nearly the
+length of a year. And the end of that time she did a deed of jealousy
+and cruel treachery against the children of Lir.
+
+And one day she got her chariot yoked, and she took the four children
+in it, and they went forward towards the house of Bodb Dearg; but
+Fionnuala had no mind to go with her, for she knew by her she had some
+plan for their death or their destruction, and she had seen in a dream
+that there was treachery against them in Aoife's mind. But all the same
+she was not able to escape from what was before her.
+
+And when they were on their way Aoife said to her people: "Let you kill
+now," she said, "the four children of Lir, for whose sake their father
+has given up my love, and I will give you your own choice of a reward
+out of all the good things of the world." "We will not do that indeed,"
+said they; "and it is a bad deed you have thought of, and harm will come
+to you out of it."
+
+And when they would not do as she bade them, she took out a sword
+herself to put an end to the children with; but she being a woman and
+with no good courage, and with no great strength in her mind, she was
+not able to do it.
+
+They went on then west to Loch Dairbhreach, the Lake of the Oaks, and
+the horses were stopped there. And Aoife bade the children of Lir to go
+out and bathe in the lake, and they did as she bade them. And as soon as
+Aoife saw them out in the lake she struck them with a Druid rod, and put
+on them the shape of four swans, white and beautiful. And it is what she
+said: "Out with you, children of the king, your luck is taken away from
+you for ever; it is sorrowful the story will be to your friends; it is
+with flocks of birds your cries will be heard for ever."
+
+And Fionnuala said: "Witch, we know now what your name is, you have
+struck us down with no hope of relief; but although you put us from wave
+to wave, there are times when we will touch the land. We shall get help
+when we are seen; help, and all that is best for us; even though we
+have to sleep upon the lake, it is our minds will be going abroad
+early."
+
+And then the four children of Lir turned towards Aoife, and it is what
+Fionnuala said: "It is a bad deed you have done, Aoife, and it is a bad
+fulfilling of friendship, you to destroy us without cause; and vengeance
+for it will come upon you, and you will fall in satisfaction for it, for
+your power for our destruction is not greater than the power of our
+friends to avenge it on you; and put some bounds now," she said, "to the
+time this enchantment is to stop on us." "I will do that," said Aoife,
+"and it is worse for you, you to have asked it of me. And the bounds I
+set to your time are this, till the Woman from the South and the Man
+from the North will come together. And since you ask to hear it of me,"
+she said, "no friends and no power that you have will be able to bring
+you out of these shapes you are in through the length of your lives,
+until you have been three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach, and three
+hundred years on Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban, and three
+hundred years at Irrus Domnann and Inis Gluaire; and these are to be
+your journeys from this out," she said.
+
+But then repentance came on Aoife, and she said: "Since there is no
+other help for me to give you now, you may keep your own speech; and you
+will be singing sweet music of the Sidhe, that would put the men of the
+earth to sleep, and there will be no music in the world equal to it; and
+your own sense and your own nobility will stay with you, the way it will
+not weigh so heavy on you to be in the shape of birds. And go away out
+of my sight now, children of Lir," she said, "with your white faces,
+with your stammering Irish. It is a great curse on tender lads, they to
+be driven out on the rough wind. Nine hundred years to be on the water,
+it is a long time for any one to be in pain; it is I put this on you
+through treachery, it is best for you to do as I tell you now.
+
+"Lir, that got victory with so many a good cast, his heart is a kernel
+of death in him now; the groaning of the great hero is a sickness to me,
+though it is I that have well earned his anger."
+
+And then the horses were caught for Aoife, and the chariot yoked for
+her, and she went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a
+welcome before her from the chief people of the place. And the son of
+the Dagda asked her why she did not bring the children of Lir with her.
+"I will tell you that," she said. "It is because Lir has no liking for
+you, and he will not trust you with his children, for fear you might
+keep them from him altogether."
+
+"I wonder at that," said Bodb Dearg, "for those children are dearer to
+me than my own children." And he thought in his own mind it was deceit
+the woman was doing on him, and it is what he did, he sent messengers to
+the north to Sidhe Fionnachaidh. And Lir asked them what did they come
+for. "On the head of your children," said they. "Are they not gone to
+you along with Aoife?" he said. "They are not," said they; "and Aoife
+said it was yourself would not let them come."
+
+It is downhearted and sorrowful Lir was at that news, for he understood
+well it was Aoife had destroyed or made an end of his children. And
+early in the morning of the morrow his horses were caught, and he set
+out on the road to the south-west. And when he was as far as the shore
+of Loch Dairbhreach, the four children saw the horses coming towards
+them, and it is what Fionnuala said: "A welcome to the troop of horses I
+see coming near to the lake; the people they are bringing are strong,
+there is sadness on them; it is us they are following, it is for us they
+are looking; let us move over to the shore, Aodh, Fiachra, and comely
+Conn. Those that are coming can be no others in the world but only Lir
+and his household."
+
+Then Lir came to the edge of the lake, and he took notice of the swans
+having the voice of living people, and he asked them why was it they had
+that voice.
+
+"I will tell you that, Lir," said Fionnuala. "We are your own four
+children, that are after being destroyed by your wife, and by the sister
+of our own mother, through the dint of her jealousy." "Is there any way
+to put you into your own shapes again?" said Lir. "There is no way,"
+said Fionnuala, "for all the men of the world could not help us till we
+have gone through our time, and that will not be," she said, "till the
+end of nine hundred years."
+
+When Lir and his people heard that, they gave out three great heavy
+shouts of grief and sorrow and crying.
+
+"Is there a mind with you," said Lir, "to come to us on the land, since
+you have your own sense and your memory yet?" "We have not the power,"
+said Fionnuala, "to live with any person at all from this time; but we
+have our own language, the Irish, and we have the power to sing sweet
+music, and it is enough to satisfy the whole race of men to be listening
+to that music. And let you stop here to-night," she said, "and we will
+be making music for you."
+
+So Lir and his people stopped there listening to the music of the swans,
+and they slept there quietly that night. And Lir rose up early on the
+morning of the morrow and he made this complaint:--
+
+"It is time to go out from this place. I do not sleep though I am in my
+lying down. To be parted from my dear children, it is that is tormenting
+my heart.
+
+"It is a bad net I put over you, bringing Aoife, daughter of Oilell of
+Aran, to the house. I would never have followed that advice if I had
+known what it would bring upon me.
+
+"O Fionnuala, and comely Conn, O Aodh, O Fiachra of the beautiful arms;
+it is not ready I am to go away from you, from the border of the harbour
+where you are."
+
+Then Lir went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome
+before him there; and he got a reproach from Bodb Dearg for not bringing
+his children along with him. "My grief!" said Lir. "It is not I that
+would not bring my children along with me; it was Aoife there beyond,
+your own foster-child and the sister of their mother, that put them in
+the shape of four white swans on Loch Dairbhreach, in the sight of the
+whole of the men of Ireland; but they have their sense with them yet,
+and their reason, and their voice, and their Irish."
+
+Bodb Dearg gave a great start when he heard that, and he knew what Lir
+said was true, and he gave a very sharp reproach to Aoife, and he said:
+"This treachery will be worse for yourself in the end, Aoife, than to
+the children of Lir. And what shape would you yourself think worst of
+being in?" he said.
+
+"I would think worst of being a witch of the air," she said. "It is into
+that shape I will put you now," said Bodb. And with that he struck her
+with a Druid wand, and she was turned into a witch of the air there and
+then, and she went away on the wind in that shape, and she is in it yet,
+and will be in it to the end of life and time.
+
+As to Bodb Dearg and the Tuatha de Danaan they came to the shore of Loch
+Dairbhreach, and they made their camp there to be listening to the music
+of the swans.
+
+And the Sons of the Gael used to be coming no less than the Men of Dea
+to hear them from every part of Ireland, for there never was any music
+or any delight heard in Ireland to compare with that music of the swans.
+And they used to be telling stories, and to be talking with the men of
+Ireland every day, and with their teachers and their fellow-pupils and
+their friends. And every night they used to sing very sweet music of the
+Sidhe; and every one that heard that music would sleep sound and quiet
+whatever trouble or long sickness might be on him; for every one that
+heard the music of the birds, it is happy and contented he would be
+after it.
+
+These two gatherings now of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Sons of the
+Gael stopped there around Loch Dairbhreach through the length of three
+hundred years. And it is then Fionnuala said to her brothers: "Do you
+know," she said, "we have spent all we have to spend of our time here,
+but this one night only."
+
+And there was great sorrow on the sons of Lir when they heard that, for
+they thought it the same as to be living people again, to be talking
+with their friends and their companions on Loch Dairbhreach, in
+comparison with going on the cold, fretful sea of the Maoil in the
+north.
+
+And they came early on the morrow to speak with their father and with
+their foster-father, and they bade them farewell, and Fionnuala made
+this complaint:--
+
+"Farewell to you, Bodb Dearg, the man with whom all knowledge is in
+pledge. And farewell to our father along with you, Lir of the Hill of
+the White Field.
+
+"The time is come, as I think, for us to part from you, O pleasant
+company; my grief it is not on a visit we are going to you.
+
+"From this day out, O friends of our heart, our comrades, it is on the
+tormented course of the Maoil we will be, without the voice of any
+person near us.
+
+"Three hundred years there, and three hundred years in the bay of the
+men of Domnann, it is a pity for the four comely children of Lir, the
+salt waves of the sea to be their covering by night.
+
+"O three brothers, with the ruddy faces gone from you, let them all
+leave the lake now, the great troop that loved us, it is sorrowful our
+parting is."
+
+After that complaint they took to flight, lightly, airily, till they
+came to Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban. And that was a grief
+to the men of Ireland, and they gave out an order no swan was to be
+killed from that out, whatever chance there might be of killing one, all
+through Ireland.
+
+It was a bad dwelling-place for the children of Lir they to be on Sruth
+na Maoile. When they saw the wide coast about them, they were filled
+with cold and with sorrow, and they thought nothing of all they had gone
+through before, in comparison to what they were going through on that
+sea.
+
+Now one night while they were there a great storm came on them, and it
+is what Fionnuala said: "My dear brothers," she said, "it is a pity for
+us not to be making ready for this night, for it is certain the storm
+will separate us from one another. And let us," she said, "settle on
+some place where we can meet afterwards, if we are driven from one
+another in the night."
+
+"Let us settle," said the others, "to meet one another at Carraig na
+Ron, the Rock of the Seals, for we all have knowledge of it."
+
+And when midnight came, the wind came on them with it, and the noise of
+the waves increased, and the lightning was flashing, and a rough storm
+came sweeping down, the way the children of Lir were scattered over the
+great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of
+them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great
+quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and
+when she took notice that her brothers were wanting she was lamenting
+after them greatly, and she made this complaint:--
+
+"It is a pity for me to be alive in the state I am; it is frozen to my
+sides my wings are; it is little that the wind has not broken my heart
+in my body, with the loss of Aodh.
+
+"To be three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach without going into my own
+shape, it is worse to me the time I am on Sruth na Maoile.
+
+"The three I loved, Och! the three I loved, that slept under the shelter
+of my feathers; till the dead come back to the living I will see them no
+more for ever.
+
+"It is a pity I to stay after Fiachra, and after Aodh, and after comely
+Conn, and with no account of them; my grief I to be here to face every
+hardship this night."
+
+She stopped all night there upon the Rock of the Seals until the rising
+of the sun, looking out over the sea on every side till at last she saw
+Conn coming to her, his feathers wet through and his head hanging, and
+her heart gave him a great welcome; and then Fiachra came wet and
+perished and worn out, and he could not say a word they could understand
+with the dint of the cold and the hardship he had gone through. And
+Fionnuala put him under her wings, and she said: "We would be well off
+now if Aodh would but come to us."
+
+It was not long after that, they saw Aodh coming, his head dry and his
+feathers beautiful, and Fionnuala gave him a great welcome, and she put
+him in under the feathers of her breast, and Fiachra under her right
+wing and Conn under her left wing, the way she could put her feathers
+over them all. "And Och! my brothers," she said, "this was a bad night
+to us, and it is many of its like are before us from this out."
+
+They stayed there a long time after that, suffering cold and misery on
+the Maoil, till at last a night came on them they had never known the
+like of before, for frost and snow and wind and cold. And they were
+crying and lamenting the hardship of their life, and the cold of the
+night and the greatness of the snow and the hardness of the wind. And
+after they had suffered cold to the end of a year, a worse night again
+came on them, in the middle of winter. And they were on Carraig na Ron,
+and the water froze about them, and as they rested on the rock, their
+feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they
+were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get
+away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the
+tops of their wings on the rock after them.
+
+"My grief, children of Lir," said Fionnuala, "it is bad our state is
+now, for we cannot bear the salt water to touch us, and there are bonds
+on us not to leave it; and if the salt water goes into our sores," she
+said, "we will get our death." And she made this complaint:--
+
+"It is keening we are to-night; without feathers to cover our bodies; it
+is cold the rough, uneven rocks are under our bare feet.
+
+"It is bad our stepmother was to us the time she played enchantments on
+us, sending us out like swans upon the sea.
+
+"Our washing place is on the ridge of the bay, in the foam of flying
+manes of the sea; our share of the ale feast is the salt water of the
+blue tide.
+
+"One daughter and three sons; it is in the clefts of the rocks we are;
+it is on the hard rocks we are, it is a pity the way we are."
+
+However, they came on to the course of the Maoil again, and the salt
+water was sharp and rough and bitter to them, but if it was itself, they
+were not able to avoid it or to get shelter from it. And they were there
+by the shore under that hardship till such time as their feathers grew
+again, and their wings, and till their sores were entirely healed. And
+then they used to go every day to the shore of Ireland or of Alban, but
+they had to come back to Sruth na Maoile every night.
+
+Now they came one day to the mouth of the Banna, to the north of
+Ireland, and they saw a troop of riders, beautiful, of the one colour,
+with well-trained pure white horses under them, and they travelling the
+road straight from the south-west.
+
+"Do you know who those riders are, sons of Lir?" said Fionnuala.
+
+"We do not," they said; "but it is likely they might be some troop of
+the Sons of the Gael, or of the Tuatha de Danaan."
+
+They moved over closer to the shore then, that they might know who they
+were, and when the riders saw them they came to meet them until they
+were able to hold talk together.
+
+And the chief men among them were two sons of Bodb Dearg, Aodh
+Aithfhiosach, of the quick wits, and Fergus Fithchiollach, of the chess,
+and a third part of the Riders of the Sidhe along with them, and it was
+for the swans they had been looking for a long while before that, and
+when they came together they wished one another a kind and loving
+welcome.
+
+And the children of Lir asked for news of all the Men of Dea, and above
+all of Lir, and Bodb Dearg and their people.
+
+"They are well, and they are in the one place together," said they, "in
+your father's house at Sidhe Fionnachaidh, using the Feast of Age
+pleasantly and happily, and with no uneasiness on them, only for being
+without yourselves, and without knowledge of what happened you from the
+day you left Loch Dairbhreach."
+
+"That has not been the way with us," said Fionnuala, "for we have gone
+through great hardship and uneasiness and misery on the tides of the sea
+until this day."
+
+And she made this complaint:--
+
+"There is delight to-night with the household of Lir! Plenty of ale with
+them and of wine, although it is in a cold dwelling-place this night are
+the four children of the king.
+
+"It is without a spot our bedclothes are, our bodies covered over with
+curved feathers; but it is often we were dressed in purple, and we
+drinking pleasant mead.
+
+"It is what our food is and our drink, the white sand and the bitter
+water of the sea; it is often we drank mead of hazel-nuts from round
+four-lipped drinking cups.
+
+"It is what our beds are, bare rocks out of the power of the waves; it
+is often there used to be spread out for us beds of the breast-feathers
+of birds.
+
+"Though it is our work now to be swimming through the frost and through
+the noise of the waves, it is often a company of the sons of kings were
+riding after us to the Hill of Bodb.
+
+"It is what wasted my strength, to be going and coming over the current
+of the Maoil the way I never was used to, and never to be in the
+sunshine on the soft grass.
+
+"Fiachra's bed and Conn's bed is to come under the cover of my wings on
+the sea. Aodh has his place under the feathers of my breast, the four of
+us side by side.
+
+"The teaching of Manannan without deceit, the talk of Bodb Dearg on the
+pleasant ridge; the voice of Angus, his sweet kisses; it is by their
+side I used to be without grief."
+
+After that the riders went on to Lir's house, and they told the chief
+men of the Tuatha de Danaan all the birds had gone through, and the
+state they were in. "We have no power over them," the chief men said,
+"but we are glad they are living yet, for they will get help in the end
+of time."
+
+As to the children of Lir, they went back towards their old place in the
+Maoil, and they stopped there till the time they had to spend in it was
+spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to leave this
+place. And it is to Irrus Domnann we must go now," she said, "after our
+three hundred years here. And indeed there will be no rest for us there,
+or any standing ground, or any shelter from the storms. But since it is
+time for us to go, let us set out on the cold wind, the way we will not
+go astray."
+
+So they set out in that way, and left Sruth na Maoile behind them, and
+went to the point of Irrus Domnann, and there they stopped, and it is a
+life of misery and a cold life they led there. And one time the sea
+froze about them that they could not move at all, and the brothers were
+lamenting, and Fionnuala was comforting them, for she knew there would
+help come to them in the end.
+
+And they stayed at Irrus Domnann till the time they had to spend there
+was spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to go back
+to Sidhe Fionnachaidh, where our father is with his household and with
+all our own people."
+
+"It pleases us well to hear that," they said.
+
+So they set out flying through the air lightly till they came to Sidhe
+Fionnachaidh; and it is how they found the place, empty before them, and
+nothing in it but green hillocks and thickets of nettles, without a
+house, without a fire, without a hearthstone. And the four pressed close
+to one another then, and they gave out three sorrowful cries, and
+Fionnuala made this complaint:--
+
+"It is a wonder to me this place is, and it without a house, without a
+dwelling-place. To see it the way it is now, Ochone! it is bitterness to
+my heart.
+
+"Without dogs, without hounds for hunting, without women, without great
+kings; we never knew it to be like this when our father was in it.
+
+"Without horns, without cups, without drinking in the lighted house;
+without young men, without riders; the way it is to-night is a
+foretelling of sorrow.
+
+"The people of the place to be as they are now, Ochone! it is grief to
+my heart! It is plain to my mind to-night the lord of the house is not
+living.
+
+"Och, house where we used to see music and playing and the gathering of
+people! I think it a great change to see it lonely the way it is
+to-night.
+
+"The greatness of the hardships we have gone through going from one wave
+to another of the sea, we never heard of the like of them coming on any
+other person.
+
+"It is seldom this place had its part with grass and bushes; the man is
+not living that would know us, it would be a wonder to him to see us
+here."
+
+However, the children of Lir stopped that night in their father's place
+and their grandfather's, where they had been reared, and they were
+singing very sweet music of the Sidhe. And they rose up early on the
+morning of the morrow and went to Inis Gluaire, and all the birds of the
+country gathered near them on Loch na-n Ean, the Lake of the Birds. And
+they used to go out to feed every day to the far parts of the country,
+to Inis Geadh and to Accuill, the place Donn, son of Miled, and his
+people that were drowned were buried, and to all the western islands of
+Connacht, and they used to go back to Inis Gluaire every night.
+
+It was about that time it happened them to meet with a young man of good
+race, and his name was Aibric; and he often took notice of the birds,
+and their singing was sweet to him and he loved them greatly, and they
+loved him. And it is this young man that told the whole story of all
+that had happened them, and put it in order.
+
+And the story he told of what happened them in the end is this.
+
+It was after the faith of Christ and blessed Patrick came into Ireland,
+that Saint Mochaomhog came to Inis Gluaire. And the first night he came
+to the island, the children of Lir heard the voice of his bell, ringing
+near them. And the brothers started up with fright when they heard it
+"We do not know," they said, "what is that weak, unpleasing voice we
+hear."
+
+"That is the voice of the bell of Mochaomhog," said Fionnuala; "and it
+is through that bell," she said, "you will be set free from pain and
+from misery."
+
+They listened to that music of the bell till the matins were done, and
+then they began to sing the low, sweet music of the Sidhe.
+
+And Mochaomhog was listening to them, and he prayed to God to show him
+who was singing that music, and it was showed to him that the children
+of Lir were singing it. And on the morning of the morrow he went forward
+to the Lake of the Birds, and he saw the swans before him on the lake,
+and he went down to them at the brink of the shore. "Are you the
+children of Lir?" he said.
+
+"We are indeed," said they.
+
+"I give thanks to God for that," said he, "for it is for your sakes I am
+come to this island beyond any other island, and let you come to land
+now," he said, "and give your trust to me, that you may do good deeds
+and part from your sins."
+
+They came to the land after that, and they put trust in Mochaomhog, and
+he brought them to his own dwelling-place, and they used to be hearing
+Mass with him. And he got a good smith and bade him make chains of
+bright silver for them, and he put a chain between Aodh and Fionnuala,
+and a chain between Conn and Fiachra. And the four of them were raising
+his heart and gladdening his mind, and no danger and no distress that
+was on the swans before put any trouble on them now.
+
+Now the king of Connacht at that time was Lairgnen, son of Colman, son
+of Cobthach, and Deoch, daughter of Finghin, was his wife. And that was
+the coming together of the Man from the North and the Woman from the
+South, that Aoife had spoken of.
+
+And the woman heard talk of the birds, and a great desire came on her to
+get them, and she bade Lairgnen to bring them to her, and he said he
+would ask them of Mochaomhog.
+
+And she gave her word she would not stop another night with him unless
+he would bring them to her. And she set out from the house there and
+then. And Lairgnen sent messengers after her to bring her back, and they
+did not overtake her till she was at Cill Dun. She went back home with
+them then, and Lairgnen sent messengers to ask the birds of Mochaomhog,
+and he did not get them.
+
+There was great anger on Lairgnen then, and he went himself to the place
+Mochaomhog was, and he asked was it true he had refused him the birds.
+"It is true indeed," said he. At that Lairgnen rose up, and he took hold
+of the swans, and pulled them off the altar, two birds in each hand, to
+bring them away to Deoch. But no sooner had he laid his hand on them
+than their bird skins fell off, and what was in their place was three
+lean, withered old men and a thin withered old woman, without blood or
+flesh.
+
+And Lairgnen gave a great start at that, and he went out from the
+place. It is then Fionnuala said to Mochaomhog: "Come and baptize us
+now, for it is short till our death comes; and it is certain you do not
+think worse of parting with us than we do of parting with you. And make
+our grave afterwards," she said, "and lay Conn at my right side and
+Fiachra on my left side, and Aodh before my face, between my two arms.
+And pray to the God of Heaven," she said, "that you may be able to
+baptize us."
+
+The children of Lir were baptized then, and they died and were buried as
+Fionnuala had desired; Fiachra and Conn one at each side of her, and
+Aodh before her face. And a stone was put over them, and their names
+were written in Ogham, and they were keened there, and heaven was gained
+for their souls.
+
+And that is the fate of the children of Lir so far.
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO: THE FIANNA.
+
+BOOK ONE: FINN, SON OF CUMHAL.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF FINN
+
+
+At the time Finn was born his father Cumhal, of the sons of Baiscne,
+Head of the Fianna of Ireland, had been killed in battle by the sons of
+Morna that were fighting with him for the leadership. And his mother,
+that was beautiful long-haired Muirne, daughter of Tadg, son of Nuada of
+the Tuatha de Danaan and of Ethlinn, mother of Lugh of the Long Hand,
+did not dare to keep him with her; and two women, Bodhmall, the woman
+Druid, and Liath Luachra, came and brought him away to care him.
+
+It was to the woods of Slieve Bladhma they brought him, and they nursed
+him secretly, because of his father's enemies, the sons of Morna, and
+they kept him there a long time.
+
+And Muirne, his mother, took another husband that was king of Carraighe;
+but at the end of six years she came to see Finn, going through every
+lonely place till she came to the wood, and there she found the little
+hunting cabin, and the boy asleep in it, and she lifted him up in her
+arms and kissed him, and she sang a little sleepy song to him; and then
+she said farewell to the women, and she went away again.
+
+And the two women went on caring him till he came to sensible years; and
+one day when he went out he saw a wild duck on the lake with her clutch,
+and he made a cast at her that cut the wings off her that she could not
+fly, and he brought her back to the cabin, and that was his first hunt.
+
+And they gave him good training in running and leaping and swimming. One
+of them would run round a tree, and she having a thorn switch, and Finn
+after her with another switch, and each one trying to hit at the other;
+and they would leave him in a field, and hares along with him, and would
+bid him not to let the hares quit the field, but to keep before them
+whichever way they would go; and to teach him swimming they would throw
+him into the water and let him make his way out.
+
+But after a while he went away with a troop of poets, to hide from the
+sons of Morna, and they hid him in the mountain of Crotta Cliach; but
+there was a robber in Leinster at that time, Fiacuil, son of Codhna, and
+he came where the poets were in Fidh Gaible and killed them all. But he
+spared the child and brought him to his own house, that was in a cold
+marsh. But the two women, Bodhmall and Liath, came looking for him after
+a while, and Fiacuil gave him up to them, and they brought him back to
+the same place he was before.
+
+He grew up there, straight and strong and fair-haired and beautiful. And
+one day he was out in Slieve Bladhma, and the two women along with him,
+and they saw before them a herd of the wild deer of the mountain. "It is
+a pity," said the old women, "we not to be able to get a deer of those
+deer." "I will get one for you," said Finn; and with that he followed
+after them, and caught two stags of them and brought them home to the
+hunting cabin. And after that he used to be hunting for them every day.
+But at last they said to him: "It is best for you to leave us now, for
+the sons of Morna are watching again to kill you."
+
+So he went away then by himself, and never stopped till he came to Magh
+Lifé, and there he saw young lads swimming in a lake, and they called to
+him to swim against them. So he went into the lake, and he beat them at
+swimming. "Fair he is and well shaped," they said when they saw him
+swimming, and it was from that time he got the name of Finn, that is,
+Fair. But they got to be jealous of his strength, and he went away and
+left them.
+
+He went on then till he came to Loch Lein, and he took service there
+with the King of Finntraigh; and there was no hunter like him, and the
+king said: "If Cumhal had left a son, you would be that son."
+
+He went from that king after, and he went into Carraighe, and there he
+took service with the king, that had taken his mother Muirne for his
+wife. And one day they were playing chess together, and he won seven
+games one after another. "Who are you at all?" said the king then. "I am
+a son of a countryman of the Luigne of Teamhair," said Finn. "That is
+not so," said the king, "but you are the son that Muirne my wife bore to
+Cumhal. And do not stop here any longer," he said, "that you may not be
+killed under my protection."
+
+From that he went into Connacht looking for his father's brother,
+Crimall, son of Trenmor; and as he was going on his way he heard the
+crying of a lone woman. He went to her, and looked at her, and tears of
+blood were on her face. "Your face is red with blood, woman," he said.
+"I have reason for it," said she, "for my only son is after being killed
+by a great fighting man that came on us." And Finn followed after the
+big champion and fought with him and killed him. And the man he killed
+was the same man that had given Cumhal his first wound in the battle
+where he got his death, and had brought away his treasure-bag with him.
+
+Now as to that treasure-bag, it is of a crane skin it was made, that was
+one time the skin of Aoife, the beautiful sweetheart of Ilbrec, son of
+Manannan, that was put into the shape of a crane through jealousy. And
+it was in Manannan's house it used to be, and there were treasures kept
+in it, Manannan's shirt and his knife, and the belt and the smith's hook
+of Goibniu, and the shears of the King of Alban, and the helmet of the
+King of Lochlann, and a belt of the skin of a great fish, and the bones
+of Asal's pig that had been brought to Ireland by the sons of Tuireann.
+All those treasures would be in the bag at full tide, but at the ebbing
+of the tide it would be empty. And it went from Manannan to Lugh, son of
+Ethlinn, and after that to Cumhal, that was husband to Muirne, Ethlinn's
+daughter.
+
+And Finn took the bag and brought it with him till he found Crimall,
+that was now an old man, living in a lonely place, and some of the old
+men of the Fianna were with him, and used to go hunting for him. And
+Finn gave him the bag, and told him his whole story.
+
+And then he said farewell to Crimall, and went on to learn poetry from
+Finegas, a poet that was living at the Boinn, for the poets thought it
+was always on the brink of water poetry was revealed to them. And he did
+not give him his own name, but he took the name of Deimne. Seven years,
+now, Finegas had stopped at the Boinn, watching the salmon, for it was
+in the prophecy that he would eat the salmon of knowledge that would
+come there, and that he would have all knowledge after. And when at the
+last the salmon of knowledge came, he brought it to where Finn was, and
+bade him to roast it, but he bade him not to eat any of it. And when
+Finn brought him the salmon after a while he said: "Did you eat any of
+it at all, boy?" "I did not," said Finn; "but I burned my thumb putting
+down a blister that rose on the skin, and after doing that, I put my
+thumb in my mouth." "What is your name, boy?" said Finegas. "Deimne,"
+said he. "It is not, but it is Finn your name is, and it is to you and
+not to myself the salmon was given in the prophecy." With that he gave
+Finn the whole of the salmon, and from that time Finn had the knowledge
+that came from the nuts of the nine hazels of wisdom that grow beside
+the well that is below the sea.
+
+And besides the wisdom he got then, there was a second wisdom came to
+him another time, and this is the way it happened. There was a well of
+the moon belonging to Beag, son of Buan, of the Tuatha de Danaan, and
+whoever would drink out of it would get wisdom, and after a second drink
+he would get the gift of foretelling. And the three daughters of Beag,
+son of Buan, had charge of the well, and they would not part with a
+vessel of it for anything less than red gold. And one day Finn chanced
+to be hunting in the rushes near the well, and the three women ran out
+to hinder him from coming to it, and one of them that had a vessel of
+the water in her hand, threw it at him to stop him, and a share of the
+water went into his mouth. And from that out he had all the knowledge
+that the water of that well could give.
+
+And he learned the three ways of poetry; and this is the poem he made to
+show he had got his learning well:--
+
+"It is the month of May is the pleasant time; its face is beautiful; the
+blackbird sings his full song, the living wood is his holding, the
+cuckoos are singing and ever singing; there is a welcome before the
+brightness of the summer.
+
+"Summer is lessening the rivers, the swift horses are looking for the
+pool; the heath spreads out its long hair, the weak white bog-down
+grows. A wildness comes on the heart of the deer; the sad restless sea
+is asleep.
+
+"Bees with their little strength carry a load reaped from the flowers;
+the cattle go up muddy to the mountains; the ant has a good full feast.
+
+"The harp of the woods is playing music; there is colour on the hills,
+and a haze on the full lakes, and entire peace upon every sail.
+
+"The corncrake is speaking, a loud-voiced poet; the high lonely
+waterfall is singing a welcome to the warm pool, the talking of the
+rushes has begun.
+
+"The light swallows are darting; the loudness of music is around the
+hill; the fat soft mast is budding; there is grass on the trembling
+bogs.
+
+"The bog is as dark as the feathers of the raven; the cuckoo makes a
+loud welcome; the speckled salmon is leaping; as strong is the leaping
+of the swift fighting man.
+
+"The man is gaining; the girl is in her comely growing power; every wood
+is without fault from the top to the ground, and every wide good plain.
+
+"It is pleasant is the colour of the time; rough winter is gone; every
+plentiful wood is white; summer is a joyful peace.
+
+"A flock of birds pitches in the meadow; there are sounds in the green
+fields, there is in them a clear rushing stream.
+
+"There is a hot desire on you for the racing of horses; twisted holly
+makes a leash for the hound; a bright spear has been shot into the
+earth, and the flag-flower is golden under it.
+
+"A weak lasting little bird is singing at the top of his voice; the lark
+is singing clear tidings; May without fault, of beautiful colours.
+
+"I have another story for you; the ox is lowing, the winter is creeping
+in, the summer is gone. High and cold the wind, low the sun, cries are
+about us; the sea is quarrelling.
+
+"The ferns are reddened and their shape is hidden; the cry of the wild
+goose is heard; the cold has caught the wings of the birds; it is the
+time of ice-frost, hard, unhappy."
+
+And after that, Finn being but a young lad yet, made himself ready and
+went up at Samhain time to the gathering of the High King at Teamhair.
+And it was the law at that gathering, no one to raise a quarrel or
+bring out any grudge against another through the whole of the time it
+lasted. And the king and his chief men, and Goll, son of Morna, that was
+now Head of the Fianna, and Caoilte, son of Ronan, and Conan, son of
+Morna, of the sharp words, were sitting at a feast in the great house of
+the Middle Court; and the young lad came in and took his place among
+them, and none of them knew who he was.
+
+The High King looked at him then, and the horn of meetings was brought
+to him, and he put it into the boy's hand, and asked him who was he.
+
+"I am Finn, son of Cumhal," he said, "son of the man that used to be
+head over the Fianna, and king of Ireland; and I am come now to get your
+friendship, and to give you my service."
+
+"You are son of a friend, boy," said the king, "and son of a man I
+trusted."
+
+Then Finn rose up and made his agreement of service and of faithfulness
+to the king; and the king took him by the hand and put him sitting
+beside his own son, and they gave themselves to drinking and to pleasure
+for a while.
+
+Every year, now, at Samhain time, for nine years, there had come a man
+of the Tuatha de Danaan out of Sidhe Finnachaidh in the north, and had
+burned up Teamhair. Aillen, son of Midhna, his name was, and it is the
+way he used to come, playing music of the Sidhe, and all the people that
+heard it would fall asleep. And when they were all in their sleep, he
+would let a flame of fire out of his mouth, and would blow the flame
+till all Teamhair was burned.
+
+The king rose up at the feast after a while, and his smooth horn in his
+hand, and it is what he said: "If I could find among you, men of
+Ireland, any man that would keep Teamhair till the break of day
+to-morrow without being burned by Aillen, son of Midhna, I would give
+him whatever inheritance is right for him to have, whether it be much or
+little."
+
+But the men of Ireland made no answer, for they knew well that at the
+sound of the sweet pitiful music made by that comely man of the Sidhe,
+even women in their pains and men that were wounded would fall asleep.
+
+It is then Finn rose up and spoke to the King of Ireland. "Who will be
+your sureties that you will fulfil this?" he said. "The kings of the
+provinces of Ireland," said the king, "and Cithruadh with his Druids."
+So they gave their pledges, and Finn took in hand to keep Teamhair safe
+till the breaking of day on the morrow.
+
+Now there was a fighting man among the followers of the King of Ireland,
+Fiacha, son of Conga, that Cumhal, Finn's father, used to have a great
+liking for, and he said to Finn: "Well, boy," he said, "what reward
+would you give me if I would bring you a deadly spear, that no false
+cast was ever made with?" "What reward are you asking of me?" said Finn.
+"Whatever your right hand wins at any time, the third of it to be mine,"
+said Fiacha, "and a third of your trust and your friendship to be mine."
+"I will give you that," said Finn. Then Fiacha brought him
+the spear, unknown to the sons of Morna or to any other person, and he
+said: "When you will hear the music of the Sidhe, let you strip the
+covering off the head of the spear and put it to your forehead, and the
+power of the spear will not let sleep come upon you."
+
+Then Finn rose up before all the men of Ireland, and he made a round of
+the whole of Teamhair. And it was not long till he heard the sorrowful
+music, and he stripped the covering from the head of the spear, and he
+held the power of it to his forehead. And Aillen went on playing his
+little harp, till he had put every one in their sleep as he was used;
+and then he let a flame of fire out from his mouth to burn Teamhair.
+And Finn held up his fringed crimson cloak against the flame, and it
+fell down through the air and went into the ground, bringing the
+four-folded cloak with it deep into the earth.
+
+And when Aillen saw his spells were destroyed, he went back to Sidhe
+Finnachaidh on the top of Slieve Fuad; but Finn followed after him
+there, and as Aillen was going in at the door he made a cast of the
+spear that went through his heart. And he struck his head off then, and
+brought it back to Teamhair, and fixed it on a crooked pole and left it
+there till the rising of the sun over the heights and invers of the
+country.
+
+And Aillen's mother came to where his body was lying, and there was
+great grief on her, and she made this complaint:--
+
+"Ochone! Aillen is fallen, chief of the Sidhe of Beinn Boirche; the slow
+clouds of death are come on him. Och! he was pleasant, Och! he was kind.
+Aillen, son of Midhna of Slieve Fuad.
+
+"Nine times he burned Teamhair. It is a great name he was always looking
+for, Ochone, Ochone, Aillen!"
+
+And at the breaking of day, the king and all the men of Ireland came out
+upon the lawn at Teamhair where Finn was. "King," said Finn, "there is
+the head of the man that burned Teamhair, and the pipe and the harp that
+made his music. And it is what I think," he said, "that Teamhair and all
+that is in it is saved."
+
+Then they all came together into the place of counsel, and it is what
+they agreed, the headship of the Fianna of Ireland to be given to Finn.
+And the king said to Goll, son of Morna: "Well, Goll," he said, "is it
+your choice to quit Ireland or to put your hand in Finn's hand?" "By my
+word, I will give Finn my hand," said Goll.
+
+And when the charms that used to bring good luck had done their work,
+the chief men of the Fianna rose up and struck their hands in Finn's
+hand, and Goll, son of Morna, was the first to give him his hand the way
+there would be less shame on the rest for doing it.
+
+And Finn kept the headship of the Fianna until the end; and the place he
+lived in was Almhuin of Leinster, where the white dun was made by Nuada
+of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was as white as if all the lime in Ireland
+was put on it, and that got its name from the great herd of cattle that
+died fighting one time around the well, and that left their horns there,
+speckled horns and white.
+
+And as to Finn himself, he was a king and a seer and a poet; a Druid and
+a knowledgeable man; and everything he said was sweet-sounding to his
+people. And a better fighting man than Finn never struck his hand into a
+king's hand, and whatever any one ever said of him, he was three times
+better. And of his justice it used to be said, that if his enemy and his
+own son had come before him to be judged, it is a fair judgment he would
+have given between them. And as to his generosity it used to be said, he
+never denied any man as long as he had a mouth to eat with, and legs to
+bring away what he gave him; and he left no woman without her
+bride-price, and no man without his pay; and he never promised at night
+what he would not fulfil on the morrow, and he never promised in the day
+what he would not fulfil at night, and he never forsook his right-hand
+friend. And if he was quiet in peace he was angry in battle, and Oisin
+his son and Osgar his son's son followed him in that. There was a young
+man of Ulster came and claimed kinship with them one time, saying they
+were of the one blood. "If that is so," said Oisin, "it is from the men
+of Ulster we took the madness and the angry heart we have in battle."
+"That is so indeed," said Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. FINN'S HOUSEHOLD
+
+
+And the number of the Fianna of Ireland at that time was seven score and
+ten chief men, every one of them having three times nine righting men
+under him. And every man of them was bound to three things, to take no
+cattle by oppression, not to refuse any man, as to cattle or riches; no
+one of them to fall back before nine fighting men. And there was no man
+taken into the Fianna until his tribe and his kindred would give
+securities for him, that even if they themselves were all killed he
+would not look for satisfaction for their death. But if he himself would
+harm others, that harm was not to be avenged on his people. And there
+was no man taken into the Fianna till he knew the twelve books of
+poetry. And before any man was taken, he would be put into a deep hole
+in the ground up to his middle, and he having his shield and a hazel rod
+in his hand. And nine men would go the length of ten furrows from him
+and would cast their spears at him at the one time. And if he got a
+wound from one of them, he was not thought fit to join with the Fianna.
+And after that again, his hair would be fastened up, and he put to run
+through the woods of Ireland, and the Fianna following after him to try
+could they wound him, and only the length of a branch between themselves
+and himself when they started. And if they came up with him and wounded
+him, he was not let join them; or if his spears had trembled in his
+hand, or if a branch of a tree had undone the plaiting of his hair, or
+if he had cracked a dry stick under his foot, and he running. And they
+would not take him among them till he had made a leap over a stick the
+height of himself, and till he had stooped under one the height of his
+knee, and till he had taken a thorn out from his foot with his nail,
+and he running his fastest. But if he had done all these things, he was
+of Finn's people.
+
+It was good wages Finn and the Fianna got at that time; in every
+district a townland, in every house the fostering of a pup or a whelp
+from Samhain to Beltaine, and a great many things along with that. But
+good as the pay was, the hardships and the dangers they went through for
+it were greater. For they had to hinder the strangers and robbers from
+beyond the seas, and every bad thing, from coming into Ireland. And they
+had hard work enough in doing that.
+
+And besides the fighting men, Finn had with him his five Druids, the
+best that ever came into the west, Cainnelsciath, of the Shining Shield,
+one of them was, that used to bring down knowledge from the clouds in
+the sky before Finn, and that could foretell battles. And he had his
+five wonderful physicians, four of them belonging to Ireland, and one
+that came over the sea from the east. And he had his five high poets and
+his twelve musicians, that had among them Daighre, son of Morna, and
+Suanach, son of Senshenn, that was Finn's teller of old stories, the
+sweetest that ever took a harp in his hand in Ireland or in Alban. And
+he had his three cup-bearers and his six door-keepers and his
+horn-players and the stewards of his house and his huntsman, Comhrag of
+the five hundred hounds, and his serving-men that were under
+Garbhcronan, of the Rough Buzzing; and a great troop of others along
+with them.
+
+And there were fifty of the best sewing-women in Ireland brought
+together in a rath on Magh Feman, under the charge of a daughter of the
+King of Britain, and they used to be making clothing for the Fianna
+through the whole of the year. And three of them, that were a king's
+daughters, used to be making music for the rest on a little silver
+harp; and there was a very great candlestick of stone in the middle of
+the rath, for they were not willing to kindle a fire more than three
+times in the year for fear the smoke and the ashes might harm the
+needlework.
+
+And of all his musicians the one Finn thought most of was Cnu Deireoil,
+the Little Nut, that came to him from the Sidhe.
+
+It was at Slieve-nam-ban, for hunting, Finn was the time he came to him.
+Sitting down he was on the turf-built grave that is there; and when he
+looked around him he saw a small little man about four feet in height
+standing on the grass. Light yellow hair he had, hanging down to his
+waist, and he playing music on his harp. And the music he was making had
+no fault in it at all, and it is much that the whole of the Fianna did
+not fall asleep with the sweetness of its sound. He came up then, and
+put his hand in Finn's hand. "Where do you come from, little one,
+yourself and your sweet music?" said Finn. "I am come," he said, "out of
+the place of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban, where ale is drunk and made;
+and it is to be in your company for a while I am come here." "You will
+get good rewards from me, and riches and red gold," said Finn, "and my
+full friendship, for I like you well." "That is the best luck ever came
+to you, Finn," said all the rest of the Fianna, for they were well
+pleased to have him in their company. And they gave him the name of the
+Little Nut; and he was good in speaking, and he had so good a memory he
+never forgot anything he heard east or west; and there was no one but
+must listen to his music, and all the Fianna liked him well. And there
+were some said he was a son of Lugh Lamh-Fada, of the Long Hand.
+
+And the five musicians of the Fianna were brought to him, to learn the
+music of the Sidhe he had brought from that other place; for there was
+never any music heard on earth but his was better. These were the three
+best things Finn ever got, Bran and Sceolan that were without fault, and
+the Little Nut from the House of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. BIRTH OF BRAN.
+
+
+This, now, is the story of the birth of Bran.
+
+Finn's mother, Muirne, came one time to Almhuin, and she brought with
+her Tuiren, her sister. And Iollan Eachtach, a chief man of the Fianna
+of Ulster, was at Almhuin at the time, and he gave his love to Tuiren,
+and asked her in marriage, and brought her to his own house. But before
+they went, Finn made him gave his word he would bring her back safe and
+sound if ever he asked for her, and he bade him find sureties for
+himself among the chief men of the Fianna. And Iollan did that, and the
+sureties he got were Caoilte and Goll and Lugaidh Lamha, and it was
+Lugaidh gave her into the hand of Iollan Eachtach.
+
+But before Iollan made that marriage, he had a sweetheart of the Sidhe,
+Uchtdealb of the Fair Breast; and there came great jealousy on her when
+she knew he had taken a wife. And she took the appearance of Finn's
+woman-messenger, and she came to the house where Tuiren was, and she
+said: "Finn sends health and long life to you, queen, and he bids you to
+make a great feast; and come with me now," she said, "till I speak a few
+words with you, for there is hurry on me."
+
+So Tuiren went out with her, and when they were away from the house the
+woman of the Sidhe took out her dark Druid rod from under her cloak and
+gave her a blow of it that changed her into a hound, the most beautiful
+that was ever seen. And then she went on, bringing the hound with her,
+to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, king of the harbour of Gallimh. And
+it is the way Fergus was, he was the most unfriendly man to dogs in the
+whole world, and he would not let one stop in the same house with him.
+But it is what Uchtdealb said to him: "Finn wishes you life and health,
+Fergus, and he says to you to take good care of his hound till he comes
+himself; and mind her well," she said, "for she is with young, and do
+not let her go hunting when her time is near, or Finn will be no way
+thankful to you." "I wonder at that message," said Fergus, "for Finn
+knows well there is not in the world a man has less liking for dogs than
+myself. But for all that," he said, "I will not refuse Finn the first
+time he sent a hound to me."
+
+And when he brought the hound out to try her, she was the best he ever
+knew, and she never saw the wild creature she would not run down; and
+Fergus took a great liking for hounds from that out.
+
+And when her time came near, they did not let her go hunting any more,
+and she gave birth to two whelps.
+
+And as to Finn, when he heard his mother's sister was not living with
+Iollan Eachtach, he called to him for the fulfilment of the pledge that
+was given to the Fianna. And Iollan asked time to go looking for Tuiren,
+and he gave his word that if he did not find her, he would give himself
+up in satisfaction for her. So they agreed to that, and Iollan went to
+the hill where Uchtdealb was, his sweetheart of the Sidhe, and told her
+the way things were with him, and the promise he had made to give
+himself up to the Fianna. "If that is so," said she, "and if you will
+give me your pledge to keep me as your sweetheart to the end of your
+life, I will free you from that danger." So Iollan gave her his promise,
+and she went to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, and she brought Tuiren
+away and put her own shape on her again, and gave her up to Finn. And
+Finn gave her to Lugaidh Lamha that asked her in marriage.
+
+And as to the two whelps, they stopped always with Finn, and the names
+he gave them were Bran and Sceolan.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S MOTHER.
+
+
+It happened one time Finn and his men were coming back from the hunting,
+a beautiful fawn started up before them, and they followed after it, men
+and dogs, till at last they were all tired and fell back, all but Finn
+himself and Bran and Sceolan. And suddenly as they were going through a
+valley, the fawn stopped and lay down on the smooth grass, and Bran and
+Sceolan came up with it, and they did not harm it at all, but went
+playing about it, licking its neck and its face.
+
+There was wonder on Finn when he saw that, and he went on home to
+Almhuin, and the fawn followed after him playing with the hounds, and it
+came with them into the house at Almhuin. And when Finn was alone late
+that evening, a beautiful young woman having a rich dress came before
+him, and she told him it was she herself was the fawn he was after
+hunting that day. "And it is for refusing the love of Fear Doirche, the
+Dark Druid of the Men of Dea," she said, "I was put in this shape. And
+through the length of three years," she said, "I have lived the life of
+a wild deer in a far part of Ireland, and I am hunted like a wild deer.
+And a serving-man of the Dark Druid took pity on me," she said, "and he
+said that if I was once within the dun of the Fianna of Ireland, the
+Druid would have no more power over me. So I made away, and I never
+stopped through the whole length of a day till I came into the district
+of Almhuin. And I never stopped then till there was no one after me but
+only Bran and Sceolan, that have human wits; and I was safe with them,
+for they knew my nature to be like their own."
+
+Then Finn gave her his love, and took her as his wife, and she stopped
+in Almhuin. And so great was his love for her, he gave up his hunting
+and all the things he used to take pleasure in, and gave his mind to no
+other thing but herself.
+
+But at last the men of Lochlann came against Ireland, and their ships
+were in the bay below Beinn Edair, and they landed there.
+
+And Finn and the battalions of the Fianna went out against them, and
+drove them back. And at the end of seven days Finn came back home, and
+he went quickly over the plain of Almhuin, thinking to see Sadbh his
+wife looking out from the dun, but there was no sign of her. And when he
+came to the dun, all his people came out to meet him, but they had a
+very downcast look. "Where is the flower of Almhuin, beautiful gentle
+Sadbh?" he asked them. And it is what they said: "While you were away
+fighting, your likeness, and the likeness of Bran and of Sceolan
+appeared before the dun, and we thought we heard the sweet call of the
+Dord Fiann. And Sadbh, that was so good and so beautiful, came out of
+the house," they said, "and she went out of the gates, and she would not
+listen to us, and we could not stop her." "Let me go meet my love," she
+said, "my husband, the father of the child that is not born." And with
+that she went running out towards the shadow of yourself that was before
+her, and that had its arms stretched out to her. But no sooner did she
+touch it than she gave a great cry, and the shadow lifted up a hazel
+rod, and on the moment it was a fawn was standing on the grass. Three
+times she turned and made for the gate of the dun, but the two hounds
+the shadow had with him went after her and took her by the throat and
+dragged her back to him. "And by your hand of valour, Finn," they said,
+"we ourselves made no delay till we went out on the plain after her. But
+it is our grief, they had all vanished, and there was not to be seen
+woman, or fawn or Druid, but we could hear the quick tread of feet on
+the hard plain, and the howling of dogs. And if you would ask every one
+of us in what quarter he heard those sounds, he would tell you a
+different one."
+
+When Finn heard that, he said no word at all, but he struck his breast
+over and over again with his shut hands. And he went then to his own
+inside room, and his people saw him no more for that day, or till the
+sun rose over Magh Lifé on the morrow.
+
+And through the length of seven years from that time, whenever he was
+not out fighting against the enemies of Ireland, he went searching and
+ever searching in every far corner for beautiful Sadbh. And there was
+great trouble on him all the time, unless he might throw it off for a
+while in hunting or in battle. And through all that time he never
+brought out to any hunting but the five hounds he had most trust in,
+Bran and Sceolan and Lomaire and Brod and Lomluath, the way there would
+be no danger for Sadbh if ever he came on her track.
+
+But after the end of seven years, Finn and some of his chief men were
+hunting on the sides of Beinn Gulbain, and they heard a great outcry
+among the hounds, that were gone into some narrow place. And when they
+followed them there, they saw the five hounds of Finn in a ring, and
+they keeping back the other hounds, and in the middle of the ring was a
+young boy, with high looks, and he naked and having long hair. And he
+was no way daunted by the noise of the hounds, and did not look at them
+at all, but at the men that were coming up. And as soon as the fight was
+stopped Bran and Sceolan went up to the little lad, and whined and
+licked him, that any one would think they had forgotten their master.
+Finn and the others came up to him then, and put their hands on his
+head, and made much of him. And they brought him to their own hunting
+cabin, and he ate and drank with them, and before long he lost his
+wildness and was the same as themselves. And as to Bran and Sceolan,
+they were never tired playing about him.
+
+And it is what Finn thought, there was some look of Sadbh in his face,
+and that it might be he was her son, and he kept him always beside him.
+And little by little when the boy had learned their talk, he told them
+all he could remember. He used to be with a deer he loved very much, he
+said, and that cared and sheltered him, and it was in a wide place they
+used to be, having hills and valleys and streams and woods in it, but
+that was shut in with high cliffs on every side, that there was no way
+of escape from it. And he used to be eating fruits and roots in the
+summer, and in the winter there was food left for him in the shelter of
+a cave. And a dark-looking man used to be coming to the place, and
+sometimes he would speak to the deer softly and gently, and sometimes
+with a loud angry voice. But whatever way he spoke, she would always
+draw away from him with the appearance of great dread on her, and the
+man would go away in great anger. And the last time he saw the deer, his
+mother, the dark man was speaking to her for a long time, from softness
+to anger. And at the end he struck her with a hazel rod, and with that
+she was forced to follow him, and she looking back all the while at the
+child, and crying after him that any one would pity her. And he tried
+hard to follow after her, and made every attempt, and cried out with
+grief and rage, but he had no power to move, and when he could hear his
+mother no more he fell on the grass and his wits went from him. And when
+he awoke it is on the side of the hill he was, where the hounds found
+him. And he searched a long time for the place where he was brought up,
+but he could not find it.
+
+And the name the Fianna gave him was Oisin, and it is he was their maker
+of poems, and their good fighter afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE BEST MEN OF THE FIANNA
+
+
+And while Oisin was in his young youth, Finn had other good men along
+with him, and the best of them were Goll, son of Morna, and Caoilte, son
+of Ronan, and Lugaidh's Son.
+
+As to Goll, that was of Connacht, he was very tall and light-haired, and
+some say he was the strongest of all the Fianna. Finn made a poem in
+praise of him one time when some stranger was asking what sort he was,
+saying how hardy he was and brave in battle, and as strong as a hound or
+as the waves, and with all that so kind and so gentle, and open-handed
+and sweet-voiced, and faithful to his friends.
+
+And the chessboard he had was called the Solustairtech, the Shining
+Thing, and some of the chessmen were made of gold, and some of them of
+silver, and each one of them was as big as the fist of the biggest man
+of the Fianna; and after the death of Goll it was buried in Slieve
+Baune.
+
+And as to Caoilte, that was a grey thin man, he was the best runner of
+them all. And he did a good many great deeds; a big man of the Fomor he
+killed one time, and he killed a five-headed giant in a wheeling door,
+and another time he made an end of an enchanted boar that no one else
+could get near, and he killed a grey stag that had got away from the
+Fianna through twenty-seven years. And another time he brought Finn out
+of Teamhair, where he was kept by force by the High King, because of
+some rebellion the Fianna had stirred up. And when Caoilte heard Finn
+had been brought away to Teamhair, he went out to avenge him. And the
+first he killed was Cuireach, a king of Leinster that had a great name,
+and he brought his head up to the hill that is above Buadhmaic. And
+after that he made a great rout through Ireland, bringing sorrow into
+every house for the sake of Finn, killing a man in every place, and
+killing the calves with the cows.
+
+And every door the red wind from the east blew on, he would throw it
+open, and go in and destroy all before him, setting fire to the fields,
+and giving the wife of one man to another.
+
+And when he came to Teamhair, he came to the palace, and took the
+clothes off the door-keeper, and he left his own sword that was worn
+thin in the king's sheath, and took the king's sword that had great
+power in it. And he went into the palace then in the disguise of a
+servant, to see how he could best free Finn.
+
+And when evening came Caoilte held the candle at the king's feast in the
+great hall, and after a while the king said: "You will wonder at what I
+tell you, Finn, that the two eyes of Caoilte are in my candlestick." "Do
+not say that," said Finn, "and do not put reproach on my people although
+I myself am your prisoner; for as to Caoilte," he said, "that is not the
+way with him, for it is a high mind he has, and he only does high
+deeds, and he would not stand serving with a candle for all the gold of
+the whole world."
+
+After that Caoilte was serving the King of Ireland with drink, and when
+he was standing beside him he gave out a high sorrowful lament. "There
+is the smell of Caoilte's skin on that lament," said the king. And when
+Caoilte saw he knew him he spoke out and he said: "Tell me what way I
+can get freedom for my master." "There is no way to get freedom for him
+but by doing one thing," said the king, "and that is a thing you can
+never do. If you can bring me together a couple of all the wild
+creatures of Ireland," he said, "I will give up your master to you
+then."
+
+When Caoilte heard him say that he made no delay, but he set out from
+Teamhair, and went through the whole of Ireland to do that work for the
+sake of Finn. It is with the flocks of birds he began, though they were
+scattered in every part, and from them he went on to the beasts. And he
+gathered together two of every sort, two ravens from Fiodh da Bheann;
+two wild ducks from Loch na Seillein; two foxes from Slieve Cuilinn; two
+wild oxen from Burren; two swans from blue Dobhran; two owls from the
+wood of Faradhruim; two polecats from the branchy wood on the side of
+Druim da Raoin, the Ridge of the Victories; two gulls from the strand of
+Loch Leith; four woodpeckers from white Brosna; two plovers from
+Carraigh Dhain; two thrushes from Leith Lomard; two wrens from Dun
+Aoibh; two herons from Corrain Cleibh; two eagles from Carraig of the
+stones; two hawks from Fiodh Chonnach; two sows from Loch Meilghe; two
+water-hens from Loch Erne; two moor-hens from Monadh Maith; two
+sparrow-hawks from Dubhloch; two stonechats from Magh Cuillean; two
+tomtits from Magh Tuallainn; two swallows from Sean Abhla; two
+cormorants from Ath Cliath; two wolves from Broit Cliathach; two
+blackbirds from the Strand of the Two Women; two roebucks from Luachair
+Ire; two pigeons from Ceas Chuir; two nightingales from Leiter Ruadh;
+two starlings from green-sided Teamhair; two rabbits from Sith Dubh
+Donn; two wild pigs from Cluaidh Chuir; two cuckoos from Drom Daibh; two
+lapwings from Leanain na Furraich; two woodcocks from Craobh Ruadh; two
+hawks from the Bright Mountain; two grey mice from Luimneach; two otters
+from the Boinn; two larks from the Great Bog; two bats from the Cave of
+the Nuts; two badgers from the province of Ulster; two landrail from the
+banks of the Sionnan; two wagtails from Port Lairrge; two curlews from
+the harbour of Gallimh; two hares from Muirthemne; two deer from Sith
+Buidhe; two peacocks from Magh Mell; two cormorants from Ath Cliath; two
+eels from Duth Dur; two goldfinches from Slieve na-n Eun; two birds of
+slaughter from Magh Bhuilg; two bright swallows from Granard; two
+redbreasts from the Great Wood; two rock-cod from Cala Chairge; two
+sea-pigs from the great sea; two wrens from Mios an Chuil; two salmon
+from Eas Mhic Muirne; two clean deer from Gleann na Smoil; two cows from
+Magh Mor; two cats from the Cave of Cruachan; two sheep from bright
+Sidhe Diobhlain; two pigs of the pigs of the son of Lir; a ram and a
+crimson sheep from Innis.
+
+And along with all these he brought ten hounds of the hounds of the
+Fianna, and a horse and a mare of the beautiful horses of Manannan.
+
+And when Caoilte had gathered all these, he brought them to the one
+place. But when he tried to keep them together, they scattered here and
+there from him; the raven went away southward, and that vexed him
+greatly, but he overtook it again in Gleann da Bheann, beside Loch
+Lurcan. And then his wild duck went away from him, and it was not easy
+to get it again, but he followed it through every stream to grey Accuill
+till he took it by the neck and brought it back, and it no way willing.
+
+And indeed through the length of his life Caoilte remembered well all he
+went through that time with the birds, big and little, travelling over
+hills and ditches and striving to bring them with him, that he might set
+Finn his master free.
+
+And when he came to Teamhair he had more to go through yet, for the king
+would not let him bring them in before morning, but gave him a house
+having nine doors in it to put them up in for the night. And no sooner
+were they put in than they raised a loud screech all together, for a
+little ray of light was coming to them through fifty openings, and they
+were trying to make their escape. And if they were not easy in the
+house, Caoilte was not easy outside it, watching every door till the
+rising of the sun on the morrow.
+
+And when he brought out his troop, the name the people gave them was
+"Caoilte's Rabble," and there was no wonder at all in that.
+
+But all the profit the King of Ireland got from them was to see them
+together for that one time. For no sooner did Finn get his freedom than
+the whole of them scattered here and there, and no two of them went by
+the same road out of Teamhair.
+
+And that was one of the best things Caoilte, son of Ronan, ever did. And
+another time he ran from the wave of Cliodna in the south to the wave of
+Rudraige in the north. And Colla his son was a very good runner too, and
+one time he ran a race backwards against the three battalions of the
+Fianna for a chessboard. And he won the race, but if he did, he went
+backward over Beinn Edair into the sea.
+
+And very good hearing Caoilte had. One time he heard the King of the
+Luigne of Connacht at his hunting, and Blathmec that was with him said,
+"What is that hunt, Caoilte?" "A hunt of three packs of hounds," he
+said, "and three sorts of wild creatures before them. The first hunt,"
+he said, "is after stags and large deer and the second hunt is after
+swift small hares, and the third is a furious hunt after heavy boars."
+"And what is the fourth hunt, Caoilte?" said Blathmec. "It is the
+hunting of heavy-sided, low-bellied badgers." And then they heard coming
+after the hunt the shouts of the lads and of the readiest of the men and
+the serving-men that were best at carrying burdens. And Blathmec went
+out to see the hunting, and just as Caoilte had told him, that was the
+way it was.
+
+And he understood the use of herbs, and one time he met with two women
+that were very downhearted because their husbands had gone from them to
+take other wives. And Caoilte gave them Druid herbs, and they put them
+in the water of a bath and washed in it, and the love of their husbands
+came back to them, and they sent away the new wives they had taken.
+
+And as to Lugaidh's Son, that was of Finn's blood, and another of the
+best men of the Fianna, he was put into Finn's arms as a child, and he
+was reared up by Duban's daughter, that had reared eight hundred
+fighting men of the Fianna, till his twelfth year, and then she gave him
+all he wanted of arms and of armour, and he went to Chorraig Conluain
+and the mountains of Slieve Bladhma, where Finn and the Fianna were at
+that time.
+
+And Finn gave him a very gentle welcome, and he struck his hand in
+Finn's hand, and made his agreement of service with him. And he stopped
+through the length of a year with the Fianna; but he was someway
+sluggish through all that time, so that under his leading not more than
+nine of the Fianna got to kill so much as a boar or a deer. And along
+with that, he used to beat both his servants and his hounds.
+
+And at last the three battalions of the Fianna went to where Finn was,
+at the Point of the Fianna on the edge of Loch Lein, and they made their
+complaint against Lugaidh's Son, and it is what they said: "Make your
+choice now, will you have us with you, or will you have Lugaidh's Son by
+himself."
+
+Then Lugaidh's Son came to Finn, and Finn asked him, "What is it has put
+the whole of the Fianna against you?" "By my word," said the lad, "I do
+not know the reason, unless it might be they do not like me to be doing
+my feats and casting my spears among them."
+
+Then Finn gave him an advice, and it is what he said: "If you have a
+mind to be a good champion, be quiet in a great man's house; be surly in
+the narrow pass. Do not beat your hound without a cause; do not bring a
+charge against your wife without having knowledge of her guilt; do not
+hurt a fool in fighting, for he is without his wits. Do not find fault
+with high-up persons; do not stand up to take part in a quarrel; have no
+dealings with a bad man or a foolish man. Let two-thirds of your
+gentleness be showed to women and to little children that are creeping
+on the floor, and to men of learning that make the poems, and do not be
+rough with the common people. Do not give your reverence to all; do not
+be ready to have one bed with your companions. Do not threaten or speak
+big words, for it is a shameful thing to speak stiffly unless you can
+carry it out afterwards. Do not forsake your lord so long as you live;
+do not give up any man that puts himself under your protection for all
+the treasures of the world. Do not speak against others to their lord,
+that is not work for a good man. Do not be a bearer of lying stories, or
+a tale-bearer that is always chattering. Do not be talking too much; do
+not find fault hastily; however brave you may be, do not raise factions
+against you. Do not be going to drinking-houses, or finding fault with
+old men; do not meddle with low people; this is right conduct I am
+telling you. Do not refuse to share your meat; do not have a niggard for
+your friend; do not force yourself on a great man or give him occasion
+to speak against you. Hold fast to your arms till the hard fight is well
+ended. Do not give up your opportunity, but with that follow after
+gentleness."
+
+That was good advice Finn gave, and he was well able to do that; for it
+was said of him that he had all the wisdom of a little child that is
+busy about the house, and the mother herself not understanding what he
+is doing; and that is the time she has most pride in him.
+
+And as to Lugaidh's Son, that advice stayed always with him, and he
+changed his ways, and after a while he got a great name among the poets
+of Ireland and of Alban, and whenever they would praise Finn in their
+poems, they would praise him as well.
+
+And Aoife, daughter of the King of Lochlann, that was married to Mal,
+son of Aiel, King of Alban, heard the great praise the poets were giving
+to Lugaidh's Son, and she set her love on him for the sake of those
+stories.
+
+And one time Mal her husband and his young men went hunting to
+Slieve-mor-Monaidh in the north of Alban. And when he was gone Aoife
+made a plan in her sunny house where she was, to go over to Ireland,
+herself and her nine foster-sisters. And they set out and went over the
+manes of the sea till they came to Beinn Edair, and there they landed.
+
+And it chanced on that day there was a hunting going on, from Slieve
+Bladhma to Beinn Edair. And Finn was in his hunting seat, and his
+fosterling, brown-haired Duibhruinn, beside him. And the little lad was
+looking about him on every side, and he saw a ship coming to the
+strand, and a queen with modest looks in the ship, and nine women along
+with her. They landed then, and they came up to where Finn was, bringing
+every sort of present with them, and Aoife sat down beside him. And Finn
+asked news of her, and she told him the whole story, and how she had
+given her love to Lugaidh's Son, and was come over the sea looking for
+him; and Finn made her welcome.
+
+And when the hunting was over, the chief men of the Fianna came back to
+where Finn was, and every one asked who was the queen that was with him.
+And Finn told them her name, and what it was brought her to Ireland. "We
+welcome her that made that journey," said they all; "for there is not in
+Ireland or in Alban a better man than the man she is come looking for,
+unless Finn himself."
+
+And as to Lugaidh's Son, it was on the far side of Slieve Bladhma he was
+hunting that day, and he was the last to come in. And he went into
+Finn's tent, and when he saw the woman beside him he questioned Finn the
+same as the others had done, and Finn told him the whole story. "And it
+is to you she is come," he said; "and here she is to you out of my hand,
+and all the war and the battles she brings with her; but it will not
+fall heavier on you," he said, "than on the rest of the Fianna."
+
+And she was with Lugaidh's Son a month and a year without being asked
+for. But one day the three battalions of the Fianna were on the Hill of
+the Poet in Leinster, and they saw three armed battalions equal to
+themselves coming, against them, and they asked who was bringing them.
+"It is Mal, son of Aiel, is bringing them," said Finn, "to avenge his
+wife on the Fianna. And it is a good time they are come," he said, "when
+we are gathered together at the one spot."
+
+Then the two armies went towards one another, and Mal, son of Aiel,
+took hold of his arms, and three times he broke through the Fianna, and
+every time a hundred fell by him. And in the middle of the battle he and
+Lugaidh's Son met, and they fought against one another with spear and
+sword. And whether the fight was short or long, it was Mal fell by
+Lugaidh's Son at the last.
+
+And Aoife stood on a hill near by, as long as the battle lasted. And
+from that out she belonged to Lugaidh's Son, and was a mother of
+children to him.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO: FINN'S HELPERS
+
+CHAPTER I. THE LAD OF THE SKINS
+
+
+Besides all the men Finn had in his household, there were some that
+would come and join him from one place or another. One time a young man
+wearing a dress of skins came to Finn's house at Almhuin, and his wife
+along with him, and he asked to take service with Finn.
+
+And in the morning, as they were going to their hunting, the Lad of the
+Skins said to Finn: "Let me have no one with me but myself, and let me
+go into one part of the country by myself, and you yourself with all
+your men go to another part." "Is it on the dry ridges you will go,"
+said Finn, "or is it in the deep bogs and marshes, where there is danger
+of drowning?" "I will go in the deep boggy places," said he.
+
+So they all went out from Almhuin, Finn and the Fianna to one part, and
+the Lad of the Skins to another part, and they hunted through the day.
+And when they came back at evening, the Lad of the Skins had killed more
+than Finn and all his men together.
+
+When Finn saw that, he was glad to have so good a servant. But Conan
+said to him: "The Lad of the Skins will destroy ourselves and the whole
+of the Fianna of Ireland unless you will find some way to rid yourself
+of him." "I never had a good man with me yet, Conan," said Finn, "but
+you wanted me to put him away; and how could I put away a man like
+that?" he said. "The way to put him away," said Conan, "is to send him
+to the King of the Floods to take from him the great cauldron that is
+never without meat, but that has always enough in it to feed the whole
+world. And let him bring that cauldron back here with him to Almhuin,"
+he said.
+
+So Finn called to the Lad of the Skins, and he said: "Go from me now to
+the King of the Floods and get the great cauldron that is never empty
+from him, and bring it here to me." "So long as I am in your service I
+must do your work," said the Lad of the Skins. With that he set out,
+leaping over the hills and valleys till he came to the shore of the sea.
+And then he took up two sticks and put one of them across the other, and
+a great ship rose out of the two sticks. The Lad of the Skins went into
+the ship then, and put up the sails and set out over the sea, and he
+heard nothing but the whistling of eels in the sea and the calling of
+gulls in the air till he came to the house of the King of the Floods.
+And at that time there were hundreds of ships waiting near the shore;
+and he left his ship outside them all, and then he stepped from ship to
+ship till he stood on land.
+
+There was a great feast going on at that time in the king's house, and
+the Lad of the Skins went up to the door, but he could get no farther
+because of the crowd. So he stood outside the door for a while, and no
+one looked at him, and he called out at last: "This is a hospitable
+house indeed, and these are mannerly ways, not to ask a stranger if
+there is hunger on him or thirst." "That is true," said the king; "and
+give the cauldron of plenty now to this stranger," he said, "till he
+eats his fill."
+
+So his people did that, and no sooner did the Lad of the Skins get a
+hold of the cauldron than he made away to the ship and put it safe into
+it. But when he had done that he said: "There is no use in taking the
+pot by my swiftness, if I do not take it by my strength." And with that
+he turned and went to land again. And the whole of the men of the army
+of the King of the Floods were ready to fight; but if they were, so was
+the Lad of the Skins, and he went through them and over them all till
+the whole place was quiet.
+
+He went back to his ship then and raised the sails and set out again
+for Ireland, and the ship went rushing back to the place where he made
+it. And when he came there, he gave a touch of his hand to the ship, and
+there was nothing left of it but the two sticks he made it from, and
+they lying on the strand before him, and the cauldron of plenty with
+them. And he took up the cauldron on his back, and brought it to Finn,
+son of Cumhal, at Almhuin. And Finn gave him his thanks for the work he
+had done.
+
+One day, now, Finn was washing himself at the well, and a voice spoke
+out of the water, and it said: "You must give back the cauldron, Finn,
+to the King of the Floods, or you must give him battle in place of it."
+
+Finn told that to the Lad of the Skins, but the answer he got from him
+was that his time was up, and that he could not serve on time that was
+past. "But if you want me to go with you," he said, "let you watch my
+wife, that is Manannan's daughter, through the night; and in the middle
+of the night, when she will be combing her hair, any request you make of
+her, she cannot refuse it. And the request you will make is that she
+will let me go with you to the King of the Floods, to bring the cauldron
+to his house and to bring it back again."
+
+So Finn watched Manannan's daughter through the night, and when he saw
+her combing her hair, he made his request of her. "I have no power to
+refuse you," she said; "but you must promise me one thing, to bring my
+husband back to me, alive or dead. And if he is alive," she said, "put
+up a grey-green flag on the ship coming back; but if he is dead, put up
+a red flag."
+
+So Finn promised to do that, and he himself and the Lad of the Skins set
+out together for the dun of the King of the Floods, bringing the
+cauldron with them.
+
+No sooner did the king see them than he gave word to all his armies to
+make ready. But the Lad of the Skins made for them and overthrew them,
+and he went into the king's dun, and Finn with him, and they overcame
+him and brought away again the cauldron that was never empty.
+
+But as they were going back to Ireland, they saw a great ship coming
+towards them. And when the Lad of the Skins looked at the ship, he said:
+"I think it is an old enemy of my own is in that ship, that is trying to
+bring me to my death, because of my wife that refused him her love." And
+when the ship came alongside, the man that was in it called out: "I know
+you well, and it is not by your dress I know you, son of the King of the
+Hills." And with that he made a leap on to the ship, and the two fought
+a great battle together, and they took every shape; they began young
+like two little boys, and fought till they were two old men; they fought
+from being two young pups until they were two old dogs; from being two
+young horses till they were two old horses. And then they began to fight
+in the shape of birds, and it is in that shape they killed one another
+at the last. And Finn threw the one bird into the water, but the other,
+that was the Lad of the Skins, he brought with him in the ship. And when
+he came in sight of Ireland, he raised a red flag as he had promised the
+woman.
+
+And when he came to the strand, she was there before him, and when she
+saw Finn, she said: "It is dead you have brought him back to me." And
+Finn gave her the bird, and she asked was that what she was to get in
+the place of her husband. And she was crying over the bird, and she
+brought it into a little boat with her, and she bade Finn to push out
+the boat to sea.
+
+And he pushed it out, and it was driven by wind and waves till at last
+she saw two birds flying, having a dead one between them. And the two
+living birds let down the dead one on an island; and it was not long
+till it rose up living, and the three went away together.
+
+And when Manannan's daughter saw that, she said: "There might be some
+cure for my man on the island, the way there was for that dead bird."
+
+And the sea brought the boat to the island, and she went searching
+around, but all she could find was a tree having green leaves. "It might
+be in these leaves the cure is," she said; and she took some of the
+leaves and brought them to where the Lad of the Skins was, and put them
+about him. And on that moment he stood up as well and as sound as ever
+he was.
+
+They went back then to Ireland, and they came to Almhuin at midnight,
+and the Lad of the Skins knocked at the door, and he said: "Put me out
+my wages." "There is no man, living or dead, has wages on me but the Lad
+of the Skins," said Finn; "and I would sooner see him here to-night," he
+said, "than the wages of three men." "If that is so, rise up and you
+will see him," said he.
+
+So Finn rose up and saw him, and gave him a great welcome, and paid him
+his wages.
+
+And after that he went away and his wife with him to wherever his own
+country was; but there were some said he was gone to the country of his
+wife's father, Manannan, Son of the Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. BLACK, BROWN, AND GREY
+
+
+Finn was hunting one time near Teamhair of the Kings, and he saw three
+strange men coming towards him, and he asked what were their names.
+"Dubh and Dun and Glasan, Black, Brown, and Grey, are our names," they
+said, "and we are come to find Finn, son of Cumhal, Head of the Fianna,
+and to take service with him."
+
+So Finn took them into his service, and when evening came he said: "Let
+each one of you watch through a third part of the night." And there was
+a trunk of a tree there, and he bade them make three equal parts of it,
+and he gave a part to each of the three men, and he said: "When each one
+of you begins his watch, let him set fire to his own log, and as long as
+the wood burns let him watch."
+
+Then they drew lots, and the lot fell to Dubh to go on the first watch.
+So he set fire to his log, and he went out around the place, and Bran
+with him. He went farther and farther till at last he saw a bright
+light, and when he came to the place where it was, he saw a large house.
+He went inside, and there was a great company of very strange-looking
+men in it, and they drinking out of a single cup. One of the men, that
+seemed to be the highest, gave the cup to the man nearest him; and after
+he had drunk his fill he passed it on to the next, and so on to the
+last. And while it was going round, he said: "This is the great cup that
+was taken from Finn, son of Cumhal, a hundred years ago, and however
+many men may be together, every man of them can drink his fill from it,
+of whatever sort of drink he has a mind for."
+
+Dubh was sitting near the door, on the edge of the crowd, and when the
+cup came to him he took a drink from it, and then he slipped away in the
+dark, bringing it with him. And when he came to the place where Finn
+was, his log was burned out.
+
+Then it was the turn of Dun to go out, for the second lot had fallen on
+him, and he put a light to his log, and went out, and Bran with him.
+
+He walked on through the night till he saw a fire that was shining from
+a large house, and when he went in he saw a crowd of men, and they
+fighting. And a very old man that was in a high place above the rest
+called out: "Stop fighting now, for I have a better gift for you than
+the one you lost to-night." And with that he drew a knife out of his
+belt and held it up, and said: "This is the wonderful knife, the small
+knife of division, that was stolen from Finn, son of Cumhal, a hundred
+years ago; and you have but to cut on a bone with that knife and you
+will get your fill of the best meat in the world." Then he gave the
+knife to the man nearest him, and a bare bone with it, and the man began
+to cut, and there came off the bone slices of the best meat in the
+world.
+
+The knife and the bone were sent round then from man to man till they
+came to Dun, and as soon as he had the knife in his hand he slipped out
+unknown and hurried back, and he had just got to the well where Finn
+was, when his part of the log burned out.
+
+Then Glasan lighted his log and went out on his watch till he came to
+the house, the same way the others did. And he looked in and he saw the
+floor full of dead bodies, and he thought to himself: "There must be
+some great wonder here. And if I lie down on the floor and put some of
+the bodies over me," he said, "I will be able to see all that happens."
+
+So he lay down and pulled some of the bodies over him, and he was not
+long there till he saw an old hag coming into the house, having one leg
+and one arm and one upper tooth, that was long enough to serve her in
+place of a crutch. And when she came inside the door she took up the
+first dead body she met with, and threw it aside, for it was lean. And
+as she went on, she took two bites out of every fat body she met with,
+and threw away every lean one.
+
+She had her fill of flesh and blood before she came to Glasan, and she
+dropped down on the floor and fell asleep, and Glasan thought that every
+breath she drew would bring down the roof on his head. He rose up then
+and looked at her, and wondered at the bulk of her body. And at last he
+drew his sword and hit her a slash that killed her; but if he did, three
+young men leaped out of her body. And Glasan made a stroke that killed
+the first of them, and Bran killed the second, but the third made his
+escape.
+
+Glasan made his way back then, and just when he got to where Finn was,
+his log of wood was burned out, and the day was beginning to break.
+
+And when Finn rose up in the morning he asked news of the three
+watchers, and they gave him the cup and the knife and told him all they
+had seen, and he gave great praise to Dubh and to Dun; but to Glasan he
+said: "It might have been as well for you to have left that old hag
+alone, for I am in dread the third young man may bring trouble on us
+all."
+
+It happened at the end of twenty-one years, Finn and the Fianna were at
+their hunting in the hills, and they saw a Red-Haired Man coming
+towards them, and he spoke to no one, but came and stood before Finn.
+"What is it you are looking for?" said Finn. "I am looking for a master
+for the next twenty-one years," he said. "What wages are you asking?"
+said Finn. "No wages at all, but only if I die before the twenty-one
+years are up, to bury me on Inis Caol, the Narrow Island." "I will do
+that for you," said Finn.
+
+So the Red-Haired Man served Finn well through the length of twenty
+years. But in the twenty-first year he began to waste and to wither
+away, and he died.
+
+And when he was dead, the Fianna were no way inclined to go to Inis Caol
+to bury him. But Finn said he would break his word for no man, and that
+he himself would bring his body there. And he took an old white horse
+that had been turned loose on the hills, and that had got younger and
+not older since it was put out, and he put the body of the Red-Haired
+Man on its back, and let it take its own way, and he himself followed
+it, and twelve men of the Fianna.
+
+And when they came to Inis Caol they saw no trace of the horse or of the
+body. And there was an open house on the island, and they went in. And
+there were seats for every man of them inside, and they sat down to rest
+for a while.
+
+But when they tried to rise up it failed them to do it, for there was
+enchantment on them. And they saw the Red-Haired Man standing before
+them in that moment.
+
+"The time is come now," he said, "for me to get satisfaction from you
+for the death of my mother and my two brothers that were killed by
+Glasan in the house of the dead bodies." He began to make an attack on
+them then, and he would have made an end of them all, but Finn took
+hold of the Dord Fiann, and blew a great blast on it.
+
+And before the Red-Haired Man was able to kill more than three of them,
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, that had heard the sound of the Dord
+Fiann, came into the house and made an end of him, and put an end to the
+enchantment. And Finn, with the nine that were left of the Fianna, came
+back again to Almhuin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE HOUND
+
+
+One day the three battalions of the Fianna came to Magh Femen, and there
+they saw three young men waiting for them, having a hound with them; and
+there was not a colour in the world but was on that hound, and it was
+bigger than any other hound.
+
+"Where do you come from, young men?" said Finn. "Out of the greater
+Iruath in the east," said they; "and our names are Dubh, the Dark, and
+Agh, the Battle, and Ilar, the Eagle." "What is it you came for?" "To
+enter into service, and your friendship," said they. "What good will it
+do us, you to be with us?" said Finn. "We are three," said they, "and
+you can make a different use of each one of us." "What uses are those?"
+said Finn. "I will do the watching for all the Fianna of Ireland and of
+Alban," said one of them. "I will take the weight of every fight and
+every battle that will come to them, the way they can keep themselves in
+quiet," said the second. "I will meet every troublesome thing that might
+come to my master," said the third; "and let all the wants of the world
+be told to me and I will satisfy them. And I have a pipe with me," he
+said; "and all the men of the world would sleep at the sound of it, and
+they in their sickness. And as to the hound," he said, "as long as there
+are deer in Ireland he will get provision for the Fianna every second
+night. And I myself," he said, "will get it on the other nights." "What
+will you ask of us to be with us like that?" said Finn. "We will ask
+three things," they said: "no one to come near to the place where we
+have our lodging after the fall of night; nothing to be given out to us,
+but we to provide for ourselves; and the worst places to be given to us
+in the hunting." "Tell me by your oath now," said Finn, "why is it you
+will let no one see you after nightfall?" "We have a reason," said they;
+"but do not ask it of us, whether we are short or long on the one path
+with you. But we will tell you this much," they said, "every third
+night, one of us three is dead and the other two are watching him, and
+we have no mind for any one to be looking at us."
+
+So Finn promised that; but if he did there were some of the Fianna were
+not well pleased because of the ways of those three men, living as they
+did by themselves, and having a wall of fire about them, and they would
+have made an end of them but for Finn protecting them.
+
+About that time there came seven men of poetry belonging to the people
+of Cithruadh, asking the fee for a poem, three times fifty ounces of
+gold and the same of silver to bring back to Cithruadh at Teamhair.
+"Whatever way we get it, we must find some way to get that," said a man
+of the Fianna. Then the three young men from Iruath said: "Well, men of
+learning," they said, "would you sooner get the fee for your poem
+to-night or to-morrow?" "To-morrow will be time enough," said they.
+
+And the three young men went to the place where the hound had his bed a
+little way off from the rath, and the hound threw out of his mouth
+before them the three times fifty ounces of gold and three times fifty
+of silver, and they gave them to the men of poetry, and they went away.
+
+Another time Finn said: "What can the three battalions of the Fianna do
+to-night, having no water?" And one of the men of Iruath said: "How many
+drinking-horns are with you?" "Three hundred and twelve," said Caoilte.
+"Give me the horns into my hand," said the young man, "and whatever you
+will find in them after that, you may drink it." He filled the horns
+then with beer and they drank it, and he did that a second and a third
+time; and with the third time of filling they were talkative and their
+wits confused. "This is a wonderful mending of the feast," said Finn.
+And they gave the place where all that happened the name of the Little
+Rath of Wonders.
+
+And one time after that again there came to Finn three bald red clowns,
+holding three red hounds in their hands, and three deadly spears. And
+there was poison on their clothes and on their hands and their feet, and
+on everything they touched. And Finn asked them who were they. And they
+said they were three sons of Uar, son of Indast of the Tuatha de Danaan;
+and it was by a man of the Fianna, Caoilte son of Ronan, their father
+was killed in the battle of the Tuatha de Danaan on Slieve nan Ean, the
+Mountain of Birds, in the east. "And let Caoilte son of Ronan give us
+the blood-fine for him now," they said. "What are your names?" said
+Finn. "Aincel and Digbail and Espaid; Ill-wishing and Harm and Want are
+our names. And what answer do you give us now, Finn?" they said. "No one
+before me ever gave a blood-fine for a man killed in battle, and I will
+not give it," said Finn. "We will do revenge and robbery on you so,"
+said they. "What revenge is that?" said Finn. "It is what I will do,"
+said Aincel, "if I meet with two or three or four of the Fianna, I will
+take their feet and their hands from them." "It is what I will do,"
+said Digbail, "I will not leave a day without loss of a hound or a
+serving-boy or a fighting man to the Fianna of Ireland." "And I myself
+will be always leaving them in want of people, or of a hand, or of an
+eye," said Espaid. "Without we get some help against them," said
+Caoilte, "there will not be one of us living at the end of a year."
+"Well," said Finn, "we will make a dun and stop here for a while, for I
+will not be going through Ireland and these men following after me, till
+I find who are the strongest, themselves or ourselves."
+
+So the Fianna made little raths for themselves all about Slieve Mis, and
+they stopped there through a month and a quarter and a year. And through
+all that time the three red bald-headed men were doing every sort of
+hurt and harm upon them.
+
+But the three sons of the King of Iruath came to speak with Finn, and it
+is what they said: "It is our wish, Finn, to send the hound that is with
+us to go around you three times in every day, and however many may be
+trying to hurt or to rob you, they will not have power to do it after
+that. But let there be neither fire nor arms nor any other dog in the
+house he goes into," they said. "I will let none of these things go into
+the one house with him," said Finn, "and he will go safe back to you."
+So every day the hound would be sent to Finn, having his chain of ridges
+of red gold around his neck, and he would go three times around Finn,
+and three times he would put his tongue upon him. And to the people that
+were nearest to the hound when he came into the house it would seem like
+as if a vat of mead was being strained, and to others there would come
+the sweet smell of an apple garden.
+
+And every harm and sickness the three sons of Uar would bring on the
+Fianna, the three sons of the King of Iruath would take it off them
+with their herbs and their help and their healing.
+
+And after a while the High King of Ireland came to Slieve Mis with a
+great, troop of his men, to join with Finn and the Fianna. And they told
+the High King the whole story, and how the sons of Uar were destroying
+them, and the three sons of the King of Iruath were helping them against
+them. "Why would not the men that can do all that find some good spell
+that would drive the sons of Uar out of Ireland?" said the High King.
+
+With that Caoilte went looking for the three young men from Iruath and
+brought them to the High King. "These are comely men," said the High
+King, "good in their shape and having a good name. And could you find
+any charm, my sons," he said, "that will drive out these three enemies
+that are destroying the Fianna of Ireland?" "We would do that if we
+could find those men near us," said they; "and it is where they are
+now," they said, "at Daire's Cairn at the end of the raths." "Where are
+Garb-Cronan, the Rough Buzzing One, and Saltran of the Long Heel?" said
+Finn. "Here we are, King of the Fianna," said they. "Go out to those men
+beyond, and tell them I will give according to the judgment of the King
+of Ireland in satisfaction for their father." The messengers went out
+then and brought them in, and they sat down on the bank of the rath.
+
+Then the High King said: "Rise up, Dubh, son of the King of Iruath, and
+command these sons of Uar with a spell to quit Ireland." And Dubh rose
+up, and he said: "Go out through the strength of this spell and this
+charm, you three enemies of the Fianna, one-eyed, lame-thighed,
+left-handed, of the bad race. And go out on the deep bitter sea," he
+said, "and let each one of you strike a blow of his sword on the head
+of his brothers. For it is long enough you are doing harm and
+destruction on the King of the Fianna, Finn, son of Cumhal."
+
+With that the hound sent a blast of wind under them that brought them
+out into the fierce green sea, and each of them struck a blow on the
+head of the others. And that was the last that was seen of the three
+destroying sons of Uar, Aincel and Digbail and Espaid.
+
+But after the time of the Fianna, there came three times in the one
+year, into West Munster, three flocks of birds from the western sea
+having beaks of bone and fiery breath, and the wind from their wings was
+as cold as a wind of spring. And the first time they came was at reaping
+time, and every one of them brought away an ear of corn from the field.
+And the next time they came they did not leave apple on tree, or nut on
+bush, or berry on the rowan; and the third time they spared no live
+thing they could lift from the ground, young bird or fawn or silly
+little child. And the first day they came was the same day of the year
+the three sons of Uar were put out in the sea.
+
+And when Caoilte, that was one of the last of the Fianna, and that was
+living yet, heard of them, he remembered the sons of Uar, and he made a
+spell that drove them out into the sea again, and they perished there by
+one another.
+
+It was about the length of a year the three sons of the King of Iruath
+stopped with Finn. And at the end of that time Donn and Dubhan, two sons
+of the King of Ulster, came out of the north to Munster. And one night
+they kept watch for the Fianna, and three times they made a round of the
+camp. And it is the way the young men from Iruath used to be, in a place
+by themselves apart from the Fianna, and their hound in the middle
+between them; and at the fall of night there used a wall of fire to be
+around them, the way no one could look at them.
+
+And the third time the sons of the King of Ulster made the round of the
+camp, they saw the fiery wall, and Donn said: "It is a wonder the way
+those three young men are through the length of a year now, and their
+hound along with them, and no one getting leave to look at them."
+
+With that he himself and his brother took their arms in their hands, and
+went inside the wall of fire, and they began looking at the three men
+and at the hound. And the great hound they used to see every day at the
+hunting was at this time no bigger than a lap-dog that would be with a
+queen or a high person. And one of the young men was watching over the
+dog, and his sword in his hand, and another of them was holding a vessel
+of white silver to the mouth of the dog; and any drink any one of the
+three would ask for, the dog would put it out of his mouth into the
+vessel.
+
+Then one of the young men said to the hound: "Well, noble one and brave
+one and just one, take notice of the treachery that is done to you by
+Finn." When the dog heard that he turned to the King of Ulster's sons,
+and there rose a dark Druid wind that blew away the shields from their
+shoulders and the swords from their sides into the wall of fire. And
+then the three men came out and made an end of them; and when that was
+done the dog came and breathed on them, and they turned to ashes on the
+moment, and there was never blood or flesh or bone of them found after.
+
+And the three battalions of the Fianna divided themselves into companies
+of nine, and went searching through every part of Ireland for the King
+of Ulster's two sons.
+
+And as to Finn, he went to Teamhair Luachra, and no one with him but the
+serving-lads and the followers of the army. And the companies of nine
+that were looking for the King of Ulster's sons came back to him there
+in the one night; but they brought no word of them, if they were dead or
+living.
+
+But as to the three sons of the King of Iruath and the hound that was
+with them, they were seen no more by Finn and the Fianna.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. RED RIDGE
+
+
+There was another young man came and served Finn for a while; out of
+Connacht he came, and he was very daring, and the Red Ridge was the name
+they gave him. And he all but went from Finn one time, because of his
+wages that were too long in coming to him. And the three battalions of
+the Fianna came trying to quiet him, but he would not stay for them. And
+at the last Finn himself came, for it is a power he had, if he would
+make but three verses he would quiet any one. And it is what he said:
+"Daring Red Ridge," he said, "good in battle, if you go from me to-day
+with your great name it is a good parting for us. But once at Rath Cro,"
+he said, "I gave you three times fifty ounces in the one day; and at Cam
+Ruidhe I gave you the full of my cup of silver and of yellow gold. And
+do you remember," he said, "the time we were at Rath Ai, when we found
+the two women, and when we ate the nuts, myself and yourself were there
+together."
+
+And after that the young man said no more about going from him.
+
+And another helper came to Finn one time he was fighting at a ford, and
+all his weapons were used or worn with the dint of the fight. And there
+came to him a daughter of Mongan of the Sidhe, bringing him a flat stone
+having a chain of gold to it. And he took the stone and did great deeds
+with it. And after the fight the stone fell into the ford, that got the
+name of Ath Liag Finn.
+
+And that stone will never be found till the Woman of the Waves will find
+it, and will bring it to land on a Sunday morning; and on that day seven
+years the world will come to an end.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE: THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE ENEMIES OF IRELAND
+
+
+Of all the great battles the Fianna fought to keep the foreigners out of
+Ireland, the greatest was the one that was fought at Finntraigh the
+White Strand, in Munster; and this is the whole story of it, and of the
+way the Fianna came to have so great a name.
+
+One time the enemies of Ireland gathered together under Daire Donn, High
+King of the Great World, thinking to take Ireland and to put it under
+tribute.
+
+The King of Greece was of them, and the King of France, and the King of
+the Eastern World, and Lughman of the Broad Arms, King of the Saxons,
+and Fiacha of the Long Hair, King of the Gairean, and Tor the son of
+Breogan, King of the Great Plain, and Sligech, son of the King of the
+Men of Cepda, and Comur of the Crooked Sword, King of the Men of the
+Dog-Heads, and Caitchenn, King of the Men of the Cat-Heads, and Caisel
+of the Feathers, King of Lochlann, and Madan of the Bent Neck, son of
+the King of the Marshes, and three kings from the rising of the sun in
+the east, and Ogarmach, daughter of the King of Greece, the best
+woman-warrior that ever came into the world, and a great many other
+kings and great lords.
+
+The King of the World asked then: "Who is there can give me knowledge of
+the harbours of Ireland?" "I will do that for you, and I will bring you
+to a good harbour," said Glas, son of Bremen, that had been put out of
+Ireland by Finn for doing some treachery.
+
+Then the armies set out in their ships, and they were not gone far when
+the wind rose and the waves, and they could hear nothing but the wild
+playing of the sea-women, and the screams of frightened birds, and the
+breaking of ropes and of sails. But after a while, when the wind found
+no weakness in the heroes, it rose from them and went up into its own
+high place. And then the sea grew quiet and the waves grew tame and the
+harbours friendly, and they stopped for a while at an island that was
+called the Green Rock. But the King of the World said then: "It is not a
+harbour like this you promised me, Glas, son of Dremen, but a shore of
+white sand where my armies could have their fairs and their gatherings
+the time they would not be fighting." "I know a harbour of that sort in
+the west of Ireland," said Glas, "the Harbour of the White Strand in
+Corca Duibhne." So they went into their ships again, and went on over
+the sea towards Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. CAEL AND CREDHE
+
+
+Now as to Finn, when it was shown to him that the enemies of Ireland
+were coming, he called together the seven battalions of the Fianna. And
+the place where they gathered was on the hill that was called
+Fionntulach, the White Hill, in Munster. They often stopped on that hill
+for a while, and spear-shafts with spells on them were brought to them
+there, and they had every sort of thing for food, beautiful
+blackberries, haws of the hawthorn, nuts of the hazels of Cenntire,
+tender twigs of the bramble bush, sprigs of wholesome gentian,
+watercress at the beginning of summer. And there would be brought to
+their cooking-pots birds out of the oak-woods, and squirrels from
+Berramain, and speckled eggs from the cliffs, and salmon out of
+Luimnech, and eels of the Sionnan, and woodcocks of Fidhrinne, and
+otters from the hidden places of the Doile, and fish from the coasts of
+Buie and Beare, and dulse from the bays of Cleire.
+
+And as they were going to set out southwards, they saw one of their
+young men, Gael, grandson of Nemhnain, coming towards them. "Where are
+you come from, Cael?" Finn asked him. "From Brugh na Boinne," said he.
+"What were you asking there?" said Finn. "I was asking to speak with
+Muirenn, daughter of Derg, that was my own nurse," said he. "For what
+cause?" said Finn. "It was about a high marriage and a woman of the
+Sidhe that was showed to me in a dream; Credhe it was I saw, daughter of
+the King of Ciarraighe Luachra." "Do you know this, Cael," said Finn,
+"that she is the greatest deceiver of all the women of Ireland; and
+there is hardly a precious thing in Ireland but she has coaxed it away
+to her own great dun." "Do you know what she asks of every man that
+comes asking for her?" said Cael. "I know it," said Finn; "she will let
+no one come unless he is able to make a poem setting out the report of
+her bowls and her horns and her cups, her grand vessels and all her
+palaces." "I have all that ready," said Cael; "it was given to me by my
+nurse, Muirenn, daughter of Derg."
+
+They gave up the battle then for that time, and they went on over every
+hilly place and every stony place till they came to Loch Cuire in the
+west; and they came to the door of the hill of the Sidhe and knocked at
+it with the shafts of their long gold-socketted spears. And there came
+young girls having yellow hair to the windows of the sunny houses; and
+Credhe herself, having three times fifty women with her, came out to
+speak with them. "It is to ask you in marriage we are come," said Finn.
+"Who is it is asking for me?" said she. "It is Cael, the hundred-killer,
+grandson of Nemhnain, son of the King of Leinster in the east." "I have
+heard talk of him, but I have never seen him," said Credhe. "And has he
+any poem for me?" she said. "I have that," said Cael, and he rose up
+then and sang his poem:
+
+"A journey I have to make, and it is no easy journey, to the house of
+Credhe against the breast of the mountain, at the Paps of Dana; it is
+there I must be going through hardships for the length of seven days. It
+is pleasant her house is, with men and boys and women, with Druids and
+musicians, with cup-bearer and door-keeper, with horse-boy that does not
+leave his work, with distributer to share food; and Credhe of the Fair
+Hair having command over them all.
+
+"It would be delightful to me in her dun, with coverings and with down,
+if she has but a mind to listen to me.
+
+"A bowl she has with juice of berries in it to make her eyebrows black;
+crystal vats of fermenting grain; beautiful cups and vessels. Her house
+is of the colour of lime; there are rushes for beds, and many silken
+coverings and blue cloaks; red gold is there, and bright drinking-horns.
+Her sunny house is beside Loch Cuire, made of silver and yellow gold;
+its ridge is thatched without any fault, with the crimson wings of
+birds. The doorposts are green, the lintel is of silver taken in battle.
+Credhe's chair on the left is the delight of delights, covered with gold
+of Elga; at the foot of the pleasant bed it is, the bed that was made of
+precious stones by Tuile in the east. Another bed there is on the right,
+of gold and silver, it is made without any fault, curtains it has of the
+colour of the foxglove, hanging on rods of copper.
+
+"The people of her house, it is they have delight, their cloaks are not
+faded white, they are not worn smooth; their hair is fair and curling.
+Wounded men in their blood would sleep hearing the birds of the Sidhe
+singing in the eaves of the sunny house.
+
+"If I have any thanks to give to Credhe, for whom the cuckoo calls, she
+will get better praise than this; if this love-service I have done is
+pleasing to her, let her not delay, let her say, 'Your coming is
+welcome to me.'
+
+"A hundred feet there are in her house, from one corner to another;
+twenty feet fully measured is the width of her great door; her roof has
+its thatch of the wings of blue and yellow birds, the border of her well
+is of crystals and carbuncles.
+
+"There is a vat there of royal bronze; the juice of pleasant malt is
+running from it; over the vat is an apple-tree with its heavy fruit;
+when Credhe's horn is filled from the vat, four apples fall into it
+together.
+
+"She that owns all these things both at low water and at flood, Credhe
+from the Hill of the Three Peaks, she is beyond all the women of Ireland
+by the length of a spear-cast.
+
+"Here is this song for her, it is no sudden bride-gift it is, no hurried
+asking; I bring it to Credhe of the beautiful shape, that my coming may
+be very bright to her."
+
+Then Credhe took him for her husband, and the wedding-feast was made,
+and the whole of the Fianna stopped there through seven days, at
+drinking and pleasure, and having every good thing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. CONN CRITHER
+
+
+Finn now, when he had turned from his road to go to Credhe's house, had
+sent out watchmen to every landing-place to give warning when the ships
+of the strangers would be in sight. And the man that was keeping watch
+at the White Strand was Conn Crither, son of Bran, from Teamhair
+Luachra.
+
+And after he had been a long time watching, he was one night west from
+the Round Hill of the Fianna that is called Cruachan Adrann, and there
+he fell asleep. And while he was in his sleep the ships came; and what
+roused him was the noise of the breaking of shields and the clashing of
+swords and of spears, and the cries of women and children and of dogs
+and horses that were under flames, and that the strangers were making an
+attack on.
+
+Conn Crither started up when he heard that, and he said: "It is great
+trouble has come on the people through my sleep; and I will not stay
+living after this," he said, "for Finn and the Fianna of Ireland to see
+me, but I will rush into the middle of the strangers," he said, "and
+they will fall by me till I fall by them."
+
+He put on his suit of battle then and ran down towards the strand. And
+on the way he saw three women dressed in battle clothes before him, and
+fast as he ran he could not overtake them. He took his spear then to
+make a cast of it at the woman was nearest him, but she stopped on the
+moment, and she said: "Hold your hand and do not harm us, for we are not
+come to harm you but to help you." "Who are you yourselves?" said Conn
+Crither. "We are three sisters," she said, "and we are come from Tir nan
+Og, the Country of the Young, and we have all three given you our love,
+and no one of us loves you less than the other, and it is to give you
+our help we are come." "What way will you help me?" said Conn. "We will
+give you good help," she said, "for we will make Druid armies about you
+from stalks of grass and from the tops of the watercress, and they will
+cry out to the strangers and will strike their arms from their hands,
+and take from them their strength and their eyesight. And we will put a
+Druid mist about you now," she said, "that will hide you from the armies
+of the strangers, and they will not see you when you make an attack on
+them. And we have a well of healing at the foot of Slieve Iolair, the
+Eagle's Mountain," she said, "and its waters will cure every wound made
+in battle. And after bathing in that well you will be as whole and as
+sound as the day you were born. And bring whatever man you like best
+with you," she said, "and we will heal him along with you."
+
+Conn Crither gave them his thanks for that, and he hurried on to the
+strand. And it was at that time the armies of the King of the Great
+Plain were taking spoils from Traigh Moduirn in the north to Finntraighe
+in the south. And Conn Crither came on them, and the Druid army with
+him, and he took their spoils from them, and the Druid army took their
+sight and their strength from them, and they were routed, and they made
+away to where the King of the Great Plain was, and Conn Crither
+followed, killing and destroying. "Stop with me, king-hero," said the
+King of the Great Plain, "that I may fight with you on account of my
+people, since there is not one of them that turns to stand against you."
+
+So the two set their banners in the earth and attacked one another, and
+fought a good part of the day until Conn Crither struck off the king's
+head. And he lifted up the head, and he was boasting of what he had
+done. "By my word," he said, "I will not let myself be parted from this
+body till some of the Fianna, few or many, will come to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. GLAS, SON OF BREMEN
+
+
+The King of the World heard that, and he said: "It is a big word that
+man is saying," he said; "and rise up now, Glas, son of Dremen, and see
+which of the Fianna of Ireland it is that is saying it."
+
+Glas left the ship then, and he went to where Conn
+
+Crither was, and he asked who was he. "I am Conn Crither, son of Bran,
+from Teamhair Luachra," said he. "If that is so," said Glas, "you are of
+the one blood with myself, for I am Glas, son of Bremen from Teamhair
+Luachra." "It is not right for you to come fighting against me from
+those foreigners, so," said Conn. "It is a pity indeed," said Glas; "and
+but for Finn and the Fianna driving me from them, I would not fight
+against you or against one of themselves for all the treasures of the
+whole world." "Do not say that," said Conn, "for I swear by my hand of
+valour," he said, "if you had killed Finn's own son and the sons of his
+people along with him, you need not be in dread of him if only you came
+under his word and his protection." "I think indeed the day is come for
+me to fight beside you," said Glas, "and I will go back and tell that to
+the King of the World."
+
+He went back then to where the king was, and the king asked him which of
+the men of the Fianna was in it. "It is a kinsman of my own is in it,
+High King," said Glas; "and it is weak my heart is, he to be alone, and
+I have a great desire to go and help him." "If you go," said the King of
+the World, "it is what I ask you, to come and to tell me every day how
+many of the Fianna of Ireland have fallen by me; and if a few of my own
+men should fall," he said, "come and tell me who it was they fell by."
+"It is what I ask you," said Glas, "not to let your armies land till the
+Fianna come to us, but to let one man only come to fight with each of us
+until that time," he said.
+
+So two of the strangers were sent against them that day, and they got
+their death by Glas and by Conn Crither. Then they asked to have two men
+sent against each of them, and that was done; and three times nine fell
+by them before night. And Conn Crither was covered with wounds after
+the day, and he said to Glas: "Three women came to me from the Country
+of the Young, and they promised to put me in a well of healing for my
+wounds. And let you watch the harbour to-night," he said, "and I will go
+look for them." So he went to them, and they bathed him in the well of
+healing, and he was whole of his wounds.
+
+And as to Glas, son of Dremen, he went down to the harbour, and he said:
+"O King of the World," he said, "there is a friend of mine in the ships,
+Madan of the Bent Neck, son of the King of the Marshes; and it is what
+he said in the great world in the east, that he himself would be enough
+to take Ireland for you, and that he would bring it under tribute to you
+by one way or another. And I ask you to let him come alone against me
+to-night, till we see which of us will fight best for Ireland."
+
+So Madan came to the land, and the two attacked one another, and made a
+very hard fight; but as it was not in the prophecy that Glas would find
+his death there, it was the son of the King of the Marshes that got his
+death by him.
+
+And not long after that Conn Crither came back to Glas, and he gave Glas
+great praise for all he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE HELP OF THE MEN OF DEA
+
+
+Then Taistellach that was one of Finn's messengers came to the White
+Strand asking news; and Conn bade him go back to where Finn was and tell
+him the way things were. But Taistellach would not go until he had
+wetted his sword in the blood of one of the enemies of Ireland, the same
+as the others had done. And he sent a challenge to the ships, and
+Coimhleathan, a champion that was very big and tall, came and fought
+with him on the strand, and took him in his arms to bring him back
+living to the ship of the High King; but Taistellach struck his head off
+in the sea and brought it back to land.
+
+"Victory and blessing be with you!" said Conn Crither. "And go now
+to-night," he said, "to the house of Bran, son of Febal my father at
+Teamhair Luachra, and bid him to gather all the Tuatha de Danaan to help
+us; and go on to-morrow to the Fianna of Ireland." So Taistellach went
+on to Bran's house, and he told him the whole story and gave him the
+message.
+
+Then Bran, son of Febal, went out to gather the Tuatha de Danaan, and he
+went to Dun Sesnain in Ui Conall Gabra, where they were holding a feast
+at that time. And there he found three of the best young men of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, Ilbrec the Many Coloured, son of Manannan, and
+Nemanach the Pearly, son of Angus Og, and Sigmall, grandson of Midhir,
+and they made him welcome and bade him to stop with them. "There is a
+greater thing than this for you to do, Men of Dea," said Bran; and he
+told them the whole story, and the way Conn Crither his son was. "Stop
+with me to-night," said Sesnan, "and my son Dolb will go to Bodb Dearg,
+son of the Dagda, and gather in the Tuatha de Danaan to us."
+
+So he stopped there, and Dolb, son of Sesnan, went to Sidhe Bean Finn
+above Magh Femen, and Bodb Dearg was there at that time, and Dolb gave
+him his message. "Young man," said Bodb Dearg, "we are no way bound to
+help the men of Ireland out of that strait." "Do not say that," said
+Dolb, "for there is not a king's son or a prince or a leader of the
+Fianna of Ireland without having a wife or a mother or a foster-mother
+or a sweetheart of the Tuatha de Danaan; and it is good help they have
+given you every time you were in want of it." "I give my word," said
+Bodb Dearg, "it is right to give a good answer to so good a messenger."
+With that he sent word to the Tuatha de Danaan in every place where they
+were, and they gathered to him. And from that they went on to Dun
+Sesnain, and they stopped there through the night And they rose up in
+the morning and put on their shirts of the dearest silk and their
+embroidered coats of rejoicing, and they took their green shields and
+their swords and their spears. And their leaders at that time besides
+Bodb Dearg were Midhir of Bri Leith, and Lir of Sidhe Finnachaidh, and
+Abarthach, son of Ildathach, and Ilbrec, son of Manannan, and Fionnbhar
+of Magh Suil, and Argat Lamh, the Silver Hand, from the Sionnan, and the
+Man of Sweet Speech from the Boinn.
+
+And the whole army of them came into Ciarraighe Luachra, and to
+red-haired Slieve Mis, and from that to the harbour of the White Strand.
+"O Men of Dea," said Abarthach then, "let a high mind and high courage
+rise within you now in the face of the battle. For the doings of every
+one among you," he said, "will be told till the end of the world; and
+let you fulfil now the big words you have spoken in the
+drinking-houses." "Rise up, Glas, son of Dremen," said Bodb Dearg then,
+"and tell out to the King of the World that I am come to do battle."
+Glas went then to the King of the World. "Are those the Fianna of
+Ireland I see?" said the king. "They are not," said Glas, "but another
+part of the men of Ireland that do not dare to be on the face of the
+earth, but that live in hidden houses under the earth, and it is to give
+warning of battle from them I am come." "Who will answer the Tuatha de
+Danaan for me?" said the King of the World. "We will go against them,"
+said two of the kings that were with him, Comur Cromchenn, King of the
+Men of the Dog-Heads, and Caitchenn, King of the Men of the Cat-Heads.
+And they had five red-armed battalions with them, and they went to the
+shore like great red waves. "Who is there to match with the King of the
+Dog-Heads for me?" said Bodb Dearg. "I will go against him," said Lir of
+Sidhe Finnachaidh, "though I heard there is not in the world a man with
+stronger hands than himself." "Who will be a match for the King of the
+Cat-Heads?" said Bodb Dearg. "I will be a match for him," said
+Abarthach, son of Ildathach.
+
+So Lir and the King of the Dog-Heads attacked one another, and they made
+a hard fight; but after a while Lir was getting the worst of it. "It is
+a pity the way Lir is," said Bodb Dearg; "and let some of you rise up
+and help him," he said. Then Ilbrec, son of Manannan, went to his help;
+but if he did, he got a wound himself and could do nothing. Then Sigmal,
+grandson of Midhir, went to his help, and after him the five sons of
+Finnaistucan, and others of the Men of Dea, but they were all driven off
+by the King of the Dog-Heads. But at that time Abarthach had made an end
+of the King of the Cat-Heads, and he rose on his spear, and made a leap,
+and came down between Lir and his enemy. "Leave off now and look on at
+the fight," he said to Lir, "and leave it to me and the foreigner." With
+that he took his sword in his left hand and made a thrust with his spear
+in through the king's armour. And as the king was raising up his shield,
+he struck at him with the sword that was in his left hand, and cut off
+both his legs at the knees, and the king let fall his shield then, and
+Abarthach struck off his head. And the two kings being dead, their
+people broke away and ran, but the Men of Dea followed them and made an
+end of them all; but if they did, they lost a good many of their own
+men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE MARCH OF THE FIANNA
+
+
+Ana Finn and the Fianna were at the house of Credhe yet, and they saw
+Taistellach coming towards them. It was the custom, now, with Finn when
+he sent any one looking for news, that it was to himself it was to be
+told first, the way that if he got bad news he would let on not to mind
+it; and if it was good news he got, he would have the satisfaction of
+telling it himself. So Taistellach told him how the foreigners were come
+to the harbour of the White Strand.
+
+Then Finn turned to his chief men, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland,
+there never came harm or danger to Ireland to be put aside this great
+danger that is come against us now. And you get great tribute and great
+service from the chief men of Ireland," he said, "and if you take that
+from them it is right for you to defend them now."
+
+And the Fianna all said they would not go back one step from the defence
+of Ireland. And as to Credhe, she gave every one of them a battle dress,
+and they were taking leave of her, and Finn said: "Let the woman come
+along with us till we know is it good or bad the end of this journey
+will be." So she came with them, bringing a great herd of cattle; and
+through the whole length of the battle, that lasted a year and a day,
+she had new milk for them, and it was to her house the wounded were
+brought for healing.
+
+Then the Fianna set out, and they went to the borders of Ciarraighe
+Luachra and across by the shores of the Bannlid with their left hand to
+Slieve Mis, and they made shelters for themselves that night, and
+kindled fires.
+
+But Caoilte and Oisin and Lugaidh's Son said to one another they would
+go on to the harbour, the way they would have time to redden their hands
+in the blood of the foreigners before the rest of the Fianna would come.
+
+And at that time the King of the World bade some of his chief men to go
+on shore and to bring him back some spoils. So they went to land and
+they gave out a great shout, and the people of the ships gave out a
+great shout at the same time. "I swear by the oath my people swear by,"
+said Caoilte, "I have gone round the whole world, but I never heard so
+many voices together in the one place." And with that he himself and
+Oisin and Lugaidh's Son made an attack on the strangers, and struck
+great blows at them. And when Conn Crither and Glas, son of Bremen,
+heard the noise of those blows, they knew they were struck by some of
+the Fianna of Ireland, and they came and joined with them, and did great
+destruction on the strangers, till there was not one left of all that
+had come to land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST FIGHTERS
+
+
+And in the morning they saw Finn and all his people coming to the rath
+that is above the harbour. "My father Finn," said Oisin than, "let us
+fight now with the whole of the foreigners altogether." "That is not my
+advice," said Finn, "for the number of their armies is too great for us,
+and we could not stand against them. But we will send out every day,"
+he said, "some son of a king or of a leader against some king of the
+kings of the world that is equal in blood to ourselves. And let none of
+you redden your arms," he said, "but against a king or a chief man at
+first, for when a king is fallen, his people will be more inclined to
+give way. And who will give out a challenge of battle from me now?" he
+said. "I will do that," said the son of Cuban, leader of the Fianna of
+Munster. "Do not go, my son," said Finn, "for it is not showed to me
+that you will have good luck in the battle, and I never sent out any man
+to fight without I knew he would come back safe to me." "Do not say
+that," said Cuban's son, "for I would not for the treasure of the whole
+world go back from a fight on account of a bad foretelling. And as it is
+my own country they have done their robbery in first," he said, "I will
+defend it for you." "It is sorrowful I am for that," said Finn, "for
+whichever of the kings of the world will meet you to-day, yourself and
+himself will fall together."
+
+Then Glas, son of Dremen, gave out a challenge of fight from Cuban's
+son, and the King of Greece answered it. And the two fought hand to
+hand, and the King of Greece made a great cast of his thick spear at
+Cuban's son, that went through his body and broke his back in two. But
+he did not take that blow as a gift, but he paid for it with a strong
+cast of his own golden spear that went through the ringed armour of the
+King of Greece. And those two fell together, sole to sole, and lip to
+lip. "There is grief on me, Cuban's son to have fallen," said Finn, "for
+no one ever went from his house unsatisfied; and a man that I would not
+keep, or the High King of Ireland would not keep for a week, he would
+keep him in his house through the length of a year. And let Follamain,
+his son, be called to me now," he said, "and I will give him his
+father's name and place."
+
+They stopped there then till the next morning. "Who will go and fight
+to-day?" said Finn then. "I will do that," said Goll Garb, son of the
+King of Alban and of the daughter of Goll, son of Morna.
+
+So he put on his battle dress, and there came against him the three
+kings from the rising of the sun in the east, and their three battalions
+with them. And Goll Garb rushed among their men, and wounded and maimed
+and destroyed them, and blinded their eyes for ever, so that their wits
+went from them, and they called to him to stop his deadly sword for a
+while. So he did that; and it is what they agreed to take their three
+kings and to give them over to Goll Garb that he might stop doing
+destruction with his sword.
+
+"Who will go out and fight to-day?" said Finn, on the morning of the
+morrow. "I will go," said Oisin, "and the chief men of the sons of
+Baiscne with me; for we get the best share of all the pleasant things of
+Ireland, and we should be first to defend her." "I will answer that
+challenge," said the King of France, "for it is against Finn I am come
+to Ireland, on account of my wife that he brought away from me; and
+these men will fall by me now," he said, "and Finn himself at the last;
+for when the branches of a tree are cut off, it is not hard to cut down
+the tree itself."
+
+So the King of France and Oisin met one another at the eastern end of
+the strand, and they struck their banners of soft silk into the green
+hill, and bared their swords and made a quick attack on one another. And
+at one time the king struck such a great blow that he knocked a groan
+out of Oisin. But for all that he was worsted in the end, and great fear
+came on him, like the fear of a hundred horses at the sound of thunder,
+and he ran from Oisin, and he rose like a swallow, that his feet never
+touched the earth at all; and he never stopped till he came to Gleann
+na-n Gealt, the Valley of Wild Men. And ever since that time, people
+that have lost their wits make for that valley; and every mad person in
+Ireland, if he had his way, would go there within twenty-four hours.
+
+And there rose great cries of lamentation from the armies of the World
+when they saw him going from them, and the Fianna of Ireland raised
+great shouts of joy.
+
+And when the night was coming on, it is what Finn said: "It is sad and
+gloomy the King of the World is to-night; and it is likely he will make
+an attack on us. And which of you will keep watch over the harbour
+through the night?" he said. "I will," said Oisin, "with the same number
+that was fighting along with me to-day; for it is not too much for you
+to fight for the Fianna of Ireland through a day and a night," he said.
+
+So they went down to the harbour, and it was just at that time the King
+of the World was saying, "It seems to me, men of the World, that our
+luck of battle was not good to-day. And let a share of you rise up now,"
+he said, "and make an attack on the Fianna of Ireland." Then there rose
+up the nine sons of Garb, King of the Sea of Icht, that were smiths, and
+sixteen hundred of their people along with them, and they all went on
+shore but Dolar Durba that was the eldest of them. And the sons of
+Baiscne were ready for them, and they fought a great battle till the
+early light of the morrow. And not one of them was left alive on either
+side that could hold a weapon but only Oisin and one of the sons of
+Garb. And they made rushes at one another, and threw their swords out of
+their hands, and closed their arms about one another, and wrestled
+together, so that it was worth coming from the east to the west of the
+world to see the fight of those two. Then the foreigner gave a sudden
+great fall to Oisin, to bring him into the sea, for he was a great
+swimmer, and he thought to get the better of him there. And Oisin
+thought it would not be worthy of him to refuse any man his place of
+fighting. So they went into the water together, and they were trying to
+drown one another till they came to the sand and the gravel of the clear
+sea. And it was a torment to the heart of the Fianna, Oisin to be in
+that strait. "Rise up, Fergus of the Sweet Lips," said Finn then, "and
+go praise my son and encourage him." So Fergus went down to the edge of
+the sea, and he said: "It is a good fight you are making, Oisin, and
+there are many to see it, for the armies of the whole world are looking
+at you, and the Fianna of Ireland. And show now," he said, "your ways
+and your greatness, for you never went into any place but some woman of
+high beauty or some king's daughter set her love on you." Then Oisin's
+courage increased, and anger came on him and he linked his hands behind
+the back of the foreigner and put him down on the sand under the sea
+with his face upwards, and did not let him rise till the life was gone
+from him. And he brought the body to shore then, and struck off his head
+and brought it to the Fianna.
+
+But there was great grief and anger on Dolar Durba, the eldest of the
+sons of Garb, that had stopped in the ship, and he made a great oath
+that he would have satisfaction for his brothers. And he went to the
+High King, and he said: "I will go alone to the strand, and I will kill
+a hundred men every day till I have made an end of the whole of the
+armies of Ireland; and if any one of your own men comes to interfere
+with me," he said, "I will kill him along with them."
+
+The next morning Finn asked who would lead the battle that day. "I
+will," said Dubhan, son of Donn. "Do not," said Finn, "but let some
+other one go."
+
+But Dubhan went to the strand, and a hundred men along with him; and
+there was no one there before him but Dolar Durba, and he said he was
+there to fight with the whole of them. And Dubhan's men gave a great
+shout of laughter when they heard that; but Dolar Durba rushed on them,
+and he made an end of the whole hundred, without a man of them being
+able to put a scratch on him. And then he took a hurling stick and a
+ball, and he threw up the ball and kept it in the air with the hurl from
+the west to the east of the strand without letting it touch the ground
+at all. And then he put the ball on his right foot and kicked it high
+into the air, and when it was coming down he gave it a kick of his left
+foot and kept it in the air like that, and he rushing like a blast of
+March wind from one end of the strand to the other. And when he had done
+that he walked up and down on the strand making great boasts, and
+challenging the men of Ireland to do the like of those feats. And every
+day he killed a hundred of the men that were sent against him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE KING OF ULSTER'S SON
+
+
+Now it chanced at that time that news of the great battle that was going
+on reached to the court of the King of Ulster. And the king's son, that
+was only twelve years of age, and that was the comeliest of all the
+young men of Ireland, said to his father: "Let me go to help Finn, son
+of Cumhal, and his men." "You are not old enough, or strong enough, boy;
+your bones are too soft," said the king. And when the boy went on
+asking, his father shut him up in some close place, and put twelve
+young men, his foster-brothers, in charge of him.
+
+There was great anger on the young lad then, and he said to his
+foster-brothers: "It is through courage and daring my father won a great
+name for himself in his young youth, and why does he keep me from
+winning a name for myself? And let you help me now," he said, "and I
+will be a friend to you for ever." And he went on talking to them and
+persuading them till he got round them all, and they agreed to go with
+him to join Finn and the Fianna. And when the king was asleep, they went
+into the house where the arms were kept, and every lad of them brought
+away with him a shield and a sword and a helmet and two spears and two
+greyhound whelps. And they went across Ess Ruadh in the north, and
+through Connacht of many tribes, and through Caille an Chosanma, the
+Woods of Defence, that were called the choice of every king and the true
+honour of every poet, and into Ciarraighe, and so on to the White
+Strand.
+
+And when they came there Dolar Durba was on the strand, boasting before
+the men of Ireland. And Oisin was rising up to go against him, for he
+said he would sooner die fighting with him than see the destruction he
+was doing every day on his people. And all the wise men and the fighting
+men and the poets and the musicians of the Fianna gave a great cry of
+sorrow when they heard Oisin saying that.
+
+And the King of Ulster's son went to Finn and stood before him and
+saluted him, and Finn asked who was he, and where did he come from. "I
+am the son of the King of Ulster," he said; "and I am come here, myself
+and my twelve foster-brothers, to give you what help we can." "I give
+you a welcome," said Finn.
+
+Just then they heard the voice of Dolar Durba, very loud and boastful.
+"Who is that I hear?" said the king's son. "It is a man of the
+foreigners asking for a hundred of my men to go and meet him," said
+Finn.
+
+Now, when the twelve foster-brothers heard that, they said no word but
+went down to the strand, unknown to the king's son and to Finn.
+
+"You are not a grown man," said Conan; "and neither yourself or your
+comrades are fit to face any fighting man at all." "I never saw the
+Fianna of Ireland till this day," said the young lad; "but I know well
+that you are Conan Maol, that never says a good word of any man. And you
+will see now," he said, "if I am in dread of that man on the strand, or
+of any man in the world, for I will go out against him by myself."
+
+But Finn kept him back and was talking with him; but then Conan began
+again, and he said: "It is many men Dolar Durba has made an end of, and
+there was not a man of all those that could not have killed a hundred of
+the like of you every day."
+
+When the king's son heard that, there was great anger on him, and he
+leaped up, and just then Dolar Durba gave a great shout on the strand.
+"What is he giving, that shout for?" said the king's son. "He is shouting
+for more men to come against him," said Conan, "for he is just after
+killing your twelve comrades." "That is a sorrowful story," said the
+king's son.
+
+And with that he took hold of his arms, and no one could hold him or
+hinder him, and he rushed down to the strand where Dolar Durba was. And
+all the armies of the strangers gave a great shout of laughter, for they
+thought all Finn's men had been made an end of, when he sent a young lad
+like that against their best champion. And when the boy heard that, his
+courage grew the greater, and he fell on Dolar Durba and gave him many
+wounds before he knew he was attacked at all. And they fought a very
+hard fight together, till their shields and their swords were broken in
+pieces. And that did not stop the battle, but they grappled together
+and fought and wrestled that way, till the tide went over them and
+drowned them both. And when the sea went over them the armies on each
+side gave out a great sorrowful cry.
+
+And after the ebb-tide on the morrow, the two bodies were found cold and
+quiet, each one held fast by the other. But Dolar Durba was beneath the
+king's son, so they knew it was the young lad was the best and had got
+the victory. And they buried him, and put a flag-stone over his grave,
+and keened him there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE HIGH KING'S SON
+
+
+Then Finn said he would send a challenge himself to Daire Bonn, the King
+of the Great World. But Caoilte asked leave to do that day's fighting
+himself. And Finn said he would agree to that if he could find enough of
+men to go with him. And he himself gave him a hundred men, and Oisin did
+the same, and so on with the rest. And he gave out his challenge, and it
+was the son of the King of the Great Plain that answered it. And while
+they were in the heat of the fight, a fleet of ships came into the
+harbour, and Finn thought they were come to help the foreigners. But
+Oisin looked at them, and he said: "It is seldom your knowledge fails
+you, Finn, but those are friends of our own: Fiachra, son of the King of
+the Fianna of the Bretons, and Duaban Donn, son of the King of
+Tuathmumain with his own people."
+
+And when those that were in the ships came on shore, they saw Caoilte's
+banner going down before the son of the King of the Great Plain. And
+they all went hurrying on to his help, and between them they made an
+end of the king's son and of all his people.
+
+"Who will keep watch to-night?" said Finn then. "We will," said the nine
+Garbhs of the Fianna, of Slieve Mis, and Slieve Cua, and Slieve Clair,
+and Slieve Crot, and Slieve Muice, and Slieve Fuad, and Slieve Atha
+Moir, and Dun Sobairce and Dundealgan.
+
+And they were not long watching till they saw the King of the Men of
+Dregan coming towards them, and they fought a fierce battle; and at the
+end of the night there were left standing but three of the Garbhs, and
+the King of the Men of Dregan. And they fought till their wits were gone
+from them; and those four fell together, sole against sole, and lip
+against lip.
+
+And the fight went on from day to day, and from week to week, and there
+were great losses on both sides. And when Fergus of the Sweet Lips saw
+that so many of the Fianna were fallen, he asked no leave but went to
+Teamhair of the Kings, where the High King of Ireland was, and he told
+him the way it was with Finn and his people. "That is good," said the
+High King, "Finn to be in that strait; for there is no labouring man
+dares touch a pig or a deer or a salmon if he finds it dead before him
+on account of the Fianna; and there is no man but is in dread to go from
+one place to another without leave from Finn, or to take a wife till he
+knows if she has a sweetheart among the Fianna of Ireland. And it is
+often Finn has given bad judgments against us," he said, "and it would
+be better for us the foreigners to gain the day than himself."
+
+Then Fergus went out to the lawn where the High King's son was playing
+at ball. "It is no good help you are giving to Ireland," said Fergus
+then, "to be playing a game without lasting profit, and strangers taking
+away your country from you." And he was urging him and blaming him, and
+great shame came on the young man, and he threw away the stick and went
+through the people of Teamhair and brought together all the young men, a
+thousand and twenty of them that were in it. And they asked no leave and
+no advice from the High King, but they set out and went on till they
+came to Finntraigh. And Fergus went to where Finn was, and told him the
+son of the High King of Ireland was come with him; and all the Fianna
+rose up before the young man and bade him welcome. And Finn said: "Young
+man," he said, "we would sooner see you coming at a time when there
+would be musicians and singers and poets and high-up women to make
+pleasure for you than at the time we are in the straits of battle the
+way we are now." "It is not for playing I am come," said the young man,
+"but to give you my service in battle." "I never brought a lad new to
+the work into the breast of battle," said Finn, "for it is often a lad
+coming like that finds his death, and I would not wish him to fall
+through me." "I give my word," said the young man, "I will do battle
+with them on my own account if I may not do it on yours." Then Fergus of
+the Fair Lips went out to give a challenge of battle from the son of the
+High King of Ireland to the King of the World.
+
+"Who will answer the King of Ireland's son for me?" said the King of the
+World. "I will go against him," said Sligech, King of the Men of Cepda;
+and he went on shore, and his three red battalions with him. And the
+High King's son went against them, and his comrades were near him, and
+they were saying to him: "Take a good heart now into the fight, for the
+Fianna will be no better pleased if it goes well with you than if it
+goes well with the foreigner." And when the High King's son heard that,
+he made a rush through the army of the foreigners, and began killing and
+overthrowing them, till their chief men were all made an end of. Then
+Sligech their king came to meet him, very angry and destroying, and
+they struck at one another and made a great fight, but at the last the
+King of Ireland's son got the upper hand, and he killed the King of the
+Men of Cepda and struck off his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE KING OF LOCHLANN AND HIS SONS
+
+
+And the fighting went on from day to day, and at last Finn said to
+Fergus of the Sweet Lips: "Go out, Fergus, and see how many of the
+Fianna are left for the fight to-day." And Fergus counted them, and he
+said: "There is one battalion only of the Fianna left in good order; but
+there are some of the men of it," he said, "are able to fight against
+three, and some that are able to fight against nine or thirty or a
+hundred." "If that is so," said Finn, "rise up and go to where the King
+of the World is, and bid him to come out to the great battle."
+
+So Fergus went to the King of the World, and it is the way he was, on
+his bed listening to the music of harps and pipes. "King of the World,"
+said Fergus, "it is long you are in that sleep; and that is no shame for
+you," he said, "for it will be your last sleep. And the whole of the
+Fianna are gone out to their place of battle," he said, "and let you go
+out and answer them." "In my opinion," said the King of the World,
+"there is not a man of them is able to fight against me; and how many
+are there left of the Fianna of Ireland?" "One battalion only that is in
+good order," said Fergus. "And how many of the armies of the World are
+there left?" he said. "Thirty battalions came with me to Ireland; and
+there are twenty of them fallen by the Fianna, and what is left of them
+is ten red battalions in good order. And there are eight good fighters
+of them," he said, "that would put down the men of the whole world if
+they were against me; that is, myself, and Conmail my son, and Ogarmach,
+the daughter of the King of Greece, that is the best hand in battle of
+the whole world after myself, and Finnachta of the Teeth, the chief of
+my household, and the King of Lochlann, Caisel Clumach of the Feathers,
+and his three sons, Tocha, and Forne of the Broad Shoulders, and Mongach
+of the Sea."
+
+"I swear by the oath of my people," said the King of Lochlann then, "if
+any man of the armies goes out against the Fianna before myself and my
+three sons, we will not go at all, for we would not get the satisfaction
+we are used to, unless our swords get their fill of blood." "I will go
+out against them alone," said Forne, the youngest son of the King of
+Lochlann. With that he put on his battle suit, and he went among the
+Fianna of Ireland, and a red-edged sword in each of his hands. And he
+destroyed those of their young men that were sent against him, and he
+made the strand narrow with their bodies.
+
+And Finn saw that, and it was torment to his heart, and danger of death
+and loss of wits to him, and he was encouraging the men of Ireland
+against Forne. And Fergus of the True Lips stood up, and it is what he
+said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "it is a pity the way you are under
+hardship and you defending Ireland. And one man is taking her from you
+to-day," he said, "and you are like no other thing but a flock of little
+birds looking for shelter in a bush from a hawk that is after them. And
+it is going into the shelter of Finn and Oisin and Caoilte you are," he
+said; "and not one of you is better than another, and none of you sets
+his face against the foreigner." "By my oath," said Oisin, "all that is
+true, and no one of us tries to do better than another keeping him off."
+"There is not one of you is better than another," said Fergus. Then
+Oisin gave out a great shout against the King of Lochlann's son. "Stop
+here with me, king's son," he said, "until I fight with you for the
+Fianna." "I give my word it is short the delay will be," said Forne.
+
+Then he himself and Oisin made an attack on one another, and it seemed
+for a while that the battle was going against Oisin. "By my word, Man of
+Poetry," said Finn then to Fergus of the True Lips, "it is a pity the
+way you sent my son against the foreigner. And rise up and praise him
+and hearten him now," he said. So Fergus went down to where the fight
+was, and he said: "There is great shame on the Fianna, Oisin, seeing you
+so low in this fight; and there is many a foot messenger and many a
+horsemen from the daughters of the kings and princes of Ireland looking
+at you now," he said. And great courage rose in Oisin then, and he drove
+his spear through the body of Forne, the King of Lochlann's son. And he
+himself came back to the Fianna of Ireland.
+
+Then the armies of the World gave out a great cry, keening Forne; and
+there was anger and not fear on his brothers, for they thought it no
+right thing he to have fallen by a man of the Fianna. And Tocha, the
+second son of the King of Lochlann, went on shore to avenge his brother.
+And he went straight into the middle of the Fianna, and gave his sword
+good feeding on their bodies, till they broke away before him and made
+no stand till Lugaidh's Son turned round against him. And those two
+fought a great fight, till their swords were bent and their spears
+crumbled away, and they lost their golden shields. And at the last
+Lugaidh's Son made a stroke of his sword that cut through the
+foreigner's sword, and then he made another stroke that cut his heart
+in two halves. And he came back high and proud to the Fianna.
+
+Then the third son of the King of Lochlann, Mongach of the Sea, rose up,
+and all the armies rose up along with him. "Stop here, Men of the
+World," he said, "for it is not you but myself that has to go and ask
+satisfaction for the bodies of my brothers." So he went on shore; and it
+is the way he was, with a strong iron flail in his hand having seven
+balls of pure iron on it, and fifty iron chains, and fifty apples on
+every chain, and fifty deadly thorns on every apple. And he made a rush
+through the Fianna to break them up entirely and to tear them into
+strings, and they gave way before him. And great shame came on Fidach,
+son of the King of the Bretons, and he said: "Come here and praise me,
+Fergus of the True Lips, till I go out and fight with the foreigner."
+"It is easy to praise you, son," said Fergus, and he was praising him
+for a long time.
+
+Then the two looked at one another and used fierce, proud words. And
+then Mongach of the Sea raised his iron flail and made a great blow at
+the King of the Bretons' son. But he made a quick leap to one side and
+gave him a blow of his sword that cut off his two hands at the joint;
+and he did not stop at that, but made a blow at his middle that cut him
+into two halves. But as he fell, an apple of the flail with its deadly
+thorns went into Fidach's comely mouth and through his brain, and it was
+foot to foot those two fell, and lip to lip.
+
+And the next that came to fight on the strand was the King of Lochlann
+himself, Caisel of the Feathers. And he came to the battle having his
+shield on his arm; and it is the way the shield was, that was made for
+him by the smith of the Fomor, there were red flames coming from it; and
+if it was put under the sea itself, not one of its flames would stop
+blazing. And when he had that shield on his arm no man could come near
+him.
+
+And there was never such destruction done on the men of Ireland as on
+that day, for the flames of fire that he sent from his shield went
+through the bodies of men till they blazed up like a splinter of oak
+that was after hanging through the length of a year in the smoke of a
+chimney; and any one that would touch the man that was burning would
+catch fire himself. And every other harm that ever came into Ireland
+before was small beside this.
+
+Then Finn said: "Lift up your hands, Fianna of Ireland, and give three
+shouts of blessing to whoever will hinder this foreigner." And the
+Fianna gave those three shouts; and the King of Lochlann gave a great
+laugh when he heard them. And Druimderg, grandson of the Head of the
+Fianna of Ulster, was near him, and he had with him a deadly spear, the
+Croderg, the Red-Socketed, that came down from one to another of the
+sons of Rudraighe. And he looked at the King of Lochlann, and he could
+see no part of him without armour but his mouth that was opened wide,
+and he laughing at the Fianna. Then Druimderg made a cast with the
+Croderg that hit him in the open mouth, and he fell, and his shield fell
+along with its master, and its flame went out. And Druimderg struck the
+head from his body, and made great boasts of the things he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. LABRAN'S JOURNEY
+
+
+It is then Fergus of the True Lips set out again and went through the
+length of Ireland till he came to the house of Tadg, son of Nuada, that
+was grandfather to Finn.
+
+And there was great grief on Muirne, Finn's mother, and on Labran of the
+Long Hand her brother, and on all her people, when they knew the great
+danger he was in. And Tadg asked his wife who did she think would escape
+with their lives from the great fighting at the White Strand. "It is a
+pity the way they are there," said she; "for if all the living men of
+the world were on one side, Daire Donn, the King of the World, would put
+them all down; for there are no weapons in the world that will ever be
+reddened on him. And on the night he was born, the smith of the Fomor
+made a shield and a sword, and it is in the prophecy that he will fall
+by no other arms but those. And it is to the King of the Country of the
+Fair Men he gave them to keep, and it is with him they are now." "If
+that is so," said Tadg, "you might be able to get help for Finn, son of
+Cumhal, the only son of your daughter. And bid Labran Lamfada to go and
+ask those weapons of him," he said. "Do not be asking me," said she, "to
+go against Daire Donn that was brought up in my father's house." But
+after they had talked for a while, they went out on the lawn, and they
+sent Labran looking for the weapons in the shape of a great eagle.
+
+And he went on from sea to sea, till at noon on the morrow he came to
+the dun of the King of the Country of the Fair Men; and he went in his
+own shape to the dun and saluted the king, and the king bade him
+welcome, and asked him to stop with him for a while. "There is a thing I
+want more than that," said Labran, "for the wife of a champion of the
+Fianna has given me her love, and I cannot get her without fighting for
+her; and it is the loan of that sword and that shield you have in your
+keeping I am come asking now," he said.
+
+There were seven rooms, now, in the king's house that opened into one
+another, and on the first door was one lock, and on the second two
+locks, and so on to the door of the last room that had seven locks; and
+it was in that the sword and the shield that were made by the smith of
+the Fomor were kept. And they were brought out and were given to Labran,
+and stalks of luck were put with them, and they were bound together with
+shield straps.
+
+Then Labran of the Long Hand went back across the seas again, and he
+reached his father's dun between the crowing of the cock and the full
+light of day; and the weakness of death came on him. "It is a good
+message you are after doing, my son," said Tadg, "and no one ever went
+that far in so short a time as yourself." "It is little profit that is
+to me," said Labran, "for I am not able to bring them to Finn in time
+for the fight to-morrow."
+
+But just at that time one of Tadg's people saw Aedh, son of Aebinn, that
+was as quick as the wind over a plain till the middle of every day, and
+after that, there was no man quicker than he was. "You are come at a
+good time," said Tadg. And with that he gave him the sword and the
+shield to bring to Finn for the battle.
+
+So Aedh, son of Aebinn, went with the swiftness of a hare or of a fawn
+or a swallow, till at the rising of the day on the morrow he came to the
+White Strand. And just at that time Fergus of the True Lips was rousing
+up the Fianna for the great fight, and it is what he said: "Fianna of
+Ireland," he said, "if there was the length of seven days in one day,
+you would have work to fill it now; for there never was and there never
+will be done in Ireland a day's work like the work of to-day."
+
+Then the Fianna of Ireland rose up, and they saw Aedh, son of Aebinn,
+coming towards them with his quick running, and Finn asked news from
+him. "It is from the dun of Tadg, son of Nuada, I am come," he said,
+"and it is to yourself I am sent, to ask how it is you did not redden
+your weapons yet upon the King of the World." "I swear by the oath of my
+people," said Finn, "if I do not redden my weapons on him, I will crush
+his body within his armour." "I have here for you, King of the Fianna,"
+said Aedh then, "the deadly weapons that will bring him to his death;
+and it was Labran of the Long Hand got them for you through his Druid
+arts." He put them in Finn's hand then, and Finn took the coverings off
+them, and there rose from them flashes of fire and deadly bubbles; and
+not one of the Fianna could stay looking at them, but it put great
+courage into them to know they were with Finn. "Rise up now," said Finn
+to Fergus of the True Lips, "and go where the King of the World is, and
+bid him to come out to the place of the great fight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT FIGHT
+
+
+Then the King of the World came to the strand, and all his armies with
+him; and all that were left of the Fianna went out against them, and
+they were like thick woods meeting one another, and they made great
+strokes, and there were swords crashing against bones, and bodies that
+were hacked, and eyes that were blinded, and many a mother was left
+without her son, and many a comely wife without her comrade.
+
+Then the creatures of the high air answered to the battle, foretelling
+the destruction that would be done that day; and the sea chattered of
+the losses, and the waves gave heavy shouts keening them, and the
+water-beasts roared to one another, and the rough hills creaked with the
+danger of the battle, and the woods trembled mourning the heroes, and
+the grey stones cried out at their deeds, and the wind sobbed telling
+them, and the earth shook, foretelling the slaughter; and the cries of
+the grey armies put a blue cloak over the sun, and the clouds were dark;
+and the hounds and the whelps and the crows, and the witches of the
+valley, and the powers of the air, and the wolves of the forests, howled
+from every quarter and on every side of the armies, urging them against
+one another.
+
+It was then Conan, son of Morna, brought to mind that himself and his
+kindred had done great harm to the sons of Baiscne, and he had a wish to
+do some good thing for them on account of that, and he raised up his
+sword and did great deeds.
+
+And Finn was over the battle, encouraging the Fianna; and the King of
+the World was on the other side encouraging the foreigners. "Rise up
+now, Fergus," said Finn, "and praise Conan for me that his courage may
+be the greater, for it is good work he is doing on my enemies." So
+Fergus went where Conan was, and at that time he was heated with the
+dust of the fight, and he was gone outside to let the wind go about him.
+
+"It is well you remember the old quarrel between the sons of Morna and
+the sons of Baiscne, Conan," said Fergus; "and you would be ready to go
+to your own death if it would bring harm on the sons of Baiscne," he
+said. "For the love of your good name, Man of Poetry," said Conan, "do
+not be speaking against me without cause, and I will do good work on the
+foreigners when I get to the battle again." "By my word," said Fergus,
+"that would be a good thing for you to do." He sang a verse of praise
+for him then, and Conan went back into the battle, and his deeds were
+not worse this time than they were before. And Fergus went back to where
+Finn was.
+
+"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn. "Duban, son of Cas, a
+champion of your own people," said Fergus, "for he never gives but the
+one stroke to any man, and no man escapes with his life from that
+stroke, and three times nine and eighty men have fallen by him up to
+this time." And Duban Donn, great-grandson of the King of Tuathmumhain,
+was there listening to him, and it is what he said: "By my oath,
+Fergus," he said, "all you are saying is true, for there is not a son of
+a king or of a lord is better in the battle than Duban, son of Cas; and
+I will go to my own death if I do not go beyond him." With that he went
+rushing through the battle like flames over a high hill that is thick
+with furze. Nine times he made a round of the battle, and he killed nine
+times nine in every round.
+
+"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn, after a while. "It is Duban
+Donn that is after going from us," said Fergus. "For there has been no
+one ahead of him since he was in his seventh year, and there is no one
+ahead of him now." "Rise up and praise him that his courage may be the
+greater," said Finn. "It is right to praise him," said Fergus, "and the
+foreigners running before him on every side as they would run from a
+heavy drenching of the sea." So Fergus praised him for a while, and he
+went back then to Finn.
+
+"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn. "It is Osgar is best in it
+now," said Fergus, "and he is fighting alone against two hundred Franks
+and two hundred of the men of Gairian, and the King of the Men of
+Gairian himself. And all these are beating at his shield," he said, "and
+not one of them has given him a wound but he gave him a wound back for
+it." "What way is Caoilte, son of Ronan?" said Finn. "He is in no great
+strait after the red slaughter he has made," said Fergus. "Go to him
+then," said Finn, "and bid him to keep off a share of the foreigners
+from Osgar." So Fergus went to him. "Caoilte," he said, "it is great
+danger your friend Osgar is in under the blows of the foreigners, and
+let you rise up and give him some help," he said.
+
+Caoilte went then to the place where Osgar was, and he gave a straight
+blow of his sword at the man who was nearest him, that made two halves
+of him. Osgar raised his head then and looked at him. "It is likely,
+Caoilte," he said, "you did not dare redden your sword on any one till
+you struck down a man that was before my sword. And it is a shame for
+you," he said, "all the men of the great world and the Fianna of Ireland
+to be in the one battle, and you not able to make out a fight for
+yourself without coming to take a share of my share of the battle. And I
+give my oath," he said, "I would be glad to see you put down in your bed
+of blood on account of that thing." Caoilte's mind changed when he heard
+that, and he turned again to the army of the foreigners with the redness
+of anger on his white face; and eighty fighting men fell in that rout.
+
+"What way is the battle now?" said Finn. "It is a pity," said Fergus,
+"there never came and there never will come any one that can tell the
+way it is now. For by my word," he said, "the tree-tops of the thickest
+forest in the whole of the western world are not closer together than
+the armies are now. For the bosses of their shields are in one another's
+hands. And there is fire coming from the edges of their swords," he
+said, "and blood is raining down like a shower on a day of harvest; and
+there were never so many leaves torn by the wind from a great forest as
+there are locks of long golden hair, and of black curled hair, cut off
+by sharp weapons, blowing into the clouds at this time. And there is no
+person could tell one man from another, now," he said, "unless it might
+be by their voices." With that he went into the very middle of the fight
+to praise and to hearten the men of the Fianna.
+
+"Who is first in the battle now, Fergus?" said Finn, when he came back
+to him. "By my oath, it is no friend of your own is first in it," said
+Fergus, "for it is Daire Donn, the King of the World; and it is for you
+he is searching through the battle," he said, "and three times fifty of
+his own people were with him. But two of the men of your Fianna fell on
+them," he said, "Cairell the Battle Striker, and Aelchinn of Cruachan,
+and made an end of them. But they were not able to wound the King of the
+World," he said, "but the two of them fell together by him."
+
+Then the King of the World came towards Finn, and there was no one near
+him but Arcallach of the Black Axe, the first that ever brought a wide
+axe into Ireland. "I give my word," said Arcallach, "I would never let
+Finn go before me into any battle." He rose up then and made a terrible
+great blow of his axe at the king, that went through his royal crown to
+the hair of his head, but that did not take a drop of blood out of him,
+for the edge of the axe turned and there went balls of fire over the
+plain from that blow. And the King of the World struck back at
+Arcallach, and made two halves of him.
+
+Then Finn and the King of the World turned on one another. And when the
+king saw the sword and the shield in Finn's hand, he knew those were the
+weapons that were to bring him to his death, and great dread came on
+him, and his comeliness left him, and his fingers were shaking, and his
+feet were unsteady, and the sight of his eyes was weakened.
+
+And then the two fought a great fight, striking at one another like two
+days of judgment for the possession of the world.
+
+But the king, that had never met with a wound before, began to be
+greatly weakened in the fight. And Finn gave great strokes that broke
+his shield and his sword, and that cut off his left foot, and at the
+last he struck off his head. But if he did, he himself fell into a faint
+of weakness with the dint of the wounds he had got.
+
+Then Finnachta of the Teeth, the first man of the household of the King
+of the World, took hold of the royal crown of the king, and brought it
+where Conmail his son was, and put it on his head.
+
+"That this may bring you success in many battles, my son," he said. And
+he gave him his father's weapons along with it; and the young man went
+through the battle looking for Finn, and three fifties of the men of the
+Fianna fell by him. Then Goll Garbh the Rough, son of the King of Alban,
+saw him and attacked him, and they fought a hard fight. But the King of
+Albain's son gave him a blow under the shelter of the shield, in his
+left side, that made an end of him.
+
+Finnachta of the Teeth saw that, and he made another rush at the royal
+crown, and brought it to where Ogarmach was, the daughter of the King of
+Greece. "Put on that crown, Ogarmach," he said, "as it is in the
+prophecy the world will be owned by a woman; and it will never be owned
+by any woman higher than yourself," he said.
+
+She went then to look for Finn in the battle, and Fergus of the True
+Lips saw her, and he went where Finn was. "O King of the Fianna," he
+said then, "bring to mind the good fight you made against the King of
+the World and all your victories before that; for it is a great danger
+is coming to you now," he said, "and that is Ogarmach, daughter of the
+King of Greece."
+
+With that the woman-fighter came towards him. "O Finn," she said, "it is
+little satisfaction you are to me for all the kings and lords that have
+fallen by you and by your people; but for all that," she said, "there is
+nothing better for me to get than your own self and whatever is left of
+your people." "You will not get that," said Finn, "for I will lay your
+head in its bed of blood the same as I did to every other one." Then
+those two attacked one another like as if there had risen to smother
+one another the flooded wave of Cliodna, and the seeking wave of Tuaigh,
+and the big brave wave of Rudraighe. And though the woman-warrior fought
+for a long time, a blow from Finn reached to her at last and cut through
+the royal crown, and with a second blow he struck her head off. And then
+he fell himself in his bed of blood, and was the same as dead, but that
+he rose again.
+
+And the armies of the World and the Fianna of Ireland were fallen side
+by side there, and there were none left fit to stand but Cael, son of
+Crimthan of the Harbours, and the chief man of the household of the King
+of the World, Finnachta of the Teeth. And Finnachta went among the dead
+bodies and lifted up the body of the King of the World and brought it
+with him to his ship, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said,
+"although it is bad this battle was for the armies of the World, it was
+worse for yourselves; and I am going back to tell that in the East of
+the World," he said. Finn heard him saying that, and he lying on the
+ground in his blood, and the best men of the sons of Baiscne about him,
+and he said: "It is a pity I not to have found death before I heard the
+foreigner saying those words. And nothing I myself have done, or the
+Fianna of Ireland, is worth anything since there is left a man of the
+foreigners alive to go back into the great world again to tell that
+story. And is there any one left living near me?" he said. "I am," said
+Fergus of the True Lips. "What way is the battle now?" said Finn. "It is
+a pity the way it is," said Fergus, "for, by my word," he said, "since
+the armies met together to-day, no man of the foreigners or of the men
+of Ireland took a step backward from one another till they all fell foot
+to foot, and sole to sole. And there is not so much as a blade of grass
+or a grain of sand to be seen," he said, "with the bodies of fighting
+men that are stretched on them; and there is no man of the two armies
+that is not stretched in that bed of blood, but only the chief man of
+the household of the King of the World, and your own foster-son, Cael,
+son of Crimthan of the Harbours." "Rise up and go to him," said Finn. So
+Fergus went where Cael was, and asked what way was he. "It is a pity the
+way I am," said Cael, "for I swear by my word that if my helmet and my
+armour were taken from me, there is no part of my body but would fall
+from the other; and by my oath," he said, "it is worse to me to see that
+man beyond going away alive than I myself to be the way I am. And I
+leave my blessing to you, Fergus," he said; "and take me on your back to
+the sea till I swim after the foreigner, and it is glad I would be the
+foreigner to fall by me before the life goes out from my body." Fergus
+lifted him up then and brought him to the sea, and put him swimming
+after the foreigner. And Finnachta waited for him to reach the ship, for
+he thought he was one of his own people. And Cael raised himself up when
+he came beside the ship, and Finnachta stretched out his hand to him.
+And Cael took hold of it at the wrist, and clasped his fingers round it,
+and gave a very strong pull at him, that brought him over the side. Then
+their hands shut across one another's bodies, and they went down to the
+sand and the gravel of the clear sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. CREDHE'S LAMENT
+
+
+Then there came the women and the musicians and the singers and the
+physicians of the Fianna of Ireland to search out the kings and the
+princes of the Fianna, and to bury them; and every one that might be
+healed was brought to a place of healing.
+
+And Credhe, wife of Cael, came with the others, and went looking
+through the bodies for her comely comrade, and crying as she went. And
+as she was searching, she saw a crane of the meadows and her two
+nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watching the nestlings; and
+when the crane covered one of the birds to save it, he would make a rush
+at the other bird, the way she had to stretch herself out over the
+birds; and she would sooner have got her own death by the fox than her
+nestlings to be killed by him. And Credhe was looking at that, and she
+said: "It is no wonder I to have such love for my comely sweetheart, and
+the bird in that distress about her nestlings."
+
+Then she heard a stag in Druim Ruighlenn above the harbour, that was
+making great lamentations for his hind from place to place, for they had
+been nine years together, and had lived in the wood at the foot of the
+harbour, Fidh Leis, and Finn had killed the hind, and the stag was
+nineteen days without tasting grass or water, lamenting after the hind.
+"It is no shame for me," said Credhe, "I to die for grief after Cael,
+since the stag is shortening his life sorrowing after the hind."
+
+Then she met with Fergus of the True Lips. "Have you news of Cael for
+me, Fergus?" she said. "I have news," said Fergus, "for he and the last
+man that was left of the foreigners, Finnachta Fiaclach, are after
+drowning one another in the sea."
+
+And at that time the waves had put Cael back on the strand, and the
+women and the men of the Fianna that were looking for him raised him up,
+and brought him to the south of the White Strand.
+
+And Credhe came to where he was, and she keened him and cried over him,
+and she made this complaint:--
+
+"The harbour roars, O the harbour roars, over the rushing race of the
+Headland of the Two Storms, the drowning of the hero of the Lake of the
+Two Dogs, that is what the waves are keening on the strand.
+
+"Sweet-voiced is the crane, O sweet-voiced is the crane in the marshes
+of the Ridge of the Two Strong Men; it is she cannot save her nestlings,
+the wild dog of two colours is taking her little ones.
+
+"Pitiful the cry, pitiful the cry the thrush is making in the Pleasant
+Ridge, sorrowful is the cry of the blackbird in Leiter Laeig.
+
+"Sorrowful the call, O sorrowful the call of the deer in the Ridge of
+Two Lights; the doe is lying dead in Druim Silenn, the mighty stag cries
+after her.
+
+"Sorrowful to me, O sorrowful to me the death of the hero that lay
+beside me; the son of the woman of the Wood of the Two Thickets, to be
+with a bunch of grass under his head.
+
+"Sore to me, O sore to me Cael to be a dead man beside me, the waves to
+have gone over his white body; it is his pleasantness that has put my
+wits astray.
+
+"A woeful shout, O a woeful shout the waves are making on the strand;
+they that took hold of comely Cael, a pity it is he went to meet them.
+
+"A woeful crash, O a woeful crash the waves are making on the strand to
+the north, breaking against the smooth rock, crying after Cael now he is
+gone.
+
+"A sorrowful fight, O a sorrowful fight, the sea is making with the
+strand to the north; my beauty is lessened; the end of my life is
+measured.
+
+"A song of grief, O a song of grief is made by the waves of Tulcha Leis;
+all I had is gone since this story came to me. Since the son of
+Crimthann is drowned I will love no one after him for ever; many a king
+fell by his hand; his shield never cried out in the battle."
+
+After she had made that complaint, Credhe laid herself down beside Cael
+and died for grief after him. And they were put in the one grave, and
+it was Caoilte raised the stone over them.
+
+And after that great battle of the White Strand, that lasted a year and
+a day, there was many a sword and shield left broken, and many a dead
+body lying on the ground, and many a fighting man left with a foolish
+smile on his face.
+
+And the great name that was on the armies of the World went from them to
+the Fianna of Ireland; and they took the ships and the gold and the
+silver and all the spoils of the armies of the World. And from that time
+the Fianna had charge of the whole of Ireland, to keep it from the Fomor
+and from any that might come against it.
+
+And they never lost power from that time until the time of their last
+battle, the sorrowful battle of Gabhra.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR: HUNTINGS AND ENCHANTMENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE KING OF BRITAIN'S SON
+
+
+Arthur, son of the King of Britain, came one time to take service with
+Finn, and three times nine men along with him. And they went hunting one
+day on Beinn Edair, and Finn took his place on the Cairn of the Fianna
+between the hill and the sea, and Arthur took his stand between the hunt
+and the sea, the way the deer would not escape by swimming.
+
+And while Arthur was there he took notice of three of Finn's hounds,
+Bran, and Sceolan and Adhnuall, and he made a plan in his mind to go
+away across the sea, himself and his three nines, bringing those three
+hounds along with him. So he did that, and he himself and his men
+brought away the hounds and crossed the sea, and the place where they
+landed was Inver Mara Gamiach on the coast of Britain. And after they
+landed, they went to the mountain of Lodan, son of Lir, to hunt on it.
+
+And as to the Fianna, after their hunting was done they gathered
+together on the hill; and as the custom was, all Finn's hounds were
+counted. Three hundred full-grown hounds he had, and two hundred whelps;
+and it is what the poets used to say, that to be counting them was like
+counting the branches on a tree.
+
+Now on this day when they were counted, Bran and Sceolan and Adhnuall
+were missing; and that was told to Finn. He bade his people to search
+again through the three battalions of the Fianna, but search as they
+would, the hounds were not to be found.
+
+Then Finn sent for a long-shaped basin of pale gold, and water in it,
+and he put his face in the water, and his hand over his face, and it was
+showed him what had happened, and he said: "The King of Britain's son
+has brought away the hound. And let nine men be chosen out to follow
+after them," he said. So nine men were chosen out, Diarmuid, grandson of
+Duibhne; Goll, son of Morna; Oisin, son of Finn; Faolan, the friend of
+the hounds, son of a woman that had come over the sea to give her love
+to Finn; Ferdoman, son of Bodb Dearg; two sons of Finn, Raighne Wide Eye
+and Cainche the Crimson-Red; Glas, son of Enchered Bera, with Caoilte
+and Lugaidh's Son. And their nine put their helmets on their heads, and
+took their long spears in their hands, and they felt sure they were a
+match for any four hundred men from the east to the west of the world.
+
+They set out then, till they came to the mountain of Lodan, son of Lir;
+and they were not long there till they heard talk of men that were
+hunting in that place.
+
+Arthur of Britain and his people were sitting on a hunting mound just at
+that time, and the nine men of the Fianna made an attack on them and
+killed all of them but Arthur, that Goll, son of Morna, put his two arms
+about and saved from death. Then they turned to go back to Ireland,
+bringing Arthur with them, and the three hounds. And as they were going,
+Goll chanced to look around him and he saw a dark-grey horse, having a
+bridle with fittings of worked gold. And then he looked to the left and
+saw a bay mare that was not easy to get hold of, and it having a bridle
+of silver rings and a golden bit. And Goll took hold of the two, and he
+gave them into Oisin's hand, and he gave them on to Diarmuid.
+
+They went back to Finn then, bringing his three hounds with them, and
+the King of Britain's son as a prisoner; and Arthur made bonds with
+Finn, and was his follower till he died.
+
+And as to the horse and the mare, they gave them to Finn; and the mare
+bred eight times, at every birth eight foals, and it is of that seed
+came all the horses of the fair Fianna of the Gael, for they had used
+no horses up to that time.
+
+And that was not the only time Finn was robbed of some of his hounds.
+For there was a daughter of Roman was woman-Druid to the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and she set her love on Finn. But Finn said, so long as there
+was another woman to be found in the world, he would not marry a witch.
+And one time, three times fifty of Finn's hounds passed by the hill
+where she was; and she breathed on the hounds and shut them up in the
+hill, and they never came out again. It was to spite Finn she did that,
+and the place got the name of Duma na Conn, the Mound of the Hounds.
+
+And as to Adhnuall, one of the hounds Finn thought most of, and that was
+brought back from the King of Britain's son, this is the way he came to
+his death afterwards.
+
+There was a great fight one time between the Fianna and Macoon, son of
+Macnia, at some place in the province of Leinster, and a great many of
+the Fianna were killed. And the hound Adhnuall went wandering northward
+from the battle and went astray; and three times he went round the whole
+of Ireland, and then he came back to the place of the battle, and to a
+hill where three young men of the Fianna that had fallen there were
+buried after their death, and three daughters of a King of Alban that
+had died for love of them. And when Adhnuall came to that hill, he gave
+three loud howls and he stretched himself out and died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN
+
+
+Finn called for a great hunt one time on the plains of Magh Chonaill and
+in the forest parts of Cairbre of the Nuts. And he himself went up to
+the top of Ceiscoran, and his two dogs Bran and Sceolan with him.
+
+And the Fianna were shouting through the whole country where they were
+hunting, the way the deer were roused in their wild places and the
+badgers in their holes, and foxes in their wanderings, and birds on the
+wing.
+
+And Conaran, son of Imidd, of the Tuatha de Danaan, had the sway in
+Ceiscoran at that time, and when he heard the shouting and the cry of
+the hounds all around, he bade his three daughters that had a great
+share of enchantments, to do vengeance on Finn for his hunting.
+
+The three women went then to the opening of a cave that was in the
+hills, and there they sat down together, and they put three strong
+enchanted hanks of yarn on crooked holly-sticks, and began to reel them
+off outside the cave.
+
+They were not long there till Finn and Conan came towards them, and saw
+the three ugly old hags at their work, their coarse hair tossed, their
+eyes red and bleary, their teeth sharp and crooked, their arms very
+long, their nails like the tips of cows' horns, and the three spindles
+in their hands.
+
+Finn and Conan passed through the hanks of yarn to get a better look at
+the hags. And no sooner had they done that, than a deadly trembling came
+on them and a weakness, and the bold hags took hold of them and put them
+in tight bonds.
+
+Two other men of the Fianna came up then, and the sons of Menhann along
+with them, and they went through the spindles to where Finn and Conan
+were, and their strength went from them in the same way, and the hags
+tied them fast and carried them into the cave.
+
+They were not long there till Caoilte and Lugaidh's Son came to the
+place, and along with them the best men of the sons of Baiscne. The sons
+of Morna came as well, and no sooner did they see the hanks than their
+strength and their bravery went out of them the same as it went from the
+others.
+
+And in the end the whole number of them, gentle and simple, were put in
+bonds by the hags, and brought into the cave. And there began at the
+mouth of the cave a great outcry of hounds calling for their masters
+that had left them there. And there was lying on the hillside a great
+heap of deer, and wild pigs, and hares, and badgers, dead and torn, that
+were brought as far as that by the hunters that were tied up now in the
+cave.
+
+Then the three women came in, having swords in their hands, to the place
+where they were lying, to make an end of them. But first they looked out
+to see was there ever another man of the Fianna to bring in and to make
+an end of with the rest.
+
+And they saw coming towards them a very tall man that was Goll, son of
+Morna, the Flame of Battle. And when the three hags saw him they went to
+meet him, and they fought a hard battle with him. And great anger came
+on Goll, and he made great strokes at the witches, and at the last he
+raised up his sword, and with one blow he cut the two that were nearest
+him through and through.
+
+And then the oldest of the three women wound her arms about Goll, and he
+beheading the two others, and he turned to face her and they wrestled
+together, till at last Goll gave her a great twist and threw her on the
+ground. He tied her fast then with the straps of a shield, and took his
+sword to make an end of her. But the hag said: "O champion that was
+never worsted, strong man that never went back in battle, I put my body
+and my life under the protection of your bravery. And it is better for
+you," she said, "to get Finn and the Fianna safe and whole than to have
+my blood; and I swear by the gods my people swear by," she said, "I will
+give them back to you again."
+
+With that Goll set her free, and they went together into the hill where
+the Fianna were lying. And Goll said: "Loose off the fastenings first
+from Fergus of the True Lips and from the other learned men of the
+Fianna; and after that from Finn, and Oisin, and the twenty-nine sons of
+Morna, and from all the rest."
+
+She took off the fastenings then, and the Fianna made no delay, but rose
+up and went out and sat down on the side of the hill. And Fergus of the
+Sweet Lips looked at Goll, son of Morna, and made great praises of him,
+and of all that he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DONN SON OF MIDHIR
+
+
+One time the Fianna were at their hunting at the island of Toraig to the
+north of Ireland, and they roused a fawn that was very wild and
+beautiful, and it made for the coast, and Finn and six of his men
+followed after it through the whole country, till they came to
+Slieve-nam-Ban. And there the fawn put down its head and vanished into
+the earth, and none of them knew where was it gone to.
+
+A heavy snow began to fall then that bent down the tops of the trees
+like a willow-gad, and the courage and the strength went from the Fianna
+with the dint of the bad weather, and Finn said to Caoilte: "Is there
+any place we can find shelter to-night?" Caoilte made himself supple
+then, and went over the elbow of the hill southward.
+
+And when he looked around him he saw a house full of light, with cups
+and horns and bowls of different sorts in it. He stood a good while
+before the door of the house, that he knew to be a house of the Sidhe,
+thinking would it be best go in and get news of it, or to go back to
+Finn and the few men that were with him. And he made up his mind to go
+into the house, and there he sat down on a shining chair in the middle
+of the floor; and he looked around him, and he saw, on the one side,
+eight-and-twenty armed men, each of them having a well-shaped woman
+beside him. And on the other side he saw six nice young girls,
+yellow-haired, having shaggy gowns from their shoulders. And in the
+middle there was another young girl sitting in a chair, and a harp in
+her hand, and she playing on it and singing. And every time she stopped,
+a man of them would give her a horn to drink from, and she would give it
+back to him again, and they were all making mirth around her.
+
+She spoke to Caoilte then. "Caoilte, my life," she said, "give us leave
+to attend on you now." "Do not," said Caoilte, "for there is a better
+man than myself outside, Finn, son of Cumhal, and he has a mind to eat
+in this house to-night." "Rise up, Caoilte, and go for Finn," said a man
+of the house then; "for he never refused any man in his own house, and
+he will get no refusal from us."
+
+Caoilte went back then to Finn, and when Finn saw him he said: "It is
+long you are away from us, Caoilte, for from the time I took arms in my
+hands I never had a night that put so much hardship on me as this one."
+
+The six of them went then into the lighted house and their shields and
+their arms with them. And they sat down on the edge of a seat, and a
+girl having yellow hair came and brought them to a shining seat in the
+middle of the house, and the newest of every food, and the oldest of
+every drink was put before them. And when the sharpness of their hunger
+and their thirst was lessened, Finn said: "Which of you can I question?"
+"Question whoever you have a mind to," said the tallest of the men that
+was near him. "Who are you yourself then?" said Finn, "for I did not
+think there were so many champions in Ireland, and I not knowing them."
+
+"Those eight-and-twenty armed men you see beyond," said the tall man,
+"had the one father and mother with myself; and we are the sons of
+Midhir of the Yellow Hair, and our mother is Fionnchaem, the fair,
+beautiful daughter of the King of the Sidhe of Monaid in the east. And
+at one time the Tuatha de Danaan had a gathering, and gave the kingship
+to Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, at his bright hospitable place, and he
+began to ask hostages of myself and of my brothers; but we said that
+till all the rest of the Men of Dea had given them, we would not give
+them. Bodb Dearg said then to our father: 'Unless you will put away your
+sons, we will wall up your dwelling-place on you.' So the
+eight-and-twenty brothers of us came out to look for a place for
+ourselves; and we searched all Ireland till we found this secret hidden
+place, and we are here ever since. And my own name," he said, "is Donn,
+son of Midhir. And we had every one of us ten hundred armed men
+belonging to himself, but they are all worn away now, and only the
+eight-and-twenty of us left." "What is it is wearing you away?" said
+Finn. "The Men of Dea," said Donn, "that come three times in every year
+to give battle to us on the green outside." "What is the long new grave
+we saw on the green outside?" said Finn. "It is the grave of Diangalach,
+a man of enchantments of the Men of Dea; and that is the greatest loss
+came on them yet," said Donn; "and it was I myself killed him," he
+said. "What loss came next to that?" said Finn. "All the Tuatha de
+Danaan had of jewels and riches and treasures, horns and vessels and
+cups of pale gold, we took from them at the one time." "What was the
+third greatest loss they had?" said Finn. "It was Fethnaid, daughter of
+Feclach, the woman-harper of the Tuatha de Danaan, their music and the
+delight of their minds," said Donn.
+
+"And to-morrow," he said, "they will be coming to make an attack on us,
+and there is no one but myself and my brothers left; and we knew we
+would be in danger, and that we could make no stand against them. And we
+sent that bare-headed girl beyond to Toraig in the North in the shape of
+a foolish fawn, and you followed her here. It is that girl washing
+herself, and having a green cloak about her, went looking for you.
+
+"And the empty side of the house," he said, "belonged to our people that
+the Men of Dea have killed."
+
+They spent that night in drinking and in pleasure. And when they rose up
+in the morning of the morrow, Donn, son of Midhir, said to Finn, "Come
+out with me now on the lawn till you see the place where we fight the
+battles every year." They went out then and they looked at the graves
+and the flag-stones, and Donn said: "It is as far as this the Men of Dea
+come to meet us." "Which of them come here?" said Finn.
+
+"Bodb Dearg with his seven sons," said Donn; "and Angus Og, son of the
+Dagda, with his seven sons; and Finnbharr of Cnoc Medha with his
+seventeen sons; Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh with his twenty-seven sons and
+their sons; Tadg, son of Nuada, out of the beautiful hill of Almhuin;
+Donn of the Island and Donn of the Vat; the two called Glas from the
+district of Osraige; Dobhran Dubthaire from the hill of Liamhain of the
+Smooth Shirt; Aedh of the Island of Rachrainn in the north; Ferai and
+Aillinn and Lir and Fainnle, sons of Eogobal, from Cnoc Aine in Munster;
+Cian and Coban and Conn, three sons of the King of Sidhe Monaid in
+Alban; Aedh Minbhreac of Ess Ruadh with his seven sons; the children of
+the Morrigu, the Great Queen, her six-and-twenty women warriors, the two
+Luaths from Magh Life; Derg and Drecan out of the hill of Beinn Edair in
+the east; Bodb Dearg himself with his great household, ten hundred ten
+score and ten. Those are the chief leaders of the Tuatha de Danaan that
+come to destroy our hill every year."
+
+Finn went back into the hill then, and told all that to his people.
+
+"My people," he said, "it is in great need and under great oppression
+the sons of Midhir are, and it is into great danger we are come
+ourselves. And unless we make a good fight now," he said, "it is likely
+we will never see the Fianna again."
+
+"Good Finn," every one of them said then, "did you ever see any
+drawing-back in any of us that you give us that warning?" "I give my
+word," said Finn, "if I would go through the whole world having only
+this many of the Fianna of Ireland along with me, I would not know fear
+nor fright. And good Donn," he said, "is it by day or by night the Men
+of Dea come against you?" "It is at the fall of night they come," said
+Donn, "the way they can do us the most harm."
+
+So they waited till night came on, and then Finn said: "Let one of you
+go out now on the green to keep watch for us, the way the Men of Dea
+will not come on us without word or warning."
+
+And the man they set to watch was not gone far when he saw five strong
+battalions of the Men of Dea coming towards him. He went back then to
+the hill and he said: "It is what I think, that the troops that are come
+against us this time and are standing now around the grave of the Man
+of Enchantments are a match for any other fighting men."
+
+Finn called to his people then, and he said: "These are good fighters
+are come against you, having strong red spears. And let you all do well
+now in the battle. And it is what you have to do," he said, "to keep the
+little troop of brothers, the sons of Midhir, safe in the fight; for it
+would be a treachery to friendship any harm to come on them, and we
+after joining them; and myself and Caoilte are the oldest among you, and
+leave the rest of the battle to us."
+
+Then from the covering time of evening to the edge of the morning they
+fought the battle. And the loss of the Tuatha de Danaan was no less a
+number than ten hundred ten score and ten men. Then Bodb Dearg and
+Midhir and Fionnbhar said to one another: "What are we to do with all
+these? And let Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh give us an advice," they said,
+"since he is the oldest of us." And Lir said: "It is what I advise, let
+every one carry away his friends and his fosterlings, his sons and his
+brothers, to his own place. And as for us that stop here," he said, "let
+a wall of fire be made about us on the one side, and a wall of water on
+the other side." Then the Men of Dea put up a great heap of stones, and
+brought away their dead; and of all the great slaughter that Finn and
+his men and the sons of Midhir had made, there was not left enough for a
+crow to perch upon.
+
+And as to Finn and his men, they went back into the hill, hurt and
+wounded and worn-out.
+
+And they stopped in the hill with the sons of Midhir through the whole
+length of a year, and three times in the year the Men of Dea made an
+attack on the hill, and a battle was fought.
+
+And Conn, son of Midhir, was killed in one of the battles; and as to the
+Fianna, there were so many wounds on them that the clothing was held
+off from their bodies with bent hazel sticks, and they lying in their
+beds, and two of them were like to die. And Finn and Caoilte and
+Lugaidh's Son went out on the green, and Caoilte said: "It was a bad
+journey we made coming to this hill, to leave two of our comrades after
+us." "It is a pity for whoever will face the Fianna of Ireland," said
+Lugaidh's Son, "and he after leaving his comrades after him." "Whoever
+will go back and leave them, it will not be myself," said Finn. Then
+Bonn, son of Midhir, came to them. "Good Donn," said Finn, "have you
+knowledge of any physician that can cure our men?" "I only know one
+physician could do that," said Donn; "a physician the Tuatha de Danaan
+have with them. And unless a wounded man has the marrow of his back cut
+through, he will get relief from that physician, the way he will be
+sound at the end of nine days." "How can we bring that man here," said
+Finn, "for those he is with are no good friends to us?" "He goes out
+every morning at break of day," said Donn, "to gather healing herbs
+while the dew is on them." "Find some one, Donn," said Caoilte, "that
+will show me that physician, and, living or dead, I will bring him with
+me."
+
+Then Aedh and Flann, two of the sons of Midhir, rose up. "Come with us,
+Caoilte," they said, and they went on before him to a green lawn with
+the dew on it; and when they came to it they saw a strong young man
+armed and having a cloak of the wool of the seven sheep of the Land of
+Promise, and it full of herbs of healing he was after gathering for the
+Men of Dea that were wounded in the battle. "Who is that man?" said
+Caoilte. "That is the man we came looking for," said Aedh. "And mind him
+well now," he said, "that he will not make his escape from us back to
+his own people."
+
+They ran at him together then, and Caoilte took him by the shoulders
+and they brought him away with them to the ford of the Slaine in the
+great plain of Leinster, where the most of the Fianna were at that time;
+and a Druid mist rose up about them that they could not be seen.
+
+And they went up on a little hill over the ford, and they saw before
+them four young men having crimson fringed cloaks and swords with gold
+hilts, and four good hunting hounds along with them. And the young man
+could not see them because of the mist, but Caoilte saw they were his
+own two sons, Colla and Faolan, and two other young men of the Fianna,
+and he could hear them talking together, and saying it was a year now
+that Finn, son of Cumhal, was gone from them. "And what will the Fianna
+of Ireland do from this out," said one of them, "without their lord and
+their leader?" "There is nothing for them to do," said another, "but to
+go to Teamhair and to break up there, or to find another leader for
+themselves." And there was heavy sorrow on them for the loss of their
+lord; and it was grief to Caoilte to be looking at them.
+
+And he and the two sons of Midhir went back then by the Lake of the Two
+Birds to Slieve-nam Ban, and they went into the hill.
+
+And Finn and Donn gave a great welcome to Luibra, the physician, and
+they showed him their two comrades that were lying in their wounds.
+"Those men are brothers to me," said Donn, "and tell me how can they be
+cured?" Luibra looked then at their wounds, and he said: "They can be
+cured if I get a good reward." "You will get that indeed," said Caoilte;
+"and tell me now," he said, "how long will it take to cure them?" "It
+will take nine days," said Luibra. "It is a good reward you will get,"
+said Caoilte, "and this is what it is, your own life to be left to you.
+But if these young men are not healed," he said, "it is my own hand will
+strike off your head."
+
+And within nine days the physician had done a cure on them, and they
+were as well and as sound as before.
+
+And it was after that time the High King sent a messenger to bring the
+Fianna to the Feast of Teamhair. And they all gathered to it, men and
+women, boys and heroes and musicians. And Goll, son of Morna, was
+sitting at the feast beside the king. "It is a great loss you have had,
+Fianna of Ireland," said the king, "losing your lord and your leader,
+Finn, son of Cumhal." "It is a great loss indeed," said Goll.
+
+"There has no greater loss fallen on Ireland since the loss of Lugh, son
+of Ethne," said the king. "What orders will you give to the Fianna now,
+king?" said Goll. "To yourself, Goll," said the king, "I will give the
+right of hunting over all Ireland till we know if the loss of Finn is
+lasting." "I will not take Finn's place," said Goll, "till he has been
+wanting to us through the length of three years, and till no person in
+Ireland has any hope of seeing him again."
+
+Then Ailbe of the Freckled Face said to the king: "What should these
+seventeen queens belonging to Finn's household do?" "Let a safe, secret
+sunny house be given to every one of them," said the king; "and let her
+stop there and her women with her, and let provision be given to her for
+a month and a quarter and a year till we have knowledge if Finn is alive
+or dead."
+
+Then the king stood up, and a smooth drinking-horn in his hand, and he
+said: "It would be a good thing, men of Ireland, if any one among you
+could get us news of Finn in hills or in secret places, or in rivers or
+invers, or in any house of the Sidhe in Ireland or in Alban."
+
+With that Berngal, the cow-owner from the borders of Slieve Fuad, that
+was divider to the King of Ireland, said: "The day Finn came out from
+the north, following after a deer of the Sidhe, and his five comrades
+with him, he put a sharp spear having a shining head in my hand, and a
+hound's collar along with it, and he bade me to keep them till he would
+meet me again in the same place." Berngal showed the spear and the
+collar then to the king and to Goll, and they looked at them and the
+king said: "It is a great loss to the men of Ireland the man is that
+owned this collar and this spear. And were his hounds along with him?"
+he said. "They were," said Berngal; "Bran and Sceolan were with Finn,
+and Breac and Lainbhui with Caoilte, and Conuall and Comrith with
+Lugaidh's Son."
+
+The High King called then for Fergus of the True Lips, and he said: "Do
+you know how long is Finn away from us?" "I know that well," said
+Fergus; "it is a month and a quarter and a year since we lost him. And
+indeed it is a great loss he is to the Fianna of Ireland," he
+said, "himself and the men that were with him." "It is a great loss
+indeed," said the king, "and I have no hope at all of finding those six
+that were the best men of Ireland or of Alban."
+
+And then he called to Cithruadh, the Druid, and he said: "It is much
+riches and many treasures Finn gave you, and tell us now is he living or
+is he dead?" "He is living," said Cithruadh then. "But as to where he
+is, I will give no news of that," he said, "for he himself would not
+like me to give news of it." There was great joy among them when they
+heard that, for everything Cithruadh had ever foretold had come true.
+"Tell us when will he come back?" said the king. "Before the Feast of
+Teamhair is over," said the Druid, "you will see the Leader of the
+Fianna drinking at it."
+
+And as to Finn and his men, they stopped in the House of the Two Birds
+till they had taken hostages for Donn, son of Midhir, from the Tuatha de
+Danaan. And on the last day of the Feast of Teamhair they came back to
+their people again.
+
+And from that time out the Fianna of Ireland had not more dealings with
+the people living in houses than they had with the People of the Gods of
+Dana.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE HOSPITALITY OF CUANNA'S HOUSE
+
+
+It happened one day Finn and Oisin and Caoilte and Diarmuid and
+Lugaidh's Son went up on the top of Cairn Feargall, and their five
+hounds with them, Bran and Sceolan, Sear Dubh, Luath Luachar and
+Adhnuall. And they were not long there till they saw a giant coming
+towards them, very tall and rough and having an iron fork on his back
+and a squealing pig between the prongs of the fork. And there was a
+beautiful eager young girl behind the giant, shoving him on before her.
+"Let some one go speak with those people," said Finn. So Diarmuid went
+towards them, but they turned away before he came to them. Then Finn and
+the rest rose up and went after them, but before they came to the giant
+and the girl, a dark Druid mist rose up that hid the road. And when the
+mist cleared away, Finn and the rest looked about them, and they saw a
+good light-roofed house at the edge of a ford near at hand. They went on
+to the house, and there was a green lawn before it, and in the lawn two
+wells, and on the edge of one well there was a rough iron vessel, and on
+the edge of the other a copper vessel. They went into the house then,
+and they found there a very old white-haired man, standing to the right
+hand of the door, and the beautiful young girl they saw before, sitting
+near him, and the great rough giant beside the fire, and he boiling a
+pig. And on the other side of the fire there was an old countryman,
+having dark-grey hair and twelve eyes in his head, and his twelve eyes
+were twelve sons of battle. And there was a ram in the house having a
+white belly and a very black head, and dark-blue horns and green feet.
+And there was a hag in the end of the house and a worn grey gown on her,
+and there was no one in the house but those.
+
+And the man at the door gave them a welcome, and then the five of them
+sat down on the floor of the house, and their hounds along with them.
+
+"Let great respect be shown to Finn, son of Cumhal, and to his people,"
+said the man at the door. "It is the way I am," said the giant, "to be
+asking always and getting nothing." But for all that he rose up and
+showed respect to Finn.
+
+Presently there came a great thirst on Finn, and no one took notice of
+it but Caoilte, and he began complaining greatly. "Why are you
+complaining, Caoilte?" said the man at the door; "you have but to go out
+and get a drink for Finn at whichever of the wells you will choose."
+Caoilte went out then, and he brought the full of the copper vessel to
+Finn, and Finn took a drink from it, and there was the taste of honey on
+it while he was drinking, and the taste of gall on it after, so that
+fierce windy pains and signs of death came on him, and his appearance
+changed, that he would hardly be known. And Caoilte made greater
+complaints than he did before on account of the way he was, till the man
+at the door bade him to go out and to bring him a drink from the other
+well. So Caoilte did that, and brought in the full of the iron vessel.
+And Finn never went through such great hardship in any battle as he did
+drinking that draught, from the bitterness of it; but no sooner did he
+drink it than his own colour and appearance came back to him and he was
+as well as before, and his people were very glad when they saw that.
+
+Then the man of the house asked was the pig ready that was in the
+cauldron. "It is ready," said the giant; "and leave the dividing of it
+to me," he said. "What way will you divide it?" said the man of the
+house. "I will give one hind quarter to Finn and his dogs," said the
+giant, "and the other hind quarter to Finn's four comrades; and the fore
+quarter to myself, and the chine and the rump to the old man there by
+the fire and the hag in the corner; and the entrails to yourself and to
+the young girl that is beside you." "I give my word," said the man of
+the house, "you have shared it well." "I give my word," said the ram,
+"it is a bad division to me, for you have forgotten my share in it."
+With that he took hold of the quarter that was before the Fianna, and
+brought it into a corner and began to eat it. On that the four of them
+attacked him with their swords, but with all the hard strokes they gave
+they could not harm him at all, for the swords slipped from his back the
+same as they would from a rock. "On my word it is a pity for any one
+that has the like of you for comrades," said the man with the twelve
+eyes, "and you letting a sheep bring away your food from you." With that
+he went up to the ram and took him by the feet and threw him out from
+the door that he fell on his back, and they saw him no more.
+
+It was not long after that, the hag rose up and threw her pale grey gown
+over Finn's four comrades, and they turned to four old men, weak and
+withered, their heads hanging. When Finn saw that there came great dread
+on him, and the man at the door saw it, and he bade him to come over to
+him, and to put his head in his breast and to sleep. Finn did that, and
+the hag took her covering off the four men, the way that when Finn awoke
+they were in their own shape again, and it is well pleased he was to see
+that.
+
+"Is there wonder on you, Finn?" said the man at the door, "at the ways
+of this house?" "I never wondered more at anything I ever saw," said
+Finn. "I will tell you the meaning of them, so," said the man. "As to
+the giant you saw first," he said, "having the squealing pig in the
+prongs of his fork, Sluggishness is his name; and the girl here beside
+me that was shoving him along is Liveliness, for liveliness pushes on
+sluggishness, and liveliness goes farther in the winking of an eye than
+the foot can travel in a year. The old man there beyond with the twelve
+bright eyes betokens the World, and he is stronger than any other, and
+he showed that when he made nothing of the ram. The ram you saw betokens
+the Desires of Men. The hag is Old Age, and her gown withered up your
+four comrades. And the two wells you drank the two draughts out of," he
+said, "betoken Lying and Truth; for it is sweet to people to be telling
+a lie, but it is bitter in the end. And as to myself," he said, "Cuanna
+from Innistuil is my name, and it is not here I am used to be, but I
+took a very great love for you, Finn, because of your wisdom and your
+great name, and so I put these things in your way that I might see you.
+And the hospitality of Cuanna's house to Finn will be the name of this
+story to the end of the world. And let you and your men come together
+now," he said, "and sleep till morning."
+
+So they did that, and when they awoke in the morning, it is where they
+were, on the top of Cairn Feargall, and their dogs and their arms beside
+them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. CAT-HEADS AND DOG-HEADS
+
+
+Nine of the Fianna set out one time, looking for a pup they wanted, and
+they searched through many places before they found it. All through Magh
+Leine they searched, and through the Valley of the Swords, and through
+the storm of Druim Cleibh, and it is pleasant the Plain of the Life
+looked after it; but not a pup could they find. Then they went searching
+through Durlass of the generous men, and great Teamhair and Dun Dobhran
+and Ceanntsaile, men and dogs searching the whole of Ireland, but not a
+pup could they find.
+
+And while they were going from place to place, and their people with
+them, they saw the three armies of the sons of the King of Ruadhleath
+coming towards them. Cat-headed one army was, and the one alongside of
+it was Dog-headed, and the men of the third army were White-backed.
+
+And when the Fianna saw them coming, Finn held up his shining spear, and
+light-hearted Caoilte gave out a great shout that was heard in Almhuin,
+and in Magh Leine, and in Teamhair, and in Dun Reithlein. And that shout
+was answered by Goll, son of Morna, and by Faolan, Finn's son that was
+with him, and by the Stutterers from Burren, and by the two sons of
+Maith Breac, and by Iolunn of the Sharp Edge, and by Cael of the Sharp
+Sword, that never gave his ear to tale-bearers.
+
+It is pleasant the sound was then of the spears and the armies and of
+the silken banners that were raised up in the gusty wind of the morning.
+And as to the banners, Finn's banner, the Dealb-Greine, the Sun-Shape,
+had the likeness of the sun on it; and Coil's banner was the Fulang
+Duaraidh, that was the first and last to move in a battle; and Faolan's
+banner was the Coinneal Catha, the Candle of Battle; and Oisin's banner
+was the Donn Nimhe, the Dark Deadly One; and Caoilte's was the Lamh
+Dearg, the Red Hand; and Osgar's was the Sguab Gabhaidh that had a Broom
+of rowan branches on it, and the only thing asked when the fight was at
+the hottest was where that Broom was; and merry Diarmuid's banner was
+the Liath Loinneach, the Shining Grey; and the Craobh Fuileach, the
+Bloody Branch, was the banner of Lugaidh's Son. And as to Conan, it is a
+briar he had on his banner, because he was always for quarrels and for
+trouble. And it used to be said of him he never saw a man frown without
+striking him, or a door left open without going in through it.
+
+And when the Fianna had raised their banners they attacked the three
+armies; and first of all they killed the whole of the Cat-Heads, and
+then they took the Dog-Heads in hand and made an end of them, and of the
+White-Backs along with them.
+
+And after that they went to a little hill to the south, having a double
+dun on it, and it is there they found a hound they were able to get a
+pup from.
+
+And by that time they had searched through the whole of Ireland, and
+they did not find in the whole of it a hundred men that could match
+their nine.
+
+And as well as their banners, some of the Fianna had swords that had
+names to them, Mac an Luin, Son of the Waves, that belonged to Finn; and
+Ceard-nan Gallan, the Smith of the Branches, that was Oisin's; and
+Caoilte's Cruadh-Chosgarach, the Hard Destroying One; and Diarmuid's
+Liomhadoir, the Burnisher; and Osgar's Cosgarach Mhor, the Great
+Triumphant One.
+
+And it is the way they got those swords: there came one time to where
+Finn and Caoilte and some others of the Fianna were, a young man, very
+big and ugly, having but one foot and one eye; a cloak of black skins he
+had over his shoulders, and in his hand a blunt ploughshare that was
+turning to red. And he told them he was Lon, son of Liobhan, one of the
+three smiths of the King of Lochlann. And whether he thought to go away
+from the Fianna, or to bring them to his smithy, he started running, and
+they followed after him all through Ireland, to Slieve-na-Righ, and to
+Luimnech, and to Ath Luain, and by the right side of Cruachan of
+Connacht, and to Ess Ruadh and to Beinn Edair, and so to the sea.
+
+And wherever it was they found the smithy, they went into it, and there
+they found four smiths working, and every one of them having seven
+hands. And Finn and Caoilte and the rest stopped there watching them
+till the swords were made, and they brought them away with them then,
+and it is good use they made of them afterwards.
+
+And besides his sword, Mac an Luin, Finn had a shield was called Sgiath
+Gailbhinn, the Storm Shield; and when it called out it could be heard
+all through Ireland.
+
+And whether or not it was the Storm Shield, Finn had a wonderful shield
+that he did great deeds with, and the story of it is this:
+
+At the time of the battle of the Great Battle of Magh Tuireadh, Lugh,
+after he had struck the head off Balor of the Evil Eye, hung it in the
+fork of a hazel-tree. And the tree split, and the leaves fell from it
+with the dint of the poison that dropped from the head. And through the
+length of fifty years that tree was a dwelling-place of crows and of
+ravens. And at the end of that time Manannan, son of Lir, was passing
+by, and he took notice of the tree that it was split and withered, and
+he bade his men to dig it up. And when they began to dig, a mist of
+poison rose up from the roots, and nine of the men got their death from
+it, and another nine after them, and the third nine were blinded. And
+Luchtaine the Carpenter made a shield of the wood of that hazel for
+Manannan. And after a while Manannan gave it, and a set of chessmen
+along with it, to Tadg, son of Nuada; and from him it came to his
+grandson, Finn, son of Muirne and of Cumhal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. LOMNA'S HEAD
+
+FINN took a wife one time of the Luigne of Midhe. And at the same time
+there was in his household one Lomna, a fool.
+
+Finn now went into Tethra, hunting with the Fianna, but Lomna stopped at
+the house. And after a while he saw Coirpre, a man of the Luigne, go in
+secretly to where Finn's wife was.
+
+And when the woman knew he had seen that, she begged and prayed of Lomna
+to hide it from Finn. And Lomna agreed to that, but it preyed on him to
+have a hand in doing treachery on Finn. And after a while he took a
+four-square rod and wrote an Ogham on it, and these were the words he
+wrote:--"An alder stake in a paling of silver; deadly night-shade in a
+bunch of cresses; a husband of a lewd woman; a fool among the
+well-taught Fianna; heather on bare Ualann of Luigne."
+
+Finn saw the message, and there was anger on him against the woman; and
+she knew well it was from Lomna he had heard the story, and she sent a
+message to Coirpre bidding him to come and kill the fool.
+
+So Coirpre came and struck his head off, and brought it away with him.
+
+And when Finn came back in the evening he saw the body, and it without a
+head. "Let us know whose body is this," said the Fianna. And then Finn
+did the divination of rhymes, and it is what he said: "It is the body of
+Lomna; it is not by a wild boar he was killed; it is not by a fall he
+was killed; it is not in his bed he died; it is by his enemies he died;
+it is not a secret to the Luigne the way he died. And let out the hounds
+now on their track," he said.
+
+So they let out the hounds, and put them on the track of Coirpre, and
+Finn followed them, and they came to a house, and Coirpre in it, and
+three times nine of his men and he cooking fish on a spit; and Lomna's
+head was on a spike beside the fire.
+
+And the first of the fish that was cooked Coirpre divided between his
+men, but he put no bit into the mouth of the head. And then he made a
+second division in the same way. Now that was against the law of the
+Fianna, and the head spoke, and it said: "A speckled white-bellied
+salmon that grows from a small fish under the sea; you have shared a
+share that is not right; the Fianna will avenge it upon you, Coirpre."
+"Put the head outside," said Coirpre, "for that is an evil word for us."
+Then the head said from outside: "It is in many pieces you will be; it
+is great fires will be lighted by Finn in Luigne."
+
+And as it said that, Finn came in, and he made an end of Coirpre, and of
+his men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. ILBREC OF ESS RUADH
+
+One time Caoilte was hunting on Beinn Gulbain, and he went on to Ess
+Ruadh. And when he came near the hill of the Sidhe that is there, he saw
+a young man waiting for him, having a crimson fringed cloak about him,
+and on his breast a silver brooch, and a white shield, ornamented with
+linked beasts of red gold, and his hair rolled in a ball at the back,
+and covered with a golden cup. And he had heavy green weapons, and he
+was holding two hounds in a silver chain.
+
+And when Caoilte came up to him he gave him three loving kisses, and sat
+down beside him on the grass. "Who are you, young champion?" said
+Caoilte. "I am Derg, son of Eoghan of the people of Usnach," he said,
+"and foster-brother of your own." Caoilte knew him then, and he said:
+"And what is your life with your mother's people, the Tuatha de Danaan
+in Sidhe Aedha?" "There is nothing wanting to us there of food or of
+clothing," said the young man. "But for all that," he said, "I would
+sooner live the life of the worst treated of the serving-boys of the
+Fianna than the life I am living in the hill of the Sidhe." "Lonely as
+you are at your hunting to-day," said Caoilte, "it is often I saw you
+coming to the Valley of the Three Waters in the south, where the Siuir
+and the Beoir and the Berba come together, with a great company about
+you; fifteen hundred young men, fifteen hundred serving-boys, and
+fifteen hundred women." "That was so," said Derg; "and although myself
+and my gentle hound are living in the hill of the Sidhe, my mind is
+always on the Fianna. And I remember well the time," he said, "when you
+yourself won the race against Finn's lasting black horse. And come now
+into the hill," he said, "for the darkness of the night is coming on."
+
+So he brought Caoilte into the hill with him, and they were set down in
+their right places.
+
+It was at that time, now, there was great war between Lir of Sidhe
+Fionnachaidh and Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh. There used a bird with an iron
+beak and a tail of fire to come every evening to a golden window of
+Ilbrec's house, and there he would shake himself till he would not leave
+sword on pillow, or shield on peg, or spear in rack, but they would come
+down on the heads of the people of the house; and whatever they would
+throw at the bird, it is on the heads of some of themselves it would
+fall. And the night Caoilte came in, the hall was made ready for a
+feast, and the bird came in again, and did the same destruction as
+before, and nothing they threw at him would touch him at all. "Is it
+long the bird has been doing this?" said Caoilte. "Through the length of
+a year now," said Derg, "since we went to war with Sidhe Fionnachaidh."
+
+Then Caoilte put his hand within the rim of his shield, and he took out
+of it a copper rod he had, and he made a cast of it at the bird, that
+brought it down on the floor of the hall. "Did any one ever make a
+better cast than that?" said Ilbrec. "By my word," said Caoilte, "there
+is no one of us in the Fianna has any right to boast against another."
+Then Ilbrec took down a sharp spear, having thirty rivets of gold in it,
+from its place, and he said: "That is the Spear of Fiacha, son of
+Congha, and it is with that Finn made an end of Aillen, son of Midhna,
+that used to burn Teamhair. And keep it beside you now, Caoilte," he
+said, "till we see will Lir come to avenge his bird on us."
+
+Then they took up their horns and their cups, and they were at drinking
+and pleasure, and Ilbrec said: "Well, Caoilte," he said, "if Lir comes
+to avenge his bird on us, who will you put in command of the battle?" "I
+will give the command to Derg there beyond," said he. "Will you take it
+in hand, Derg?" said the people of the hill. "I will take it," said
+Derg, "with its loss and its gain."
+
+So that is how they spent the night, and it was not long in the morning
+till they heard blowing of horns, and rattling of chariots, and clashing
+of shields, and the uproar of a great army that came all about the hill.
+They sent some of their people out then to see were there many in it,
+and they saw three brave armies of the one size. "It would be a great
+vexation to me," said Aedh Nimbrec, the Speckled, then, "we to get our
+death and Lir's people to take the hill." "Did you never hear, Aedh,"
+said Caoilte, "that the wild boar escapes sometimes from both hounds and
+from wolves, and the stag in the same way goes away from the hounds with
+a sudden start; and what man is it you are most in dread of in the
+battle?" he said. "The man that is the best fighter of all the Men of
+Dea," said they all, "and that is Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh." "The
+thing I have done in every battle I will not give up to-day," said
+Caoilte, "to meet the best man that is in it hand to hand." "The two
+that are next to him in fighting," they said then, "are Donn and Dubh."
+"I will put down those two," said Derg.
+
+Then the host of the Sidhe went out to the battle, and the armies
+attacked one another with wide green spears and with little casting
+spears, and with great stones; and the fight went on from the rising of
+the day till midday. And then Caoilte and Lir met with one another, and
+they made a very fierce fight, and at the last Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh
+fell by the hand of Caoilte.
+
+Then the two good champions Dubh and Donn, sons of Eirrge, determined to
+go on with the battle, and it is how they fought, Dubh in the front of
+the whole army, and Donn behind all, guarding the rear. But Derg saw
+that, and he put his finger into the thong of his spear and made a cast
+at the one that was nearest him, and it broke his back and went on into
+the body of the other, so that the one cast made an end of the two. And
+that ended the battle, and all that was left of the great army of Lir
+went wearing away to the north. And there was great rejoicing in the
+hill at Ess Ruadh, and Ilbrec took the spoils of the beaten army for his
+people, and to Caoilte he gave the enchanted spear of Fiacha, together
+with nine rich cloaks and nine long swords with hilts and guards of
+gold, and nine hounds for hunting. And they said farewell to one
+another, and Caoilte left his blessing to the people of the hill, and he
+brought their thanks with him. And as hard as the battle had been, it
+was harder again for Derg to part from his comrade, and the day he was
+parted from Finn and from all the Fianna was no sadder to him than this
+day.
+
+It was a long time after that Caoilte went again to the hill of Ilbrec
+at Ess Ruadh, and this is the way it happened.
+
+It was in a battle at Beinn Edair in the east that Mane, son of the King
+of Lochlann, made a cast at him in the middle of the battle with a
+deadly spear. And he heard the whistling of the spear, and it rushing to
+him; and he lifted his shield to protect his head and his body, but that
+did not save him, for it struck into his thigh, and left its poison in
+it, so that he had to go in search of healing. And it is where he went,
+to the hill of the Sidhe at Ess Ruadh, to ask help of Bebind, daughter
+of Elcmar of Brugh na Boinne, that had the drink of healing of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, and all that was left of the ale of Goibniu that she
+used to be giving out to them.
+
+And Caoilte called to Cascorach the Musician, son of Caincenn, and bade
+him bring his harp and come along with him. And they stopped for a night
+in the hill of the Sidhe of Druim Nemed in Luigne of Connacht, and from
+that they went forward by Ess Dara, the Fall of the Oaks, and Druim
+Dearg na Feinne, the Red Ridge of the Fianna, and Ath Daim Glas, the
+Ford of the Grey Stag, and to Beinn Gulbain, and northward into the
+plain of Ceitne, where the Men of Dea used to pay their tribute to the
+Fomor; and up to the Footstep of Ess Ruadh, and the High Place of the
+Boys, where the boys of the Tuatha de Danaan used to be playing their
+hurling. And Aedh of Ess Ruadh and Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh were at the door
+of the hill, and they gave Caoilte a true welcome. "I am glad of that
+welcome," said Caoilte. And then Bebind, daughter of Elcmar of Brugh na
+Boinne, came out, and three times fifty comely women about her, and she
+sat down on the green grass and gave three loving kisses to the three,
+to Caoilte and to Cascorach and to Fermaise, that had come with them out
+of the hill of the Sidhe in Luigne of Connacht. And all the people of
+the hill welcomed them, and they said: "It is little your friendship
+would be worth if you would not come to help us and we in need of help."
+"It was not for bravery I was bade come," said Cascorach; "but when the
+right time comes I will make music for you if you have a mind to hear
+it." "It is not for deeds of bravery we are come," said Fermaise, "but
+we will give you our help if you are in need of it." Then Caoilte told
+them the cause of his journey. "We will heal you well," said they. And
+then they all went into the hill and stayed there three days and three
+nights at drinking and pleasure.
+
+And indeed it was good help Caoilte and Cascorach gave them after that.
+For there was a woman-warrior used to come every year with the ships of
+the men of Lochlann to make an attack on the Tuatha de Danaan. And she
+had been reared by a woman that knew all enchantments, and there was no
+precious thing in all the hills of the Sidhe but she had knowledge of
+it, and would bring it away. And just at this time there came a
+messenger to the door of the hill with news that the harbour was full of
+ships, and that a great army had landed, and the woman-warrior along
+with it.
+
+And it was Cascorach the Musician went out against her, having a shield
+he got the loan of from Donn, son of Midhir; and she used high words
+when she saw so young a man coming to fight with her, and he alone. But
+he made an end of her for all her high talk, and left her lying on the
+strand with the sea foam washing up to her.
+
+And as to Caoilte, he went out in a chariot belonging to Midhir of the
+Yellow Hair, son of the Dagda, and a spear was given him that was called
+Ben-badb, the War-Woman, and he made a cast of the spear that struck the
+King of Lochlann, that he fell in the middle of his army, and the life
+went from him. And Fermaise went looking for the king's brother, Eolus,
+that was the comeliest of all the men of the world; and he knew him by
+the band of gold around his head, and his green armour, and his red
+shield, and he killed him with a cast of a five-pronged spear. And when
+the men of Lochlann saw their three leaders were gone, they went into
+their ships and back to their own country. And there was great joy
+through the whole country, both among the men of Ireland and the Tuatha
+de Danaan, the men of Lochlann to have been driven away by the deeds of
+Caoilte and Fermaise and Cascorach.
+
+And that was not all they did, for it was at that time there came three
+flocks of beautiful red birds from Slieve Fuad in the north, and began
+eating the green grass before the hill of the Sidhe. "What birds are
+those?" said Caoilte. "Three flocks they are that come and destroy the
+green every year, eating it down to the bare flag-stones, till they
+leave us no place for our races," said Ilbrec. Then Caoilte and his
+comrades took up three stones and threw them at the flocks and drove
+them away. "Power and blessings to you," said the people of the Sidhe
+then, "that is a good work you have done. And there is another thing you
+can do for us," they said, "for there are three ravens come to us every
+year out of the north, and the time the young lads of the hill are
+playing their hurling, each one of the ravens carries off a boy of them.
+And it is to-morrow the hurling will be," they said.
+
+So when the full light of day was come on the morrow, the whole of the
+Tuatha de Danaan went out to look at the hurling; and to every six men
+of them was given a chess-board, and a board for some other game to
+every five, and to every ten men a little harp, and a harp to every
+hundred men, and pipes that were sharp and powerful to every nine.
+
+Then they saw the three ravens from the north coming over the sea, and
+they pitched on the great tree of power that was on the green, and they
+gave three gloomy screeches, that if such a thing could be, would have
+brought the dead out of the earth or the hair off the head of the
+listeners; and as it was, they took the courage out of the whole
+gathering.
+
+Then Cascorach, son of Caincenn, took a man of the chessmen and made a
+cast at one of the ravens that struck his beak and his throat, and made
+an end of him; and Fermaise killed the second of them, and Caoilte the
+third of them in the same way.
+
+"Let my cure be done now," said Caoilte, "for I have paid my fee for it,
+and it is time." "You have paid it indeed," said Ilbrec. "And where is
+Bebind, daughter of Elcmar?" he said. "I am here," said she.
+
+"Bring Caoilte, son of Ronan, with you into some hidden place," he said,
+"and do his cure, and let him be well served, for he has driven every
+danger from the Men of Dea and from the Sons of the Gael. And let
+Cascorach make music for him, and let Fermaise, son of Eogabil, be
+watching him and guarding him and attending him."
+
+So Elcmar's daughter went to the House of Arms, and her two sons with
+her, and a bed of healing was made ready for Caoilte, and a bowl of pale
+gold was brought to her, and it full of water. And she took a crystal
+vessel and put herbs into it, and she bruised them and put them in the
+water, and gave the bowl to Caoilte, and he drank a great drink out of
+it, that made him cast up the poison of the spear that was in him. Five
+drinks of it he took, and after that she gave him new milk to drink; but
+with the dint of the reaching he was left without strength through the
+length of three days and three nights.
+
+"Caoilte, my life," she said then, "in my opinion you have got relief."
+"I have got it indeed," he said, "but that the weakness of my head is
+troubling me." "The washing of Flann, daughter of Flidais, will be done
+for you now," she said, "and the head that washing is done for will
+never be troubled with pain, or baldness, or weakness of sight." So that
+cure was done to him for a while; and the people of the hill divided
+themselves into three parts; the one part of their best men and great
+nobles, and another of their young men, and another of their women and
+poets, to be visiting him and making mirth with him as long as he would
+be on his bed of healing. And everything that was best from their
+hunting, it was to him they would bring it.
+
+And one day, when Elcmar's daughter and her two sons and Cascorach and
+Fermaise were with Caoilte, there was heard a sound of music coming
+towards them from the waters of Ess Ruadh, and any one would leave the
+music of the whole world for that music. And they put their harps on the
+corners of the pillars and went out, and there was wonder on Caoilte
+that they left him. And he took notice that his strength and the
+strength of his hands was not come to him yet, and he said: "It is many
+a rough battle and many a hard fight I went into, and now there is not
+enough strength in me so much as to go out along with the rest," and he
+cried tears down.
+
+And the others came back to him then, and he asked news of them. "What
+was that sound of music we heard?" he said. "It was Uaine out of the
+hill of the Sidhe, at the Wave of Cliodna in the south," said they; "and
+with her the birds of the Land of Promise; and she is musician to the
+whole of that country. And every year she goes to visit one of the hills
+of the Sidhe, and it is our turn this time." Then the woman from the
+Land of Promise came into the house, and the birds came in along with
+her, and they pitched on the pillars and the beams, and thirty of them
+came in where Caoilte was, began singing together. And Cascorach took
+his harp, and whatever he would play, the birds would sing to it. "It is
+much music I have heard," said Caoilte, "but music so good as that I
+never heard before."
+
+And after that Caoilte asked to have the healing of his thigh done, and
+the daughter of Elcmar gave herself to that, and all that was bad was
+sucked from the wound by her serving people till it was healed. And
+Caoilte stopped on where he was for three nights after that.
+
+And then the people of the hill rose up and went into the stream to
+swim. And Caoilte said: "What ails me now not to go swim, since my
+health has come back to me?" And with that he went into the water. And
+afterwards they went back into the hill, and there was a great feast
+made that night.
+
+And Caoilte bade them farewell after that, and Cascorach, but Fermaise
+stopped with them for a while. And the people of the hill gave good
+gifts to Caoilte; a fringed crimson cloak of wool from the seven sheep
+of the Land of Promise; and a fish-hook that was called Aicil mac Mogha,
+and that could not be set in any river or inver but it would take fish;
+and along with that they gave him a drink of remembrance, and after that
+drink there would be no place he ever saw, or no battle or fight he ever
+was in, but it would stay in his memory. "That is a good help from
+kinsmen and from friends," said Caoilte.
+
+Then Caoilte and Cascorach went out from the hill, and the people of it
+made a great lamentation after them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE CAVE OF CRUACHAN
+
+
+CAOLITE was one time at Cruachan of Connacht, and Cascorach was with
+him, and there he saw sitting on a heap of stones a man with very rough
+grey hair, having a dark brown cloak fastened with a pin of bronze, and
+a long stick of white hazel in his hand; and there was a herd of cattle
+before him in a fenced field.
+
+Caoilte asked news of him. "I am steward to the King of Ireland," said
+the old man, "and it is from him I hold this land. And we have great
+troubles on us in this district," he said. "What troubles are those?"
+said Caoilte. "I have many herds of cattle," he said, "and every year at
+Samhain time, a woman comes out of the hill of the Sidhe of Cruachan and
+brings away nine of the best out of every herd. And as to my name, I am
+Bairnech, son of Carbh of Collamair of Bregia."
+
+"Who was the best man that ever came out of Collamair?" said Caoilte. "I
+know, and the men of Ireland and of Alban know," said he, "it was
+Caoilte, son of Ronan. And do you know where is that man now?" he said.
+"I myself am that man and your own kinsman," said Caoilte.
+
+When Bairnech heard that, he gave him a great welcome, and Caoilte gave
+him three kisses. "It seems to me that to-night is Samhain night," said
+Caoilte. "If that is so, it is to-night the woman will come to rob us,"
+said Bernech. "Let me go to-night to the door of the hill of the Sidhe,"
+said Cascorach. "You may do that, and bring your arms with you," said
+Caoilte.
+
+So Cascorach went then, and it was not long till he saw the girl going
+past him out of the hill of Cruachan, having a beautiful cloak of one
+colour about her; a gown of yellow silk tied up with a knot between her
+thighs, two spears in her hands, and she not in dread of anything before
+her or after her.
+
+Then Cascorach blew a blast against her, and put his finger into the
+thong of his spear, and made a cast at the girl that went through her,
+and that is the way she was made an end of by Cascorach of the Music.
+
+And then Bernech said to Caoilte: "Caoilte," he said, "do you know the
+other oppression that is on me in this place?" "What oppression is
+that?" said Caoilte. "Three she-wolves that come out of the Cave of
+Cruachan every year and destroy our sheep and our wethers, and we can do
+nothing against them, and they go back into the cave again. And it will
+be a good friend that will rid us of them," he said. "Well, Cascorach,"
+said Caoilte, "do you know what are the three wolves that are robbing
+this man?" "I know well," said Cascorach, "they are the three daughters
+of Airetach, of the last of the people of oppression of the Cave of
+Cruachan, and it is easier for them to do their robbery as wolves than
+as women." "And will they come near to any one?" said Caoilte. "They
+will only come near to one sort," said Cascorach; "if they see the
+world's men having harps for music, they will come near to them." "And
+how would it be for me," he said, "to go to-morrow to the cairn beyond,
+and to bring my harp with me?"
+
+So in the morning he rose up and went to the cairn and stopped on it,
+playing his harp till the coming of the mists of the evening. And while
+he was there he saw the three wolves coming towards him, and they lay
+down before him, listening to the music. But Cascerach found no way to
+make an attack on them, and they went back into the cave at the end of
+the day.
+
+Cascorach went back then to Caoilte and told him what had happened. "Go
+up to-morrow to the same place," said Caoilte, "and say to them it would
+be better for them to be in the shape of women for listening to music
+than in the shape of wolves."
+
+So on the morrow Cascorach went out to the same cairn, and set his
+people about it, and the wolves came there and stretched themselves to
+listen to the music. And Cascorach was saying to them: "If you were ever
+women," he said, "it would be better for you to be listening to the
+music as women than as wolves." And they heard that, and they threw off
+the dark trailing coverings that were about them, for they liked well
+the sweet music of the Sidhe.
+
+And when Caoilte saw them there side by side, and elbow by elbow, he
+made a cast of his spear, and it went through the three women, that they
+were like a skein of thread drawn together on the spear. And that is the
+way he made an end of the strange, unknown three. And that place got the
+name of the Valley of the Shapes of the Wolves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE
+
+Finn and the Fianna made a great hunting one time on the hill of Torc
+that is over Loch Lein and Feara Mor. And they went on with their
+hunting till they came to pleasant green Slieve Echtge, and from that it
+spread over other green-topped hills, and through thick tangled woods,
+and rough red-headed hills, and over the wide plains of the country. And
+every chief man among them chose the place that was to his liking, and
+the gap of danger he was used to before. And the shouts they gave in the
+turns of the hunt were heard in the woods all around, so that they
+started the deer in the wood, and sent the foxes wandering, and the
+little red beasts climbing rocks, and badgers from their holes, and
+birds flying, and fawns running their best. Then they let out their
+angry small-headed hounds and set them hunting. And it is red the hands
+of the Fianna were that day, and it is proud they were of their hounds
+that were torn and wounded before evening.
+
+It happened that day no one stopped with Finn but only Diorraing, son of
+Domhar. "Well, Diorraing," said Finn, "let you watch for me while I go
+asleep, for it is early I rose to-day, and it is an early rising a man
+makes when he cannot see the shadow of his five fingers between himself
+and the light of day, or know the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of
+the oak." With that he fell into a quiet sleep that lasted till the
+yellow light of the evening. And the rest of the Fianna, not knowing
+where he was gone, gave over the hunt.
+
+And the time was long to Diorraing while Finn was asleep, and he roused
+him and told him the Fianna must have given up the hunt, for he could
+not hear a cry or a whistle from them. "The end of day is come," said
+Finn then, "and we will not follow them to-night. And go now to the
+wood," he said, "and bring timber and dead branches for a shelter, and I
+will go looking for food for the night." So Diorraing went to the wood,
+but he was not gone far till he saw a fine well-lighted house of the
+Sidhe before him on the edge of the wood near at hand, and he went back
+to Finn with the news. "Let us go to it," said Finn, "for we ought not
+to be working in this place, and people living so near at hand." They
+went then to the door of the house and knocked at it, and the
+door-keeper came to it. "Whose house is this?" said Diorraing. "It
+belongs to Conan of Ceann Slieve," said the door-keeper. "Tell him,"
+said Diorraing, "there are two of the Fianna of the Gael at the door."
+
+The door-keeper went in then and told Conan there were two men of the
+Fianna at the door. "The one of them," he said, "is young and strong,
+and quiet and fair-haired, and more beautiful than the rest of the men
+of the world, and he has in his hand a small-headed, white-breasted
+hound, having a collar of rubbed gold and a chain of old silver. And the
+other of them," he said, "is brown and ruddy and white-toothed, and he
+is leading a yellow-spotted hound by a chain of bright bronze." "It is
+well you have made your report of them," said Conan, "and I know them by
+it; for the man you spoke of first is Finn, son of Cumhal, Head of the
+Fianna of Ireland, and Bran in his hand; and the other is Diorraing, and
+Sceolan in his hand. And go now quickly and let them in," he said.
+
+Finn and Diorraing were brought in then, and they got good attendance,
+and their arms were taken from them, and a grand feast was made ready
+that pleased them well. And the wife of Conan was at the one side of
+Finn, and his daughter, Finndealbh, of the Fair Shape, was at his other
+side. And they had a great deal of talk together, and at last, seeing
+her so beautiful, the colour of gold on her curled hair, and her eyes as
+blue as flowers, and a soft four-cornered cloak fastened at her breast
+with a silver pin, he asked her of Conan for his wife. "Leave asking
+that, Finn," said Conan, "for your own courage is not greater than the
+courage of the man she is promised to." "Who is that?" said Finn. "He is
+Fatha, son of the King of Ess Ruadh," said Conan. "Your wounds and your
+danger on yourself," said Diorraing; "and it would be right," he said,
+"that stammering tongue that gave out those words to be tied and to be
+shortened for ever, and a drink of death to be given to you; for if the
+whole of the Men of Dea," he said, "could be put into the one body, Finn
+would be better than them all." "Leave off, Diorraing," said Finn, "for
+it is not fighting I am here, but asking a wife, and I will get her
+whether the Men of Dea think good or bad of it." "I will not be making a
+quarrel with you," said Conan, "but I put you under bonds as a true
+hero to answer me everything I am going to ask you." "I will do that,"
+said Finn.
+
+With that Conan put questions to Finn as to his birth and his rearing,
+and the deeds he had done since he came to the Fianna, and Finn gave
+full answers to them all. And at last he said: "Let us go on with this
+no longer, but if you have musicians with you, let them be brought to us
+now; for it is not my custom," he said, "to be for a single night
+without music." "Tell me this first," said Conan, "who was it made the
+Dord Fiann, the Mutterer of the Fianna, and when was it made?" "I will
+tell you the truth of that," said Finn; "it was made in Ireland by the
+three sons of Cearmait Honey-Mouth; and nine men used to be sounding it,
+and since it came to me I have fifty men sounding it." "And tell me
+this," said Conan, "what is the music pleased you best of all you ever
+heard?" "I will tell you that," said Finn; "the time the seven
+battalions of the Fianna are gathered in the one place and raise their
+spear-shafts over their heads, and the sharp whining of the clear, cold
+wind goes through them, that is very sweet to me. And when the
+drinking-hall is set out in Almhuin, and the cup-bearers give out the
+bright cups to the chief men of the Fianna, that is very sweet to me;
+and it is sweet to me to be listening to the voice of the sea-gull and
+the heron, and the noise of the waves of Traig Liath, the song of the
+three sons of Meardha, the whistle of Lugaidh's Son, and the voice of
+the cuckoo in the beginning of summer, and the grunting of the pigs on
+the Plain of Eithne, and the shouting of laughter in Doire." And it is
+what he said: "The Dord in the green-topped woods, the lasting wash of
+the waves against the shore, the noise of the waves at Traig Liath
+meeting with the river of the White Trout; the three men that came to
+the Fianna, a man of them gentle and a man of them rough, another man of
+them ploughing the clouds, they were sweeter than any other thing.
+
+"The grey mane of the sea, the time a man cannot follow its track; the
+swell that brings the fish to the land, it is sleep-music, its sound is
+sweet.
+
+"Feargall, son of Fionn, a man that was ready-handed, it is long his
+leap was, it is well marked his track is; he never gave a story that did
+not do away with secrets; it is his voice was music of sleep to me."
+
+And when Finn had answered all the questions so well, Conan said he
+would give him his daughter, and that he would have a wedding-feast
+ready at the end of a month.
+
+They spent the rest of the night then in sleep; but Finn saw a dreadful
+vision through his sleep that made him start three times from his bed.
+"What makes you start from your bed, Finn?" said Diorraing. "It was the
+Tuatha de Danaan I saw," said he, "taking up a quarrel against me, and
+making a great slaughter of the Fianna."
+
+Now as to the Fianna, they rested at Fotharladh of Moghna that night,
+and they were downhearted, having no tidings of Finn. And early on the
+morrow two of them, Bran Beag and Bran Mor, rose up and went to
+Mac-an-Reith, son of the Ram, that had the gift of true knowledge, and
+they asked him where did Finn spend the night. And Mac-an-Reith was
+someway unwilling to tell them, but at the last he said it was at the
+house of Conan of Ceann Slieve.
+
+The two Brans went on then to Conan's house, and Finn made them welcome;
+but they blamed him when they heard he was taking a wife, and none of
+his people with him. "Bid all the Fianna to come to the feast at the end
+of a month," said Conan then. So Finn and Diorraing and the two Brans
+went back to where the Fianna were and told them all that had happened,
+and they went on to Almhuin.
+
+And when they were in the drinking-hall at Almhuin that night, they saw
+the son of the King of Ireland coming to where they were. "It is a pity
+the king's son to have come," said Finn; "for he will not be satisfied
+without ordering everything in the hall in his own way." "We will not
+take his orders," said Oisin, "but we will leave the half of the hall to
+him, and keep the other half ourselves."
+
+So they did that; but it happened that in the half of the house that was
+given up to the King of Ireland's son, there were sitting two of the Men
+of Dea, Failbhe Mor and Failbhe Beag; and it is what they said, that it
+is because they were in that side of the hall it was given up. "It is a
+pity," said Failbhe Beag, "this shame and this great insult to have been
+put on us to-night; and it is likely Finn has a mind to do more than
+that again to us," he said, "for he is going to bring away the woman
+that is promised to the third best man of the Tuatha de Danaan, and
+against the will of her father and mother." And these two went away
+early in the morning to Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail, and told him of the
+insults Finn and the Fianna of Ireland had a mind to put on the Tuatha
+de Danaan.
+
+And when Fionnbhar that was king over the Tuatha de Danaan heard that,
+he sent out messengers through the length of Ireland to gather them all
+to him. And there came six good battalions to him on the edge of Loch
+Derg Dheirc at the end of a month; and it was the same day Conan had the
+wedding-feast made ready for Finn and his people.
+
+And Finn was at Teamhair Luachra at that time, and when he heard the
+feast was ready, he set out to go to it. And it chanced that the most of
+the men he had with him at that time were of the sons of Morna. And when
+they were on their way, Finn said to Goll, "O Goll," he said, "I never
+felt any fear till now going to a feast. And there are but few of my
+people with me," he said; "and I know there is no good thing before me,
+but the Men of Dea are going to raise a quarrel against me and to kill
+my people." "I will defend you against anything they may do," said Goll.
+
+They went on then to Conan's house, and there was a welcome before them,
+and they were brought into the drinking-hall, and Finn was put in the
+place beside the door, and Goll on his right and Finndeilb, of the Fair
+Shape, on his left, and all the rest in the places they were used to.
+
+And as to Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail and the Tuatha de Danaan, they put
+a Druid mist about themselves and went on, hidden and armed, in sixteen
+battalions, to the lawn before Conan's house. "It is little profit we
+have being here," they said then, "and Goll being with Finn against us."
+"Goll will not protect him this time," said Ethne, the woman-Druid, "for
+I will entice Finn out of the house, however well he is watched."
+
+She went on to the house then, and took her stand before Finn outside.
+"Who is that before me?" she said then. "It is I myself," said Finn. "I
+put you under the bonds a true hero never broke," she said, "to come out
+to me here." When Finn heard that, he made no delay and went out to her;
+and for all there were so many in the house, not one of them took notice
+of him going, only Caoilte, and he followed him out. And at the same
+time the Tuatha de Danaan let out a flock of blackbirds having fiery
+beaks, that pitched on the breasts of all the people in the house, and
+burned them and destroyed them, till the young lads and the women and
+children of the place ran out on all sides, and the woman of the house,
+Conan's wife, was drowned in the river outside the dun.
+
+But as to Ethne, the woman-Druid, she asked Finn would he run against
+her. "For it is to run a race against you I called you out," she said.
+"What length of a race?" said Finn. "From Doire da Torc, the Wood of the
+Two Boars, to Ath Mor, the Great Ford," she said. So they set out, but
+Finn got first over the ford. And Caoilte was following after them, and
+Finn was urging him, and he said: "It is ashamed of your running you
+should be, Caoilte, a woman to be going past you." On that Caoilte made
+a leap forward, and when he was in front of the witch he turned about
+and gave a blow of his sword that made two equal halves of her.
+
+"Power and good luck to you, Caoilte!" said Finn; "for though it is many
+a good blow you have struck, you never struck a better one than this."
+
+They went back then to the lawn before Conan's dun, and there they found
+the whole company of the Tuatha de Danaan, that had put the Druid mist
+off them. "It seems to me, Caoilte," said Finn, "that we are come into
+the middle of our enemies."
+
+With that they turned their backs to one another, and they were attacked
+on all sides till groans of weakness from the unequal fight were forced
+from Finn. And when Goll, that was in the house, heard that, he said:
+"It is a pity the Tuatha de Danaan to have enticed Finn and Caoilte away
+from us; and let us go to their help and make no delay," he said.
+
+Then he rushed out, and all that were there of the Fianna with him, and
+Conan of Ceann Slieve and his sons. And great anger came on Goll, that
+he looked like a tall mountain under his grey shield in the battle. And
+he broke through the Tuatha de Danaan till he reached to Fionnbhar their
+leader, and they attacked one another, cutting and wounding, till at the
+last Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail fell by the strokes of Goll. And a great
+many others fell in that battle, and there never was a harder battle
+fought in Ireland, for there was no man on one side or the other had a
+mind to go back one step before whoever he was fighting against. For
+they were the two hardest fighting troops to be found in the four parts
+of the world, the strong, hardy Fianna of the Gael, and the beautiful
+Men of Dea; and they went near to being all destroyed in that battle.
+
+But after a while they saw the rest of the Fianna that were not in the
+battle coming from all parts of Ireland. And when the Tuatha de Danaan
+saw them coming, they put the Druid mist about themselves again and made
+away. And clouds of weakness came on Finn himself, and on them that were
+with him, with the dint of the fight. And there were many men of the
+Fianna lost in that battle; and as to the rest, it is a long time they
+stopped in Almhuin of Leinster, till their wounds were entirely healed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE SHADOWY ONE
+
+
+And indeed Finn had no great luck in going to look for a wife that time;
+and he had no better luck another time he asked a wife from among the
+Sidhe. And this is the way that happened.
+
+It was on the mountain of Bearnas Mor he was hunting, and a great wild
+pig turned on the hounds of the Fianna and killed the most of them, but
+Bran made an attack on it then and got the best of it. And the pig began
+to scream, and with that a very tall man came out of the hill and he
+asked Finn to let the pig go free. And when he agreed to that, the man
+brought them into the hill of the Sidhe at Glandeirgdeis; and when they
+came to the door of the house he struck the pig with his Druid rod, and
+on the moment it changed into a beautiful young woman, and the name he
+called her by was Scathach, the Shadowy One.
+
+And he made a great feast for the Fianna, and Finn asked the young girl
+in marriage, and the tall man, her father, said he would give her to him
+on that very night.
+
+But when night came on, Scathach asked the loan of a harp, and it was
+brought to her. One string it had of iron, and one of bronze, and one of
+silver. And when the iron string would be played, it would set all the
+hosts of the world crying and ever crying; and when the bright bronze
+string would be played, it would set them all laughing from the one day
+to the same hour on the morrow; and when the silver string would be
+played, all the men of the whole world would fall into a long sleep.
+
+And it is the sleepy silver string the Shadowy One played upon, till
+Finn and Bran and all his people were in their heavy sleep.
+
+And when they awoke at the rising of the sun on the morrow, it is
+outside on the mountain of Bearnas they were, where they first saw the
+wild pig.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. FINN'S MADNESS
+
+
+One time Finn and the Fianna were come to a ford of the Slaine, and they
+sat down for a while. And as they were sitting there they saw on the
+round rock up over the ford a young woman, having a dress of silk and a
+green cloak about her, and a golden brooch in the cloak, and the golden
+crown that is the sign of a queen on her head. "Fianna of Ireland," she
+said, "let one of you come now and speak with me."
+
+Then Sciathbreac, of the Speckled Shield, went towards her. "Who is it
+you are wanting?" he said, "Finn, son of Cumhal," said she. Finn went
+over then to talk with her. "Who are you?" he said, "and what is it you
+are wanting?" "I am Daireann, daughter of Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda,"
+she said; "and I am come to be your wife if you will give me the
+bride-gift I ask." "What bride-gift is that?" said Finn. "It is your
+promise," said she, "I to be your only wife through the length of a
+year, and to have the half of your time after that." "I will not give
+that promise," said Finn, "to any woman of the world, and I will not
+give it to you," he said.
+
+On that the young woman took a cup of white silver from under a
+covering, and filled it with strong drink, and she gave it to Finn.
+"What is this?" said Finn. "It is very strong mead," said she. Now there
+were bonds on Finn not to refuse anything belonging to a feast, so he
+took the cup and drank what was in it, and on the moment he was like one
+gone mad. And he turned his face towards the Fianna, and every harm and
+every fault and every misfortune in battle that he knew against any one
+of them, he sprang it on them, through the mad drunkenness the young
+woman had put on him.
+
+Then the chief men of the Fianna of Ireland rose up and left the place
+to him, every one of them setting out for his own country, till there
+was no one left upon the hill but Finn and Caoilte. And Caoilte rose up
+and followed after them, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "do
+not leave your lord and your leader through the arts and the tricks of a
+woman of the Sidhe." Thirteen times he went after them, bringing them
+back to the hill in that way. And with the end of the day and the fall
+of night the bitterness went from Finn's tongue; and by the time Caoilte
+had brought back the whole of the Fianna, his sense and his memory were
+come back to him, and he would sooner have fallen on his sword and got
+his death, than have stayed living.
+
+And that was the hardest day's work Caoilte ever did, unless the day he
+brought the flock of beasts and birds to Teamhair, to ransom Finn from
+the High King of Ireland.
+
+Another time Maer, wife of Bersa of Berramain, fell in love with Finn,
+and she made nine nuts of Segair with love charms, and sent them to
+Finn, and bade him eat them. "I will not," said Finn; "for they are not
+nuts of knowledge, but nuts of ignorance; and it is not known what they
+are, unless they might be an enchantment for drinking love." So he
+buried them a foot deep in the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE RED WOMAN
+
+
+One time the Fianna were in Almhuin with no great work to do, and there
+came a very misty morning, and Finn was in dread that sluggishness would
+come on his men, and he rose up, and he said: "Make yourselves ready,
+and we will go hunting to Gleann-na-Smol."
+
+They all said the day was too misty to go hunting; but there was no use
+in talking: they had to do as Finn bade them. So they made themselves
+ready and went on towards Gleann-na-Smol; and they were not gone far
+when the mist lifted and the sun came shining out.
+
+And when they were on the edge of a little wood, they saw a strange
+beast coming towards them with the quickness of the wind, and a Red
+Woman on its track. Narrow feet the beast had, and a head like the head
+of a boar, and long horns on it; but the rest of it was like a deer, and
+there was a shining moon on each of its sides.
+
+Finn stopped, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "did you ever
+see a beast like that one until now?" "We never did indeed," said they;
+"and it would be right for us to let out the hounds after it." "Wait a
+while," said Finn, "till I speak with the Red Woman; but do not let the
+beast go past you," he said. They thought to keep back the beast then,
+going before it; but they were hardly able to hinder it at all, and it
+went away through them.
+
+And when the Red Woman was come up to them, Finn asked her what was the
+name of the beast she was following. "I do not know that," she said,
+"though I am on its track since I left the borders of Loch Dearg a month
+ago, and I never lost sight of it since then; and the two moons that are
+on its two sides shine through the country all around in the night time.
+And I must follow it till it falls," she said, "or I will lose my own
+life and the lives of my three sons that are the best fighting men in
+the whole world." "We will take the beast for you if you have a mind,"
+said Finn. "Do not try to do that," she said, "for I myself am swifter
+than you are, and I cannot come up with it." "We will not let it go till
+we know what sort of a beast is it," said Finn. "If you yourself or your
+share of men go after it, I will bind you hand and foot," said she. "It
+is too stiff your talk is," said Finn. "And do you not know," he said,
+"I am Finn, son of Cumhal; and there are fourscore fighting men along
+with me that were never beaten yet." "It is little heed I give to
+yourself or your share of men," said the Red Woman; "and if my three
+sons were here, they would stand up against you." "Indeed it will be a
+bad day," said Finn, "when the threat of a woman will put fear on myself
+or on the Fianna of Ireland." With that he sounded his horn, and he
+said: "Let us all follow now, men and dogs, after that beast that we
+saw."
+
+He had no sooner said that word than the woman made a great water-worm
+of herself, and made an attack on Finn, and she would have killed him
+then and there but for Bran being with him. Bran took a grip of the worm
+and shook it, and then it wound itself round Bran's body, and would
+have crushed the life out of her, but Finn thrust his sharp sword into
+its throat. "Keep back your hand," said the worm then, "and you will not
+have the curse of a lonely woman upon you." "It is what I think," said
+Finn, "that you would not leave me my life if you could take it from me;
+but go out of my sight now," he said, "and that I may never see you
+again."
+
+Then she made herself into a Red Woman again, and went away into the
+wood.
+
+All the Fianna were gone on the track of the beast while Finn was
+talking and fighting with the Red Woman; and he did not know in what
+place they were, but he went following after them, himself and Bran. It
+was late in the evening when he came up with a share of them, and they
+still on the track of the beast. The darkness of the night was coming
+on, but the two moons in the sides of the beast gave a bright light, and
+they never lost it from sight. They followed it on always; and about
+midnight they were pressing on it, and it began to scatter blood after
+it, and it was not long till Finn and his men were red from head to
+foot. But that did not hinder them, and they followed him on till they
+saw him going in at the foot of Cnoc-na-righ at the breaking of day.
+
+When they came to the foot of the hill the Red Woman was standing there
+before them. "You did not take the beast," she said. "We did not take
+it, but we know where it is," said Finn.
+
+She took a Druid rod then, and she struck a blow on the side of the
+hill, and on the moment a great door opened, and they heard sweet music
+coming from within. "Come in now," said the Red Woman, "till you see the
+wonderful beast." "Our clothing is not clean," said Finn, "and we would
+not like to go in among a company the way we are," he said.
+
+She put a horn to her mouth and blew it, and on the moment there came
+ten young men to her. "Bring water for washing," she said, "and four
+times twenty suits of clothes, and a beautiful suit and a crown of
+shining stones for Finn, son of Cumhal." The young men went away then,
+and they came back at the end of a minute with water and with clothing.
+
+When the Fianna were washed and dressed, the Red Woman brought them into
+a great hall, where there was the brightness of the sun and of the moon
+on every side. From that she brought them into another great room; and
+although Finn and his men had seen many grand things up to that time,
+they had never seen any sight so grand as what they saw in this place.
+There was a king sitting in a golden chair, having clothes of gold and
+of green, and his chief people were sitting around him, and his
+musicians were playing. And no one could know what colour were the
+dresses of the musicians, for every colour of the rainbow was in them.
+And there was a great table in the middle of the room, having every sort
+of thing on it, one better than another.
+
+The king rose up and gave a welcome to Finn and to his men, and he bade
+them to sit down at the table; and they ate and drank their fill, and
+that was wanting to them after the hunt they had made. And then the Red
+Woman rose up, and she said: "King of the Hill, if it is your will, Finn
+and his men have a mind to see the wonderful beast, for they spent a
+long time following after it, and that is what brought them here."
+
+The king struck a blow then on his golden chair, and a door opened
+behind him, and the beast came through it and stood before the king. And
+it stooped down before him, and it said: "I am going on towards my own
+country now; and there is not in the world a runner so good as myself,
+and the sea is the same to me as the land. And let whoever can come up
+with me come now," it said, "for I am going."
+
+With that the beast went out from the hill as quick as a blast of wind,
+and all the people that were in it went following after it. It was not
+long till Finn and his men were before the rest, in the front of the
+hunt, gaining on the beast.
+
+And about midday Bran made the beast turn, and then she forced it to
+turn a second time, and it began to put out cries, and it was not long
+until its strength began to flag; and at last, just at the setting of
+the sun, it fell dead, and Bran was at its side when it fell.
+
+Then Finn and his men came up, but in place of a beast it was a tall man
+they saw lying dead before them. And the Red Woman came up at the same
+time, and she said: "High King of the Fianna, that is the King of the
+Firbolgs you have killed; and his people will put great troubles on this
+country in the time to come, when you yourself, Finn, and your people
+will be under the sod. And I myself am going now to the Country of the
+Young," she said, "and I will bring you with me if you have a mind to
+come." "We give you our thanks for that," said Finn, "but we would not
+give up our own country if we were to get the whole world as an estate,
+and the Country of the Young along with it." "That is well," said the
+Red Woman; "but you are going home empty after your hunt." "It is likely
+we will find a deer in Gleann-na-Smol," said Finn. "There is a fine deer
+at the foot of that tree beyond," said the Red Woman, "and I will rouse
+it for you." With that she gave a cry, and the deer started out and
+away, and Finn and his men after it, and it never stopped till it came
+to Gleann-na-Smol, but they could not come up with it. Then the Red
+Woman came to them, and she said: "I think you are tired now with
+following after the deer; and call your hounds off now," she said, "and
+I will let out my own little dog after it." So Finn sounded a little
+horn he had at his side, and on the moment the hounds came back to him.
+And then the Red Woman brought out a little hound as white as the snow
+of the mountains, and put it after the deer; and it was not long till it
+had come up with the deer and killed it, and then it came back and made
+a leap in under the cloak of the Red Woman. There was great wonder on
+Finn; but before he could ask a question of the Red Woman, she was gone
+out of sight. And as to the deer, Finn knew there was enchantment on it,
+and so he left it there after him. And it is tired and empty the Fianna
+were, going back to Almhuin that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. FINN AND THE PHANTOMS
+
+
+Finn went to a gathering one time at Aonach Clochair, and a great many
+of the men of Munster crowded to it. And the horses of the Fianna were
+brought there, and the horses of the men of Munster, and they ran races
+against one another.
+
+And Fiachu, son of Eoghan, was in it; and when the games were over he
+gave good presents to Finn, a lasting black horse that won the three
+prizes of the gathering, and a chariot, and a horse for the
+chariot-driver, and a spear, having a deadly spell, and weapons of
+silver, and three comely hounds, Feirne and Derchaem and Dialath, having
+collars of yellow gold and chains of white bronze.
+
+And Finn rose up and gave his thanks to Fiachu, son of Eoghan, and he
+and his people set out to the house of Cacher at Cluain-da-loch. And
+they stopped three days feasting in Cacher's house, and then Finn gave
+him the price of his feast and of his ale, fifty rings, and fifty horses
+and fifty cows.
+
+And he himself and the Fianna went on from that over Luachair to the
+strand at Berramain. And Finn went trying his black horse on the strand,
+and Caoilte and Oisin went racing against him; but it was only folly for
+them to do that, for he gave a blow to his horse, and away with him to
+Traigh Liath and over the Plain of Health to the Old Yew of the Old
+Valley, and to the inver of the Flesc and the inver of the Lemain to
+Loch Lein, till he came to the hill of Bairnech, and Caoilte and Oisin
+after him.
+
+"Night is coming on us," said Finn then; "and go look for some place
+where we can sleep," he said. He looked round then at the rocks on his
+left hand and he saw a house, and a fire shining out from it in the
+valley below. "I never knew of a house in this valley," he said.
+
+"It is best for us to go see it," said Caoilte, "for there are many
+things we have no knowledge of."
+
+The three went on then to the house, and they heard screams and crying
+from it; and when they came to the house, the people of it were very
+fierce and rough; and a big grey man took hold of their horses and
+brought them in and shut the door of the house with iron hooks. "My
+welcome to you, Finn of the great name," he said then; "it is a long
+time you were in coming here."
+
+They sat down then on the hard boards of a bed, and the grey man kindled
+a fire, and he threw logs of elder-wood on it, till they went near being
+smothered with the smoke. They saw a hag in the house then having three
+heads on her lean neck; and there was on the other side a man without a
+head, having one eye, and it in his breast. "Rise up, you that are in
+the house, and make music for the King of the Fianna," said the grey man
+then.
+
+With that nine bodies rose up out of the corner nearest the Fianna, and
+nine heads rose up on the other side of the bed, and they raised nine
+harsh screeches together, that no one would like to be listening to. And
+then the hag answered to them, and the headless man answered; and if all
+of that music was harsh, there was none of it that you would not wish to
+hear sooner than the music of the one-eyed man. And the music that was
+sung went near to breaking the bones of their heads; and indeed it is no
+sweet music that was.
+
+Then the big grey man rose up and took the axe that was for cutting
+logs, and he began striking at the horses, flaying and destroying them.
+Then there were brought fifty pointed spits of the rowan-tree, and he
+put a piece of the horse's flesh on each one of the spits, and settled
+them on the hearth. But when he took the spits from the fire and put
+them before Finn, it is raw the flesh was on them yet. "Take your food
+away," said Finn then, "for I have never eaten meat that was raw, and I
+never will eat it because of being without food for one day." "If you
+are come into our house to refuse our food," said the grey man, "we will
+surely go against yourselves, Finn and Caoilte and Oisin."
+
+With that all in the house made an attack on the three; and they were
+driven back into the corner, and the fire was quenched, and the fight
+went on through the whole night in the darkness, and but for Finn and
+the way he fought, they would have been put down.
+
+And when the sun rose and lighted up the house on the morrow, a mist
+came into the head of each of the three, so that they fell as if dead on
+the floor.
+
+But after awhile they rose up again, and there was nothing to be seen of
+the house or of the people of the house, but they had all vanished. And
+their horses were there, and they took them and went on, very weak and
+tired, for a long way, till they came to the strand of Berramain.
+
+And those three that fought against them were the three Shapes out of
+the Valley of the Yew Tree that came to avenge their sister, Cuillen of
+the Wide Mouth.
+
+Now as to Cuillen, she was a daughter of the King of Munster, and her
+husband was the King of Ulster's son. And they had a son that was called
+Fear Og, the Young Man; and there was hardly in Ireland a man so good as
+himself in shape and in courage and in casting a spear. And one time he
+joined in a game with the Fianna, and he did better than them all, and
+Finn gave him a great reward. And after that he went out to a hunt they
+made, and it was by him and by none of the Fianna the first blood was
+got of pig or of deer. And when they came back, a heavy sickness fell on
+the young man through the eyes and the envy of the Fianna, and it left
+him without life at the end of nine days. And he was buried under a
+green hill, and the shining stone he used to hold in his hand, and he
+doing his feats, was put over his head.
+
+And his mother, Cuillen, came to his grave keening him every day through
+the length of a year. And one day she died there for grief after her
+son, and they put her into the same green hill.
+
+But as to Finn, he was afraid of no earthly thing, and he killed many
+great serpents in Loch Cuilinn and Loch Neathach, and at Beinn Edair;
+and Shadow-Shapes at Loch Lein and Drom Cleib and Loch Liath, and a
+serpent and a cat in Ath Cliath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE PIGS OF ANGUS
+
+
+Angus Og, son of the Dagda, made a feast one time at Brugh na Boinne for
+Finn and the Fianna of the Gael. Ten hundred of them were in it, and
+they wearing green clothing and crimson cloaks; and as to the people of
+Angus' house, it is clothing of red silk they had.
+
+And Finn was sitting beside Angus in the beautiful house, and it is
+long since the like of those two were seen in Ireland. And any stranger
+would wonder to see the way the golden cups were going from hand to
+hand.
+
+And Angus said out in a loud voice that every one could hear: "It is a
+better life this is than to be hunting." There was anger on Finn then,
+and he said: "It is a worse life than hunting to be here, without
+hounds, without horses, without battalions, without the shouting of
+armies." "Why are you talking like that, Finn?" said Angus, "for as to
+the hounds you have," he said, "they would not kill so much as one pig."
+"You have not yourself," said Finn, "and the whole host of the Tuatha de
+Danaan have not a pig that ever went on dry land that Bran and Sceolan
+would not kill." "I will send you a pig," said Angus, "that will go from
+you and your hounds, and that will kill them in the end."
+
+The steward of the house called out then in a loud voice: "Let every one
+go now to his bed, before the lightness of drunkenness comes on you."
+But Finn said to his people: "Let us make ready and leave this; for we
+are but a few," he said, "among the Men of Dea." So they set out and
+went westward till they came to Slieve Fuad where the Fianna were at
+that time.
+
+And through the whole length of a year after that, the Tuatha de Danaan
+were boasting how they would get the better of the Fianna, and the
+Fianna were thinking how they could do best in the hunt. And at the end
+of that time Angus sent messengers to Finn, asking him with great
+respect if he was ready to keep his word. And Finn said he was, and the
+hounds were brought out, and he himself was holding Bran and Sceolan,
+one in each hand, and Caoilte had Adhnuall, and Oisin had Ablach, and
+merry Bran Beag had Lonn, and Diarmuid was holding Eachtach, and Osgar
+was holding Mac an Truim, and Garraidh was held by Faolan, and Rith
+Fada, of the Long Run, by hungry Conan.
+
+And they were not long there with their hounds till they saw on the
+plain to the east a terrible herd of great pigs, every one of them the
+height of a deer. And there was one pig out in front of the rest was
+blacker than a smith's coal, and the bristles on its head were like a
+thicket of thorn-trees.
+
+Then Caoilte let out Adhnuall, and she was the first to kill a pig of
+the herd. And then Bran made away from the leash that Finn was holding,
+and the pigs ran their best, but she came up with them, and took hold of
+a pig of them. And at that Angus said: "O Bran, fosterling of
+fair-haired Fergus, it is not a right thing you are doing, to kill my
+own son." But when Bran heard that, her ways changed and it was like an
+enemy she took hold of the pig, and did not let it go, and held her
+breath back and kept it for the Fianna.
+
+And it was over Slieve Cua the hunt went, and Slieve Crot, and from Magh
+Cobha to Cruachan, and to Fionnabraic and to Finnias. And at evening
+when the hunt was over, there was not one pig of the whole herd without
+a hurt, and there were but a hundred and ten pigs left living. But if
+the hunt brought destruction on Angus, it brought losses on the Fianna
+as well, for there were ten hundred of their men missing besides
+serving-lads and dogs.
+
+"Let us go to Brugh na Boinne and get satisfaction for our people," said
+Oisin then. "That is the advice of a man without sense," said Finn; "for
+if we leave these pigs the way they are, they will come to life again.
+And let us burn them," he said, "and throw their ashes in the sea."
+
+Then the seven battalions of the Fianna made seven fires to every
+battalion; but for all they could do, they could not set fire to one
+pig. Then Bran, that had great sense and knowledge, went away, and she
+came back bringing three logs along with her, but no one knows what wood
+it was they came from. And when the logs were put on the fire they lit
+up like a candle, and it is with them the pigs were burned; and after
+that their ashes were thrown into the sea.
+
+Then Oisin said again: "Let us go now to Brugh na Boinne and avenge the
+death of our people." So the whole of the Fianna set out for Brugh na
+Boinne, and every step they made could surely be heard through the whole
+of the skies.
+
+And Angus sent out messengers to where Finn was, offering any one thing
+to him if he would spare his people. "I will take no gift at all from
+you, Angus of the slender body," said Finn, "so long as there is a room
+left in your house, north or east, without being burned." But Angus
+said: "Although you think bad of the loss of your fine people that you
+have the sway over, yet, O Finn, father of Oisin, it is sorrowful to me
+the loss of my own good son is. For as to the black pig that came before
+you on the plain," he said, "it was no common pig was in it, but my own
+son. And there fell along with him," he said, "the son of the King of
+the Narrow Sea, and the son of the King of the Sea of Gulls, and the son
+of Ilbhrec, son of Manannan, and seven score of the comely sons of kings
+and queens. And it is what destroyed my strength and my respect
+entirely, they to have been burned away from me in a far place. And it
+is a pity for you, sweet daring Bran," he said, "fosterling of Fergus of
+the thirty woods and plains, that you did not do something worth praise
+before killing your own foster-brother. And I will put a curse on you,
+Bran," he said, "beyond every hound in Ireland, that you will never see
+with your eyes any deer you may ever kill."
+
+There was anger on Finn when he heard that, and he said: "If you put a
+curse on Bran, Angus, there will not be a room left, east or west, in
+the whole of your great house without being burned." "If you do that,"
+said Angus, "I will put trees and stones in front of you in every
+battle; and I will know what number of men you have in your armies," he
+said, "looking at them through my ring."
+
+Then Oisin, that was wise, said: "It is best for you to agree between
+yourselves now; and let us be helpful to one another," he said, "and pay
+whatever fines are due."
+
+So they agreed to that, and they made peace, and gave children to be
+fostered by one another: a son of Finn's to Angus, and son of Angus Og
+to the Fianna.
+
+But for all that, it is not very friendly to Finn Angus was afterwards,
+at the time he was following after Diarmuid and Grania through the whole
+length of Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN
+
+
+Finn was one time out on the green of Almhuin, and he saw what had the
+appearance of a grey fawn running across the plain. He called and
+whistled to his hounds then, but neither hound nor man heard him or came
+to him, but only Bran and Sceolan. He set them after the fawn, and near
+as they kept to her, he himself kept nearer to them, till at last they
+reached to Slieve Cuilinn in the province of Ulster.
+
+But they were no sooner at the hill than the fawn vanished from them,
+and they did not know where was she gone, and Finn went looking for her
+eastward, and the two hounds went towards the west.
+
+It was not long till Finn came to a lake, and there was sitting on the
+brink of it a young girl, the most beautiful he had ever seen, having
+hair of the colour of gold, and a skin as white as lime, and eyes like
+the stars in time of frost; but she seemed to be some way sorrowful and
+downhearted. Finn asked her did she see his hounds pass that way. "I did
+not see them," she said; "and it is little I am thinking of your hounds
+or your hunting, but of the cause of my own trouble." "What is it ails
+you, woman of the white hands?" said Finn; "and is there any help I can
+give you?" he said. "It is what I am fretting after," said she, "a ring
+of red gold I lost off my finger in the lake. And I put you under bonds,
+Finn of the Fianna," she said, "to bring it back to me out of the lake."
+
+With that Finn stripped off his clothes and went into the lake at the
+bidding of the woman, and he went three times round the whole lake and
+did not leave any part of it without searching, till he brought back the
+ring. He handed it up to her then out of the water, and no sooner had he
+done that than she gave a leap into the water and vanished.
+
+And when Finn came up on the bank of the lake, he could not so much as
+reach to where his clothes were; for on the moment he, the head and the
+leader of the Fianna of Ireland, was but a grey old man, weak and
+withered.
+
+Bran and Sceolan came up to him then, but they did not know him, and
+they went on round the lake, searching after their master.
+
+
+In Almhuin, now, when he was missed, Caoilte began asking after him.
+"Where is Finn," he said, "of the gentle rule and of the spears?" But no
+one knew where was he gone, and there was grief on the Fianna when they
+could not find him. But it is what Conan said: "I never heard music
+pleased me better than to hear the son of Cumhal is missing. And that he
+may be so through the whole year," he said, "and I myself will be king
+over you all." And downhearted as they were, it is hardly they could
+keep from laughing when they heard Conan saying that.
+
+Caoilte and the rest of the chief men of the Fianna set out then looking
+for Finn, and they got word of him; and at last they came to Slieve
+Cuilinn, and there they saw a withered old man sitting beside the lake,
+and they thought him to be a fisherman. "Tell us, old man," said
+Caoilte, "did you see a fawn go by, and two hounds after her, and a tall
+fair-faced man along with them?" "I did see them," he said, "and it is
+not long since they left me." "Tell us where are they now?" said
+Caoilte. But Finn made no answer, for he had not the courage to say to
+them that he himself was Finn their leader, being as he was an ailing,
+downhearted old man, without leaping, without running, without walk,
+grey and sorrowful.
+
+Caoilte took out his sword from the sheath then, and he said: "It is
+short till you will have knowledge of death unless you will tell us what
+happened those three."
+
+Then Finn told them the whole story; and when the seven battalions of
+the Fianna heard him, and knew it was Finn that was in it, they gave
+three loud sorrowful cries. And to the lake they gave the name of Loch
+Doghra, the Lake of Sorrow.
+
+But Conan of the sharp tongue began abusing Finn and all the Fianna by
+turns. "You never gave me right praise for my deeds, Finn, son of
+Cumhal," he said, "and you were always the enemy of the sons of Morna;
+but we are living in spite of you," he said, "and I have but the one
+fault to find with your shape, and that is, that it was not put on the
+whole of the Fianna the same as on yourself." Caoilte made at him then;
+"Bald, senseless Conan," he said, "I will break your mouth to the bone."
+But Conan ran in then among the rest of the Fianna and asked protection
+from them, and peace was made again.
+
+And as to Finn, they asked him was there any cure to be found for him.
+"There is," he said; "for I know well the enchantment was put on me by a
+woman of the Sidhe, Miluchradh, daughter of Cuilinn, through jealousy of
+her sister Aine. And bring me to the hill that belongs to Cuilinn of
+Cuailgne," he said, "for he is the only one can give me my shape again."
+
+They came around him then, and raised him up gently on their shields,
+and brought him on their shoulders to the hill of the Sidhe in Cuailgne,
+but no one came out to meet them. Then the seven battalions began
+digging and rooting up the whole hill, and they went on digging through
+the length of three nights and three days. And at the end of that time
+Cuilinn of Cuailgne, that some say was Manannan, son of Lir, came out of
+the hill, holding in his hand a vessel of red gold, and he gave the
+vessel into Finn's hand. And no sooner did Finn drink what was in the
+vessel than his own shape and his appearance came back to him. But only
+his hair, that used to be so fair and so beautiful, like the hair of a
+woman, never got its own colour again, for the lake that Cuilinn's
+daughter had made for Finn would have turned all the men of the whole
+world grey if they had gone into it.
+
+And when Finn had drunk all that was in the vessel it slipped from his
+hand into the earth, that was loosened with the digging, and he saw it
+no more. But in the place where it went into the earth, a tree grew up,
+and any one that would look at the branches of that tree in the morning,
+fasting, would have knowledge of all that was to happen on that day.
+
+That, now, is the way Finn came by his grey hair, through the jealousy
+of Miluchradh of the Sidhe, because he had not given his love to her,
+but to her sister Aine.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIVE: OISIN'S CHILDREN
+
+
+Now as to Oisin, that was so brave and so comely, and that could
+overtake a deer at its greatest speed, and see a thistle thorn on the
+darkest night, the wife he took was Eibhir of the plaited yellow hair,
+that was the foreign sweetheart of the High King of Ireland.
+
+It is beyond the sea she lived, in a very sunny place; and her father's
+name was lunsa, and her sunny house was thatched with the feathers of
+birds, and the doorposts were of gold, and the doors of ribbed grass.
+And Oisin went there looking for her, and he fought for her against the
+High King and against an army of the Firbolgs he had helping him; and he
+got the better of them all, and brought away Eibhir of the yellow hair
+to Ireland.
+
+And he had a daughter that married the son of Oiliol, son of Eoghan, and
+of Beara, daughter of the King of Spain. It was that Eoghan was driven
+out of Ireland one time, and it is to Spain he went for safety. And
+Beara, that was daughter of the King of Spain, was very shining and
+beautiful, and her father had a mind to know who would be her husband,
+and he sent for his Druid and asked the question of him. "I can tell you
+that," said the Druid, "for the man that is to be her husband will come
+to land in Spain this very night. And let your daughter go eastward to
+the river Eibhear," he said, "and she will find a crimson-spotted salmon
+in that river, having shining clothing on him from head to tail. And let
+her strip that clothing off him," he said, "and make with it a shining
+shirt for her husband."
+
+So Beara went to the river Eibhear, and found the golden salmon as the
+Druid had said, and she stripped him of his crimson clothing and made a
+shining shirt of it.
+
+And as to Eoghan, the waves of the shore put a welcome before him, and
+he came the same night to the king's house. And the king gave him a
+friendly welcome; and it is what all the people said, that there was
+never seen a comelier man than Eoghan, or a woman more beautiful than
+Beara, and that it was fitting for them to come together. And Eoghan's
+own people said they would not be sorry for being sent away out of
+Ireland, if only Eoghan could get her for his wife.
+
+And after a while the king sent his Druid to ask Eoghan why he did not
+ask for Beara. "I will tell you that," said Eoghan; "it would not be
+fitting for me to be refused a wife, and I am but an exile in this
+country, and I have brought no treasures or goods with me out of Ireland
+for giving to learned men and to poets. But for all that," he said, "the
+king's daughter is dear to me, and I think I have the friendship of the
+king."
+
+The Druid went back with that message. "That is the answer of a king,"
+said the King of Spain; "and bid my daughter to sit at Eoghan's right
+hand," he said, "and I will give her to him this very night." And when
+Beara, the king's daughter, heard that, she sent out her serving-maid to
+bring the shirt she had made for Eoghan, and he put it on him over his
+armour, and its shining was seen in every place; and it was from wearing
+that shirt he got the name of Eoghan the Bright.
+
+And Oiliol was the first son they had; it was he that had his ear bitten
+off by Aine of the Sidhe in revenge for her brother, and it was his son
+married Oisin's daughter afterwards.
+
+And as to Osgar, that was Oisin's son, of all the young men of the
+Fianna he was the best in battle. And when he was but a young child he
+was made much of by the whole of the Fianna, and it is for him they used
+to keep the marrow bones, and they did not like to put any hardship on
+him. And he grew up tall and idle, and no one thought he would turn out
+so strong as he did. And one day there was an attack made on a troop of
+the Fianna, and all that were in it went out to fight, but they left
+Osgar after them. And when he knew the fight was going on, he took a log
+of wood that was the first thing he could find, and attacked the enemy
+and made a great slaughter, and they gave way and ran before him. And
+from that out there was no battle he did not go into; and he was said to
+be the strongest of all the Fianna, though the people of Connacht said
+that Goll was the strongest. And he and Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne,
+were comrades and dear friends; and it was Diarmuid taught him feats of
+arms and of skill, and chess-playing. And Oisin his father took great
+pride in him, and his grandfather Finn. And one time Finn was holding a
+feast at Almhuin, and he asked the chief men of the Fianna that were
+there what was the music they thought the best. "To be playing at
+games," said Conan, "that is the best music I ever heard;" for though
+Conan was a good hand against an enemy, there never was a man had less
+sense. "The music I like the best is to be talking with a woman," said
+Diarmuid. "My music is the outcry of my hounds, and they putting a deer
+to its last stand," said Lugaidh's Son. "The music of the woods is best
+to me," said Oisin; "the sound of the wind and of the cuckoo and the
+blackbird, and the sweet silence of the crane."
+
+And then Osgar was asked, and he said: "The best music is the striking
+of swords in a battle." And it is likely he took after Finn in that, for
+in spite of all the sweet sounds he gave an account of the time he was
+at Conan's house, at Ceann Slieve, it used to be said by the Fianna that
+the music that was best with Finn was what happened.
+
+This now is the way Osgar met with his wife.
+
+One time Finn and his men came to Slieve Crot, and they saw a woman
+waiting there before them, having a crimson fringed cloak, and a gold
+brooch in it, and a band of yellow gold on her forehead. Finn asked her
+name, and where she came from. "Etain of the Fair Hair is my name," she
+said, "daughter of Aedh of the White Breast, of the hill of the Sidhe at
+Beinn Edair, son of Angus Og." "What is it brought you here, girl?" said
+Finn. "To ask a man of the Fianna of Ireland to run a race with me."
+"What sort of a runner are you?" said Diarmuid. "I am a good runner,"
+said the girl; "for it is the same to me if the ground is long or short
+under my feet."
+
+All of the Fianna that were there then set out to run with her, and they
+ran to the height over Badhamair and on to Ath Cliath, and from that on
+to the hill of the Sidhe at Beinn Edair.
+
+And there was a good welcome before them, and they were brought meat and
+wine for drinking, and water for washing their feet. And after a while
+they saw a nice fair-haired girl in front of the vats, and a cup of
+white silver in her hand, and she giving out drink to every one. "It
+seems to me that is the girl came asking the Fianna to race against her
+at Slieve Crot," said Finn. "It is not," said Aedh of the White Breast,
+"for that is the slowest woman there is among us." "Who was it so?" said
+Finn. "It was Be-mannair, daughter of Ainceol, woman-messenger of the
+Tuatha de Danaan. And it is she that changes herself into all shapes;
+and she will take the shape of a fly, and of a true lover, and every one
+leaves their secret with her. And it was she outran you coming from the
+east," he said, "and not this other girl that was drinking and making
+merry here in the hall." "What is her name?" said Finn. "Etain of the
+Fair Hair," he said; "a daughter of my own, and a darling of the Tuatha
+de Danaan. And it is the way with her, she has a lover of the men of the
+Fianna." "That is well," said Finn; "and who is that lover?" "It is
+Osgar, son of Oisin," said Aedh; "and it is she herself sent her
+messenger for you," he said, "in her own shape, to Slieve Crot in the
+south. And the son of the High King of Ireland has offered a great
+bride-price to the Men of Dea for her," he said, "three hundreds of the
+land nearest to Bregia and to Midhe, and to put himself and his weight
+of gold into a balance, and to give it all to her. But we did not take
+it," he said, "since she had no mind or wish for it herself, and so we
+made no dealing or agreement about her." "Well," said Finn, "and what
+conditions will you ask of Osgar?" "Never to leave me for anything at
+all but my own fault," said the girl. "I will make that agreement with
+you indeed," said Osgar. "Give me sureties for it," said she; "give me
+the sureties of Goll for the sons of Morna, and of Finn, son of Cumhal,
+for the Fianna of Ireland."
+
+So they gave those sureties, and the wedding-feast was made, and they
+stopped there for twenty nights. And at the end of that time Osgar asked
+Finn where would he bring his wife. "Bring her to wide Almhuin for the
+first seven years," said Finn.
+
+But a while after that, in a great battle at Beinn Edair, Osgar got so
+heavy a wound that Finn and the Fianna were as if they had lost their
+wits. And when Etain of the Fair Hair came to the bed where Osgar was
+lying, and saw the way he was, and that the great kinglike shape he had
+was gone from him, greyness and darkness came on her, and she raised
+pitiful cries, and she went to her bed and her heart broke in her like a
+nut; and she died of grief for her husband and her first love.
+
+But it was not at that time Osgar got his death, but afterwards in the
+battle of Gabhra.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIX: DIARMUID.
+
+CHAPTER I. BIRTH OF DIARMUID
+
+
+Diarmuid, now, was son of Bonn, son of Duibhne of the Fianna, and his
+mother was Crochnuit, that was near in blood to Finn. And at the time he
+was born, Bonn was banished from the Fianna because of some quarrel they
+had with him, and Angus Og took the child from him to rear him up at
+Brugh na Boinne.
+
+And after a while Crochnuit bore another son to Roc Diocain, that was
+Head Steward to Angus. Roc Diocain went then to Donn, and asked would he
+rear up his son for him, the way Angus was rearing Donn's son. But Donn
+said he would not take the son of a common man into his house, and it
+would be best for Angus to take him. So Angus took the child into Brugh
+na Boinne, and he and Diarmuid were reared up together.
+
+And one day Finn was on the great Hill at Almhuin of Leinster, and no
+one with him but Donn and a few of the poets and learned men of the
+Fianna, and their hounds and dogs, and Bran Beag came in and asked did
+he remember there were bonds on him, not to stop in Almhuin for ten
+nights together. Finn asked the people about him then where would he go
+and be entertained for that night, and Donn said: "I will bring you to
+the house of Angus, son of the Dagda, where my young son is being
+reared."
+
+
+So they went together to the house of Angus at Brugh na Boinne, and the
+child Diarmuid was there, and it is great love Angus had for him. And
+the Steward's son was with him that night, and the people of the
+household made as much of him as Angus made of Diarmuid; and there was
+great vexation on Donn when he saw that. It chanced after a while a
+great fight rose between two of Finn's hounds about some broken meat
+that was thrown to them; and the women and the common people of the
+place ran from them, and the others rose up to part them from one
+another. And in running away, the Steward's child ran between the knees
+of Donn, and Donn gave the child a strong squeeze between his two knees
+that killed him on the moment, and he threw him under the feet of the
+hounds. And when the Steward came after that and found his son dead, he
+gave a long very pitiful cry, and he said to Finn: "There is not a man
+in the house to-night has suffered more than myself from this uproar,
+for I had but one son only, and he has been killed; and what
+satisfaction will I get from you for that, Finn?" he said. "Try can you
+find the mark of a tooth or of a nail of one of the hounds on him," said
+Finn, "and if you can, I will give you satisfaction for him."
+
+So they looked at the child, and there was no scratch or mark of a tooth
+on him at all. Then the Steward put Finn under the destroying bonds of
+the Druid cave of Cruachan, to give him knowledge of who it was killed
+his son. And Finn asked for a chess-board, and for water to be brought
+to him, in a basin of pale gold, and he searched, and it was shown to
+him truly that it was Donn had killed the Steward's son between his two
+knees. When Finn knew that, he said he would take the fine on himself;
+but the Steward would not consent to that, but forced him to tell who
+was it had done him the wrong. And when he knew it was Donn had killed
+the child, he said: "There is no man in the house it is easier to get
+satisfaction from than from him, for his own son is here, and I have but
+to put him between my two knees, and if I let him go from me safe, I
+will forgive the death of my son." Angus was vexed at what the Steward
+said, and as to Donn, he thought to strike his head off till Finn put
+him back from him. Then the Steward came again, having a Druid rod with
+him, and he struck his own son with the rod, and he made of him a wild
+boar, without bristle or ear or tail, and he said: "I put you under
+bonds to bring Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to his death; and your
+own life will be no longer than his life," he said. With that the wild
+boar rose up and ran out of the open door; and he was called afterwards
+the Boar of Slieve Guillion, and it was by him Diarmuid came to his
+death at the last.
+
+And when Diarmuid came to his full strength he was given a place among
+the Fianna of Ireland; and all women loved him, and he did many great
+deeds, fighting with the enemies of the Fianna and of Ireland; and one
+time he fought a wild ox through the length of seven days and seven
+nights on the top of the Mountain of Happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. HOW DIARMUID GOT HIS LOVE-SPOT
+
+
+Diarmuid and Conan and Goll and Osgar went one day hunting, and they
+went so far they could not get home in the evening, and they spent the
+first part of the night walking through the woods and pulling berries
+and eating them. And when it was about midnight they saw a light, and
+they went towards it, and they found a little house before them, and the
+light shining from it. They went in then, and they saw an old man there,
+and he bade them welcome, and he called them all by their names. And
+they saw no one in the house but the old man and a young girl and a cat.
+And the old man bade the girl to make food ready for the Fianna of
+Ireland, for there was great hunger on them.
+
+And when the food was ready and put on the table, there came a great
+wether that was fastened up in the back of the house, and he rose up on
+the table where they were eating, and when they saw that, they looked at
+one another. "Rise up, Conan," said Goll, "and fasten that wether in
+the place it was before." Conan rose up and took hold of it, but the
+wether gave itself a shake that threw Conan under one of its feet. The
+rest were looking at that, and Goll said: "Let you rise up, Diarmuid,
+and fasten up the wether." So Diarmuid rose up and took hold of it, but
+it gave itself a shake the same way as before; and when Diarmuid was
+down it put one of its feet on him. Goll and Osgar looked at one another
+then, and shame came on them, a wether to have done so much as that. And
+Osgar got up, but the wether put him down under one of his feet, so that
+it had now the three men under him. Then Goll rose up and took hold of
+it and threw it down; but if he did, it rose up again in spite of him,
+and put Goll under his fourth foot.
+
+"It is a great shame," said the old man then, "the like of that to be
+done to the Fianna of Ireland. And rise up now, cat," he said, "and tie
+the wether in the place where he was." The cat rose up then and took
+hold of the wether, and brought it over and tied it in its place at the
+end of the house.
+
+The men rose up then, but they had no mind to go on eating, for there
+was shame on them at what the wether had done to them. "You may go on
+eating," said the old man; "and when you are done I will show you that
+now you are the bravest men of the world." So they ate their fill then,
+and the old man spoke to them, and it is what he said: "Goll," he said,
+"you are the bravest of all the men of the world, for you have wrestled
+with the world and you threw it down. The strength of the world is in
+the wether, but death will come to the world itself; and that is death,"
+he said, showing them the cat.
+
+They were talking together then, and they had their food eaten, and the
+old man said their beds were ready for them that they could go to sleep.
+The four of them went then into the one room, and when they were in
+their beds the young girl came to sleep in the same room with them, and
+the light of her beauty was shining on the walls like as if it was the
+light of a candle.
+
+And when Conan saw her he went over to the side of the bed where she
+was.
+
+Now, it was Youth the young girl was, and when she saw Conan coming to
+her: "Go back to your bed, Conan," she said; "I belonged to you once,
+and I will never belong to you again." Conan went back to his bed then,
+and Osgar had a mind to go over where she was. Then she said to him:
+"Where are you going?" "I am going over to yourself for a while," said
+he.
+
+"Go back again, Osgar," she said; "I belonged to you once, and I will
+never belong to you again."
+
+Then Diarmuid rose up to go to her: "Where are you going, Diarmuid?" she
+said. "I am going over to yourself for a while," said he. "O Diarmuid,"
+she said, "that cannot be; I belonged to you once, and I can never
+belong to you again; but come over here to me, Diarmuid," she said, "and
+I will put a love-spot on you, that no woman will ever see without
+giving you her love." So Diarmuid went over to her, and she put her hand
+on his forehead, and she left the love-spot there, and no woman that
+ever saw him after that was able to refuse him her love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE DAUGHTER OF KING UNDER-WAVE
+
+
+One snowy night of winter the Fianna were come into the house after
+their hunting. And about midnight they heard a knocking at the door, and
+there came in a woman very wild and ugly, and her hair hanging to her
+heels. She went to the place Finn was lying, and she asked him to let
+her in under the border of his covering. But when he saw her so strange
+and so ugly and so wild-looking he would not let her in. She gave a
+great cry then, and she went to where Oisin was, and asked him to let
+her shelter under the border of his covering. But Oisin refused her the
+same way. Then she gave another great scream, and she went over where
+Diarmuid was. "Let me in," she said, "under the border of your
+covering." Diarmuid looked at her, and he said: "You are strange-looking
+and wild and ugly, and your hair is down to your heels. But come in for
+all that," he said.
+
+So she came in under the border of his covering.
+
+"O Diarmuid," she said then, "I have been travelling over sea and ocean
+through the length of seven years, and in all that time I never got
+shelter any night till this night. And let me to the warmth of the fire
+now," she said. So Diarmuid brought her over to the fire, and all the
+Fianna that were sitting there went away from it seeing her so ugly and
+so dreadful to look at. And she was not long at the fire when she said:
+"Let me go under the warmth of the covering with you now." "It is asking
+too much you are," said Diarmuid; "first it was to come under the border
+you asked, and then to come to the fire, and now it is under the
+bed-covering with me you want to be. But for all that you may come," he
+said.
+
+So she came in under the covering, and he turned a fold of it between
+them. But it was not long till he looked at her, and what he saw was a
+beautiful young woman beside him, and she asleep. He called to the
+others then to come over, and he said: "Is not this the most beautiful
+woman that ever was seen?" "She is that," they said, and they covered
+her up and did not awaken her.
+
+But after a while she stirred, and she said: "Are you awake, Diarmuid?"
+"I am awake," he said. "Where would you like to see the best house
+built that ever was built?" she said. "Up there on the hillside, if I
+had my choice," said he, and with that he fell asleep.
+
+And in the morning two men of the Fianna came in, and they said they
+were after seeing a great house up on the hill, where there was not a
+house before. "Rise up, Diarmuid," said the strange woman then; "do not
+be lying there any longer, but go up to your house, and look out now and
+see it," she said. So he looked out and he saw the great house that was
+ready, and he said: "I will go to it, if you will come along with me."
+"I will do that," she said, "if you will make me a promise not to say to
+me three times what way I was when I came to you." "I will never say it
+to you for ever," said Diarmuid.
+
+They went up then to the house, and it was ready for them, with food and
+servants; and everything they could wish for they had it. They stopped
+there for three days, and when the three days were ended, she said: "You
+are getting to be sorrowful because you are away from your comrades of
+the Fianna." "I am not sorrowful indeed," said Diarmuid. "It will be
+best for you to go to them; and your food and your drink will be no
+worse when you come back than they are now," said she. "Who will take
+care of my greyhound bitch and her three pups if I go?" said Diarmuid.
+"There is no fear for them," said she.
+
+So when he heard that, he took leave of her and went back to the Fianna,
+and there was a great welcome before him. But for all that they were not
+well pleased but were someway envious, Diarmuid to have got that grand
+house and her love from the woman they themselves had turned away.
+
+Now as to the woman, she was outside the house for a while after
+Diarmuid going away, and she saw Finn, son of Cumhal, coming towards
+her, and she bade him welcome. "You are vexed with me, Queen?" he said.
+"I am not indeed," she said; "and come in now and take a drink of wine
+from me." "I will go in if I get my request," said Finn. "What request
+is there that you would not get?" said she. "It is what I am asking, one
+of the pups of Diarmuid's greyhound bitch." "That is no great thing to
+ask," she said; "and whichever one you choose of them you may bring it
+away."
+
+So he got the pup, and he brought it away with him.
+
+At the fall of night Diarmuid came back to the house, and the greyhound
+met him at the door and gave a yell when she saw him, and he looked for
+the pups, and one of them was gone. There was anger on him then, and he
+said to the woman: "If you had brought to mind the way you were when I
+let you in, and your hair hanging, you would not have let the pup be
+brought away from me." "You ought not to say that, Diarmuid," said she.
+"I ask your pardon for saying it," said Diarmuid. And they forgave one
+another, and he spent the night in the house.
+
+On the morrow Diarmuid went back again to his comrades, and the woman
+stopped at the house, and after a while she saw Oisin coming towards
+her. She gave him a welcome, and asked him into the house, and he said
+he would come if he would get his request. And what he asked was another
+of the pups of the greyhound.
+
+So she gave him that, and he went away bringing the pup with him. And
+when Diarmuid came back that night the greyhound met him, and she cried
+out twice. And he knew that another of the pups was gone, and he said to
+the greyhound, and the woman standing there: "If she had remembered the
+way she was when she came to me, she would not have let the pup be
+brought away."
+
+The next day he went back again to the Fianna, and when he was gone, the
+woman saw Caoilte coming towards her, and he would not come in to take a
+drink from her till he had got the promise of one of the pups the same
+as the others.
+
+And when Diarmuid came back that night the greyhound met him and gave
+three yells, the most terrible that ever were heard. There was great
+anger on him then, when he saw all the pups gone, and he said the third
+time: "If this woman remembered the way she was when I found her, and
+her hair down to her heels, she would not have let the pup go." "O
+Diarmuid, what is it you are after saying?" she said. He asked
+forgiveness of her then, and he thought to go into the house, but it was
+gone and the woman was gone on the moment, and it was on the bare ground
+he awoke on the morrow. There was great sorrow on him then, and he said
+he would search in every place till he would find her again.
+
+So he set out through the lonely valleys, and the first thing he saw was
+the greyhound lying dead, and he put her on his shoulder and would not
+leave her because of the love he had for her. And after a while he met
+with a cowherd, and he asked him did he see a woman going the way. "I
+saw a woman early in the morning of yesterday, and she walking hard,"
+said the cowherd. "What way was she going?" said Diarmuid. "Down that
+path below to the strand, and I saw her no more after that," he said.
+
+So he followed the path she took down to the strand till he could go no
+farther, and then he saw a ship, and he leaned on the handle of his
+spear and made a light leap on to the ship, and it went on till it came
+to land, and then he got out and lay down on the side of a hill and fell
+asleep, and when he awoke there was no ship to be seen. "It is a pity
+for me to be here," he said, "for I see no way of getting from it
+again."
+
+But after a while he saw a boat coming, and a man in the boat rowing it,
+and he went down and got into the boat, and brought the greyhound with
+him. And the boat went out over the sea, and then down below it; and
+Diarmuid, when he went down, found himself on a plain. And he went
+walking along it, and it was not long before he met with a drop of
+blood. He took it up and put it in a napkin. "It is the greyhound lost
+this," he said. And after a while he met with another drop of blood, and
+then with a third, and he put them in the napkin. And after that again
+he saw a woman, and she gathering rushes as if she had lost her wits.
+
+He went towards her and asked her what news had she. "I cannot tell it
+till I gather the rushes," she said. "Be telling it while you are
+gathering them," said Diarmuid. "There is great haste on me," she said.
+"What is this place where we are?" said Diarmuid. "It is
+Land-under-Wave," said she. "And what use have you for the rushes when
+they are gathered?" "The daughter of King Under-Wave is come home," she
+said, "and she was for seven years under enchantment, and there is
+sickness on her now, and all the physicians are gathered together and
+none of them can do her any good, and a bed of rushes is what she finds
+the wholesomest." "Will you show me where the king's daughter is?" said
+Diarmuid. "I will do that," said the woman; "I will put you in the sheaf
+of rushes, and I will put the rushes under you and over you, and I will
+carry you to her on my back." "That is a thing you cannot do," said
+Diarmuid. But she put the rushes about him, and lifted him on her back,
+and when she got to the room she let down the bundle. "O come here to
+me," said the daughter of King Under-Wave, and Diarmuid went over to
+her, and they took one another's hands, and were very joyful at that
+meeting. "Three parts of my sickness is gone from me now," she said
+then; "but I am not well yet, and I never will be, for every time I
+thought of you, Diarmuid, on my journey, I lost a drop of the blood of
+my heart." "I have got those three drops here in this napkin," said
+Diarmuid, "and take them now in a drink and you will be healed of your
+sickness." "They would do nothing for me," she said, "since I have not
+the one thing in the world that I want, and that is the thing I will
+never get," she said. "What thing is that?" said Diarmuid. "It is the
+thing you will never get, nor any man in the world," she said, "for it
+is a long time they have failed to get it." "If it is in any place on
+the whole ridge of the world I will get it," said Diarmuid. "It is three
+draughts from the cup of the King of Magh an Ionganaidh, the Plain of
+Wonder," she said, "and no man ever got it or ever will get it." "Tell
+me where that cup is to be found," said Diarmuid, "for there are not as
+many men as will keep it from me on the whole ridge of the world." "That
+country is not far from the boundary of my father's country," she said;
+"but there is a little river between, and you would be sailing on that
+river in a ship, having the wind behind it, for a year and a day before
+you would reach to the Plain of Wonder."
+
+Diarmuid set out then, and he came to the little river, and he was a
+good while walking beside it, and he saw no way to cross it. But at last
+he saw a low-sized, reddish man that was standing in the middle of the
+river. "You are in straits, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," he said;
+"and come here and put your foot in the palm of my hand and I will bring
+you through." Diarmuid did as he bade him, and put his foot in the red
+man's palm, and he brought him across the river. "It is going to the
+King of the Plain of Wonder you are," he said, "to bring away his cup
+from him; and I myself will go with you."
+
+They went on then till they came to the king's dun, and Diarmuid called
+out that the cup should be sent out to him, or else champions to fight
+with him should be sent out. It was not the cup was sent out, but twice
+eight hundred fighting men; and in three hours there was not one of them
+left to stand against him. Then twice nine hundred better fighters
+again were sent out against him, and within four hours there was not one
+of them left to stand against him. Then the king himself came out, and
+he stood in the great door, and he said: "Where did the man come from
+that has brought destruction on the whole of my kingdom?" "I will tell
+you that," said he; "I am Diarmuid, a man of the Fianna of Ireland." "It
+is a pity you not to have sent a messenger telling me that," said the
+king, "and I would not have spent my men upon you; for seven years
+before you were born it was put in the prophecy that you would come to
+destroy them. And what is it you are asking now?" he said. "It is the
+cup of healing from your own hand I am asking," said Diarmuid. "No man
+ever got that cup from me but yourself," said the king, "but it is easy
+for me to give it to you, whether or not there is healing in it."
+
+Then the King of the Plain of Wonder gave Diarmuid the cup, and they
+parted from one another; and Diarmuid went on till he came to the river,
+and it was then he thought of the red man, that he had given no thought
+to while he was at the king's house. But he was there before him, and
+took his foot in the palm of his hand and brought him over the river. "I
+know where it is you are going, Diarmuid," he said then; "it is to heal
+the daughter of King Under-Wave that you have given your love to. And it
+is to a well I will give you the signs of you should go," he said, "and
+bring a share of the water of that well with you. And when you come
+where the woman is, it is what you have to do, to put that water in the
+cup, and one of the drops of blood in it, and she will drink it, and the
+same with the second drop and the third, and her sickness will be gone
+from her from that time. But there is another thing will be gone along
+with it," he said, "and that is the love you have for her."
+
+"That will not go from me," said Diarmuid. "It will go from you," said
+the man; "and it will be best for you make no secret of it, for she will
+know, and the king will know, that you think no more of her then than of
+any other woman. And King Under-Wave will come to you," he said, "and
+will offer you great riches for healing his daughter. But take nothing
+from him," he said, "but ask only a ship to bring you home again to
+Ireland. And do you know who am I myself?" he said. "I do not know,"
+said Diarmuid. "I am the messenger from beyond the world," he said; "and
+I came to your help because your own heart is hot to come to the help of
+another."
+
+So Diarmuid did as he bade him, and he brought the water and the cup and
+the drops of blood to the woman, and she drank them, and at the third
+draught she was healed. And no sooner was she healed than the love he
+had for her was gone, and he turned away from her. "O Diarmuid," she
+said, "your love is gone from me." "O, it is gone indeed," said he.
+
+Then there was music made in the whole place, and the lamenting was
+stopped, because of the healing of the king's daughter. And as to
+Diarmuid, he would take no reward and he would not stop there, but he
+asked for a ship to bring him home to Ireland, to Finn and the Fianna.
+And when he came where they were, there was a joyful welcome before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE HARD SERVANT
+
+
+The Fianna went hunting one time in the two proud provinces of Munster.
+They went out from Almhuin by the nearest paths till they came to the
+Brosna river in Slieve Bladhma, and from there to the twelve mountains
+of Eiblinne, and on to Aine Cliach, the harp of Aine.
+
+They scattered themselves then and hunted through the borders of the
+forest that is called Magh Breogain, through blind trackless places and
+through broken lands, over beautiful level plains and the high hills of
+Desmumum, under pleasant Slieve Crot and smooth Slieve na Muc, along the
+level banks of the blue Siuir and over the green plain of Feman and the
+rough plain of Eithne, and the dark woods of Belach Gabrain.
+
+And Finn was at the side of a hill, and the chief men of the Fianna
+along with him, to watch the hunting; for they liked to be listening to
+the outcry of the hounds and the hurried cries of the boys, and the
+noise and the whistling and the shouts of the strong men.
+
+Finn asked then which of the men that were with him would go and keep
+watch on the side of the hill where they were. And Finnbane, son of
+Bresel, said he would go. And he went on to the top of the hill, where
+he could see about him on all sides. And he was not long there till he
+saw coming from the east a very big man, ugly and gloomy and deformed;
+and it is how he was, a dark-coloured shield on his back, a wide sword
+on his crooked left thigh, two spears on his shoulder, a torn loose
+cloak over his limbs, that were as black as a quenched coal. A sulky
+horse he had with him that had no good appearance, bony and thin as to
+body, and weak in the legs, and he leading it with a rough iron halter;
+and it was a great wonder the head was not pulled from the horse's body,
+or the arms pulled out of his owner, with the sudden stands and stops
+and the jerks it made. And the big man was striking blows on the horse
+with an iron cudgel to try and knock some going out of him, and the
+sound of the blows was like the breaking of strong waves.
+
+And when Finnbane saw all that, he thought to himself it would not be
+right to let the like of that stranger go up unknown to Finn and the
+Fianna, and he ran back in haste to where they were and told them all he
+had seen.
+
+And when he had told his story, they saw the big man coming towards
+them; but as short as he was from them he was long in coming, from the
+badness of his walk and his going.
+
+And when he came into Finn's presence he saluted him, and bowed his head
+and bent his knee, making signs of humility.
+
+Finn raised his hand over his head then, and asked news of him, and if
+he was of the noble or of the mean blood of the great world. He answered
+that he had no knowledge who he came from, but only that he was a man of
+the Fomor, travelling in search of wages to the kings of the earth, "and
+I heard," he said, "that Finn never refused wages to any man." "I never
+did indeed," said Finn, "and I will not refuse you. But why is it," he
+said, "you are without a boy to mind your horse?" "I have a good reason
+for that," said the big man; "there is nothing in the world is worse to
+me than a boy to be with me; for it is a hundred men's share of food,"
+he said, "that serves me for one day, and it is little enough I think
+it, and I would begrudge a boy to be sharing it with me." "What is the
+name you have?" said Finn. "The name I have is the Gilla Decair, the
+Hard Servant," said he. "Why did you get that name?" said Finn. "There
+is a good reason for that," said the big man, "for there is nothing in
+the world is harder to me than to do anything at all for my master, or
+whatever person I am with. And tell me this, Conan, son of Morna," he
+said, "who gets the best wages, a horseman or a man afoot?" "A horseman
+gets twice as much," said Conan. "Then I call you to witness, Conan," he
+said, "that I am a horseman, and that it was as a horseman I came to the
+Fianna. And give me your guarantee now, Finn, son of Cumhal, and the
+guarantee of the Fianna, and I will turn out my horse with your horses."
+"Let him out then," said Finn.
+
+The big man pulled off the iron halter then from his horse, and it made
+off as hard as it could go, till it came where the horses of the Fianna
+were; and it began to tear and to kick and to bite at them, killing and
+maiming. "Take your horse out of that, big man," said Conan; "and by the
+earth and the sky," he said, "only it was on the guarantee of Finn and
+the Fianna you took the halter off him, I would let out his brains
+through the windows of his head; and many as is the bad prize Finn has
+found in Ireland," he said, "he never got one as bad as yourself." "And
+I swear by earth and sky as well as yourself," said the big man, "I will
+never bring him out of that; for I have no serving-boy to do it for me,
+and it is not work for me to be leading my horse by the hand."
+
+Conan, son of Morna, rose up then and took the halter and put it on the
+horse, and led it back to where Finn was, and held it with his hand.
+"You would never have done a horse-boy's service, Conan," said Finn, "to
+any one of the Fianna, however far he might be beyond this Fomor. And if
+you will do what I advise," he said, "you will get up on the horse now,
+and search out with him all the hills and hollows and flowery plains of
+Ireland, till his heart is broken in his body in payment for the way he
+destroyed the horses of the Fianna."
+
+Conan made a leap then on to the horse, and struck his heels hard into
+him, but with all that the horse would not stir. "I know what ails him,"
+said Finn, "he will not stir till he has the same weight of horsemen on
+him as the weight of the big man."
+
+On that thirteen men of the Fianna went up behind Conan, and the horse
+lay down with them and rose up again. "I think that you are mocking at
+my horse and at myself," said the big man; "and it is a pity for me to
+be spending the rest of the year with you, after all the humbugging I
+saw in you to-day, Finn. And I know well," he said, "that all I heard
+about you was nothing but lies, and there was no cause for the great
+name you have through the world. And I will quit you now, Finn," he
+said.
+
+With that he went from them, slow and weak, dragging himself along till
+he had put a little hill between himself and the Fianna. And as soon as
+he was on the other side of it, he tucked up his cloak to his waist, and
+away with him, as if with the quickness of a swallow or a deer, and the
+rush of his going was like a blast of loud wind going over plains and
+mountains in spring-time.
+
+When the horse saw his master going from him, he could not bear with it,
+but great as his load was he set out at full gallop following after him.
+And when Finn and the Fianna saw the thirteen men behind Conan, son of
+Morna, on the horse, and he starting off, they shouted with mocking
+laughter.
+
+And when Conan found that he was not able to come down off the horse, he
+screeched and shouted to them not to let him be brought away with the
+big man they knew nothing of, and he began abusing and reproaching them.
+"A cloud of death over water on you, Finn," he said, "and that some son
+of a slave or a robber of the bad blood, one that is a worse son of a
+father and mother even than yourself, may take all that might protect
+your life, and your head along with that, unless you follow us to
+whatever place or island the big man will carry us to, and unless you
+bring us back to Ireland again."
+
+Finn and the Fianna rose up then, and they followed the Gilla Decair
+over every bald hill, and through every valley and every river, on to
+pleasant Slieve Luachra, into the borders of Corca Duibhne; and the big
+man, that was up on the horse then along with Conan and the rest, faced
+towards the deep sea. And Liagan Luath of Luachar took hold of the
+horse's tail with his two hands, thinking to drag him back by the hair
+of it; but the horse gave a great tug, and away with him over the sea,
+and Liagan along with him, holding on to his tail.
+
+It was a heavy care to Finn, those fourteen men of his people to be
+brought away from him, and he himself under bonds to bring them back.
+"What can we do now?" Oisin asked him. "What should we do, but to follow
+our people to whatever place or island the big man has brought them,
+and, whatever way we do it, to bring them back to Ireland again." "What
+can we do, having neither a ship or any kind of boat?" said Oisin. "We
+have this," said Finn, "the Tuatha de Danaan left as a gift to the
+children of the Gael, that whoever might have to leave Ireland for a
+while, had but to go to Beinn Edair, and however many would go along
+with him, they would find a ship that would hold them all." Finn looked
+towards the sea then, and he saw two strong armed men coming towards
+him. The first one had on his back a shield ribbed and of many colours,
+having shapes of strange, wonderful beasts engraved on it, and a heavy
+sword at his side, and two thick spears on his shoulders; a cloak of
+lasting crimson about him, with a gold brooch on the breast; a band of
+white bronze on his head, gold under each of his feet; and the other was
+dressed in the same way. They made no delay till they came to where Finn
+was, and they bowed their heads and bent their knees before him, and
+Finn raised his hand over their heads, and bade them to give an account
+of themselves. "We are sons of the King of the Eastern World," they
+said, "and we are come to Ireland asking to be taken into the service of
+Finn; for we heard there was not a man in all Ireland," they said,
+"would be better than yourself to judge of the skill we have." "What is
+your name, and what skill is that?" said Finn. "My name is Feradach,
+the Very Brave," he said; "and I have a carpenter's axe and a sling, and
+if there were so many as thirty hundred of the men of Ireland along with
+me in one spot, with three blows of the axe on the sling-stick I could
+get a ship that would hold them all. And I would ask no more help of
+them," he said, "than to bow down their heads while I was striking those
+three blows." "That is a good art," said Finn. "And tell me now," he
+said, "what can the other man do?" "I can do this," he said, "I can
+follow the track of the teal over nine ridges and nine furrows until I
+come on her in her bed; and it is the same to me to do it on sea as on
+land," he said. "That is a good art," said Finn; "and it would be a good
+help to us if you would come following a track with us now." "What is
+gone from you?" said one of the men. Finn told them then the whole story
+of the Hard Servant.
+
+Then Feradach, the Very Brave, struck three blows on his sling-stick
+with the axe that he had, and the whole of the Fianna bowed their heads,
+and on the moment the whole of the bay and of the harbour was filled
+with ships and with fast boats. "What will we do with that many ships?"
+said Finn. "We will do away with all you make no use of," he said.
+
+Caoilte rose up then and let out three great shouts, and all the Fianna
+of Ireland, in whatever places they were, heard them, and they thought
+Finn and his people to be in some kind of danger from men from beyond
+the sea.
+
+They came then in small companies as they chanced to be, till they came
+to the stepping-stones of the Cat's Head in the western part of Corca
+Duibhne. And they asked news of Finn, what had happened that he called
+them away from their hunting, and Finn told them all that had happened.
+Then Finn and Oisin went into council together, and it is what they
+agreed; that as but fifteen of his people were brought away from Finn,
+he himself with fifteen others would go on their track; Oisin to be left
+at the head of the Fianna to guard Ireland.
+
+And they said farewell to one another, and a grand ship was made ready
+for Finn and his people, and there was food put in it for using and gold
+for giving away. The young men and the heroes took to their seats then,
+and took hold of the oars, and they set out over the restless hills and
+the dark valleys of the great sea.
+
+And the sea rose up and bellowed, and there was madness on the broken
+green waters; but to Finn and his people it was a call in the morning
+and a sleepy time at night to be listening to the roaring and the
+crooning that was ever and always about the sides of the ship.
+
+They went on like that for three days and three nights, and saw no
+country or island. But at the end of that time a man of them went up
+into the head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough
+grey cliff. They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of
+the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an
+eel's back. And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to
+the foot of the rock.
+
+Fergus of the True Lips said then to Diarmuid: "It is no brave thing you
+are doing, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to hold back like this, for it
+was with Manannan the Powerful, son of Lir, you were reared and got your
+learning, in the Land of Promise and in the coasts of the harbours, and
+with Angus Og, the Dagda's son. And are you without any share of their
+skill and their daring now," he said, "that would bring Finn and his
+people up this rock?"
+
+Diarmuid's face reddened when he heard those words, and he took hold of
+Manannan's staves of power that were with him, and he reddened again,
+and he rose on the staves and gave a leap, and got a standing-place for
+his two feet on the overhanging rock. He looked down from that on Finn
+and his people, but whatever wish he had to bring them up to where he
+was, he was not able to do it.
+
+He left the rock behind him then, and he was not gone far when he saw a
+wild tangled place before him, with thick woods that were of all he had
+ever walked the most leafy and the fullest of the sounds of wind and
+streams and birds, and of the humming of bees.
+
+He went on walking the plain, and as he was looking about him, he saw a
+great tree with many twigs and branches, and a rock beside it, and a
+smooth-pointed drinking-horn on it, and a beautiful fresh well at its
+foot. And there was a great drouth on Diarmuid after the sea-journey,
+and he had a mind to drink a hornful of the water. But when he stooped
+to it he heard a great noise coming towards him, and he knew then there
+was enchantment in the water.
+
+"I will drink my fill of it for all that," he said. And it was not long
+after that till he saw a Man of Enchantments coming towards him armed,
+having no friendly look. And it was in no friendly way he spoke to
+Diarmuid when he came up to him, but he gave him great abuse. "It is no
+right thing," he said, "to be walking through my thickets and to be
+drinking up my share of water." With that they faced one another
+angrily, and they fought till the end of the day.
+
+The Enchanter thought it well to leave off fighting then, and he made a
+leap into the bottom of the well away from him, but there was vexation
+on Diarmuid to be left like that.
+
+He looked around him then, and he saw a herd of deer coming through the
+scrub, and he went towards them, and threw a spear that went through the
+nearest stag and drove the bowels out of him. He kindled a fire then,
+and he cut thin bits of the flesh and put them on spits of white hazel,
+and that night he had his fill of meat and of the water of the well.
+
+He rose up early on the morrow, and he found the Enchanter at the well
+before him. "It seems to me, Grandson of Duibhne," he said, "that it is
+not enough for you to be walking my scrub and my woods without killing
+my deer as well." With that they started again, giving one another blow
+for blow, thrust for thrust, and wound for wound till the end of the day
+came on them. And Diarmuid killed another great deer that night, and in
+the morning the fight began again. But in the evening, when the
+Enchanter was making his leap into the well, Diarmuid threw his arms
+about his neck, thinking to stop him, but it is what happened, he fell
+in himself. And when he was at the bottom of the well the Enchanter left
+him.
+
+Diarmuid went then following after the Enchanter, and he found before
+him a beautiful wide flowery plain, and a comely royal city in the
+plain, and on the green before the dun he saw a great army; and when
+they saw Diarmuid following after the Enchanter, they left a way and a
+royal road for the Enchanter to pass through till he got inside the dun.
+And then they shut the gates, and the whole army turned on Diarmuid.
+
+But that put no fear or cowardice on him, but he went through them and
+over them like a hawk would go through little birds, or a wild dog
+through a flock of sheep, killing all before him, till some of them made
+away to the woods and wastes, and another share of them through the
+gates of the dun, and they shut them, and the gates of the city after
+them. And Diarmuid, all full of hurts and wounds after the hard fight,
+lay down on the plain. A very strong daring champion came then and
+kicked at him from behind, and at that Diarmuid roused himself up, and
+put out his brave ready hand for his weapons.
+
+"Wait a while, Grandson of Duibhne," the champion said then; "it is not
+to do you any hurt or harm I am come, but to say to you it is a bad
+sleeping-place for you to have, and it on your ill-wisher's lawn. And
+come now with me," he said, "and I will give you a better
+resting-place."
+
+Diarmuid followed him then, and they went a long, long way from that,
+till they came to a high-topped city, and three times fifty brave
+champions in it, three times fifty modest women, and another young woman
+on a bench, with blushes in her cheeks, and delicate hands, and having a
+silken cloak about her, and a dress sewed with gold threads, and on her
+head the flowing veil of a queen.
+
+There was a good welcome before Diarmuid for his own sake and the sake
+of his people, and he was put in a house of healing that was in the
+city, and good herbs were put to his hurts till he was smooth and sound
+again.
+
+And a feast was made then, and the tables and the benches were set, and
+no high person was put in the place of the mean, or mean in the place of
+the high, but every one in his own place, according to his nobility, or
+his descent, or his art. Plenty of good food was brought to them then,
+and well-tasting strong drinks, and they spent the first part of the
+night in drinking, and the second part with music and delight and
+rejoicing of the mind, and the third part in sound sleep that lasted
+till the sun rose over the heavy sodded earth on the morrow.
+
+Three days and three nights Diarmuid stopped in that city, and the best
+feast he ever found was given to him all through. And at the end of that
+time he asked what was the place he was in, and who was head of it. And
+the champion that brought him there told him it was Land-Under-Wave, and
+that the man that had fought with him was its king. "And he is an enemy
+of the Red Hand to me," he said. "And as to myself," he said, "I was
+one time getting wages from Finn, son of Cumhal, in Ireland, and I never
+put a year over me that pleased me better. And tell me now," he said,
+"what is the journey or the work that is before you?"
+
+And Diarmuid told him the story of the Hard Servant then from beginning
+to end.
+
+Now, as to Finn and his people, when they thought Diarmuid was too long
+away from them, they made ladders of the cords of the ship and put them
+against the rock, looking for him.
+
+And after a while they found the leavings of the meat he had eaten, for
+Diarmuid never ate meat without leaving some after him.
+
+Finn looked then on every side, and he saw a rider coming towards him
+over the plain on a dark-coloured beautiful horse, having a bridle of
+red gold. Finn saluted him when he came up, and the rider stooped his
+head and gave Finn three kisses, and asked him to go with him. They went
+on a long way till they came to a wide, large dwelling-place full of
+arms, and a great troop of armed men on the green before the fort. Three
+nights and three days Finn and his people stopped in the dun, and the
+best feast they ever got was served out to them.
+
+At the end of that time Finn asked what country was he in, and the man
+that brought him there told him it was the land of Sorcha, and that he
+himself was its king. "And I was with yourself one time, Finn, son of
+Cumhal," he said, "taking your wages through the length of a year in
+Ireland."
+
+Then Finn and the King of Sorcha called a great gathering of the people
+and a great meeting. And when it was going on they saw a woman-messenger
+coming to them through the crowd, and the king asked news of her. "I
+have news indeed," she said; "the whole of the bay and the harbour is
+full of ships and of boats, and there are armies all through the country
+robbing all before them." "I know well," said the king, "it is the High
+King of Greece is in it, for he has a mind to put the entire world under
+him, and to get hold of this country like every other." The King of
+Sorcha looked at Finn then, and Finn understood it was help from him he
+was asking, and it is what he said: "I take the protection of this
+country on myself so long as I am in it." He and his people rose up
+then, and the King of Sorcha along with them, and they went looking for
+the strange army. And when they came up with it they made great
+slaughter of its champions, and those they did not kill ran before them,
+and made no better stand than a flock of frightened birds, till there
+were hardly enough of them left to tell the story.
+
+The High King spoke then, and it is what he said: "Who is it has done
+this great slaughter of my people? And I never heard before," he said,
+"any talk of the courage or of the doings of the men of Ireland either
+at this time or in the old times. But from this out," he said, "I will
+banish the Sons of the Gael for ever to the very ends of the earth."
+
+But Finn and the King of Sorcha raised a green tent in view of the ships
+of the Greeks.
+
+The King of the Greeks called then for help against Finn and the King of
+Sorcha, to get satisfaction for the shame that was put on his people.
+And the sons of kings of the eastern and southern world came to his
+help, but they could make no stand against Finn and Osgar and Oisin and
+Goll, son of Morna. And at the last the King of Greece brought all his
+people back home, the way no more of them would be put an end to.
+
+And then Finn and the King of Sorcha called another great gathering. And
+while it was going on, they saw coming towards them a great troop of
+champions, bearing flags of many-coloured silk, and grey swords at
+their sides and high spears reared up over their heads. And in the front
+of them was Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne.
+
+When Finn saw him, he sent Fergus of the True Lips to ask news of him,
+and they told one another all that had happened.
+
+And it would take too long to tell, and it would tire the hearers, how
+Finn made the Hard Servant bring home his fifteen men that he had
+brought away. And when he had brought them back to Ireland, the whole of
+the Fianna were watching to see him ride away again, himself and his
+long-legged horse. But while they were watching him, he vanished from
+them, and all they could see was a mist, and it stretching out towards
+the sea.
+
+And that is the story of the Hard Servant, and of Diarmuid's adventures
+on the island Under-Wave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES
+
+
+And it is often the Fianna would have been badly off without the help of
+Diarmuid. It was he came to their help the time Miodac, the son of the
+King of Lochlann, brought them into the enchanted House of the Quicken
+Trees.
+
+It was by treachery he brought them in, giving himself out to be a poet,
+and making poems for Finn to make out the meaning of. A verse he made
+about a great army that he saw riding over the plains to victory, and
+robbing all before it, and the riders of it having no horses but plants
+and branches. "I understand that," said Finn, "it was an army of bees
+you saw, that was gathering riches from the flowers as it went." And
+another verse Miodac made was about a woman in Ireland that was swifter
+than the swiftest horse. "I know that," said Finn, "that woman is the
+River Boinn; and if she goes slow itself, she is swifter in the end than
+the swiftest horse, for her going never stops." And other verses he made
+about Angus' house at Brugh na Boinn, but Finn made them all out.
+
+And after that he said he had a feast ready for them, and he bade them
+go into his House of the Quicken Trees till he would bring it. And they
+did that, and went in, and it was a beautiful house, having walls of
+every colour, and foreign coverings of every colour on the floor, and a
+fire that gave out a very pleasant smoke. And they sat down there, and
+after a while Finn said: "It is a wonder such a beautiful house to be
+here." "There is a greater wonder than that," said Goll; "that fire that
+was so pleasant when we came in is giving out now the worst stench in
+the world." "There is a greater wonder than that," said Glas; "the walls
+that were of all colours are now but rough boards joined together."
+"There is a greater wonder than that," said Fiacha; "where there were
+seven high doors to the house there is now but one little door, and it
+shut." "Indeed, there is a more wonderful thing than that," said Conan;
+"for we sat down on beautiful coverings, and now there is nothing
+between us and the bare ground, and it as cold as the snow of one
+night." And he tried to rise up, but he could not stir, or any of the
+rest of them, for there was enchantment that kept them where they were.
+
+And it was the treachery of Miodac, and the spells of the Three Kings of
+the Island of the Floods that had brought them into that danger. And
+Finn knew by his divination that their enemies were gathering to make an
+end of them, and he said to his people there was no use in making
+complaints, but to sound the music of the Dord Fiann.
+
+And some of the Fianna that were waiting for him not far off heard that
+sorrowful music, and came fighting against Miodac and his armies, and
+they fought well, but they could not stand against them. And at the last
+it was Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, that made an end of Miodac that
+was so treacherous, and of the Three Kings of the Island of the Floods,
+and took the enchantment off the floor of the House of the Rowan Trees
+with their blood.
+
+And when he was freeing the Fianna, Conan called out, asking him to
+bring him a share of the feast Miodac had made ready for his own
+friends, for there was hunger on him. And when Diarmuid took no heed of
+him, he said: "If it was a comely woman was speaking to you, Diarmuid,
+you would not refuse to listen."
+
+For if many women loved Diarmuid, there were many he himself gave his
+love to; and if he was often called Diarmuid the brave, or the hardy, or
+the comely, or the Hawk of Ess Ruadh, it is often he was called as well
+the friend and the coaxer of women, Diarmuid-na-man.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SEVEN: DIARMUID AND GRANIA.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE FLIGHT FROM TEAMHAIR
+
+
+Finn rose up one morning early in Almhuin of Leinster, and he sat out
+alone on the green lawn without a boy or a servant being with him. And
+Oisin followed him there, and Diorraing the Druid. "What is the cause of
+your early rising, Finn?" said Oisin. "It is not without cause, indeed,
+I rise early," said Finn, "for I am without a wife or a companion since
+Maighneis, daughter of Black Garraidh, died from me; for quiet sleep is
+not used to come to a man that is without a fitting wife." "Why would
+you be like that?" said Oisin, "for there is not a woman in all green
+Ireland you would throw a look on but we would bring her to you, willing
+or unwilling." "I myself could find a wife would be fitting for you,"
+said Diorraing. "Who is that?" said Finn. "It is Grania, daughter of the
+High King of Ireland," said Diorraing; "and she is the woman of the best
+make and shape and the best speech of the women of the whole world." "By
+my word, Diorraing," said Finn, "there is strife and disagreement
+between the High King and myself this long time, and it would not be
+pleasing to me to get a refusal from him. And it is best for you two to
+go together," he said, "and to ask his daughter for me in marriage; the
+way that if he gives a refusal, it will be to you and not to myself he
+will give it." "We will go," said Oisin, "even if it is little profit we
+will get by it. And let no one at all know of our going," he said,
+"until such time as we are come back again."
+
+After that the two bade farewell to Finn, and set out, and it is not
+told what they did till they came to Teamhair. The King of Ireland was
+holding a gathering at that time on the green of Teamhair, and the chief
+nobles of his people were with him. And there was a friendly welcome
+given to Oisin and to Diorraing, and the king put off the gathering
+till the next day, for he was sure it was some pressing thing had
+brought these two men of the Fianna to Teamhair. And Oisin went aside
+with him, and told him it was to ask his daughter Grania in marriage
+they were come from Finn, Head of the Fianna of Ireland.
+
+The king spoke, and it is what he said: "There is not a son of a king or
+of a great prince, there is not a champion in Ireland my daughter has
+not given a refusal to, and it is on me they all lay the blame of that.
+And I will give you no answer at all," he said, "till you go to herself;
+for it is better for you to get her own answer, than to be displeased
+with me."
+
+So they went together to the sunny house of the women, and the king sat
+down at the head of the high seat beside Grania, and he said: "Here,
+Grania, are two of the people of Finn, son of Cumhal, come to ask you as
+a wife for him, and what answer have you a mind to give them?" And it is
+what Grania said: "If he is a fitting son-in-law for you, why would he
+not be a fitting husband for me?"
+
+They were satisfied then, and there was a feast made for them that night
+in Grania's sunny house, and the king settled for a meeting a fortnight
+from that time between himself and Finn at Teamhair.
+
+So Oisin and Diorraing went back again to Almhuin, and told Finn their
+story from beginning to end. And as everything wears away, so did that
+time of delay.
+
+And then Finn gathered together the seven battalions of the Fianna from
+every part where they were to Almhuin. And they set out in great bands
+and troops till they came to Teamhair.
+
+The king was out on the green before them, and the great people of the
+men of Ireland, and there was a great welcome before Finn and the
+Fianna.
+
+But when Grania saw grey-haired Finn, she said: "It is a great wonder
+it was not for Oisin Finn asked me, for he would be more fitting for me
+than a man that is older than my father."
+
+But they talked together for a while, and Finn was putting questions to
+Grania, for she had the name of being very quick with answers. "What is
+whiter than snow?" he said. "The truth," said Grania. "What is the best
+colour?" said Finn. "The colour of childhood," said she. "What is hotter
+than fire?" "The face of a hospitable man when he sees a stranger coming
+in, and the house empty." "What has a taste more bitter than poison?"
+"The reproach of an enemy." "What is best for a champion?" "His doings
+to be high, and his pride to be low." "What is the best of jewels?" "A
+knife." "What is sharper than a sword?" "The wit of a woman between two
+men." "What is quicker than the wind?" said Finn then. "A woman's mind,"
+said Grania. And indeed she was telling no lie when she said that. And
+for all their talk together she had no liking for Finn, and she felt the
+blood in her heart to be rising against him.
+
+And the wedding-feast was made ready then, and they all went into the
+king's feasting-house in the Middle Court. And the king sat down to take
+his share of drinking and pleasure, and his wife at his left side, and
+Grania beside her again; and Finn, son of Cumhal, at the right hand of
+the king, and Oisin at the other side, and every other one according to
+his nobility and his birth.
+
+Then Daire of the poems stood up before Grania, and sang the songs and
+good poems of her fathers to her. And there was sitting near to Grania a
+knowledgeable man, a Druid of Finn's people, and it was not long until
+they began to talk together. "Tell me now," said Grania, "who is that
+man on the right hand of Oisin?" "That is Goll, son of Morna," said the
+Druid, "the ready fighter." "Who is that beside Goll?" said Grania.
+"Osgar, son of Oisin," said the Druid. "And who is that thin-legged man
+beside Osgar?" "That is Caoilte, son of Ronan." "Who is that proud,
+hasty man beside Caoilte?" "Lugaidh's Son of the Strong Hand." "Who is
+that sweet-worded man," she said then, "with the dark hair, and cheeks
+like the rowan berry, on the left side of Oisin, son of Finn?" "That is
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," said the Druid, "that is the best lover
+of women in the whole world." "That is a good company," said Grania.
+
+And after the feast had gone on a while, their own feast was made for
+the dogs outside. And the dogs began to fight with one another, and the
+noise was heard in the hall, and the chief men of the Fianna went to
+drive them away from one another.
+
+Now Diarmuid was used to keep his cap always over the love-spot the
+woman had left on his forehead, for no woman could see that spot but she
+would give him her love. And it chanced, while he was driving the dogs
+apart, the cap fell from him, and Grania was looking cut at him as it
+fell, and great love for him came on her there and then. And she called
+her serving-maid to her, and bade her bring the great golden cup that
+held drink for nine times nine men from the sunny house. And when the
+serving-maid brought the cup, she filled it with wine that had
+enchantment in it, and she said: "Give the cup first to Finn, and bid
+him take a drink from it, and tell him it is I myself sent it to him."
+So the serving-maid did that, and Finn took the cup and drank out of it,
+and no sooner did he drink than he fell into a deep sleep. And then the
+cup was given to the king, and the queen, and the sons of kings, and the
+whole company, but only Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and Diarmuid, and
+Diorraing the Druid. And all that drank of it fell into the same heavy
+sleep.
+
+And when they were all in their sleep, Grania rose up softly from the
+seat where she was, and she turned her face to Diarmuid, and she said:
+"Will you take my love, Diarmuid, son of Duibhne, and will you bring me
+away out of this house to-night?"
+
+"I will not," said Diarmuid; "I will not meddle with the woman that is
+promised to Finn." "If that is so," said Grania, "I put you under Druid
+bonds, to bring me out of this house to-night before the awaking of Finn
+and of the King of Ireland from their sleep."
+
+"It is under bad bonds you are putting me, Grania," said Diarmuid. "And
+why is it," he said, "that you put them on me more than on the great men
+and sons of kings that are in the Middle Court to-night? for there is
+not one of them all but is as well worthy of a woman's love as myself."
+"By my hand, Diarmuid, it is not without cause I laid those bonds on
+you," said Grania; "for I was at the door a while ago when you were
+parting the dogs," she said, "and my eyes fell on you, and I gave you
+the love there and then that I never gave to any other, and never will
+give for ever."
+
+"It is a wonder you to give that love to me, and not to Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "for there is not in Ireland a man is a better lover of a
+woman than himself. And do you know this, Grania," he said, "the night
+Finn is in Teamhair it is he himself is the keeper of its gates. And as
+that is so, we cannot leave the town." "There is a side door of escape
+at my sunny house," said Grania, "and we will go out by it." "It is a
+thing I will never do," said Diarmuid, "to go out by any side door of
+escape at all." "That may be so," said Grania, "but I heard it said that
+every fighting man has leave to pass over the walls of any dun and of
+any strong place at all by the shafts of his spears. And I will go out
+through the door," she said, "and let you follow me like that."
+
+With that she went out, and Diarmuid spoke to his people, and it is what
+he said, "O Oisin, son of Finn, what must I do with these bonds that
+are laid on me?" "You are not guilty if the bonds were laid on you,"
+said Oisin; "and I tell you to follow Grania, and to keep yourself well
+out of the hands of Finn." "Osgar, son of Oisin," he said then, "what
+must I do with these bonds that are put on me?" "I tell you to follow
+Grania," said Osgar, "for it is a pitiful man that would break his
+bonds." "What advice do you give me, Caoilte?" said Diarmuid. "It is
+what I say," said Caoilte, "that I myself have a fitting wife; and that
+it would be better to me than all the riches of the world Grania to have
+given me that love." "What advice do you give me, Diorraing?" "I tell
+you to follow Grania," said Diorraing, "although you will get your death
+by it, and that is bad to me." "Is that the advice you all give me?"
+said Diarmuid. "It is," said Oisin, and all the rest with him. With that
+Diarmuid stood up and stretched out his hand for his weapons, and he
+said farewell to Oisin and the others, and every tear he shed was of the
+size of a mountain berry. He went out then to the wall of the dun, and
+he put the shafts of his two spears under him, and he rose with a light
+leap and he came down on the grassy earth outside, and Grania met him
+there. Then Diarmuid said: "It is a bad journey you are come on, Grania.
+For it would be better for you to have Finn, son of Cumhal, as a lover
+than myself, for I do not know any part or any western corner of Ireland
+that will hide you. And if I do bring you with me," he said, "it is not
+as a wife I will bring you, but I will keep my faith to Finn. And turn
+back now to the town," he said, "and Finn will never get news of what
+you are after doing." "It is certain I will not turn back," said Grania,
+"and I will never part with you till death parts us." "If that is so,
+let us go on, Grania," said Diarmuid.
+
+They went on then, and they were not gone far out from the town when
+Grania said: "I am getting tired, indeed." "It is a good time to be
+tired," said Diarmuid, "and go now back again to your own house. For I
+swear by the word of a true champion," he said, "I will never carry
+yourself or any other woman to the end of life and time." "That is not
+what you have to do," said Grania, "for my father's horses are in a
+grass field by themselves, and chariots with them; and turn back now,
+and bring two horses of them, and I will wait in this place till you
+come to me again."
+
+Diarmuid went back then for the horses, and we have no knowledge of
+their journey till they reached to the ford on the Sionnan, that is
+called now Ath-luain.
+
+And Diarmuid said then to Grania: "It is easier to Finn to follow our
+track, the horses being with us." "If that is so," said Grania: "leave
+the horses here, and I will go on foot from this out."
+
+Diarmuid went down to the river then, and he brought a horse with him
+over the ford, and left the other horse the far side of the river. And
+he himself and Grania went a good way with the stream westward, and they
+went to land at the side of the province of Connacht. And wherever they
+went, Diarmuid left unbroken bread after him, as a sign to Finn he had
+kept his faith with him.
+
+And from that they went on to Doire-da-Bhoth, the Wood of the Two Huts.
+And Diarmuid cut down the wood round about them, and he made a fence
+having seven doors of woven twigs, and he set out a bed of soft rushes
+and of the tops of the birch-tree for Grania in the very middle of the
+wood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE PURSUIT
+
+
+And as to Finn, son of Cumhal, I will tell out his story now.
+
+All that were in Teamhair rose up early in the morning of the morrow,
+and they found Diarmuid and Grania were wanting from them, and there
+came a scorching jealousy and a weakness on Finn. He sent out his
+trackers then on the plain, and bade them to follow Diarmuid and Grania.
+And they followed the track as far as the ford on the Sionnan, and Finn
+and the Fianna followed after them, but they were not able to carry the
+track across the ford. And Finn gave them his word that unless they
+would find the track again without delay, he would hang them on each
+side of the ford.
+
+Then the sons of Neamhuin went up against the stream, and they found a
+horse on each side of it, and then they went on with the stream
+westward, and they found the track going along the side of the Province
+of Connacht, and Finn and the Fianna of Ireland followed it on. And Finn
+said: "I know well where we will find Diarmuid and Grania now; it is in
+Doire-da-Bhoth they are." Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and Diorraing were
+listening when Finn said those words. And Osgar spoke to the others, and
+it is what he said: "There is danger they might be there, and it would
+be right for us to give them some warning; and look now, Osgar, where is
+Bran the hound, for Finn himself is no dearer to him than Diarmuid, and
+bid him go now with a warning to him."
+
+So Osgar told Bran, and Bran understood him well, and she went to the
+rear of the whole troop the way Finn would not see her, and she followed
+on the track of Diarmuid and Grania till she came to Doire-da-Bhoth, and
+she put her head into Diarmuid's bosom, and he in his sleep.
+
+Diarmuid started up out of his sleep then, and he awoke Grania, and said
+to her: "Here is Bran, Finn's hound, and she is come with a warning to
+tell us Finn himself is coming." "Let us take that warning, then," said
+Grania, "and make your escape." "I will not take it," said Diarmuid,
+"for if I cannot escape Finn, I would as soon he took me now as at any
+other time." When Grania heard that, great fear came on her.
+
+Bran went away from them then, and when Oisin saw her coming back, he
+said: "I am in dread Bran found no chance to get to Diarmuid, and we
+should send him some other warning. And look where is Fearghoin," he
+said, "Caoilte's serving-man." Now it was the way with Fearghoin, every
+shout he would give would be heard in the three nearest hundreds to him.
+So they made him give out three shouts the way Diarmuid would hear him.
+And Diarmuid heard him, and he said to Grania: "I hear Caoilte's
+serving-man, and it is with Caoilte he is, and it is along with Finn
+Caoilte is, and those shouts were sent as a warning to me." "Take that
+warning," said Grania. "I will not take it," said Diarmuid, "for Finn
+and the Fianna will come up with us before we leave the wood." And fear
+and great dread came on Grania when she heard him say that.
+
+As for Finn, he did not leave off following the track till he came to
+Doire-da-Bhoth, and he sent the sons of Neamhuin to search through the
+wood, and they saw Diarmuid, and the woman along with him. They came
+back then where Finn was, and he asked them were Diarmuid and Grania in
+the wood? "Diarmuid is in it," they said, "and there is some woman with
+him, but we knew Diarmuid, and we do not know Grania." "May no good come
+to the friends of Diarmuid for his sake," said Finn, "and he will not
+quit that wood till he has given me satisfaction for everything he has
+done to me."
+
+"It is jealousy has put you astray, Finn," said Oisin; "you to think
+Diarmuid would stop here on the plain of Maen Mhagh, and no close place
+in it but Doire-da-Bhoth, and you following after him." "Saying that
+will do you no good," said Finn, "for I knew well when I heard the three
+shouts Caoilte's serving-man gave out, it was you sent them to Diarmuid
+as a warning. And another thing," he said, "it was you sent my own
+hound Bran to him. But none of those things you have done will serve
+you, for he will not leave Doire-da-Bhoth till he gives me satisfaction
+for everything he has done to me, and every disgrace he has put on me."
+"It is great foolishness for you, Finn," said Osgar then, "to be
+thinking Diarmuid would stop in the middle of this plain and you waiting
+here to strike the head off him." "Who but himself cut the wood this
+way," said Finn, "and made this close sheltered place with seven woven
+narrow doors to it. And O Diarmuid," he said out then, "which of us is
+the truth with, myself or Oisin?" "You never failed from your good
+judgment, Finn," said Diarmuid, "and indeed I myself and Grania are
+here." Then Finn called to his men to go around Diarmuid and Grania, and
+to take them.
+
+Now it was shown at this time to Angus Og, at Brugh na Boinne, the great
+danger Diarmuid was in, that was his pupil at one time, and his dear
+foster-son. He set out then with the clear cold wind, and did not stop
+in any place till he came to Doire-da-Bhoth. And he went unknown to Finn
+or the Fianna into the place where Diarmuid and Grania were, and he
+spoke kind words to Diarmuid, and he said: "What is the thing you have
+done, grandson of Duibhne?" "It is," said Diarmuid, "the daughter of the
+King of Ireland that has made her escape with me from her father and
+from Finn, and it is not by my will she came." "Let each of you come
+under a border of my cloak, so," said Angus, "and I will bring you out
+of the place where you are without knowledge of Finn or his people."
+"Bring Grania with you," said Diarmuid, "but I will never go with you;
+but if I am alive I will follow you before long. And if I do not," he
+said, "give Grania to her father, and he will do well or ill to her."
+
+With that Angus put Grania under the border of his cloak, and brought
+her out unknown to Finn or the Fianna, and there is no news told of them
+till they came to Ros-da-Shoileach, the Headland of the Two Sallows.
+
+And as to Diarmuid, after Angus and Grania going from him, he stood up
+as straight as a pillar and put on his armour and his arms, and after
+that he went to a door of the seven doors he had made, and he asked who
+was at it. "There is no enemy to you here," they said, "for there are
+here Oisin and Osgar and the best men of the sons of Baiscne along with
+us. And come out to us now, and no one will have the daring to do any
+harm or hurt on you." "I will not go out to you," said Diarmuid, "till I
+see at what door Finn himself is." He went then to another door of the
+seven and asked who was at it. "Caoilte, son of Ronan, and the rest of
+the sons of Ronan along with him; and come out to us now, and we will
+give ourselves for your sake." "I will not go out to you," said
+Diarmuid, "for I will not put you under Finn's anger for any well-doing
+to myself." He went on to another door then and asked who was at it.
+"There is Conan, son of Morna, and the rest of the sons of Morna along
+with him; and it is enemies to Finn we are, and you are a great deal
+more to us than he is, and you may come out and no one will dare lay a
+hand on you." "I will not indeed," said Diarmuid, "for Finn would be
+better pleased to see the death of every one of you than to let me
+escape." He went then to another door and asked who was at it. "A friend
+and a comrade of your own, Fionn, son of Cuadan, head of the Fianna of
+Munster, and his men along with him; and we are of the one country and
+the one soil, and we will give our bodies and our lives for your sake."
+"I will not go out to you," said Diarmuid, "for I would not like Finn to
+have a grudge against you for any good you did to me." He went then to
+another door and asked who was at it. "It is Fionn, son of Glor, head
+of the Fianna of Ulster, and his men along him; and come out now to us
+and there is no one will dare hurt or harm you." "I will not go out to
+you," said Diarmuid, "for you are a friend to me, and your father along
+with you, and I would not like the unfriendliness of Finn to be put on
+you for my sake." He went then to another door, and he asked who was at
+it. "There is no friend of yours here," they said, "for there is here
+Aodh Beag the Little from Eamhuin, and Aodh Fada the Long from Eamhuin,
+and Caol Crodha the Fierce, and Goineach the Wounder, and Gothan the
+White-fingered, and Aoife his daughter, and Cuadan the Tracker from
+Eamhuin; and we are unfriendly people to you, and if you come out to us
+we will not spare you at all, but will make an end of you." "It is a bad
+troop is in it," said Diarmuid; "you of the lies and of the tracking and
+of the one shoe, and it is not fear of your hands is upon me, but
+because I am your enemy I will not go out."
+
+He went then to the last of the seven doors and asked who was at it. "No
+friend of yours," they said, "but it is Finn, son of Cumhal, and four
+hundred paid fighting men along with him; and if you will come out to us
+we will make opened marrow of you." "I give you my word, Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "that the door you are at yourself is the first door I will
+pass out of."
+
+When Finn heard that, he warned his battalions on pain of lasting death
+not to let Diarmuid past them unknown. But when Diarmuid heard what he
+said, he rose on the staves of his spears and he went with a very high,
+light leap on far beyond Finn and his people, without their knowledge.
+He looked back at them then, and called out that he had gone past them,
+and he put his shield on his back and went straight on towards the west,
+and it was not long before he was out of sight of Finn and the Fianna.
+Then when he did not see any one coming after him, he turned back to
+where he saw Angus and Grania going out of the wood, and he followed on
+their track till he came to Ros-da-Shoileach.
+
+He found Angus and Grania there in a sheltered, well-lighted cabin, and
+a great blazing fire kindled in it, and the half of a wild boar on
+spits. Diarmuid greeted them, and the life of Grania all to went out of
+her with joy before him.
+
+Diarmuid told them his news from beginning to end, and they ate their
+share that night, and they went to sleep till the coming of the day and
+of the full light on the morrow. And Angus rose up early, and he said to
+Diarmuid: "I am going from you now, grandson of Duibhne; and I leave
+this advice with you," he said, "not to go into a tree with one trunk,
+and you flying before Finn, and not to be going into a cave of the earth
+that has but one door, and not to be going to an island of the sea that
+has but one harbour. And in whatever place you cook your share of food,"
+he said, "do not eat it there; and in whatever place you eat it, do not
+lie down there; and in whatever place you lie down, do not rise up there
+on the morrow." He said farewell to them after that, and went his way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE GREEN CHAMPIONS
+
+Then Diarmuid and Grania went along the right bank of the Sionnan
+westward till they came to Garbh-abha-na-Fiann, the rough river of the
+Fianna. And Diarmuid killed a salmon on the brink of the river, and put
+it to the fire on a spit. Then he himself and Grania went across the
+stream to eat it, as Angus bade them; and then they went westward to
+sleep.
+
+They rose up early on the morrow, and they travelled straight westward
+till they came to the marsh of Finnliath.
+
+And on the marsh they met with a young man, having a good shape and
+appearance, but without fitting dress or arms. Diarmuid greeted the
+young man, and asked news of him. "A fighting lad I am, looking for a
+master," he said, "and Muadhan is my name." "What would you do for me,
+young man?" said Diarmuid. "I would be a servant to you in the day, and
+watch for you in the night," he said. "I tell you to keep that young
+man," said Grania, "for you cannot be always without people."
+
+Then they made an agreement with him, and bound one another, and they
+went on together westward till they reached the Carrthach river. And
+then Muadhan bade Diarmuid and Grania to go up on his back till he would
+carry them over the stream.
+
+"That would be a big load for you," said Grania. But he put them upon
+his back and carried them over. Then they went on till they came to the
+Beith, and Muadhan brought them over on his back the same way. And they
+went into a cave at the side of Currach Cinn Adhmuid, the Woody Headland
+of the Bog, over Tonn Toime, and Muadhan made ready beds of soft rushes
+and tops of the birch for them in the far end of the cave. And he went
+himself into the scrub that was near, and took a straight long rod of a
+quicken-tree, and he put a hair and a hook on the rod, and a holly berry
+on the hook, and he went up the stream, and he took a salmon with the
+first cast. Then he put on a second berry and killed another fish, and
+he put on a third berry and killed the third fish. Then he put the hook
+and the hair under his belt, and struck the rod into the earth, and he
+brought the three salmon where Diarmuid and Grania were, and put them on
+spits. When they were done, Muadhan said: "I give the dividing of the
+fish to you, Diarmuid." "I would sooner you to divide it than myself,"
+said Diarmuid. "I will give the dividing of the fish to you, so,
+Grania," said he. "I am better satisfied you to divide it," said Grania.
+"If it was you that divided the fish, Diarmuid," said Muadhan, "you
+would have given the best share to Grania; and if it was Grania divided
+it, she would have given you the best share; and as it is myself is
+dividing it, let you have the biggest fish, Diarmuid, and let Grania
+have the second biggest, and I myself will have the one is smallest."
+
+They spent the night there, and Diarmuid and Grania slept in the far
+part of the cave, and Muadhan kept watch for them until the rising of
+the day and the full light of the morrow.
+
+Diarmuid rose up early, and he bade Grania keep watch for Muadhan, and
+that he himself would go and take a walk around the country. He went out
+then, and he went up on a hill that was near, and he was looking about
+him, east and west, north and south. He was not long there till he saw a
+great fleet of ships coming from the west, straight to the bottom of the
+hill where he was. And when they were come to land, nine times nine of
+the chief men of the ships came on shore, and Diarmuid went down and
+greeted them, and asked news of them, and to what country they belonged.
+
+"Three kings we are of the Green Champions of Muir-na-locht," said they;
+"and Finn, son of Cumhal, sent looking for us by cause of a thief of the
+woods, and an enemy of his own that has gone hiding from him; and it is
+to hinder him we are come. And we are twenty hundred good fighting men,
+and every one of us is a match for a hundred, and besides that," he
+said, "we have three deadly hounds with us; fire will not burn them, and
+water will not drown them, and arms will not redden on them, and we will
+lay them on his track, and it will be short till we get news of him.
+And tell us who you are yourself?" they said, "and have you any word of
+the grandson of Duibhne?" "I saw him yesterday," said Diarmuid; "and I
+myself," he said, "am but a fighting man, walking the world by the
+strength of my hand and by the hardness of my sword. And by my word," he
+said, "you will know Diarmuid's hand when you will meet it." "Well, we
+found no one up to this," said they. "What are your own names?" said
+Diarmuid. "Dubh-chosach, the Black-footed, Fionn-chosach, the
+Fair-footed, and Treun-chosach, the Strong-footed," they said.
+
+"Is there wine in your ships?" said Diarmuid. "There is," said they. "If
+you have a mind to bring out a tun of wine," said Diarmuid, "I will do a
+trick for you." They sent men to get the tun, and when it came Diarmuid
+took it between his two hands and drank a drink out of it, and the
+others drank what was left of it. Diarmuid took up the tun after that,
+and brought it to the top of the hill, and he went up himself on the
+tun, and let it go down the steep of the hill till it was at the bottom.
+And then he brought the tun up the hill again, and he himself on it
+coming and going, and he did that trick three times before the
+strangers. But they said he was a man had never seen a good trick when
+he called that a trick; and with that a man of them went up on the tun,
+but Diarmuid gave a stroke of his foot at it and the young man fell from
+it before it began to move, and it rolled over him and crushed him, that
+he died. And another man went on it, and another after him again, till
+fifty of them were killed trying to do Diarmuid's trick, and as many of
+them as were not killed went back to their ships that night.
+
+Diarmuid went back then to where he left Grania; and Muadhan put the
+hair and the hook on the rod till he killed three salmon; and they ate
+their meal that night, and he kept watch for them the same way he did
+before.
+
+Diarmuid went out early the next day again to the hill, and it was not
+long till he saw the three strangers coming towards him, and he asked
+them would they like to see any more tricks. They said they would sooner
+get news of the grandson of Duibhne. "I saw a man that saw him
+yesterday," said Diarmuid. And with that he put off his arms and his
+clothes, all but the shirt that was next his skin, and he struck the
+Crann Buidhe, the spear of Manannan, into the earth with the point
+upwards. And then he rose with a leap and lit on the point of the spear
+as light as a bird, and came down off it again without a wound on him.
+Then a young man of the Green Champions said: "It is a man has never
+seen feats that would call that a feat"; and he put off his clothing and
+made a leap, and if he did he came down heavily on the point of the
+spear, and it went through his heart, and he fell to the ground. The
+next day Diarmuid came again, and he brought two forked poles out of the
+wood and put them standing upright on the hill, and he put the sword of
+Angus Og, the Mor-alltach, the Big-fierce one, between the two forks on
+its edge. Then he raised himself lightly over it, and walked on the
+sword three times from the hilt to the point, and he came down and asked
+was there a man of them could do that feat.
+
+"That is a foolish question," said a man of them then, "for there was
+never any feat done in Ireland but a man of our own would do it." And
+with that he rose up to walk on the sword; but it is what happened, he
+came down heavily on it the way he was cut in two halves.
+
+The rest of the champions bade him take away his sword then, before any
+more of their people would fall by it; and they asked him had he any
+word of the grandson of Duibhne. "I saw a man that saw him to-day," said
+Diarmuid, "and I will go ask news of him to-night."
+
+He went back then to where Grania was, and Muadhan killed three salmon
+for their supper, and kept a watch for them through the night. And
+Diarmuid rose up at the early break of day, and he put his battle
+clothes on him, that no weapon could go through, and he took the sword
+of Angus, that left no leavings after it, at his left side, and his two
+thick-handled spears, the Gae Buidhe and the Gae Dearg, the Yellow and
+the Red, that gave wounds there was no healing for. And then he wakened
+Grania, and he bade her to keep watch for Muadhan, and he himself would
+go out and take a look around.
+
+When Grania saw him looking so brave, and dressed in his clothes of
+anger and of battle, great fear took hold of her, and she asked what was
+he going to do. "It is for fear of meeting my enemies I am like this,"
+said he. That quieted Grania, and then Diarmuid went out to meet the
+Green Champions.
+
+They came to land then, and they asked had he news of the grandson of
+Duibhne. "I saw him not long ago," said Diarmuid. "If that is so, let us
+know where is he," said they, "till we bring his head to Finn, son of
+Cumhal." "I would be keeping bad watch for him if I did that," said
+Diarmuid, "for his life and his body are under the protection of my
+valour, and by reason of that I will do no treachery on him." "Is that
+true?" said they. "It is true indeed," said Diarmuid. "Let you yourself
+quit this place, so," they said, "or we will bring your head to Finn
+since you are an enemy to him." "It is in bonds I would be," said
+Diarmuid, "the time I would leave my head with you." And with that he
+drew his sword the Mor-alltach out of its sheath, and he made a fierce
+blow at the head nearest him that put it in two halves. Then he made an
+attack on the whole host of the Green Champions, and began to destroy
+them, cutting through the beautiful shining armour of the men of
+Muir-na-locht till there was hardly a man but got shortening of life and
+the sorrow of death, or that could go back to give news of the fight,
+but only the three kings and a few of their people that made their
+escape back to their ships. Diarmuid turned back then without wound or
+hurt on him, and he went to where Crania and Muadhan were. They bade him
+welcome, and Grania asked him did he hear any news of Finn and the
+Fianna of Ireland, and he said he did not, and they ate their food and
+spent the night there.
+
+He rose up again with the early light of the morrow and went back to the
+hill, and when he got there he struck a great blow on his shield that
+set the strand shaking with the sound. And Dubh-chosach heard it, and he
+said he himself would go fight with Diarmuid, and he went on shore there
+and then.
+
+And he and Diarmuid threw the arms out of their hands and rushed on one
+another like wrestlers, straining their arms and their sinews, knotting
+their hands on one another's backs, fighting like bulls in madness, or
+like two daring hawks on the edge of a cliff. But at the last Diarmuid
+raised up Dubh-chosach on his shoulder and threw his body to the ground,
+and bound him fast and firm on the spot. And Fionn-chosach and
+Treun-chosach came one after the other to fight with him then, and he
+put the same binding on them; and he said he would strike the heads off
+them, only he thought it a worse punishment to leave them in those
+bonds. "For there is no one can free you," he said. And he left them
+there, worn out and sorrowful.
+
+The next morning after that, Diarmuid told Grania the whole story of the
+strangers from beginning to end, and of all he had done to them, and how
+on the fifth day he had put their kings in bonds. "And they have three
+fierce hounds in a chain ready to hunt me," he said. "Did you take the
+heads off those three kings?" said Grania, "I did not," said Diarmuid,
+"for there is no man of the heroes of Ireland can loosen those bonds but
+four only, Oisin, son of Finn, and Osgar, son of Oisin, and Lugaidh's
+Son of the Strong Hand, and Conan, son of Morna; and I know well," he
+said, "none of those four will do it. But all the same, it is short till
+Finn will get news of them, and it is best for us to be going from this
+cave, or Finn and the three hounds might come on us."
+
+After that they left the cave, and they went on till they came to the
+bog of Finnliath. Grania began to fall behind them, and Muadhan put her
+on his back and carried her till they came to the great Slieve Luachra.
+Then Diarmuid sat down on the brink of the stream that was flowing
+through the heart of the mountain, and Grania was washing her hands, and
+she asked his knife from him to cut her nails with.
+
+As to the strangers, as many of them as were alive yet, they came to the
+hill where their three leaders were bound, and they thought to loose
+them; but it is the way those bonds were, all they did by meddling with
+them was to draw them tighter.
+
+And they were not long there till they saw a woman coming towards them
+with the quickness of a swallow or a weasel or a blast of wind over bare
+mountain-tops. And she asked them who was it had done that great
+slaughter on them. "Who are you that is asking that?" said they. "I am
+the Woman of the Black Mountain, the woman-messenger of Finn, son of
+Cumhal," she said; "and it is looking for you Finn sent me." "Indeed we
+do not know who it was did this slaughter," they said, "but we will tell
+you his appearance. A young man he was, having dark curling hair and
+ruddy cheeks. And it is worse again to us," they said, "our three
+leaders to be bound this way, and we not able to loose them." "What way
+did that young man go from you?" said the woman. "It was late last
+night he left us," they said, "and we do not know where is he gone." "I
+give you my word," she said, "it was Diarmuid himself that was in it;
+and take your hounds now and lay them on his track, and I will send Finn
+and the Fianna of Ireland to you."
+
+They left a woman-Druid then attending on the three champions that were
+bound, and they brought their three hounds out of the ship and laid them
+on Diarmuid's track, and followed them till they came to the opening of
+the cave, and they went into the far part of it and found the beds where
+Diarmuid and Crania had slept. Then they went on westward till they came
+to the Carrthach river, and to the bog of Finnliath, and so on to the
+great Slieve Luachra.
+
+But Diarmuid did not know they were after him till he got sight of them
+with their banners of soft silk and their three wicked hounds in the
+front of the troop and three strong champions holding them in chains.
+And when he saw them coming like that he was filled with great hatred of
+them.
+
+There was one of them had a well-coloured green cloak on him, and he
+came out far beyond the others, and Grania gave the knife back to
+Diarmuid. "I think you have not much love for that young man of the
+green cloak, Grania," said Diarmuid. "I have not indeed," said Grania;
+"and it would be better if I had never given love to any man at all to
+this day." Diarmuid put the knife in the sheath then, and went on; and
+Muadhan put Grania on his back and carried her on into the mountain.
+
+It was not long till a hound of the three hounds was loosed after
+Diarmuid, and Muadhan said to him to follow Grania, and he himself would
+check the hound. Then Muadhan turned back, and he took a whelp out of
+his belt, and put it on the flat of his hand. And when the whelp saw the
+hound rushing towards him, and its jaws open, he rose up and made a leap
+from Muadhan's hand into the throat of the hound, and came out of its
+side, bringing the heart with it, and he leaped back again to Muadhan's
+hand, and left the hound dead after him.
+
+Muadhan went on then after Diarmuid and Grania, and he took up Grania
+again and carried her a bit of the way into the mountain. Then another
+hound was loosened after them, and Diarmuid said to Muadhan: "I often
+heard there is nothing can stand against weapons of Druid wounding, and
+the throat of no beast can be made safe from them. And will you stand
+now," he said, "till I put the Gae Dearg, the Red Spear, through that
+hound."
+
+Then Muadhan and Grania stopped to see the cast. And Diarmuid made a
+cast at the hound, and the spear went through its body and brought out
+its bowels; and he took up the spear again, and they went forward.
+
+It was not long after that the third hound was loosed. And Grania said
+then: "This is the one is fiercest of them, and there is great fear on
+me, and mind yourself now, Diarmuid."
+
+It was not long till the hound overtook them, and the place he overtook
+them was Lic Dhubhain, the flag-stone of Dubhan, on Slieve Luachra. He
+rose with a light leap over Diarmuid, as if he had a mind to seize on
+Grania, but Diarmuid took him by the two hind legs, and struck a blow of
+his carcase against the side of the rock was nearest, till he had let
+out his brains through the openings of his head and of his ears. And
+then Diarmuid took up his arms and his battle clothes, and put his
+narrow-topped finger into the silken string of the Gae Dearg, and he
+made a good cast at the young man of the green cloak that was at the
+head of the troop that killed him. Then he made another cast at the
+second man and killed him, and the third man in the same way. And as it
+is not the custom to stand after leaders are fallen, the strangers when
+they saw what had happened took to flight.
+
+And Diarmuid followed after them, killing and scattering, so that unless
+any man of them got away over the forests, or into the green earth, or
+under the waters, there was not a man or messenger of them left to tell
+the news, but only the Woman-messenger of the Black Mountain, that kept
+moving around about when Diarmuid was putting down the strangers.
+
+And it was not long till Finn saw her coming towards him where he was,
+her legs failing, and her tongue muttering, and her eyes drooping, and
+he asked news of her. "It is very bad news I have to tell you," she
+said; "and it is what I think, that it is a person without a lord I am."
+Then she told Finn the whole story from beginning to end, of the
+destruction Diarmuid had done, and how the three deadly hounds had
+fallen by him. "And it is hardly I myself got away," she said. "What
+place did the grandson of Duibhne go to?" said Finn. "I do not know
+that," she said.
+
+And when Finn heard of the Kings of the Green Champions that were bound
+by Diarmuid, he called his men to him, and they went by every short way
+and every straight path till they reached the hill, and it was torment
+to the heart of Finn to see the way they were. Then he said: "Oisin," he
+said, "loosen those three kings for me." "I will not loosen them," said
+Oisin, "for Diarmuid put bonds on me not to loosen any man he would
+bind." "Loosen them, Osgar," said Finn then. "I give my word," said
+Osgar, "it is more bonds I would wish to put on them sooner than to
+loosen them." Neither would Conan help them, or Lugaidh's Son. And any
+way, they were not long talking about it till the three kings died under
+the hardness of the bonds that were on them.
+
+Then Finn made three wide-sodded graves for them, and a flag-stone was
+put over them, and another stone raised over that again, and their names
+were written in branching Ogham, and it is tired and heavy-hearted Finn
+was after that; and he and his people went back to Almhuin of Leinster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE WOOD OF DUBHROS
+
+
+And as to Diarmuid and Grania and Muadhan, they went on through Ui
+Chonaill Gabhra, and left-hand ways to Ros-da-Shoileach, and Diarmuid
+killed a wild deer that night, and they had their fill of meat and of
+pure water, and they slept till the morning of the morrow. And Muadhan
+rose up early, and spoke to Diarmuid, and it is what he said, that he
+himself was going away. "It is not right for you to do that," said
+Diarmuid, "for everything I promised you I fulfilled it, without any
+dispute."
+
+But he could not hinder him, and Muadhan said farewell to them and left
+them there and then, and it is sorrowful and downhearted Diarmuid and
+Grania were after him.
+
+After that they travelled on straight to the north, to Slieve Echtge,
+and from that to the hundred of Ui Fiachrach; and when they got there
+Grania was tired out, but she took courage and went on walking beside
+Diarmuid till they came to the wood of Dubhros.
+
+Now, there was a wonderful quicken-tree in that wood, and the way it
+came to be there is this:
+
+There rose a dispute one time between two women of the Tuatha de Danaan,
+Aine and Aoife, daughters of Manannan, son of Lir, for Aoife had given
+her love to Lugaidh's Son, and Aine had given her love to a man of her
+own race, and each of them said her own man was a better hurler than the
+other. And it came from that dispute that there was a great hurling
+match settled between the Men of Dea and the Fianna of Ireland, and the
+place it was to be played was on a beautiful plain near Loch Lein.
+
+They all came together there, and the highest men and the most daring of
+the Tuatha de Danaan were there, the three Garbhs of Slieve Mis, and the
+three Mases of Slieve Luachra, and the three yellow-haired Murchadhs,
+and the three Eochaidhs of Aine, and the three Fionns of the White
+House, and the three Sgals of Brugh na Boinne, and the three Ronans of
+Ath na Riogh, and the Suirgheach Suairc, the Pleasant Wooer from Lionan,
+and the Man of Sweet Speech from the Boinn, and Ilbrec, the
+Many-Coloured, son of Manannan, and Neamhanach, son of Angus Og, and
+Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and Manannan, son of Lir.
+
+They themselves and the Fianna were playing the match through the length
+of three days and three nights, from Leamhain to the valley of the
+Fleisg, that is called the Crooked Valley of the Fianna, and neither of
+them winning a goal. And when the Tuatha de Danaan that were watching
+the game on each side of Leamhain saw it was so hard for their hurlers
+to win a goal against the Fianna, they thought it as well to go away
+again without playing out the game.
+
+Now the provision the Men of Dea had brought with them from the Land of
+Promise was crimson nuts, and apples, and sweet-smelling rowan berries.
+And as they were passing through the district of Ui Fiachrach by the
+Muaidh, a berry of the rowan berries fell from them, and a tree grew up
+from it. And there was virtue in its berries, and no sickness or disease
+would ever come on any person that would eat them, and those that would
+eat them would feel the liveliness of wine and the satisfaction of mead
+in them, and any old person of a hundred years that would eat them would
+go back to be young again, and any young girl that would eat them would
+grow to be a flower of beauty.
+
+And it happened one time after the tree was grown, there were messengers
+of the Tuatha de Danaan going through the wood of Dubhros. And they
+heard a great noise of birds and of bees, and they went where the noise
+was, and they saw the beautiful Druid tree. They went back then and told
+what they had seen, and all the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan when
+they heard it knew the tree must have grown from a berry of the Land of
+the Ever-Living Living Ones. And they enquired among all their people,
+till they knew it was a young man of them, that was a musician, had
+dropped the berry.
+
+And it is what they agreed, to send him in search of a man of Lochlann
+that would guard the tree by day and sleep in it by night. And the women
+of the Sidhe were very downhearted to see him going from them, for there
+was no harper could play half so sweetly on his harp as he could play on
+an ivy leaf.
+
+He went on then till he came to Lochlann, and he sat down on a bank and
+sleep came on him. And he slept till the rising of the sun on the
+morrow; and when he awoke he saw a very big man coming towards him, that
+asked him who was he. "I am a messenger from the Men of Dea," he said;
+"and I am come looking for some very strong man that would be willing to
+guard a Druid tree that is in the wood of Dubhros. And here are some of
+the berries he will be eating from morning to night," he said.
+
+And when the big man had tasted the berries, he said: "I will go and
+guard all the trees of the wood to get those berries."
+
+And his name was the Searbhan Lochlannach, the Surly One of Lochlann.
+Very black and ugly he was, having crooked teeth, and one eye only in
+the middle of his forehead. And he had a thick collar of iron around his
+body, and it was in the prophecy that he would never die till there
+would be three strokes of the iron club he had, struck upon himself. And
+he slept in the tree by night and stopped near it in the daytime, and he
+made a wilderness of the whole district about him, and none of the
+Fianna dared go hunt there because of the dread of him that was on them.
+
+But when Diarmuid came to the wood of Dubhros, he went into it to where
+the Surly One was, and he made bonds of agreement with him, and got
+leave from him to go hunting in the wood, so long as he would not touch
+the berries of the tree. And he made a cabin then for himself and for
+Grania in the wood.
+
+As for Finn and his people, they were not long at Almhuin till they saw
+fifty armed men coming towards them, and two that were taller and
+handsomer than the rest in the front of them. Finn asked did any of his
+people know them. "We do not know them," they said, "but maybe you
+yourself know them, Finn." "I do not," he said; "but it seems to be they
+are enemies to myself." The troop of armed men came up to them then and
+they greeted him, and Finn asked news of them, and from what country
+they came. "I am Aonghus, son of Art Og of the children of Morna," one
+of them said, "and this is Aodh, son of Andela; and we are enemies of
+your own, and our fathers were at the killing of your father, and they
+themselves died for that deed. And it is to ask peace we are come now to
+you," they said. "Where were you the time my father was killed?" "In our
+mothers' wombs," said they; "and our mothers were two women of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, and it is time for us now to get our father's place
+among the Fianna." "I will give you that," said Finn, "but I must put a
+fine on you first in satisfaction for my father's death." "We have
+neither gold or silver or goods or cattle to give you, Finn," said they.
+"Do not put a fine on them, Finn," said Oisin, "beyond the death of
+their fathers for your father." "It is what I think," said Finn, "if any
+one killed myself, Oisin, it would be easy to pay the fine you would
+ask. And there will no one come among the Fianna," he said, "without
+giving what I ask in satisfaction for my father's death." "What is it
+you are asking of us?" said Aonghus, son of Art Og. "I am asking but the
+head of a champion, or the full of a fist of the berries of the
+quicken-tree at Dubhros." "I will give you a good advice, children of
+Morna," said Oisin, "to go back to the place you were reared, and not to
+ask peace of Finn through the length of your lives. For it is not an
+easy thing Finn is asking of you; and do you know whose head he is
+asking you to bring him?" "We do not," said they. "The head of Diarmuid,
+grandson of Duibhne, is the head he is asking of you. And if you were
+twenty hundred men in their full strength, Diarmuid would not let you
+take that head." "And what are the berries Finn is asking of us?" they
+said then. "There is nothing is harder for you to get than those
+berries," said Oisin.
+
+He told them then the whole story of the tree, and of the Searbhan, the
+Surly One of Lochlann, that was put to mind it by the Tuatha de Danaan.
+But Aodh, son of Andela, spoke then, and it is what he said, that he
+would sooner get his death looking for those berries than to go home
+again to his mother's country. And he said to Oisin to care his people
+till he would come back again, and if anything should happen himself and
+his brother in their journey, to send them back again to the Land of
+Promise. And the two said farewell then to Oisin and to the chief men of
+the Fianna, and they went forward till they reached Dubhros. And they
+went along the wood till they found a track, and they followed it to
+the door of the hunting-cabin where Diarmuid and Grania were.
+
+Diarmuid heard them coming, and he put his hand on his weapons and asked
+who was at the door. "We are of the children of Morna," they said,
+"Aodh, son of Andela, and Aonghus, son of Art Og." "What brings you to
+this wood?" said Diarmuid. "Finn, son of Cumhal, that put us looking for
+your head, if you are Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," said they. "I am
+indeed," said Diarmuid. "If that is so," they said, "Finn will take
+nothing from us but your head, or a fistful of the berries of the
+quicken-tree of Dubhros as satisfaction for the death of his father."
+"It is not easy for you to get either of those things," said Diarmuid,
+"and it is a pity for any one to be under the power of that man. And
+besides that," he said, "I know it was he himself made an end of your
+fathers, and that was enough satisfaction for him to get; and if you do
+bring him what he asks, it is likely he will not make peace with you in
+the end." "Is it not enough for you," said Aodh, "to have brought his
+wife away from Finn without speaking ill of him?" "It is not for the
+sake of speaking ill of him I said that," said Diarmuid, "but to save
+yourselves from the danger he has sent you into."
+
+"What are those berries Finn is asking?" said Grania, "that they cannot
+be got for him?"
+
+Diarmuid told her then the whole story of the berry the Tuatha de Danaan
+had lost, and of the tree that had sprung up from it, and of the man of
+Lochlann that was keeping the tree. "And at the time Finn sent me hiding
+here and became my enemy," he said, "I got leave from the Surly One to
+hunt, but he bade me never to meddle with the berries. And now, sons of
+Morna," he said, "there is your choice, to fight with me for my head, or
+to go asking the berries of the Surly One." "I swear by the blood of my
+people," said each of them, "I will fight with yourself first."
+
+With that the two young men made ready for the fight. And it is what
+they chose, to fight with the strength of their hands alone. And
+Diarmuid put them down and bound the two of them there and then. "That
+is a good fight you made," said Grania. "But, by my word," she said,
+"although the children of Morna do not go looking for those berries, I
+will not lie in a bed for ever till I get a share of them; and I will
+not live if I do not get them," she said. "Do not make me break my peace
+with the Surly One," said Diarmuid, "for he will not let me take them."
+"Loose these tyings from us," said the two young men, "and we will go
+with you, and we will give ourselves for your sake." "You must not come
+with me," said Diarmuid; "for if you got the full of your eyes of that
+terrible one, you would be more likely to die than to live." "Well, do
+us this kindness," they said then; "loosen these bonds on us, and give
+us time to go by ourselves and see the fight before you strike off our
+heads." So Diarmuid did that for them.
+
+Then Diarmuid went to the Surly One, and he chanced to be asleep before
+him, and he gave him a stroke of his foot the way he lifted his head and
+looked up at him, and he said: "Have you a mind to break our peace,
+Grandson of Duibhne?" "That is not what I want," said Diarmuid; "but it
+is Grania, daughter of the High King," he said, "has a desire to taste
+those berries, and it is to ask a handful of them I am come." "I give my
+word," said he, "if she is to die for it, she will never taste a berry
+of those berries." "I would not do treachery on you," said Diarmuid;
+"and so I tell you, willing or unwilling, I will take those berries from
+you."
+
+When the Surly One heard that, he rose up on his feet and lifted his
+club and struck three great blows on Diarmuid, that gave him some
+little hurt in spite of his shield. But when Diarmuid saw him not
+minding himself, he threw down his weapons, and made a great leap and
+took hold of the club with his two hands. And when he had a hold of the
+club he struck three great blows on him that put his brains out through
+his head. And the two young men of the sons of Morna were looking at the
+whole fight; and when they saw the Surly One was killed they came out.
+And Diarmuid sat down, for he was spent with the dint of the fight, and
+he bid the young men to bury the body under the thickets of the wood,
+the way Grania would not see it. "And after that," he said, "let you go
+back to her and bring her here." So they dragged away the body and
+buried it, and they went then for Grania and brought her to Diarmuid.
+
+"There are the berries you were asking, Grania," he said, "and you may
+take what you like of them now." "I give my word," said Grania, "I will
+not taste a berry of those berries but the one your own hand will pluck,
+Diarmuid." Diarmuid rose up then and plucked the berries for Grania, and
+for the children of Morna, and they ate their fill of them. And he said
+then to the young men: "Take all you can of these berries, and bring
+them with you to Finn, and tell him it was yourselves made an end of the
+Surly One of Lochlann." "We give you our word," said they, "we begrudge
+giving any of them to Finn."
+
+But Diarmuid plucked a load of the berries for them, and they gave him
+great thanks for all he had done; and they went back to where Finn was
+with the Fianna. And Diarmuid and Grania went up into the top of the
+tree where the bed of the Surly One was. And the berries below were but
+bitter berries beside the ones above in the tree. And when the two young
+men came to Finn, he asked news of them. "We have killed the Surly One
+of Lochlann," they said; "and we have brought you berries from the
+quicken-tree of Dubhros, in satisfaction for your father, that we may
+get peace from you." They gave the berries then into Finn's hand, and he
+knew them, and he said to the young men: "I give you my word," he said,
+"it was Diarmuid himself plucked those berries, for I know the smell of
+his hand on them; and I know well it was he killed the Surly One, and I
+will go now and see is he himself alive at the quicken-tree."
+
+After that he called for the seven battalions of the Fianna, and he set
+out and went forward to Dubhros. And they followed the track of Diarmuid
+to the foot of the quicken-tree, and they found the berries without
+protection, so they ate their fill of them. And the great heat of the
+day came on them, and Finn said they would stop where they were till the
+heat would be past; "for I know well," he said, "Diarmuid is up in the
+quicken-tree." "It is a great sign of jealousy in you, Finn," said
+Oisin, "to think that Diarmuid would stop there up in the quicken-tree
+and he knowing you are wanting to kill him."
+
+Finn asked for a chess-board after that, and he said to Oisin: "I will
+play a game with you now on this." They sat down then, Oisin and Osgar
+and Lugaidh's Son and Diorraing on the one side of the board, and Finn
+on the other side.
+
+And they were playing that game with great skill and knowledge, and Finn
+pressed Oisin so hard that he had no move to make but the one, and Finn
+said: "There is one move would win the game for you, Oisin, and I defy
+all that are with you to show you that move." Then Diarmuid said up in
+the tree where he was, and no one heard him but Grania: "It is a pity
+you be in straits, and without myself to show you that move." "It is
+worse off you are yourself," said Grania, "to be in the bed of the
+Surly One of Lochlann in the top of the quicken-tree, and the seven
+battalions of the Fianna round about it to take your life."
+
+But Diarmuid took a berry of the tree, and aimed at the one of the
+chessmen that ought to be moved, and Oisin moved it and turned the game
+against Finn by that move. It was not long before the game was going
+against Oisin the second time, and when Diarmuid saw that he threw
+another berry at the chessman it was right to move, and Oisin moved it
+and turned the game against Finn in the same way. And the third time
+Finn was getting the game from Oisin, and Diarmuid threw the third berry
+on the man that would give the game to Oisin, and the Fianna gave a
+great shout when the game was won. Finn spoke then, and it is what he
+said: "It is no wonder you to win the game, Oisin, and you having the
+help of Osgar, and the watchfulness of Diorraing, and the skill of
+Lugaidh's Son, and the teaching of the grandson of Duibhne with you."
+"That is a great sign of jealousy in you, Finn," said Osgar, "to think
+Diarmuid would stop in this tree, and you so near him." "Which of us has
+the truth, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," Finn said out then, "myself
+or Osgar?" "You never lost your good judgment, Finn," said Diarmuid
+then; "and I myself and Grania are here, in the bed of the Surly One of
+Lochlann." Then Diarmuid rose up and gave three kisses to Grania in the
+sight of Finn and the Fianna. And a scorching jealousy and a weakness
+came on Finn when he saw that, and he said: "It was worse to me,
+Diarmuid, the seven battalions of the Fianna to see what you did at
+Teamhair, taking away Grania the night you were yourself my guard. But
+for all that," he said, "you will give your head for the sake of those
+three kisses."
+
+With that Finn called to the four hundred paid fighting men that were
+with him that they might make an end of Diarmuid; and he put their
+hands into one another's hands around that quicken-tree, and bade them,
+if they would not lose their lives, not to let Diarmuid pass out through
+them. And he said that to whatever man would take Diarmuid, he would
+give his arms and his armour, and a place among the Fianna of Ireland.
+
+Then one of the Fianna, Garbh of Slieve Cua, said it was Diarmuid had
+killed his own father, and he would avenge him now, and he went up the
+quicken-tree to make an end of him.
+
+Now, about that time it was made known to Angus Og, in Brugh na Boinne,
+the danger Diarmuid was in, and he came to his help, unknown to the
+Fianna. And when Garbh of Slieve Cua was coming up the tree, Diarmuid
+gave him a kick of his foot, and he fell down among the hired men, and
+they struck off his head, for Angus Og had put the appearance of
+Diarmuid on him. But after he was killed, his own shape came on him
+again, and the Fianna knew that it was Garbh was killed.
+
+Then Garbh of Slieve Crot said it was Diarmuid had killed his father,
+and he went up to avenge him, and the same thing happened. And in the
+end all the nine Garbhs, of Slieve Guaire, and Slieve Muice, and Slieve
+Mor, and Slieve Lugha, and Ath Fraoch, and Slieve Mis and Drom-mor, went
+trying to take Diarmuid's life and lost their own lives, every one of
+them having the shape and appearance of Diarmuid when he died. And Finn
+was very sorry and discouraged when he saw that these nine men had come
+to their death.
+
+Then Angus said he would bring away Grania with him. "Do so," said
+Diarmuid; "and if I am living at evening I will follow you." Then Angus
+said farewell to Diarmuid, and he put his Druid cloak about Grania and
+about himself, and they went away in the safety of the cloak, unknown to
+Finn and the Fianna, till they came to Brugh na Boinne.
+
+Then Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, spoke, and it is what he said: "I
+will come down to you, Finn, and to the Fianna. And I will do death and
+destruction on you and on your people, for I am certain your mind is
+made up to give me no rest, but to bring me to my death in some place.
+And I have nowhere to go from this danger," he said, "for I have no
+friend or comrade under whose protection I could go in any far part of
+the great world, for it is often I fought against the men of the great
+world for love of you. For there never came battle or fight, danger or
+trouble on you, but I would go into it for your sake and the sake of the
+Fianna; and not only that, but I would fight before you and after you.
+And I give my word, Finn," he said, "you will pay hard for me, and you
+will not get me as a free gift." "It is the truth Diarmuid is speaking,"
+said Osgar, "and give him forgiveness now, and peace." "I will not do
+that," said Finn, "to the end of life and time; and he will not get
+peace or rest for ever till I get satisfaction from him for every
+reproach he has put on me." "It is a great shame and a great sign of
+jealousy you to say that," said Osgar. "And I give the word of a true
+champion," he said, "that unless the skies come down upon me, or the
+earth opens under my feet, I will not let you or any one of the Fianna
+of Ireland give him cut or wound; and I take his body and his life under
+the protection of my valour, and I will keep him safe against all the
+men of Ireland." "Those are big words you have, Osgar," said Goll then,
+"to say you would bring a man away in spite of all the men of Ireland."
+"It is not you will raise them up against me, Goll," said Osgar, "for
+none of them would mind what you would say." "If that is what you are
+saying, you champion of great fights," said Goll, "let us see now what
+you can do." "You will have to go through with the fight you have taken
+on yourself," said Corrioll, son of Goll, in a loud voice. And Osgar
+answered him fiercely: "If I do I will shorten your bones, and your
+father's bones along with them. And come down now, Diarmuid," he said,
+"since Finn has no mind to leave you in peace, and I promise on my body
+and my life there will no harm be done to you to-day."
+
+Then Diarmuid stood up on a high bough of the boughs of the tree, and he
+rose with a light leap by the shaft of his spear, and lit on the grass
+far beyond Finn and the Fianna. And he himself and Osgar went towards
+one another, in spite of the Fianna that went between them, and Diarmuid
+struck down those that were in his way; and as to Osgar, the throwing of
+his spears as he scattered the Fianna was like the sound of the wind
+going through a valley, or water falling over flag-stones. And Conan,
+that was always bitter, said: "Let the sons of Baiscne go on killing one
+another." But Finn, when he saw Diarmuid was gone from him, bade them
+put their weapons up, and turn back again to Almhuin.
+
+And he sent those of his men that could be healed to places of healing,
+and the nine Garbhs, and the others of his men that were killed, he put
+into wide-sodded graves. And it is tired and downhearted and sorrowful
+he was after that, and he made an oath he would take no great rest till
+he would have avenged on Diarmuid all that he had done.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE QUARREL
+
+
+And as to Osgar and Diarmuid, they went on, and no cut or wound on them,
+to where Angus and Grania were at Brugh na Boinne; and there was a good
+welcome before them, and Diarmuid told them the whole story from
+beginning to end, and it is much that Grania did not die then and there,
+hearing all he had gone through.
+
+And then she and Diarmuid set out again, and they went and stopped for
+a while in a cave that was near the sea.
+
+And one night while they were there a great storm came on, so that they
+went into the far part of the cave. But bad as the night was, a man of
+the Fomor, Ciach, the Fierce One, his name was, came over the western
+ocean in a currach, with two oars, and he drew it into the cave for
+shelter. And Diarmuid bade him welcome, and they sat down to play chess
+together. And he got the best of the game, and what he asked as his
+winnings was Grania to be his wife, and he put his arms about her as if
+to bring her away. And Grania said: "I am this long time going with the
+third best man of the Fianna, and he never came as near as that to me."
+
+And Diarmuid took his sword to kill Ciach, and there was anger on Grania
+when she saw that, and she had a knife in her hand and she struck it
+into Diarmuid's thigh. And Diarmuid made an end of the Fomor, and he
+said no word to Grania, but ran out and away through the storm.
+
+And Grania went following after him, and calling to him, but there was
+great anger on him and he would not answer her. And at last at the break
+of day she overtook him, and after a while they heard the cry of a
+heron, and she asked him what was it made the heron cry out.
+
+"Tell me that," she said, "Grandson of Duibhne, to whom I gave my love."
+And Diarmuid said: "O Grania, daughter of the High King, woman who never
+took a step aright, it is because she was frozen to the rocks she gave
+that cry." And Grania was asking forgiveness of him, and he was
+reproaching her, and it is what he said: "O Grania of the beautiful
+hair, though you are more beautiful than the green tree under blossom,
+your love passes away as quickly as the cold cloud at break of day. And
+you are asking a hard thing of me now," he said, "and it is a pity what
+you said to me, Grania, for it was you brought me away from the house of
+my lord, that I am banished from it to this day; and now I am troubled
+through the night, fretting after its delight in every place.
+
+"I am like a wild deer, or a beast that is astray, going ever and always
+through the long valleys; there is great longing on me to see one of my
+kindred from the host.
+
+"I left my own people that were brighter than lime or snow; their heart
+was full of generosity to me, like the sun that is high above us; but
+now they follow me angrily, to every harbour and every strand.
+
+"I lost my people by you, and my lord, and my large bright ships on
+every sea; I lost my treasure and my gold; it is hunger you gave me
+through your love.
+
+"I lost my country and my kindred; my men that were used to serve me; I
+lost quietness and affection; I lost the men of Ireland and the Fianna
+entirely.
+
+"I lost delight and music; I lost my own right doing and my honour; I
+lost the Fianna of Ireland, my great kinsmen, for the sake of the love
+you gave me.
+
+"O Grania, white as snow, it would have been a better choice for you to
+have given hatred to me, or gentleness to the Head of the Fianna."
+
+And Grania said: "O Diarmuid of the face like snow, or like the down of
+the mountains, the sound of your voice was dearer to me than all the
+riches of the leader of the Fianna.
+
+"Your blue eye is dearer to me than his strength, and his gold and his
+great hall; the love-spot on your forehead is better to me than honey in
+streams; the time I first looked on it, it was more to me than the whole
+host of the King of Ireland.
+
+"My heart fell down there and then before your high beauty; when you
+came beside me, it was like the whole of life in one day.
+
+"O Diarmuid of the beautiful hands, take me now the same as before; it
+was with me the fault was entirely; give me your promise not to leave
+me."
+
+But Diarmuid said: "How can I take you again, you are a woman too fond
+of words; one day you give up the Head of the Fianna, and the next day
+myself, and no lie in it.
+
+"It is you parted me from Finn, the way I fell under sorrow and grief;
+and then you left me yourself, the time I was full of affection."
+
+And Grania said: "Do not leave me now this way, and my love for you ever
+growing like the fresh branches of the tree with the kind long heat of
+the day."
+
+But Diarmuid would not give in to her, and he said: "You are a woman
+full of words, and it is you have put me under sorrow. I took you with
+myself, and you struck at me for the sake of the man of the Fomor."
+
+They came then to a place where there was a cave, and water running by
+it, and they stopped to rest; and Grania said: "Have you a mind to eat
+bread and meat now, Diarmuid?"
+
+"I would eat it indeed if I had it," said Diarmuid.
+
+"Give me a knife, so," she said, "till I cut it." "Look for the knife in
+the sheath where you put it yourself," said Diarmuid.
+
+She saw then that the knife was in his thigh where she had struck it,
+for he would not draw it out himself. So she drew it out then; and that
+was the greatest shame that ever came upon her.
+
+They stopped then in the cave. And the next day when they went on again,
+Diarmuid did not leave unbroken bread like he had left every other day
+as a sign to Finn that he had kept his faith with him, but it was broken
+bread he left after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE WANDERERS
+
+
+And they went on wandering after that, all through Ireland, hiding from
+Finn in every place, sleeping under the cromlechs, or with no shelter at
+all, and there was no place they would dare to stop long in. And
+wherever they went Finn would follow them, for he knew by his divination
+where they went. But one time he made out they were on a mountain, for
+he saw them with heather under them; and it was beside the sea they
+were, asleep on heather that Diarmuid had brought down from the hills
+for their bed; and so he went searching the hills and did not find them.
+
+And Grania would be watching over Diarmuid while he slept, and she would
+make a sleepy song for him, and it is what she would be saying:
+
+"Sleep a little, a little little, for there is nothing at all to fear,
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne; sleep here soundly, soundly, Diarmuid, to
+whom I have given my love.
+
+"It is I will keep watch for you, grandchild of shapely Duibhne; sleep a
+little, a blessing on you, beside the well of the strong field; my lamb
+from above the lake, from the banks of the strong streams.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the South, of Dedidach of the high
+poets, the time he took away old Morann's daughter, for all Conall could
+do against him.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the North, of fair comely
+Fionnchadh of Ess Ruadh, the time he took Slaine with bravery as we
+think, in spite of Failbhe of the Hard Head.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the West, of Aine, daughter of
+Gailian, the time she went on a journey in the night with Dubhthach from
+Doirinis, by the light of torches.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the East, of Deaghadh the proud,
+the brave fighter, the time he took Coincheann, daughter of Binn, in
+spite of fierce Decheall of Duibhreann.
+
+"O heart of the valour of the lands to the west of Greece, my heart
+will go near to breaking if I do not see you every day. The parting of
+us two will be the parting of two children of the one house; it will be
+the parting of life from the body, Diarmuid, hero of the bright lake of
+Carman."
+
+And then to rouse him she would make another song, and it is what she
+would say: "Caoinche will be loosed on your track; it is not slow the
+running of Caoilte will be; do not let death reach to you, do not give
+yourself to sleep for ever.
+
+"The stag to the east is not asleep, he does not cease from bellowing;
+though he is in the woods of the blackbirds, sleep is not in his mind;
+the hornless doe is not asleep, crying after her speckled fawn; she is
+going over the bushes, she does not sleep in her home.
+
+"The cuckoo is not asleep, the thrush is not asleep, the tops of the
+trees are a noisy place; the duck is not asleep, she is made ready for
+good swimming; the bog lark is not asleep to-night on the high stormy
+bogs; the sound of her clear voice is sweet; she is not sleeping between
+the streams."
+
+One time they were in a cave of Beinn Edair, and there was an old woman
+befriending them and helping them to keep a watch. And one day she
+chanced to go up to the top of Beinn Edair, and she saw an armed man
+coming towards her, and she did now know him to be Finn; and when he was
+come near she asked what was he looking for. "It is looking for a woman
+I am come," he said, "and for a woman's love. And will you do all I will
+ask you?" he said.
+
+"I will do that," she said; for she thought it was her own love he was
+asking.
+
+"Tell me then," he said, "where is Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne?"
+
+So she told him where he was hiding, and he bade her to keep him in the
+cave till such time as he would come back with his men.
+
+The old woman went back then, and it is what she did, she dipped her
+cloak in the sea-water before she went into the cave; and Diarmuid asked
+her why was her cloak so wet. "It is," she said, "that I never saw or
+never heard of the like of this day for cold and for storms. There is
+frost on every hillside," she said, "and there is not a smooth plain in
+all Elga where there is not a long rushing river between every two
+ridges. And there is not a deer or a crow in the whole of Ireland can
+find a shelter in any place." And she was shaking the wet off her cloak,
+and she was making a complaint against the cold, and it is what she
+said:
+
+"Cold, cold, cold to-night is the wide plain of Lurg; the snow is higher
+than the mountains, the deer cannot get at their share of food.
+
+"Cold for ever; the storm is spread over all; every furrow on the
+hillside is a river, every ford is a full pool, every full loch is a
+great sea; every pool is a full loch; horses cannot go through the ford
+of Ross any more than a man on his two feet.
+
+"The fishes of Inisfail are going astray; there is no strand or no pen
+against the waves; there are no dwellings in the country, there is no
+bell heard, no crane is calling.
+
+"The hounds of the wood of Cuan find no rest or no sleep in their
+dwelling-place; the little wren cannot find shelter in her nest on the
+slope of Lon.
+
+"A sharp wind and cold ice have come on the little company of birds; the
+blackbird cannot get a ridge to her liking or shelter for her side in
+the woods of Cuan.
+
+"It is steady our great pot hangs from its hook; it is broken the cabin
+is on the slope of Lon; the snow has made the woods smooth, it is hard
+to climb to the ridge of Bennait Bo.
+
+"The ancient bird of Glen Ride gets grief from the bitter wind; it is
+great is her misery and her pain, the ice will be in her mouth.
+
+"Mind well not to rise up from coverings and from down, mind this well;
+there would be no good sense in it. Ice is heaped up in every ford; it
+is for that I am saying and ever saying 'Cold.'"
+
+The old woman went out after that, and when she was gone, Grania took
+hold of the cloak she had left there and she put her tongue to it, and
+found the taste of salt water on it. "My grief, Diarmuid," she said
+then, "the old woman has betrayed us. And rise up now," she said, "and
+put your fighting suit upon you."
+
+So Diarmuid did that, and he went out, and Grania along with him. And no
+sooner were they outside than they saw Finn and the Fianna of Ireland
+coming towards them. Then Diarmuid looked around him and he saw a little
+boat at hand in the shelter of the harbour, and he himself and Grania
+went into it. And there was a man before them in the boat having
+beautiful clothes on him, and a wide embroidered golden-yellow cloak
+over his shoulders behind. And they knew it was Angus was in it, that
+had come again to help them to escape from Finn, and they went back with
+him for a while to Brugh na Boinne, and Osgar came to them there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. FIGHTING AND PEACE
+
+
+And after a while Finn bade his people to make his ship ready, and to
+put a store of food and of drink in it. They did that, and he himself
+and a thousand of his men went into the ship; and they were nine days
+between sailing and rowing till they came to harbour in the north of
+Alban.
+
+They bound the ship to the posts of the harbour then, and Finn with five
+of his people went to the dun of the King of Alban, and Finn struck a
+blow with the hand-wood on the door, and the door-keeper asked who was
+in it, and they told him it was Finn, son of Cumhal. "Let him in," said
+the king.
+
+Then Finn and his people went in, and the king made them welcome, and he
+bade Finn to sit down in his own place, and they were given strong
+pleasant drinks, and the king sent for the rest of Finn's people and
+bade them welcome to the dun.
+
+Then Finn told what it was brought him there, and that it was to ask
+help and advice against the grandson of Duibhne he was come.
+
+"And you have a right to give me your help," he said, "for it was he
+that killed your father and your two brothers, and many of your best men
+along with them."
+
+"That is true," said the king; "and I will give you my own two sons and
+a thousand men with each of them." Finn was glad when he heard that, and
+he and his men took leave of the king and of his household, and left
+wishes for life and health with them, and the king did the same by them.
+
+And it was near Brugh na Boinne Finn and his people came to land, and
+Finn sent messengers to the house of Angus to give out a challenge of
+battle against Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne.
+
+"What should I do about this, Osgar?" said Diarmuid.
+
+"We will both go out and make a stand against them, and we will not let
+a serving-man of them escape, but we will make an end of them all," said
+Osgar.
+
+So they rose up on the morning of the morrow and they put their suits of
+battle on their comely bodies; and it would be a pity for those, be they
+many or few, that would meet those two men, and their anger on them. And
+they bound the rims of their shields together the way they would not be
+parted from one another in the right. And the sons of the King of Alban
+said that they themselves and their people would go first to meet them.
+So they came to shore, and made a rush to meet Diarmuid and Osgar. But
+the two fought so well that they beat them back and scattered them, and
+made a great slaughter, and put great terror on them, so that at the
+last there was not a man left to stand against them.
+
+And after that, Finn went out again on the sea, and his people with him,
+and there is no word of them till they came to the Land of Promise where
+Finn's nurse was. And when she saw Finn coming she was very joyful
+before him. And Finn told her the whole story from beginning to end, and
+the cause of his quarrel with Diarmuid; and he said it was to ask an
+advice from her he was come, and that it was not possible to put him
+down by any strength of an army, unless enchantment would put him down.
+"I will go with you," said the old woman, "and I will do enchantment on
+him." Finn was very glad when he heard that, and he stopped there that
+night, and they set out for Ireland on the morrow.
+
+And when they came to Brugh na Boinne, the nurse put a Druid mist around
+Finn and the Fianna, the way no one could know they were there. Now the
+day before that, Osgar had parted from Diarmuid, and Diarmuid was out
+hunting by himself. That was shown to the hag, and she took a drowned
+leaf having a hole in it, like the quern of a mill, and she rose with
+that by her enchantments on a blast of Druid wind over Diarmuid, and
+began to aim at him through the hole with deadly spears, till she had
+done him great harm, for all his arms and his clothing, and he could not
+make away he was so hard pressed. And every danger he was ever in was
+little beside that danger. And it is what he thought, that unless he
+could strike the old woman through the hole that was in the leaf, she
+would give him his death there and then. And he lay down on his back,
+and the Gae Dearg, the Red Spear, in his hand, and he made a great cast
+of the spear, that it went through the hole, and the hag fell dead on
+the spot. And he struck off her head and brought it back with him to
+Angus Og.
+
+And the next morning early, Angus rose up, and he went where Finn was,
+and he asked would he make peace with Diarmuid, and Finn said he would.
+And then he went to the King of Ireland to ask peace for Diarmuid, and
+he said he would agree to it.
+
+And then he went back to where Diarmuid and Grania were, and asked him
+would he make peace with the High King and with Finn. "I am willing,"
+said Diarmuid, "if they will give the conditions I will ask." "What
+conditions are those?" said Angus.
+
+"The district my father had," said Diarmuid, "that is, the district of
+Ui Duibhne, without right of hunting to Finn, and without rent or
+tribute to the King of Ireland, and with that the district of Dumhais in
+Leinster, for they are the best in Ireland, and the district of Ceis
+Corainn from the King of Ireland as a marriage portion with his
+daughter; and those are the conditions on which I will make peace with
+them." "Would you be peaceable if you got those conditions?" said Angus.
+"It would go easier with me to make peace if I got them," said Diarmuid.
+
+Then Angus went with that news to where the King of Ireland was with
+Finn. And they gave him all those conditions, and they forgave him all
+he had done through the whole of the time he had been in his hiding,
+that was sixteen years.
+
+And the place Diarmuid and Grania settled in was Rath Grania, in the
+district of Ceis Corainn, far away from Finn and from Teamhair. And
+Grania bore him children there, four sons and one daughter. And they
+lived there in peace, and the people used to be saying there was not a
+man living at the same time was richer as to gold and to silver, as to
+cattle and to sheep, than Diarmuid.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE BOAR OF BEINN GULBAIN
+
+
+But at last one day Grania spoke to Diarmuid, and it is what she said,
+that it was a shame on them, with all the people and the household they
+had, and all their riches, the two best men in Ireland never to have
+come to the house, the High King, her father, and Finn, son of Cumhal.
+"Why do you say that, Grania," said Diarmuid, "and they being enemies to
+me?"
+
+"It is what I would wish," said Grania, "to give them a feast, the way
+you would get their affection." "I give leave for that," said Diarmuid.
+
+So Grania was making ready a great feast through the length of a year,
+and messengers were sent for the High King of Ireland, and for Finn and
+the seven battalions of the Fianna; and they came, and they were using
+the feast from day to day through the length of a year.
+
+And on the last night of the year, Diarmuid was in his sleep at Rath
+Grania; and in the night he heard the voice of hounds through his sleep,
+and he started up, and Grania caught him and put her two arms about him,
+and asked what had startled him. "The voice of a hound I heard," said
+he; "and it is a wonder to me to hear that in the night." "Safe keeping
+on you," said Grania, "for it is the Tuatha de Danaan are doing that on
+you, on account of Angus of Brugh na Boinn, and lie down on the bed
+again." But for all that no sleep came to him, and he heard the voice of
+the hound again, and he started up a second time to follow after it. But
+Grania caught hold of him the second time and bade him to lie down, and
+she said it was no fitting thing to go after the voice of a hound in the
+night. So he lay down again, and he fell asleep, but the voice of the
+hound awakened him the third time. And the day was come with its full
+light that time, and he said: "I will go after the voice of the hound
+now, since the day is here." "If that is so," said Grania, "bring the
+Mor-alltach, the Great Fierce One, the sword of Manannan, with you, and
+the Gae Dearg." "I will not," he said; "but I will take the
+Beag-alltach, the Little Fierce One, and the Gae Buidhe in the one hand,
+and the hound Mac an Chuill, the Son of the Hazel, in the other hand."
+
+Then Diarmuid went out of Rath Grania, and made no delay till he came to
+the top of Beinn Gulbain, and he found Finn before him there, without
+any one at all in his company. Diarmuid gave him no greeting, but asked
+him was it he was making that hunt. Finn said it was not a hunt he was
+making, but that he and some of the Fianna had gone out after midnight;
+"and one of our hounds that was loose beside us, came on the track of a
+wild boar," he said, "and they were not able to bring him back yet. And
+there is no use following that boar he is after," he said, "for it is
+many a time the Fianna hunted him, and he went away from them every time
+till now, and he has killed thirty of them this morning. And he is
+coming up the mountain towards us," he said, "and let us leave this hill
+to him now."
+
+"I will not leave the hill through fear of him," said Diarmuid. "It
+would be best for you, Diarmuid," said Finn, "for it is the earless
+Green Boar of Beinn Gulbain is in it, and it is by him you will come to
+your death, and Angus knew that well when he put bonds on you not to go
+hunting pigs." "I never knew of those bonds," said Diarmuid; "but
+however it is, I will not quit this through fear of him. And let you
+leave Bran with me now," he said, "along with Mac an Chuill." "I will
+not," said Finn, "for it is often he met this boar before and could do
+nothing against him." He went away then and left Diarmuid alone on the
+top of the hill. "I give my word," said Diarmuid, "you made this hunt
+for my death, Finn; and if it is here I am to find my death," he said,
+"I have no use in going aside from it now."
+
+The boar came up the face of the mountain then, and the Fianna after
+him. Diarmuid loosed Mac an Chuill from his leash then, but that did not
+serve him, for he did not wait for the boar, but ran from him. "It is a
+pity not to follow the advice of a good woman," said Diarmuid, "for
+Grania bade me this morning to bring the Mor-alltach and the Gae Dearg
+with me." Then he put his finger into the silken string of the Gae
+Buidhe, and took a straight aim at the boar and hit him full in the
+face; but if he did, the spear did not so much as give him a scratch.
+Diarmuid was discouraged by that, but he drew the Beag-alltach, and made
+a full stroke at the back of the boar, but neither did that make a wound
+on him, but it made two halves of the sword. Then the boar made a brave
+charge at Diarmuid, that cut the sod from under his feet and brought him
+down; but Diarmuid caught hold of the boar on rising, and held on to
+him, having one of his legs on each side of him, and his face to his
+hinder parts. And the boar made away headlong down the hill, but he
+could not rid himself of Diarmuid; and he went on after that to Ess
+Ruadh, and when he came to the red stream he gave three high leaps over
+it, backwards and forwards, but he could not put him from his back, and
+he went back by the same path till he went up the height of the
+mountain again. And at last on the top of the mountain he freed himself,
+and Diarmuid fell on the ground. And then the boar made a rush at him,
+and ripped him open, that his bowels came out about his feet. But if he
+did, Diarmuid made a cast at him with the hilt of his sword that was in
+his hand yet, and dashed out his brains, so that he fell dead there and
+then. And Rath na h-Amhrann, the Rath of the Sword Hilt, is the name of
+that place to this day.
+
+It was not long till Finn and the Fianna of Ireland came to the place,
+and the pains of death were coming on Diarmuid at that time. "It is well
+pleased I am to see you that way, Diarmuid," said Finn; "and it is a
+pity all the women of Ireland not to be looking at you now, for your
+great beauty is turned to ugliness, and your comely shape to
+uncomeliness." "For all that, you have power to heal me, Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "if you had a mind to do it." "What way could I heal you?"
+said Finn. "Easy enough," said Diarmuid, "for the time you were given
+the great gift of knowledge at the Boinn, you got this gift with it,
+that any one you would give a drink to out of the palms of your hands
+would be young and well again from any sickness after it." "You are not
+deserving of that drink from me," said Finn. "That is not true," said
+Diarmuid; "it is well I deserve it from you; for the time you went to
+the house of Dearc, son of Donnarthadh, and your chief men with you for
+a feast, your enemies came round the house, and gave out three great
+shouts against you, and threw fire and firebrands into it. And you rose
+up and would have gone out, but I bade you to stop there at drinking and
+pleasure, for that I myself would go out and put them down. And I went
+out, and put out the flames, and made three red rushes round the house,
+and I killed fifty in every rush, and I came in again without a wound.
+And it is glad and merry and in good courage you were that night,
+Finn," he said, "and if it was that night I had asked a drink of you,
+you would have given it; and it would be right for you to give it to me
+now." "That is not so," said Finn; "it is badly you have earned a drink
+or any good thing from me; for the night you went to Teamhair with me,
+you took Grania away from me in the presence of all the men of Ireland,
+and you being my own guard over her that night."
+
+"Do not blame me for that, Finn," said Diarmuid, "for what did I ever do
+against you, east or west, but that one thing; and you know well Grania
+put bonds on me, and I would not fail in my bonds for the gold of the
+whole world. And you will know it is well I have earned a drink from
+you, if you bring to mind the night the feast was made in the House of
+the Quicken Tree, and how you and all your men were bound there till I
+heard of it, and came fighting and joyful, and loosed you with my own
+blood, and with the blood of the Three Kings of the Island of the
+Floods; and if I had asked a drink of you that night, Finn, you would
+not have refused it. And I was with you in the smiting of Lon, son of
+Liobhan, and you are the man that should not forsake me beyond any other
+man. And many is the strait has overtaken yourself and the Fianna of
+Ireland since I came among you, and I was ready every time to put my
+body and my life in danger for your sake, and you ought not to do this
+unkindness on me now. And besides that," he said, "there has many a good
+champion fallen through the things you yourself have done, and there is
+not an end of them yet; and there will soon come great misfortunes on
+the Fianna, and it is few of their seed will be left after them. And it
+is not for yourself I am fretting, Finn," he said, "but for Oisin and
+Osgar, and the rest of my dear comrades, and as for you, Oisin, you will
+be left lamenting after the Fianna. And it is greatly you will feel the
+want of me yet, Finn," he said; "and if the women of the Fianna knew I
+was lying in my wounds on this ridge, it is sorrowful their faces would
+be at this time."
+
+And Osgar said then: "Although I am nearer in blood to you, Finn, than
+to Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, I will not let you refuse him this
+drink; and by my word," he said, "if any prince in the world would do
+the same unkindness to Diarmuid that you have done, it is only the one
+of us that has the strongest hand would escape alive. And give him a
+drink now without delay," he said.
+
+"I do not know of any well at all on this mountain," said Finn. "That is
+not so," said Diarmuid, "for there is not nine footsteps from you the
+well that has the best fresh water that can be found in the world."
+
+Then Finn went to the well, and he took the full of his two hands of the
+water. But when he was no more than half-way back, the thought of Grania
+came on him, and he let the water slip through his hands, and he said he
+was not able to bring it. "I give my word," said Diarmuid, "it was of
+your own will you let it from you." Then Finn went back the second time
+to get the water, but coming back he let it through his hands again at
+the thought of Grania. And Diarmuid gave a pitiful sigh of anguish when
+he saw that. "I swear by my sword and by my spear," said Osgar, "that if
+you do not bring the water without any more delay, Finn, there will not
+leave this hill but yourself or myself." Finn went back the third time
+to the well after what Osgar said, and he brought the water to Diarmuid,
+but as he reached him the life went out of his body. Then the whole
+company of the Fianna that were there gave three great heavy shouts,
+keening for Diarmuid.
+
+And Osgar looked very fiercely at Finn, and it is what he said, that it
+was a greater pity Diarmuid to be dead than if he himself had died. And
+the Fianna of Ireland had lost their yoke of battle by him, he said.
+"Let us leave this hill," said Finn then, "before Angus and the Tuatha
+de Danaan come upon us, for although we have no share in the death of
+Diarmuid, he would not believe the truth from us." "I give my word,"
+said Osgar, "if I had thought it was against Diarmuid you made the hunt
+of Beinn Gulbain, you would never have made it"
+
+Then Finn and the Fianna went away from the hill, and Finn leading
+Diarmuid's hound Mac an Chuill. But Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and
+Lugaidh's Son turned back again and put their four cloaks over Diarmuid,
+and then they went after the rest of the Fianna.
+
+And when they came to the Rath, Grania was out on the wall looking for
+news of Diarmuid; and she saw Finn and the Fianna of Ireland coming
+towards her. Then she said: "If Diarmuid was living, it is not led by
+Finn that Mac an Chuill would be coming home." And she was at that time
+heavy with child, and her strength went from her and she fell down from
+the wall. And when Oisin saw the way she was he bade Finn and the others
+to go on from her, but she lifted up her head and she asked Finn to
+leave Mac an Chuill with her. And he said he would not, and that he did
+not think it too much for him to inherit from Diarmuid, grandson of
+Duibhne.
+
+When Oisin heard that, he snatched the hound out of Finn's hand and gave
+it to Grania, and then he followed after his people.
+
+Then when Grania was certain of Diarmuid's death she gave out a long
+very pitiful cry that was heard through the whole place, and her women
+and her people came to her, and asked what ailed her to give a cry like
+that. And she told them how Diarmuid had come to his death by the Boar
+of Beinn Gulbain in the hunt Finn had made. "And there is grief in my
+very heart," she said, "I not to be able to fight myself with Finn, and
+I would not have let him go safe out of this place."
+
+When her people heard of the death of Diarmuid they gave three great
+heavy cries in the same way, that were heard in the clouds and the waste
+places of the sky. And then Grania bade the five hundred that she had
+for household to go to Beinn Gulbain for the body of Diarmuid.
+
+And when they were bringing it back, she went out to meet them, and they
+put down the body of Diarmuid, and it is what she said:
+
+"I am your wife, beautiful Diarmuid, the man I would do no hurt to; it
+is sorrowful I am after you to-night.
+
+"I am looking at the hawk and the hound my secret love used to be
+hunting with; she that loved the three, let her be put in the grave with
+Diarmuid.
+
+"Let us be glad to-night, let us make all welcome to-night, let us be
+open-handed to-night, since we are sitting by the body of a king.
+
+"And O Diarmuid," she said, "it is a hard bed Finn has given you, to be
+lying on the stones and to be wet with the rain. Ochone!" she said,
+"your blue eyes to be without sight, you that were friendly and generous
+and pursuing. O love! O Diarmuid! it is a pity it is he sent you to your
+death.
+
+"You were a champion of the men of Ireland, their prop in the middle of
+the fight; you were the head of every battle; your ways were glad and
+pleasant.
+
+"It is sorrowful I am, without mirth, without light, but only sadness
+and grief and long dying; your harp used to be sweet to me, it wakened
+my heart to gladness. Now my courage is fallen down, I not to hear you
+but to be always remembering your ways. Och! my grief is going through
+me.
+
+"A thousand curses on the day when Grania gave you her love, that put
+Finn of the princes from his wits; it is a sorrowful story your death is
+to-day.
+
+"Many heroes were great and strong about me in the beautiful plain;
+their hands were good at wrestling and at battle; Ochone! that I did not
+follow them.
+
+"You were the man was best of the Fianna, beautiful Diarmuid, that
+women loved. It is dark your dwelling-place is under the sod, it is
+mournful and cold your bed is; it is pleasant your laugh was to-day; you
+were my happiness, Diarmuid."
+
+And she went back then into the Rath, and bade her people to bring the
+body to her there.
+
+Now just at this time, it was showed to Angus at Brugh na Boinne that
+Diarmuid was dead on Beinn Gulbain, for he had kept no watch over him
+the night before.
+
+And he went on the cold wind towards Beinn Gulbain, and his people with
+him, and on the way they met with Grania's people that were bringing the
+body to the Rath.
+
+And when they saw him they held out the wrong sides of their shields as
+a sign of peace, and Angus knew them; and he and his people gave three
+great terrible cries over the body of Diarmuid.
+
+And Angus spoke then, and it is what he said: "I was never one night
+since the time I brought you to Brugh na Boinne, being nine months old,
+without keeping watch and protection over you till last night, Diarmuid,
+grandson of Duibhne; and now your blood has been shed and you have been
+cut off sharply, and the Boar of Beinn Gulbain has put you down,
+Diarmuid of the bright face and the bright sword. And it is a pity Finn
+to have done this treachery," he said, "and you at peace with him.
+
+"And lift up his body now," he said, "and bring it to the Brugh in the
+lasting rocks. And if I cannot bring him back to life," he said, "I will
+put life into him the way he can be talking with me every day."
+
+Then they put his body on a golden bier, and his spears over it pointed
+upwards, and they went on till they came to Brugh na Boinne.
+
+And Grania's people went to her and told her how Angus would not let
+them bring the body into the Rath, but brought it away himself to Brugh
+na Boinne. And Grania said she had no power over him.
+
+And she sent out then for her four sons that were being reared in the
+district of Corca Ui Duibhne. And when they came she gave them a loving
+welcome, and they came into the Rath and sat down there according to
+their age. And Grania spoke to them with a very loud, clear voice, and
+it is what she said: "My dear children, your father has been killed by
+Finn, son of Cumhal, against his own bond and agreement of peace, and
+let you avenge it well upon him. And here is your share of the
+inheritance of your father," she said, "his arms and his armour, and his
+feats of valour and power; and I will share these arms among you
+myself," she said, "and that they may bring you victory in every battle.
+Here is the sword for Donnchadh," she said, "the best son Diarmuid had;
+and the Gae Dearg for Eochaidh; and here is the armour for Ollann, for
+it will keep the body it is put on in safety; and the shield for Connla.
+And make no delay now," she said, "but go and learn every sort of skill
+in fighting, till such time as you will come to your full strength to
+avenge your father."
+
+So they took leave of her then, and of their household.
+
+And some of their people said: "What must we do now, since our lords
+will be going into danger against Finn and the Fianna of Ireland?" And
+Donnchadh, son of Diarmuid, bade them stop in their own places; "for if
+we make peace with Finn," he said, "there need be no fear on you, and if
+not, you can make your choice between ourselves and him." And with that
+they set out on their journey.
+
+But after a while Finn went secretly and unknown to the Fianna to the
+place where Grania was, and he got to see her in spite of all her high
+talk, and he spoke gently to her. And she would not listen to him, but
+bade him to get out of her sight, and whatever hard thing her tongue
+could say, she said it. But all the same, he went on giving her gentle
+talk and loving words, till in the end he brought her to his own will.
+
+And there is no news told of them, until such time as they came to where
+the seven battalions of the Fianna were waiting for Finn. And when they
+saw him coming, and Grania with him, like any new wife with her husband,
+they gave a great shout of laughter and of mockery, and Grania bowed
+down her head with shame, "By my word, Finn," said Oisin, "you will keep
+a good watch on Grania from this out."
+
+And some said the change had come on her because the mind of a woman
+changes like the water of a running stream; but some said it was Finn
+that had put enchantment on her.
+
+And as to the sons of Diarmuid, they came back at the end of seven
+years, after learning all that was to be learned of valour in the far
+countries of the world. And when they came back to Rath Grania they were
+told their mother was gone away with Finn, son of Cumhal, without
+leaving any word for themselves or for the King of Ireland. And they
+said if that was so, there was nothing for them to do. But after that
+they said they would make an attack on Finn, and they went forward to
+Almhuin, and they would take no offers, but made a great slaughter of
+every troop that came out against them.
+
+But at last Grania made an agreement of peace between themselves and
+Finn, and they got their father's place among the Fianna; and that was
+little good to them, for they lost their lives with the rest in the
+battle of Gabhra. And as to Finn and Grania, they stopped with one
+another to the end.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK EIGHT: CNOC-AN-AIR.
+
+CHAPTER I. TAILC, SON OF TREON
+
+
+One time the Fianna were all gathered together doing feats and casting
+stones. And after a while the Druid of Teamhair that was with them said:
+"I am in dread, Finn of the Fianna, that there is some trouble near at
+hand; and look now at those dark clouds of blood," he said, "that are
+threatening us side by side overhead. And there is fear on me," he said,
+"that there is some destruction coming on the Fianna."
+
+Finn looked up then, and he saw the great cloud of blood, and he called
+Osgar to look at it. "That need not knock a start from you," said Osgar,
+"with all the strength there is in your arms, and in the men that are
+with you." Then all the Fianna looked up at the cloud, and some of them
+were glad and cheerful and some were downhearted.
+
+Then the Druid bade Finn to call all his battalions together and to
+divide them into two halves, that they could be watching for the coming
+of the enemy.
+
+So Finn sounded the Dord Fiann, and they answered with a shout, every
+one hurrying to be the first. And Finn bade Osgar and Goll and Faolan to
+keep watch through the night, and he bade Conan the Bald to stop in the
+darkness of the cave of Liath Ard. "For it is you can shout loudest," he
+said, "to warn us if you see the enemy coming." "That I may be pierced
+through the middle of my body," said Conan, "if I will go watching for
+troubles or for armies alone, without some more of the Fianna being with
+me." "It is not fitting for you to refuse Finn," said Lugaidh's Son;
+"and it is you can shout the loudest," he said, "if the enemies come
+near the height." "Do not be speaking to me any more," said Conan, "for
+I will not go there alone, through the length of my days, for Finn and
+the whole of the Fianna." "Go then, Conan," said Osgar, "and Aodh Beag
+will go with you, and you can bring dogs with you, Bran and Sceolan and
+Fuaim and Fearagan; and let you go now without begrudging it," he said.
+
+So Conan went then to Liath Ard, and Aodh Beag and Finn's hounds along
+with him. And as to Finn, he lay down to sleep, and it was not long till
+he saw through his sleep Aodh Beag his son, and he without his head. And
+after that he saw Goll fighting with a very strong man. And he awoke
+from his sleep, and called the Druid of the Fianna to him, and asked him
+the meaning of what he saw. "I am in dread there is some destruction
+coming on the Fianna," said the Druid; "but Aodh Beag will not be
+wounded in the fight, or Goll," he said.
+
+And it was not long till Finn heard a great shout, and he sounded the
+Dord Fiann, and then he saw Conan running, and the hounds after him. And
+Finn sounded the Dord Fiann again before Conan came up, and when he
+came, Osgar asked him where was Aodh Beag. "He was at the door of the
+cave when I left it," said Conan, "but I did not look behind me since
+then," he said; "and it was not Aodh Beag was troubling me." "What was
+troubling you then?" said Osgar. "Nothing troubles me but myself," said
+Conan; "although I am well pleased at any good that comes to you," he
+said.
+
+Osgar went then running hard, till he came to the cave, and there he
+found Aodh Beag with no fear or trouble on him at all, stopping there
+till he would hear the noise of the shields. And Osgar brought him back
+to where the Fianna were, and they saw a great army coming as if in
+search of them.
+
+And a beautiful woman, having a crimson cloak, came to them over the
+plain, and she spoke to Finn, and her voice was as sweet as music. And
+Finn asked her who was she, and who did she come looking for. "I am the
+daughter of Garraidh, son of Dolar Dian, the Fierce," she said; "and my
+curse upon the King of Greece that bound me to the man that is
+following after me, and that I am going from, Tailc, son of Treon."
+"Tell me why are you shunning him, and I will protect you in spite of
+him," said Finn. "It is not without reason I hate him," said she, "for
+he has no good appearance, and his skin is of the colour of coal, and he
+has the head and the tail of a cat. And I have walked the world three
+times," she said, "and I did not leave a king or a great man without
+asking help from him, and I never got it yet." "I will give you
+protection," said Finn, "or the seven battalions of the Fianna will fall
+for your sake."
+
+With that they saw the big strange man, Tailc, son of Treon, coming
+towards them, and he said no word at all of greeting to Finn, but he
+called for a battle on account of his wife.
+
+So a thousand of the Fianna went out to meet him and his men; and if
+they did they all fell, and not one of them came back again. And then
+another thousand of the best men of the Fianna, having blue and green
+shields, went out under Caoilte, son of Ronan, and they were worsted by
+Tailc and his people. And then Osgar asked leave of Finn to go out and
+fight the big man. "I will give you leave," said Finn, "although I am
+sure you will fall by him." So Osgar went out, and he himself and Tailc,
+son of Treon, were fighting through the length of five days and five
+nights without food or drink or sleep. And at the end of that time,
+Osgar made an end of Tailc, and struck his head off. And when the Fianna
+saw that, they gave a shout of lamentation for those they had lost of
+the Fianna, and two shouts of joy for the death of Tailc.
+
+And as to the young woman, when she saw all the slaughter that had been
+done on account of her, shame reddened her face, and she fell dead there
+and then. And to see her die like that, after all she had gone through,
+preyed more on the Fianna than any other thing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. MEARGACH'S WIFE
+
+
+And while the Fianna were gathered yet on the hill where Tailc, son of
+Treon, had been put down, they saw a very great champion coming towards
+them, having an army behind him. He took no notice of any one more than
+another, but he asked in a very rough voice where was Finn, the Head of
+the Fianna. And Aodh Beag, that had a quiet heart, asked him who was he,
+and what was he come for. "I will tell you nothing at all, child," said
+the big man, "for it is short your years are, and I will tell nothing at
+all to any one but Finn." So Aodh Beag brought him to where Finn was,
+and Finn asked him his name. "Meargach of the Green Spears is my name,"
+he said; "and arms were never reddened yet on my body, and no one ever
+boasted of driving me backwards. And was it you, Finn," he said, "put
+down Tailc, son of Treon?" "It was not by me he fell," said Finn, "but
+by Osgar of the strong hand." "Was it not a great shame for you, Finn,"
+said Meargach then, "to let the queen-woman that had such a great name
+come to her death by the Fianna?" "It was not by myself or by any of the
+Fianna she got her death," said Finn; "it was seeing the army lost that
+brought her to her death. But if it is satisfaction for her death or the
+death of Tailc you want," he said, "You can get it from a man of the
+Fianna, or you can go quietly from this place." Then Meargach said he
+would fight with any man they would bring against him, to avenge Tailc,
+son of Treon.
+
+And it was Osgar stood up against him, and they fought a very hard fight
+through the length of three days, and at one time the Fianna thought it
+was Osgar was worsted, and they gave a great sorrowful shout. But in the
+end Osgar put down Meargach and struck his head off, and at that the
+seven battalions of the Fianna gave a shout of victory, and the army of
+Meargach keened him very sorrowfully. And after that, the two sons of
+Meargach, Ciardan the Swift and Liagan the Nimble, came up and asked
+who would come against them, hand to hand, that they might get
+satisfaction for their father.
+
+And it was Goll stood up against Ciardan, and it was not long till he
+put him down; and Conan came out against Liagan, and Liagan mocked at
+him and said: "It is foolishness your coming is, bald man!" But Conan
+made a quick blow and struck his head off before the fight was begun at
+all.
+
+And Faolan said that was a shameful thing to do, not to stand his ground
+and make a fair fight. But Conan said: "If I could make an end of the
+whole army by one blow, I would do it, and I would not be ashamed, and
+the whole of the Fianna could not shelter them from me."
+
+Then the two armies came towards each other, and they were making ready
+for the attack. And they saw a beautiful golden-haired woman coming
+towards them, and she crying and ever crying, and the battle was given
+up on both sides, waiting for her to come; and the army of Meargach knew
+it was their queen, Ailne of the Bright Face, and they raised a great
+cry of grief; and the Fianna were looking at her, and said no word.
+
+And she asked where was her husband, and where were her two sons. "High
+Queen," said Finn then, "for all they were so complete and quick and
+strong, the three you are asking for fell in fight."
+
+And when the queen-woman heard that, she cried out aloud, and she went
+to the place where her husband and her two sons were lying, and she
+stood over their bodies, and her golden hair hanging, and she keened
+them there. And her own people raised a sharp lamentation listening to
+her, and the Fianna themselves were under grief.
+
+And it is what she said: "O Meargach," she said, "of the sharp green
+spears, it is many a fight and many a heavy battle your hard hand fought
+in the gathering of the armies or alone.
+
+"I never knew any wound to be on your body after them; and it is full
+sure I am, it was not strength but treachery got the upper hand of you
+now.
+
+"It is long your journey was from far off, from your own kind country to
+Inisfail, to come to Finn and the Fianna, that put my three to death
+through treachery.
+
+"My grief! to have lost my husband, my head, by the treachery of the
+Fianna; my two sons, my two men that were rough in the fight.
+
+"My grief! my food and my drink; my grief! my teaching everywhere; my
+grief! my journey from far off, and I to have lost my high heroes.
+
+"My grief! my house thrown down; my grief! my shelter and my shield; my
+grief! Meargach and Ciardan; my grief! Liagan of the wide chest.
+
+"My grief! my protection and my shelter; my grief! my strength and my
+power; my grief! there is darkness come from this thing; my grief
+to-night you to be in your weakness.
+
+"My grief! my gladness and my pleasure; my grief! my desire in every
+place; my grief! my courage is gone and my strength; my grief from this
+night out for ever.
+
+"My grief! my guide and my going; my grief! my desire to the day of my
+death; my grief! my store and my sway; my grief! my heroes that were
+open-handed.
+
+"My grief! my bed and my sleep; my grief! my journey and my coming; my
+grief! my teacher and my share; my sorrowful grief! my three men.
+
+"My grief! my beauty and my ornaments; my grief! my jewels and my
+riches; my grief! my treasures and my goods; my grief! my three Candles
+of Valour.
+
+"My grief! my friends and my kindred; my grief! my people and my
+friends. My grief! my father and my mother; my grief and my trouble! you
+to be dead.
+
+"My grief my portion and my welcome; my grief! my health at every time;
+my grief! my increase and my light; my sore trouble, you to be without
+strength.
+
+"My grief! your spear and your sword; my grief! your gentleness and your
+love; my grief! your country and your home; my grief! you to be parted
+from my reach.
+
+"My grief! my coasts and my harbours; my grief! my wealth and my
+prosperity; my grief! my greatness and my kingdom; my grief and my
+crying are until death.
+
+"My grief! my luck altogether; my grief for you in time of battle; my
+grief! my gathering of armies; my grief! my three proud lions.
+
+"My grief! my games and my drinking; my grief! my music and my delight;
+my grief! my sunny house and my women; my crying grief, you to be under
+defeat.
+
+"My grief! my lands and my hunting; my grief! my three sure fighters;
+Och! my grief! they are my sorrow, to fall far off by the Fianna.
+
+"I knew by the great host of the Sidhe that were fighting over the dun,
+giving battle to one another in the valleys of the air, that destruction
+would put down my three.
+
+"I knew by the noise of the voices of the Sidhe coming into my ears,
+that a story of new sorrow was not far from me; it is your death it was
+foretelling.
+
+"I knew at the beginning of the day when my three good men went from me,
+when I saw tears of blood on their cheeks, that they would not come back
+to me as winners.
+
+"I knew by the voice of the battle-crow over your dun every evening,
+since you went from me comely and terrible, that misfortune and grief
+were at hand.
+
+"It is well I remember, my three strong ones, how often I used to be
+telling you that if you would go to Ireland, I would not see the joy of
+victory on your faces.
+
+"I knew by the voice of the raven every morning since you went from me,
+that your fall was sure and certain; that you would never come back to
+your own country.
+
+"I knew, my three great ones, by your forgetting the thongs of your
+hounds, that you would not gain the day or escape from the treachery of
+the Fianna.
+
+"I knew, Candles of Valour, by the stream near the dun turning to blood
+when you set out, that there would be treachery in Finn.
+
+"I knew by the eagle coming every evening over the dun, that it would
+not be long till I would hear a story of bad news of my three.
+
+"I knew by the withering of the tree before the dun, that you would
+never come back as conquerors from the treachery of Finn, son of
+Cumhal."
+
+When Grania, now, heard what the woman was saying, there was anger on
+her, and she said: "Do not be speaking against Finn or the Fianna,
+Queen, for it was not by any treachery or any deceit your three men were
+brought to their end."
+
+But Ailne made her no answer and gave no heed to her, but she went on
+with her complaint, and she crying and ever crying.
+
+"I knew, looking after you the day you went out from the dun, by the
+flight of the raven before you, there was no good sign of your coming
+back again.
+
+"I knew by Ciardan's hounds that were howling mournfully every evening,
+that it would not be long till I would have bad news of you.
+
+"I knew by my sleep that went from me, by my tears through every lasting
+night, that there was no luck before you.
+
+"I knew by the sorrowful vision that showed myself in danger, my head
+and my hands cut off, that it was yourselves were without sway.
+
+"I knew by the voice of Uaithnin, the hound that is dearest to Liagan,
+howling early every morning, that death was certain for my three.
+
+"I knew when I saw in a vision a lake of blood in the place of the dun,
+that my three were put down by the deceit that was always with Finn."
+
+"Do not be faulting Finn," said Grania then, "however vexed your heart
+may be. And leave off now," she said, "speaking against the Fianna and
+against himself; for if your men had stopped in their own country," she
+said, "without coming to avenge the son of Treon, there would no harm
+have happened them." "I would not put any reproach on the Fianna,
+Grania," said Ailne, "if my three men had been put down in fair battle,
+but they are not living to bear witness to me," she said; "and it is
+likely they were put under Druid spells at the first, or they would
+never have given in." "If they were living, Queen," said Grania, "they
+would not be running down the Fianna, but they would tell you it was by
+bravery and the strong hand they fell." "I do not believe you or the
+Fianna when you say that," said Ailne; "for no one that came to meet
+them ever got the sway over them by the right of the sword." "If you do
+not believe what I am saying, beautiful Ailne," said Grania, "I tell
+you more of your great army will fall by the Fianna, and that not by
+treachery." "That is not so," said Ailne, "but I have good hopes that my
+own army will do destruction on the Fianna, for the sake of the men that
+are dead." "Well, Ailne," said Grania, "I know it is a far journey you
+have come. And come now and eat and drink," she said, "with myself and
+with the Fianna."
+
+But Ailne would not do that, but she said it would not be fitting for
+her to take food from people that did such deeds, and what she wanted
+was satisfaction for the death of her husband and her two sons.
+
+And first it was settled for two men of each side to go out against one
+another; and then Ailne said that there should be thirty men on each
+side, and then she said she would not be satisfied to go back to her own
+country till she brought the head of Finn with her, or till the last of
+his men had fallen. And there was a great battle fought in the end, and
+it is seldom the Fianna fought so hard a battle as that.
+
+And it would be too long to tell, and it would tire the hearers, how
+many good men were killed on each side. But in the end Ailne of the
+Bright Face was worsted, and she went back with what were left of her
+men to their own country, and no one knew where they went.
+
+And the hill in the west those battles were fought on got the name of
+Cnoc-an-Air, the Hill of Slaughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. AILNE'S REVENGE
+
+
+One day Finn and his people were hunting on Slieve Fuad, and a stag
+stood against them for a while and fought with his great rough horns,
+and then he turned and ran, and the Fianna followed after him till they
+came to the green hill of Liadhas, and from that to rocky Cairgin. And
+there they lost him again for a while, till Sceolan started him again,
+and he went back towards Slieve Fuad, and the Fianna after him.
+
+But Finn and Daire of the Songs, that were together, went astray and
+lost the rest of their people, and they did not know was it east or west
+they were going.
+
+Finn sounded the Dord Fiann then, and Daire played some sorrowful music
+to let their people know where they were. But when the Fianna heard the
+music, it seemed to be a long way off; and sometimes they thought it was
+in the north it was, and sometimes in the east, and then it changed to
+the west, the way they did not know in the wide world where was it
+coming from.
+
+And as to Finn and Daire, a Druid mist came about them, and they did not
+know what way they were going.
+
+And after a while they met with a young woman, comely and pleasant, and
+they asked who was she, and what brought her there. "Glanluadh is my
+name," she said, "and my husband is Lobharan; and we were travelling
+over the plain together a while ago, and we heard the cry of hounds, and
+he left me and went after the hunt, and I do not know where is he, or
+what way did he go." "Come on then with us," said Finn, "and we will
+take care of you, for we ourselves do not know what way the hunt is
+gone, east or west." So they went on, and before long they came to a
+hill, and they heard sleepy music of the Sidhe beside them. And after
+that there came shouts and noises, and then the music began again, and
+heavy sleep came on Finn and Daire. And when they awoke from their sleep
+they saw a very large lighted house before them, and a stormy blue sea
+around it. Then they saw a very big grey man coming through the waves,
+and he took hold of Finn and of Daire, and all their strength went from
+them, and he brought them across the waves and into the house, and he
+shut the door of the house with iron hooks. "My welcome to you, Finn of
+the great name," he said then in a very harsh voice; "it is long we are
+waiting here for you."
+
+They sat down then on the hard side of a bed, and the woman of the house
+came to them, and they knew her to be Ailne, wife of Meargach. "It is
+long I am looking for you, Finn," she said, "to get satisfaction for the
+treachery you did on Meargach and on my two comely young sons, and on
+Tailc, son of Treon, and all his people. And do you remember that,
+Finn?" she said. "I remember well," said Finn, "that they fell by the
+swords of the Fianna, not by treachery but in fighting." "It was by
+treachery they fell," said the Grey Man then; "and it is our witness to
+it, pleasant Ailne to be the way she is, and many a strong army under
+grief on account of her." "What is Ailne to you, man of the rough
+voice?" said Finn. "I am her own brother," said the man.
+
+With that he put bonds on the three, Finn and Daire and Glanluadh, and
+he put them down into some deep shut place.
+
+They were very sorrowful then, and they stopped there to the end of five
+days and five nights, without food, without drink, without music.
+
+And Ailne went to see them then, and Finn said to her: "O Ailne," he
+said, "bring to mind the time you come to Cnoc-an-Air, and the way the
+Fianna treated you with generosity; and it is not fitting for you," he
+said, "to keep us now under shame and weakness and in danger of death."
+"I know well I got kind treatment from Grania," said Ailne in a
+sorrowful voice; "but for all that, Finn," she said, "if all the Fianna
+were in that prison along with you under hard bonds, it would please me
+well, and I would not pity their case. And what is it set you following
+after Finn," she said then to Glanluadh, "for that is not a fitting
+thing for you to do, and his own kind wife living yet."
+
+Then Glanluadh told her the whole story, and how she was walking the
+plain with Lobharan her husband, and he followed the hunt, and the mist
+came about her that she did not know east from west, and how she met
+then with Finn that she never saw before that time. "If that is so,"
+said Ailne, "it is not right for you to be under punishment without
+cause."
+
+She called then to her brother the Grey Man, and bade him take the
+spells off Glanluadh. And when she was set free it is sorry she was to
+leave Daire in bonds, and Finn. And when she had bidden them farewell
+she went out with Ailne, and there was food brought to her, but a cloud
+of weakness came on her of a sudden, that it was a pity to see the way
+she was.
+
+And when Ailne saw that, she brought out an enchanted cup of the Sidhe
+and gave her a drink from it. And no sooner did Glanluadh drink from the
+cup than her strength and her own appearance came back to her again; but
+for all that, she was fretting after Finn and Daire in their bonds. "It
+seems to me, Glanluadh, you are fretting after those two men," said
+Ailne. "I am sorry indeed," said Glanluadh, "the like of those men to be
+shut up without food or drink." "If it is pleasing to you to give them
+food you may give it," said Ailne, "for I will not make an end of them
+till I see can I get the rest of the Fianna into bonds along with them."
+The two women brought food and drink then to Finn, and to Daire; and
+Glanluadh gave her blessing to Finn, and she cried when she saw the way
+he was; but as to Ailne, she had no pity at all for the King of the
+Fianna.
+
+Now as to the Grey Man, he heard them talking of the Fianna, and they
+were saying that Daire had a great name for the sweetness of his music.
+"I have a mind to hear that sweet music," said he. So he went to the
+place where they were, and he bade Daire to let him hear what sort of
+music he could make. "My music pleased the Fianna well," said Daire;
+"but I think it likely it would not please you." "Play it for me now,
+till I know if the report I heard of you is true," said the Grey Man.
+"Indeed, I have no mind for music," said Daire, "being weak and
+downhearted the way I am, through your spells that put down my courage."
+"I will take my spells off you for so long as you play for me," said the
+Grey Man. "I could never make music seeing Finn in bonds the way he is,"
+said Daire; "for it is worse to me, he to be under trouble than myself."
+"I will take the power of my spells off Finn till you play for me," said
+the Grey Man.
+
+He weakened the spells then, and gave them food and drink, and it
+pleased him greatly the way Daire played the music, and he called to
+Glanluadh and to Ailne to come and to listen to the sweetness of it. And
+they were well pleased with it, and it is glad Glanluadh was, seeing
+them not so discouraged as they were.
+
+Now as to the Fianna, they were searching for Finn and for Daire in
+every place they had ever stopped in. And when they came to this place
+they could hear Daire's sweet music; and at first they were glad when
+they heard it, and then when they knew the way he himself and Finn were,
+they made an attack on Ailne's dun to release them.
+
+But the Grey Man heard their shouts, and he put the full power of his
+spells again on Finn and on Daire. And the Fianna heard the music as if
+stammering, and then they heard a great noise like the loud roaring of
+waves, and when they heard that, there was not one of them but fell into
+a sleep and clouds of death, under those sorrowful spells.
+
+And then the Grey Man and Ailne came out quietly from where they were,
+and they brought the whole of the men of the Fianna that were there into
+the dun. And they put hard bonds on them, and put them where Finn and
+Daire were. And there was great grief on Finn and Daire when they saw
+them, and they were all left there together for a while.
+
+Then Glanluadh said to the Grey Man: "If Daire's music is pleasing to
+you, let him play it to us now." "If you have a mind for music," said
+the Grey Man, "Daire must play it for us, and for Finn and his army as
+well."
+
+They went then to where they were, and bade Daire to play. "I could
+never play sweet music," said Daire, "the time the Fianna are in any
+trouble; for when they are in trouble, I myself am in trouble, and I
+could not sound any sweet string," he said, "while there is trouble on
+any man of them." The Grey Man weakened the spells then on them all, and
+Daire played first the strings of sweetness, and of the noise of
+shouting, and then he sang his own grief and the grief of all the
+Fianna. And at that the Grey Man said it would not be long before he
+would put the whole of the Fianna to death; and then Daire played a tune
+of heavy shouts of lamentation. And then at Finn's bidding he played the
+music of sweet strings for the Fianna.
+
+They were kept, now, a long time in that prison, and they got very hard
+treatment; and sometimes Ailne's brother would come in and strike the
+heads off some of them, for none of them could rise up from the seats
+they were sitting on through his enchantments. But one time he was going
+to strike the bald head off Conan, and Conan made a great leap from the
+seat; but if he did, he left strips of his skin hanging to it, that his
+back was left bare. And then he came round the Grey Man with his pitiful
+words: "Stop your hand now," he said, "for that is enough for this time;
+and do not send me to my death yet awhile, and heal me of my wounds
+first," he said, "before you make an end of me." And the reason he said
+that was because he knew Ailne to have an enchanted cup in the dun, that
+had cured Glanluadh.
+
+And the Grey Man took pity on his case, and he brought him out and bade
+Ailne to bring the cup to him and to cure his wounds. "I will not bring
+it," said Ailne, "for it would be best give no time at all to him or to
+the Fianna, but to make an end of them." "It is not to be saved from
+death I am asking, bright-faced Ailne," said Conan, "but only not to go
+to my death stripped bare the way I am." When Ailne heard that, she
+brought a sheepskin and she put it on Conan's back, and it fitted and
+grew to him, and covered his wounds. "I will not put you to death,
+Conan," said the Grey Man then, "but you can stop with myself to the end
+of your life." "You will never be without grief and danger and the fear
+of treachery if you keep him with you," said Ailne; "for there is
+treachery in his heart the same as there is in the rest of them." "There
+is no fear of that," said her brother, "or I will make no delay until I
+put the whole of the Fianna to death." And with that he brought Conan to
+where the enchanted cup was, and he put it in his hand. And just at that
+moment they heard Daire playing very sweet sorrowful music, and the Grey
+Man went to listen to it, very quick and proud. And Conan followed him
+there, and after a while the Grey Man asked him what did he do with the
+enchanted cup. "I left it where I found it, full of power," said Conan.
+
+The Grey Man hurried back then to the place where the treasures of the
+dun were. But no sooner was he gone than Conan took out the cup that he
+had hidden, and he gave a drink from it to Finn and to Osgar and to the
+rest of the Fianna. And they that were withered and shaking, without
+strength, without courage, got back their own appearance and their
+strength again on the moment.
+
+And when the Grey Man came back from looking for the cup, and saw what
+had happened, he took his sword and made a stroke at Conan. But Conan
+called to Osgar to defend him, and Osgar attacked the Grey Man, and it
+was not long till he made him acquainted with death.
+
+And when Ailne saw that, with the grief and the dread that came on her,
+she fell dead then and there.
+
+Then all the Fianna made a feast with what they found of food and of
+drink, and they were very joyful and merry. But when they rose up in the
+morning, there was no trace or tidings of the dun, but it was on the
+bare grass they were lying.
+
+But as to Conan, the sheepskin never left him; and the wool used to grow
+on it every year, the same as it would on any other skin.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK NINE: THE WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE QUARREL WITH THE SONS OF MORNA
+
+
+One time when the Fianna were gone here and there hunting, Black
+Garraidh and Caoilte were sitting beside Finn, and they were talking of
+the battle where Finn's father was killed. And Finn said then to
+Garraidh: "Tell me now, since you were there yourself, what way was it
+you brought my father Cumhal to his death?" "I will tell you that since
+you ask me," said Garraidh; "it was my own hand and the hands of the
+rest of the sons of Morna that made an end of him." "That is cold
+friendship from my followers the sons of Morna," said Finn. "If it is
+cold friendship," said Garraidh, "put away the liking you are letting on
+to have for us, and show us the hatred you have for us all the while."
+"If I were to lift my hand against you now, sons of Morna," said Finn,
+"I would be well able for you all without the help of any man." "It was
+by his arts Cumhal got the upper hand of us," said Garraidh; "and when
+he got power over us," he said, "he banished us to every far country; a
+share of us he sent to Alban, and a share of us to dark Lochlann, and a
+share of us to bright Greece, parting us from one another; and for
+sixteen years we were away from Ireland, and it was no small thing to us
+to be without seeing one another through that time. And the first day we
+came back to Ireland," he said, "we killed sixteen hundred men, and no
+lie in it, and not a man of them but would be keened by a hundred. And
+we took their duns after that," he said, "and we went on till we were
+all around one house in Munster of the red walls. But so great was the
+bravery of the man in that house, that was your father, that it was
+easier to find him than to kill him. And we killed all that were of his
+race out on the hill, and then we made a quick rush at the house where
+Cumhal was, and every man of us made a wound on his body with his spear.
+And I myself was in it, and it was I gave him the first wound. And
+avenge it on me now, Finn, if you have a mind to," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not long after that, Finn gave a feast at Almhuin for all his
+chief men, and there came to it two sons of the King of Alban, and sons
+of the kings of the great world. And when they were all sitting at the
+feast, the serving-men rose up and took drinking-horns worked by skilled
+men, and having shining stones in them, and they poured out strong drink
+for the champions; and it is then mirth rose up in their young men, and
+courage in their fighting men, and kindness and gentleness in their
+women, and knowledge and foreknowledge in their poets.
+
+And then a crier rose up and shook a rough iron chain to silence the
+clowns and the common lads and idlers, and then he shook a chain of old
+silver to silence the high lords and chief men of the Fianna, and the
+learned men, and they all listened and were silent.
+
+And Fergus of the True Lips rose up and sang before Finn the songs and
+the good poems of his forefathers; and Finn and Oisin and Lugaidh's Son
+rewarded him with every good thing. And then he went on to Goll, son of
+Morna, and told the fights and the destructions and the cattle-drivings
+and the courtings of his fathers; and it is well-pleased and high-minded
+the sons of Morna were, listening to that.
+
+And Goll said then: "Where is my woman-messenger?" "I am here, King of
+the Fianna," said she. "Have you brought me my hand-tribute from the men
+of Lochlann?" "I have brought it surely," said she. And with that she
+rose up and laid on the floor of the hall before Goll a load of pure
+gold, the size of a good pig, and that would be a heavy load for a
+strong man. And Goll loosened the covering that was about it, and he
+gave Fergus a good reward from it as he was used to do; for there never
+was a wise, sharp-worded poet, or a sweet harp-player, or any learned
+man of Ireland or of Alban, but Goll would give him gold or silver or
+some good thing.
+
+And when Finn saw that, he said: "How long is it, Goll, you have this
+rent on the men of Lochlann, and my own rent being on them always with
+it, and one of my own men, Ciaran son of Latharne, and ten hundred men
+of his household, guarding it and guarding my right of hunting?" And
+Goll saw there was anger on Finn, and he said: "It is a long time, Finn,
+I have that rent on the men of Lochlann, from the time your father put
+war and quarrels on me, and the King of Ireland joined with him, and I
+was made to quit Ireland by them. And I went into Britain," he said,
+"and I took the country and killed the king himself and did destruction
+on his people, but Cumhal put me out of it; and from that I went to
+Fionnlochlann, and the king fell by me, and his household, and Cumhal
+put me out of it; and I went from that to the country of the Saxons, and
+the king and his household fell by me, and Cumhal put me out of it. But
+I came back then to Ireland, and I fought a battle against your father,
+and he fell by me there. And it was at that time I put this rent upon
+the men of Lochlann. And, Finn," he said, "it is not a rent of the
+strong hand you have put on them, but it is a tribute for having the
+protection of the Fianna of Ireland, and I do not lessen that. And you
+need not begrudge that tribute to me," he said, "for if I had more than
+that again, it is to you and to the men of Ireland I would give it."
+
+There was great anger on Finn then, and he said: "You tell me, Goll," he
+said, "by your own story, that you came from the city of Beirbhe to
+fight against my father, and that you killed him in the battle; and it
+is a bold thing you to tell that to me." "By your own hand," said Goll,
+"if you were to give me the same treatment your father gave me, I would
+pay you the same way as I paid him." "It would be hard for you to do
+that," said Finn, "for there are a hundred men in my household against
+every man there is in your household." "That was the same with your
+father," said Goll, "and I avenged my disgrace on him; and I would do
+the same on yourself if you earned it," he said.
+
+Then Cairell of the White Skin, son of Finn, said: "It is many a man of
+Finn's household you have put down, Goll!" And Bald Conan when he heard
+that said: "I swear by my arms, Goll was never without having a hundred
+men in his household, every one of them able to get the better of
+yourself." "And is it to them you belong, crooked-speaking, bare-headed
+Conan?" said Cairell. "It is to them I belong, you black, feeble,
+nail-scratching, rough-skinned Cairell; and I will make you know it was
+Finn was in the wrong," said Conan.
+
+With that Cairell rose up and gave a furious blow of his fist to Conan,
+and Conan took it with no great patience, but gave him back a blow in
+his teeth, and from that they went on to worse blows again. And the two
+sons of Goll rose up to help Conan, and Osgar went to the help of
+Cairell, and it was not long till many of the chief men of the Fianna
+were fighting on the one side or the other, on the side of Finn or on
+the side of the sons of Morna.
+
+But then Fergus of the True Lips rose up, and the rest of the poets of
+the Fianna along with him, and they sang their songs and their poems to
+check and to quiet them. And they left off their fighting at the sound
+of the poets' songs, and they let their weapons fall on the floor, and
+the poets took them up, and made peace between the fighters; and they
+put bonds on Finn and on Goll to keep the peace for a while, till they
+could ask for a judgment from the High King of Ireland. And that was the
+end for that time of the little quarrel at Almhuin.
+
+But it broke out again, one time there was a falling out between Finn
+and Goll as to the dividing of a pig of the pigs of Manannan. And at
+Daire Tardha, the Oak Wood of Bulls, in the province of Connacht, there
+was a great fight between Finn's men and the sons of Morna. And the sons
+of Morna were worsted, and fifteen of their men were killed; and they
+made their mind up that from that time they would set themselves against
+any friends of Finn or of his people. And it was Conan the Bald gave
+them that advice, for he was always bitter, and a maker of quarrels and
+of mischief in every place.
+
+And they kept to their word, and spared no one. There was a
+yellow-haired queen that Finn loved, Berach Brec her name was, and she
+was wise and comely and worthy of any good man, and she had her house
+full of treasures, and never refused the asking of any. And any one that
+came to her house at Samhain time might stay till Beltaine, and have his
+choice then to go or to stay. And the sons of Morna had fostered her,
+and they went where she was and bade her to give up Finn and she need be
+in no dread of them. But she said she would not give up her kind lover
+to please them; and she was going away from them to her ship, and Art,
+son of Morna, made a cast of his spear that went through her body, that
+she died, and her people brought her up from the strand and buried her.
+
+And as to Goll, he took a little hound that Finn thought a great deal
+of, Conbeg its name was, and he drowned it in the sea; and its body was
+brought up to shore by a wave afterwards, and it was buried under a
+little green hill by the Fianna. And Caoilte made a complaint over it,
+and he said how swift the little hound was after deer, or wild pigs, and
+how good at killing them, and that it was a pity it to have died, out on
+the cold green waves. And about that time, nine women of the Tuatha de
+Danaan came to meet with nine men of the Fianna, and the sons of Morna
+saw them coming and made an end of them.
+
+And when Caoilte met with Goll, he made a cast of his spear at him that
+struck the golden helmet off his head and a piece of his flesh along
+with it. But Goll took it very proudly, and put on the helmet again and
+took up his weapons, and called out to his brothers that he was no way
+ashamed.
+
+And Finn went looking for the sons of Morna in every place to do
+vengeance on them. They were doing robbery and destruction one time in
+Slieve Echtge, that got its name from Echtge, daughter of Nuada of the
+Silver Hand, and Finn and the Fianna were to the west, at Slieve Cairn
+in the district of Corcomruadh. And Finn was in doubt if the sons of
+Morna were gone southward into Munster or north into Connacht. So he
+sent Aedan and Cahal, two sons of the King of Ulster, and two hundred
+righting men with them, into the beautiful pleasant province of
+Connacht, and every day they used to go looking for the sons of Morna
+from place to place. But after a while the three battalions of the
+Fianna that were in Corcomruadh saw the track of a troop of men, and
+they thought it to be the track of the sons of Morna; and they closed
+round them at night, and made an end of them all. But when the full
+light came on the morrow, they knew them to be their own people, that
+were with the King of Ulster's sons, and they gave three great heavy
+cries, keening the friends they had killed in mistake.
+
+And Caoilte and Oisin went to Rath Medba and brought a great stone and
+put it over the king's sons, and it was called Lia an Imracail, the
+Stone of the Mistake. And the place where Goll brought his men the time
+he parted from Finn in anger got the name of Druimscarha, the Parting
+Hill of Heroes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. DEATH OF GOLL
+
+
+And at last it chanced that Goll and Cairell, son of Finn, met with one
+another, and said sharp words, and they fought in the sea near the
+strand, and Cairell got his death by Goll. And there was great anger and
+great grief on Finn, seeing his son, that was so strong and comely,
+lying dead and grey, like a blighted branch.
+
+And as to Goll, he went away to a cave that was in a point stretching
+out into the sea; and he thought to stop there till Finn's anger would
+have passed.
+
+And Osgar knew where he was, and he went to see him, that had been his
+comrade in so many battles. But Goll thought it was as an enemy he came,
+and he made a cast of his spear at him, and though Osgar got no wound by
+it, it struck his shield and crushed it. And Finn took notice of the way
+the shield was, and when he knew that Goll had made a cast at Osgar
+there was greater anger again on him. And he sent out his men and bade
+them to watch every path and every gap that led to the cave where Goll
+was, the way they would make an end of him.
+
+And when Goll knew Finn to be watching for his life that way, he made no
+attempt to escape, but stopped where he was, without food, without
+drink, and he blinded with the sand that was blowing into his eyes.
+
+And his wife came to a rock where she could speak with him, and she
+called to him to come to her. "Come over to me," she said; "and it is a
+pity you to be blinded where you are, on the rocks of the waste sea,
+with no drink but the salt water, a man that was first in every fight.
+And come now to be sleeping beside me," she said; "and in place of the
+hard sea-water I will nourish you from my own breast, and it is I will
+do your healing. And the gold of your hair is my desire for ever," she
+said, "and do not stop withering there like an herb in the winter-time,
+and my heart black with grief within me."
+
+But Goll would not leave the spot where he was for all she could say.
+"It is best as it is," he said, "and I never took the advice of a woman
+east or west, and I never will take it. And O sweet-voiced queen," he
+said, "what ails you to be fretting after me; and remember now your
+silver and your gold, and your silks and stuffs, and remember the seven
+hounds I gave you at Cruadh Ceirrge, and every one of them without
+slackness till he has killed the deer. And do not be crying tears after
+me, queen with the white hands," he said; "but remember your constant
+lover, Aodh, the son of the best woman of the world, that came out from
+Spain asking for you, and that I fought at Corcar-an-Deirg; and go to
+him now," he said, "for it is bad when a woman is in want of a good
+man."
+
+And he lay down on the rocks, and at the end of twelve days he died. And
+his wife keened him there, and made a great lamentation for her husband
+that had such a great name, and that was the second best of the Fianna
+of Ireland.
+
+And when Conan heard of the death of Goll his brother, there was great
+anger on him, and he went to Garraidh, and asked him to go with him to
+Finn to ask satisfaction for Goll. "I am not willing to go," said
+Garraidh, "since we could get no satisfaction for the great son of
+Morna." "Whether you have a mind to go or not, I will go," said Conan;
+"and I will make an end of every man I meet with, for the sake of
+yellow-haired Goll; I will have the life of Oisin, Finn's great son, and
+of Osgar and of Caoilte and of Daire of the Songs; I will have no
+forgiveness for them; we must show no respect for Finn, although we may
+die in the fight, having no help from Goll. And let us take that work in
+hand, and make no delay," he said; "for if Finn is there, his strength
+will be there, until we put him under his flag-stone."
+
+But it is not likely Garraidh went with him, and he after speaking such
+foolish words.
+
+And what happened Conan in the end is not known. But there is a cairn of
+stones on a hill of Burren, near to Corcomruadh, and the people of
+Connacht say it is there he is buried, and that there was a stone found
+there one time, having on it in the old writing: "Conan the
+swift-footed, the bare-footed." But the Munster people say it is on
+their own side of Burren he is buried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE BATTLE OF GABHRA
+
+
+Now, with one thing and another, the High King of Ireland had got to be
+someway bitter against Finn and the Fianna; and one time that he had a
+gathering of his people he spoke out to them, and he bade them to
+remember all the harm that had been done them through the Fianna, and
+all their pride, and the tribute they asked. "And as to myself," he
+said, "I would sooner die fighting the Fianna, if I could bring them
+down along with me, than live with Ireland under them the way it is
+now."
+
+All his people were of the same mind, and they said they would make no
+delay, but would attack the Fianna and make an end of them. "And we will
+have good days of joy and of feasting," they said, "when once Almhuin is
+clear of them."
+
+And the High King began to make plans against Finn; and he sent to all
+the men of Ireland to come and help him. And when all was ready, he sent
+and bade Osgar to come to a feast he was making at Teamhair.
+
+And Osgar, that never was afraid before any enemy, set out for Teamhair,
+and three hundred of his men with him. And on the way they saw a woman
+of the Sidhe washing clothes at a river, and there was the colour of
+blood on the water where she was washing them. And Osgar said to her:
+"There is red on the clothes you are washing; and it is for the dead you
+are washing them." And the woman answered him, and it is what she said:
+"It is not long till the ravens will be croaking over your own head
+after the battle." "Is there any weakness in our eyes," said Osgar,
+"that a little story like that would set us crying? And do another
+foretelling for us now," he said, "and tell us will any man of our
+enemies fall by us before we ourselves are made an end of?"
+
+"There will nine hundred fall by yourself," she said; "and the High
+King himself will get his death-wound from you."
+
+Osgar and his men went on then to the king's house at Teamhair, and they
+got good treatment, and the feast was made ready, and they were three
+days at pleasure and at drinking.
+
+And on the last day of the drinking, the High King called out with a
+loud voice, and he asked Osgar would he make an exchange of spears with
+him. "Why do you ask that exchange," said Osgar, "when I myself and my
+spear were often with yourself in time of battle? And you would not ask
+it of me," he said, "if Finn and the Fianna were with me now." "I would
+ask it from any fighting man among you," said the king, "and for rent
+and tribute along with it." "Any gold or any treasure you might ask of
+us, we would give it to you," said Osgar, "but it is not right for you
+to ask my spear." There were very high words between them then, and they
+threatened one another, and at the last the High King said: "I will put
+my spear of the seven spells out through your body." "And I give my word
+against that," said Osgar, "I will put my spear of the nine spells
+between the meeting of your hair and your beard."
+
+With that he and his men rose up and went out of Teamhair, and they
+stopped to rest beside a river, and there they heard the sound of a very
+sorrowful tune, that was like keening, played on a harp. And there was
+great anger on Osgar when he heard that, and he rose up and took his
+arms and roused his people, and they went on again to where Finn was.
+And there came after them a messenger from the High King, and the
+message he brought was this, that he never would pay tribute to the
+Fianna or bear with them at all from that time.
+
+And when Finn heard that, he sent a challenge of battle, and he gathered
+together all the Fianna that were left to him. But as to the sons of
+Morna, it was to the High King of Ireland they gathered.
+
+And it was at the hill of Gabhra the two armies met, and there were
+twenty men with the King of Ireland for every man that was with Finn.
+
+And it is a very hard battle was fought that day, and there were great
+deeds done on both sides; and there never was a greater battle fought in
+Ireland than that one.
+
+And as to Osgar, it would be hard to tell all he killed on that day;
+five score of the Sons of the Gael, and five score fighting men from the
+Country of Snow, and seven score of the Men of Green Swords that never
+went a step backward, and four hundred from the Country of the Lion, and
+five score of the sons of kings; and the shame was for the King of
+Ireland.
+
+But as to Osgar himself, that began the day so swift and so strong, at
+the last he was like leaves on a strong wind, or like an aspen-tree that
+is falling. But when he saw the High King near him, he made for him like
+a wave breaking on the strand; and the king saw him coming, and shook
+his greedy spear, and made a cast of it, and it went through his body
+and brought him down on his right knee, and that was the first grief of
+the Fianna. But Osgar himself was no way daunted, but he made a cast of
+his spear of the nine spells that went into the High King at the meeting
+of the hair and the beard, and gave him his death. And when the men
+nearest to the High King saw that, they put the king's helmet up on a
+pillar, the way his people would think he was living yet. But Osgar saw
+it, and he lifted a thin bit of a slab-stone that was on the ground
+beside him, and he made a cast of it that broke the helmet where it was;
+and then he himself fell like a king.
+
+And there fell in that battle the seven sons of Caoilte, and the son of
+the King of Lochlann that had come to give them his help, and it would
+be hard to count the number of the Fianna that fell in that battle.
+
+And when it was ended, those that were left of them went looking for
+their dead. And Caoilte stooped down over his seven brave sons, and
+every living man of the Fianna stooped over his own dear friends. And it
+was a lasting grief to see all that were stretched in that place, but
+the Fianna would not have taken it to heart the way they did, but for
+being as they were, a beaten race.
+
+And as to Oisin, he went looking for Osgar, and it is the way he found
+him, lying stretched, and resting on his left arm and his broken shield
+beside him, and his sword in his hand yet, and his blood about him on
+every side. And he put out his hand to Oisin, and Oisin took it and gave
+out a very hard cry. And Osgar said: "It is glad I am to see you safe,
+my father." And Oisin had no answer to give him. And just then Caoilte
+came where they were, and he looked at Osgar. "What way are you now, my
+darling?" he said. "The way you would like me to be," said Osgar.
+
+Then Caoilte searched the wound, and when he saw how the spear had torn
+its way through to the back, he cried out, and a cloud came over him and
+his strength failed him. "O Osgar," he said, "you are parted from the
+Fianna, and they themselves must be parted from battle from this out,"
+he said, "and they must pay their tribute to the King of Ireland."
+
+Then Caoilte and Oisin raised up Osgar on their shields and brought him
+to a smooth green hill till they would take his dress off. And there was
+not a hands-breadth of his white body that was without a wound.
+
+And when the rest of the Fianna saw what way Osgar was, there was not a
+man of them that keened his own son or his brother, but every one of
+them came keening Osgar.
+
+And after a while, at noonday, they saw Finn coming towards them, and
+what was left of the Sun-banner raised on a spear-shaft. All of them
+saluted Finn then, but he made no answer, and he came up to the hill
+where Osgar was. And when Osgar saw him coming he saluted him, and he
+said: "I have got my desire in death, Finn of the sharp arms." And Finn
+said: "It is worse the way you were, my son, on the day of the battle at
+Beinn Edair when the wild geese could swim on your breast, and it was my
+hand that gave you healing." "There can no healing be done for me now
+for ever," said Osgar, "since the King of Ireland put the spear of seven
+spells through my body." And Finn said: "It is a pity it was not I
+myself fell in sunny scarce Gabhra, and you going east and west at the
+head of the Fianna." "And if it was yourself fell in the battle," said
+Osgar, "you would not hear me keening after you; for no man ever knew
+any heart in me," he said, "but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered
+with iron. But the howling of the dogs beside me," he said, "and the
+keening of the old righting men, and the crying of the women one after
+another, those are the things that are vexing me." And Finn said: "Child
+of my child, calf of my calf, white and slender, it is a pity the way
+you are. And my heart is starting like a deer," he said, "and I am weak
+after you and after the Fianna of Ireland. And misfortune has followed
+us," he said; "and farewell now to battles and to a great name, and
+farewell to taking tributes; for every good thing I ever had is gone
+from me now," he said.
+
+And when Osgar heard those words he stretched out his hands, and his
+eyelids closed. And Finn turned away from the rest, and he cried tears
+down; and he never shed a tear through the whole length of his lifetime
+but only for Osgar and for Bran.
+
+And all that were left of the Fianna gave three gorrowful cries after
+Osgar, for there was not one of the Fianna beyond him, unless it might
+be Finn or Oisin.
+
+And it is many of the Fianna were left dead in Gabhra, and graves were
+made for them. And as to Lugaidh's Son, that was so tall a man and so
+good a fighter, they made a very wide grave for him, as was fitting for
+a king. And the whole length of the rath at Gabhra, from end to end, it
+is that was the grave of Osgar, son of Oisin, son of Finn.
+
+And as to Finn himself, he never had peace or pleasure again from that
+day.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TEN: THE END OF THE FIANNA.
+
+CHAPTER I. DEATH OF BRAN
+
+
+One day Finn was hunting, and Bran went following after a fawn. And they
+were coming towards Finn, and the fawn called out, and it said: "If I go
+into the sea below I will never come back again; and if I go up into the
+air above me, it will not save me from Bran." For Bran would overtake
+the wild geese, she was that swift.
+
+"Go out through my legs," said Finn then. So the fawn did that, and Bran
+followed her; and as Bran went under him, Finn squeezed his two knees on
+her, that she died on the moment.
+
+And there was great grief on him after that, and he cried tears down the
+same as he did when Osgar died.
+
+And some said it was Finn's mother the fawn was, and that it was to save
+his mother he killed Bran. But that is not likely, for his mother was
+beautiful Muirne, daughter of Tadg, son of Nuada of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and it was never heard that she was changed into a fawn. It is
+more likely it was Oisin's mother was in it.
+
+But some say Bran and Sceolan are still seen to start at night out of
+the thicket on the hill of Almhuin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CALL OF OISIN
+
+
+One misty morning, what were left of the Fianna were gathered together
+to Finn, and it is sorrowful and downhearted they were after the loss of
+so many of their comrades.
+
+And they went hunting near the borders of Loch Lein, where the bushes
+were in blossom and the birds were singing; and they were waking up the
+deer that were as joyful as the leaves of a tree in summer-time.
+
+And it was not long till they saw coming towards them from the west a
+beautiful young woman, riding on a very fast slender white horse. A
+queen's crown she had on her head, and a dark cloak of silk down to the
+ground, having stars of red gold on it; and her eyes were blue and as
+clear as the dew on the grass, and a gold ring hanging down from every
+golden lock of her hair; and her cheeks redder than the rose, and her
+skin whiter than the swan upon the wave, and her lips as sweet as honey
+that is mixed through red wine.
+
+And in her hand she was holding a bridle having a golden bit, and there
+was a saddle worked with red gold under her. And as to the horse, he had
+a wide smooth cloak over him, and a silver crown on the back of his
+head, and he was shod with shining gold.
+
+She came to where Finn was, and she spoke with a very kind, gentle
+voice, and she said: "It is long my journey was, King of the Fianna."
+And Finn asked who was she, and what was her country and the cause of
+her coming. "Niamh of the Golden Head is my name," she said; "and I have
+a name beyond all the women of the world, for I am the daughter of the
+King of the Country of the Young." "What was it brought you to us from
+over the sea, Queen?" said Finn then. "Is it that your husband is gone
+from you, or what is the trouble that is on you?" "My husband is not gone
+from me," she said, "for I never went yet to any man. But O King of the
+Fianna," she said, "I have given my love and my affection to your own
+son, Oisin of the strong hands." "Why did you give your love to him
+beyond all the troops of high princes that are under the sun?" said
+Finn. "It was by reason of his great name, and of the report I heard of
+his bravery and of his comeliness," she said. "And though there is many
+a king's son and high prince gave me his love, I never consented to any
+till I set my love on Oisin."
+
+When Oisin heard what she was saying, there was not a limb of his body
+that was not in love with beautiful Niamh; and he took her hand in his
+hand, and he said: "A true welcome before you to this country, young
+queen. It is you are the shining one," he said; "it is you are the
+nicest and the comeliest; it is you are better to me than any other
+woman; it is you are my star and my choice beyond the women of the
+entire world." "I put on you the bonds of a true hero," said Niamh then,
+"you to come away with me now to the Country of the Young." And it is
+what she said:
+
+"It is the country is most delightful of all that are under the sun; the
+trees are stooping down with fruit and with leaves and with blossom.
+
+"Honey and wine are plentiful there, and everything the eye has ever
+seen; no wasting will come on you with the wasting away of time; you
+will never see death or lessening.
+
+"You will get feasts, playing and drinking; you will get sweet music on
+the strings; you will get silver and gold and many jewels.
+
+"You will get, and no lie in it, a hundred swords; a hundred cloaks of
+the dearest silk; a hundred horses, the quickest in battle; a hundred
+willing hounds.
+
+"You will get the royal crown of the King of the Young that he never
+gave to any one under the sun. It will be a shelter to you night and
+day in every rough fight and in every battle.
+
+"You will get a right suit of armour; a sword, gold-hilted, apt for
+striking; no one that ever saw it got away alive from it.
+
+"A hundred coats of armour and shirts of satin; a hundred cows and a
+hundred calves; a hundred sheep having golden fleeces; a hundred jewels
+that are not of this world.
+
+"A hundred glad young girls shining like the sun, their voices sweeter
+than the music of birds; a hundred armed men strong in battle, apt at
+feats, waiting on you, if you will come with me to the Country of the
+Young.
+
+"You will get everything I have said to you, and delights beyond them,
+that I have no leave to tell; you will get beauty, strength and power,
+and I myself will be with you as a wife."
+
+And after she had made that song, Oisin said: "O pleasant golden-haired
+queen, you are my choice beyond the women of the world; and I will go
+with you willingly," he said.
+
+And with that he kissed Finn his father and bade him farewell, and he
+bade farewell to the rest of the Fianna, and he went up then on the
+horse with Niamh.
+
+And the horse set out gladly, and when he came to the strand he shook
+himself and he neighed three times, and then he made for the sea. And
+when Finn and the Fianna saw Oisin facing the wide sea, they gave three
+great sorrowful shouts. And as to Finn, he said: "It is my grief to see
+you going from me; and I am without a hope," he said, "ever to see you
+coming back to me again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE LAST OF THE GREAT MEN
+
+
+And indeed that was the last time Finn and Oisin and the rest of the
+Fianna of Ireland were gathered together, for hunting, for battle, for
+chess-playing, for drinking or for music; for they all wore away after
+that, one after another.
+
+As to Caoilte, that was old and had lost his sons, he used to be
+fretting and lonesome after the old times. And one day that there was
+very heavy snow on the ground, he made this complaint:--
+
+"It is cold the winter is; the wind is risen; the fierce high-couraged
+stag rises up; it is cold the whole mountain is to-night, yet the fierce
+stag is calling. The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings does not lay
+his side to the ground; he no less than the stag of the top of cold
+Echtge hears the music of the wolves.
+
+"I, Caoilte, and brown-haired Diarmuid and pleasant light-footed Osgar,
+we used to be listening to the music of the wolves through the end of
+the cold night. It is well the brown deer sleeps with its hide to the
+hollow, hidden as if in the earth, through the end of the cold night.
+
+"To-day I am in my age, and I know but a few men; I used to shake my
+spear bravely in the ice-cold morning. It is often I put silence on a
+great army that is very cold to-night."
+
+And after a while he went into a hill of the Sidhe to be healed of his
+old wounds. And whether he came back from there or not is not known; and
+there are some that say he used to be talking with Patrick of the Bells
+the same time Oisin was with him. But that is not likely, or Oisin would
+not have made complaints about his loneliness the way he did.
+
+But a long time after that again, there was a king of Ireland making a
+journey. And he and his people missed their way, and when night-time
+came on, they were in a dark wood, and no path before them.
+
+And there came to them a very tall man, that was shining like a burning
+flame, and he took hold of the bridle of the king's horse, and led him
+through the wood till they came to the right road. And the King of
+Ireland asked him who was he, and first he said: "I am your
+candlestick"; and then he said: "I was with Finn one time." And the king
+knew it was Caoilte, son of Ronan, was in it.
+
+And three times nine of the rest of the Fianna came out of the west one
+time to Teamhair. And they took notice that now they were wanting their
+full strength and their great name, no one took notice of them or came
+to speak with them at all. And when they saw that, they lay down on the
+side of the hill at Teamhair, and put their lips to the earth and died.
+
+And for three days and a month and a year from the time of the
+destruction of the Fianna of Ireland, Loch Dearg was under mists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And as to Finn, there are some say he died by the hand of a fisherman;
+but it is likely that is not true, for that would be no death for so
+great a man as Finn, son of Cumhal. And there are some say he never
+died, but is alive in some place yet.
+
+And one time a smith made his way into a cave he saw, that had a door to
+it, and he made a key that opened it. And when he went in he saw a very
+wide place, and very big men lying on the floor. And one that was bigger
+than the rest was lying in the middle, and the Dord Fiann beside him;
+and he knew it was Finn and the Fianna were in it.
+
+And the smith took hold of the Dord Fiann, and it is hardly he could
+lift it to his mouth, and he blew a very strong blast on it, and the
+sound it made was so great, it is much the rocks did not come down on
+him. And at the sound, the big men lying on the ground shook from head
+to foot. He gave another blast then, and they all turned on their
+elbows.
+
+And great dread came on him when he saw that, and he threw down the Dord
+Fiann and ran from the caye and locked the door after him, and threw the
+key into the lake. And he heard them crying after him, "You left us
+worse than you found us." And the cave was not found again since that
+time.
+
+But some say the day will come when the Dord Fiann will be sounded three
+times, and that at the sound of it the Fianna will rise up as strong and
+as well as ever they were. And there are some say Finn, son of Cumhal,
+has been on the earth now and again since the old times, in the shape of
+one of the heroes of Ireland.
+
+And as to the great things he and his men did when they were together,
+it is well they have been kept in mind through the poets of Ireland and
+of Alban. And one night there were two men minding sheep in a valley,
+and they were saying the poems of the Fianna while they were there. And
+they saw two very tall shapes on the two hills on each side of the
+valley, and one of the tall shapes said to the other: "Do you hear that
+man down below? I was the second doorpost of battle at Gabhra, and that
+man knows all about it better than myself."
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ELEVEN: OISIN AND PATRICK.
+
+CHAPTER I. OISIN'S STORY
+
+
+As to Oisin, it was a long time after he was brought away by Niamh that
+he came back again to Ireland. Some say it was hundreds of years he was
+in the Country of the Young, and some say it was thousands of years he
+was in it; but whatever time it was, it seemed short to him.
+
+And whatever happened him through the time he was away, it is a withered
+old man he was found after coming back to Ireland, and his white horse
+going away from him, and he lying on the ground.
+
+And it was S. Patrick had power at that time, and it was to him Oisin
+was brought; and he kept him in his house, and used to be teaching him
+and questioning him. And Oisin was no way pleased with the way Ireland
+was then, but he used to be talking of the old times, and fretting after
+the Fianna.
+
+And Patrick bade him to tell what happened him the time he left Finn and
+the Fianna and went away with Niamh. And it is the story Oisin
+told:--"The time I went away with golden-haired Niamh, we turned our
+backs to the land, and our faces westward, and the sea was going away
+before us, and filling up in waves after us. And we saw wonderful things
+on our journey," he said, "cities and courts and duns and lime-white
+houses, and shining sunny-houses and palaces. And one time we saw beside
+us a hornless deer running hard, and an eager white red-eared hound
+following after it. And another time we saw a young girl on a horse and
+having a golden apple in her right hand, and she going over the tops of
+the waves; and there was following after her a young man riding a white
+horse, and having a crimson cloak and a gold-hilted sword in his right
+hand."
+
+"Follow on with your story, pleasant Oisin," said Patrick, "for you did
+not tell us yet what was the country you went to."
+
+"The Country of the Young, the Country of Victory, it was," said Oisin.
+"And O Patrick," he said, "there is no lie in that name; and if there
+are grandeurs in your Heaven the same as there are there, I would give
+my friendship to God.
+
+"We turned our backs then to the dun," he said, "and the horse under us
+was quicker than the spring wind on the backs of the mountains. And it
+was not long till the sky darkened, and the wind rose in every part, and
+the sea was as if on fire, and there was nothing to be seen of the sun.
+
+"But after we were looking at the clouds and the stars for a while the
+wind went down, and the storm, and the sun brightened. And we saw before
+us a very delightful country under full blossom, and smooth plains in
+it, and a king's dun that was very grand, and that had every colour in
+it, and sunny-houses beside it, and palaces of shining stones, made by
+skilled men. And we saw coming out to meet us three fifties of armed
+men, very lively and handsome. And I asked Niamh was this the Country of
+the Young, and she said it was. 'And indeed, Oisin,' she said, 'I told
+you no lie about it, and you will see all I promised you before you for
+ever.'
+
+"And there came out after that a hundred beautiful young girls, having
+cloaks of silk worked with gold, and they gave me a welcome to their own
+country. And after that there came a great shining army, and with it a
+strong beautiful king, having a shirt of yellow silk and a golden cloak
+over it, and a very bright crown on his head. And there was following
+after him a young queen, and fifty young girls along with her.
+
+"And when all were come to the one spot, the king took me by the hand,
+and he said out before them all: 'A hundred thousand welcomes before
+you, Oisin, son of Finn. And as to this country you are come to,' he
+said, 'I will tell you news of it without a lie. It is long and lasting
+your life will be in it, and you yourself will be young for ever. And
+there is no delight the heart ever thought of,' he said, 'but it is
+here against your coming. And you can believe my words, Oisin,' he said,
+'for I myself am the King of the Country of the Young, and this is its
+comely queen, and it was golden-headed Niamh our daughter that went over
+the sea looking for you to be her husband for ever.' I gave thanks to
+him then, and I stooped myself down before the queen, and we went
+forward to the royal house, and all the high nobles came out to meet us,
+both men and women, and there was a great feast made there through the
+length of ten days and ten nights.
+
+"And that is the way I married Niamh of the Golden Hair, and that is the
+way I went to the Country of the Young, although it is sorrowful to me
+to be telling it now, O Patrick from Rome," said Oisin.
+
+"Follow on with your story, Oisin of the destroying arms," said Patrick,
+"and tell me what way did you leave the Country of the Young, for it is
+long to me till I hear that; and tell us now had you any children by
+Niamh, and was it long you were in that place."
+
+"Two beautiful children I had by Niamh," said Oisin, "two young sons and
+a comely daughter. And Niamh gave the two sons the name of Finn and of
+Osgar, and the name I gave to the daughter was The Flower.
+
+"And I did not feel the time passing, and it was a long time I stopped
+there," he said, "till the desire came on me to see Finn and my comrades
+again. And I asked leave of the king and of Niamh to go back to Ireland.
+'You will get leave from me,' said Niamh; 'but for all that,' she said,
+'it is bad news you are giving me, for I am in dread you will never come
+back here again through the length of your days.' But I bade her have no
+fear, since the white horse would bring me safe back again from Ireland.
+'Bear this in mind, Oisin,' she said then, 'if you once get off the
+horse while you are away, or if you once put your foot to ground, you
+will never come back here again. And O Oisin,' she said, 'I tell it to
+you now for the third time, if you once get down from the horse, you
+will be an old man, blind and withered, without liveliness, without
+mirth, without running, without leaping. And it is a grief to me,
+Oisin,' she said, 'you ever to go back to green Ireland; and it is not
+now as it used to be, and you will not see Finn and his people, for
+there is not now in the whole of Ireland but a Father of Orders and
+armies of saints; and here is my kiss for you, pleasant Oisin,' she
+said, 'for you will never come back any more to the Country of the
+Young.'
+
+"And that is my story, Patrick, and I have told you no lie in it," said
+Oisin. "And O Patrick," he said, "if I was the same the day I came here
+as I was that day, I would have made an end of all your clerks, and
+there would not be a head left on a neck after me."
+
+"Go on with your story," said Patrick, "and you will get the same good
+treatment from me you got from Finn, for the sound of your voice is
+pleasing to me."
+
+So Oisin went on with his story, and it is what he said: "I have nothing
+to tell of my journey till I came back into green Ireland, and I looked
+about me then on all sides, but there were no tidings to be got of Finn.
+And it was not long till I saw a great troop of riders, men and women,
+coming towards me from the west. And when they came near they wished me
+good health; and there was wonder on them all when they looked at me,
+seeing me so unlike themselves, and so big and so tall.
+
+"I asked them then did they hear if Finn was still living, or any other
+one of the Fianna, or what had happened them. 'We often heard of Finn
+that lived long ago,' said they, 'and that there never was his equal for
+strength or bravery or a great name; and there is many a book written
+down,' they said, 'by the sweet poets of the Gael, about his doings and
+the doings of the Fianna, and it would be hard for us to tell you all
+of them. And we heard Finn had a son,' they said, 'that was beautiful
+and shining, and that there came a young girl looking for him, and he
+went away with her to the Country of the Young.'
+
+"And when I knew by their talk that Finn was not living or any of the
+Fianna, it is downhearted I was, and tired, and very sorrowful after
+them. And I made no delay, but I turned my face and went on to Almhuin
+of Leinster. And there was great wonder on me when I came there to see
+no sign at all of Finn's great dun, and his great hall, and nothing in
+the place where it was but weeds and nettles."
+
+And there was grief on Oisin then, and he said: "Och, Patrick! Och,
+ochone, my grief! It is a bad journey that was to me; and to be without
+tidings of Finn or the Fianna has left me under pain through my
+lifetime."
+
+"Leave off fretting, Oisin," said Patrick, "and shed your tears to the
+God of grace. Finn and the Fianna are slack enough now, and they will
+get no help for ever." "It is a great pity that would be," said Oisin,
+"Finn to be in pain for ever; and who was it gained the victory over
+him, when his own hand had made an end of so many a hard fighter?"
+
+"It is God gained the victory over Finn," said Patrick, "and not the
+strong hand of an enemy; and as to the Fianna, they are condemned to
+hell along with him, and tormented for ever."
+
+"O Patrick," said Oisin, "show me the place where Finn and his people
+are, and there is not a hell or a heaven there but I will put it down.
+And if Osgar, my own son, is there," he said, "the hero that was bravest
+in heavy battles, there is not in hell or in the Heaven of God a troop
+so great that he could not destroy it."
+
+"Let us leave off quarrelling on each side now," said Patrick; "and go
+on, Oisin, with your story. What happened you after you knew the Fianna
+to be at an end?"
+
+"I will tell you that, Patrick," said Oisin. "I was turning to go away,
+and I saw the stone trough that the Fianna used to be putting their
+hands in, and it full of water. And when I saw it I had such a wish and
+such a feeling for it that I forgot what I was told, and I got off the
+horse. And in the minute all the years came on me, and I was lying on
+the ground, and the horse took fright and went away and left me there,
+an old man, weak and spent, without sight, without shape, without
+comeliness, without strength or understanding, without respect.
+
+"There, Patrick, is my story for you now," said Oisin, "and no lie in
+it, of all that happened me going away and coming back again from the
+Country of the Young."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. OISIN IN PATRICK'S HOUSE
+
+
+And Oisin stopped on with S. Patrick, but he was not very well content
+with the way he was treated. And one time he said: "They say I am
+getting food, but God knows I am not, or drink; and I Oisin, son of
+Finn, under a yoke, drawing stones." "It is my opinion you are getting
+enough," said S. Patrick then, "and you getting a quarter of beef and a
+churn of butter and a griddle of bread every day." "I often saw a
+quarter of a blackbird bigger than your quarter of beef," said Oisin,
+"and a rowan berry as big as your churn of butter, and an ivy leaf as
+big as your griddle of bread." S, Patrick was vexed when he heard that,
+and he said to Oisin that he had told a lie.
+
+There was great anger on Oisin then, and he went where there was a
+litter of pups, and he bade a serving-boy to nail up the hide of a
+freshly killed bullock to the wall, and to throw the pups against it one
+by one. And every one that he threw fell down from the hide till it came
+to the last, and he held on to it with his teeth and his nails. "Rear
+that one," said Oisin, "and drown all the rest."
+
+Then he bade the boy to keep the pup in a dark place, and to care it
+well, and never to let it taste blood or see the daylight. And at the
+end of a year, Oisin was so well pleased with the pup, that he gave it
+the name of Bran Og, young Bran.
+
+And one day he called to the serving-boy to come on a journey with him,
+and to bring the pup in a chain. And they set out and passed by
+Slieve-nam-ban, where the witches of the Sidhe do be spinning with their
+spinning-wheels; and then they turned eastward into Gleann-na-Smol. And
+Oisin raised a rock that was there, and he bade the lad take from under
+it three things, a great sounding horn of the Fianna, and a ball of iron
+they had for throwing, and a very sharp sword. And when Oisin saw those
+things, he took them in his hands, and he said: "My thousand farewells
+to the day when you were put here!" He bade the lad to clean them well
+then; and when he had done that, he bade him to sound a blast on the
+horn. So the boy did that, and Oisin asked him did he see anything
+strange. "I did not," said the boy. "Sound it again as loud as you can,"
+said Oisin. "That is as hard as I can sound it, and I can see nothing
+yet," said the boy when he had done that. Then Oisin took the horn
+himself, and he put it to his mouth, and blew three great blasts on it.
+"What do you see now?" he said. "I see three great clouds coming," he
+said, "and they are settling down in the valley; and the first cloud is
+a flight of very big birds, and the second cloud is a flight of birds
+that are bigger again, and the third flight is of the biggest and the
+blackest birds the world ever saw."
+
+"What is the dog doing?" said Oisin. "The eyes are starting from his
+head, and there is not a rib of hair on him but is standing up." "Let
+him loose now," said Oisin.
+
+The dog rushed down to the valley then, and he made an attack on one of
+the birds, that was the biggest of all, and that had a shadow like a
+cloud. And they fought a very fierce fight, but at last Bran Og made an
+end of the big bird, and lapped its blood. But if he did, madness came
+on him, and he came rushing back towards Oisin, his jaws open and his
+eyes like fire. "There is dread on me, Oisin," said the boy, "for the
+dog is making for us, mad and raging." "Take this iron ball and make a
+cast at him when he comes near," said Oisin. "I am in dread to do that,"
+said the boy. "Put it in my hand, and turn it towards him," said Oisin.
+The boy did that, and Oisin made a cast of the ball that went into the
+mouth and the throat of the dog, and choked him, and he fell down the
+slope, twisting and foaming.
+
+Then they went where the great bird was left dead, and Oisin bade the
+lad to cut a quarter off it with the sword, and he did so. And then he
+bade him cut open the body, and in it he found a rowan berry, the
+biggest he had ever seen, and an ivy leaf that was bigger than the
+biggest griddle.
+
+So Oisin turned back then, and went to where S. Patrick was, and he
+showed him the quarter of the bird that was bigger than any quarter of a
+bullock, and the rowan berry that was bigger than a churning of butter,
+and the leaf. "And you know now, Patrick of the Bells," he said, "that I
+told no lie; and it is what kept us all through our lifetime," he said,
+"truth that was in our hearts, and strength in our arms, and fulfilment
+in our tongues."
+
+"You told no lie indeed," said Patrick.
+
+And when Oisin had no sight left at all, he used every night to put up
+one of the serving-men on his shoulders, and to bring him out to see how
+were the cattle doing. And one night the servants had no mind to go, and
+they agreed together to tell him it was a very bad night.
+
+And it is what the first of them said; "It is outside there is a heavy
+sound with the heavy water dropping from the tops of trees; the sound of
+the waves is not to be heard for the loud splashing of the rain." And
+then the next one said: "The trees of the wood are shivering, and the
+birch is turning black; the snow is killing the birds; that is the story
+outside." And the third said: "It is to the east they have turned their
+face, the white snow and the dark rain; it is what is making the plain
+so cold is the snow that is dripping and getting hard."
+
+But there was a serving-girl in the house, and she said: "Rise up,
+Oisin, and go out to the white-headed cows, since the cold wind is
+plucking the trees from the hills."
+
+Oisin went out then, and the serving-man on his shoulders; but it is
+what the serving-man did, he brought a vessel of water and a birch broom
+with him, and he was dashing water in Oisin's face, the way he would
+think it was rain. But when they came to the pen where the cattle were,
+Oisin found the night was quiet, and after that he asked no more news of
+the weather from the servants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE ARGUMENTS
+
+
+And S. Patrick took in hand to convert Oisin, and to bring him to
+baptism; but it was no easy work he had to do, and everything he would
+say, Oisin would have an answer for it. And it is the way they used to
+be talking and arguing with one another, as it was put down afterwards
+by the poets of Ireland:--
+
+PATRICK. "Oisin, it is long your sleep is. Rise up and listen to the
+Psalm. Your strength and your readiness are gone from you, though you
+used to be going into rough fights and battles."
+
+OLSIN. "My readiness and my strength are gone from me since Finn has no
+armies living; I have no liking for clerks, their music is not sweet to
+me after his."
+
+PATRICK. "You never heard music so good from the beginning of the world
+to this day; it is well you would serve an army on a hill, you that are
+old and silly and grey."
+
+OLSIN. "I used to serve an army on a hill, Patrick of the closed-up
+mind; it is a pity you to be faulting me; there was never shame put on
+me till now.
+
+"I have heard music was sweeter than your music, however much you are
+praising your clerks: the song of the blackbird in Leiter Laoi, and the
+sound of the Dord Fiann; the very sweet thrush of the Valley of the
+Shadow, or the sound of the boats striking the strand. The cry of the
+hounds was better to me than the noise of your schools, Patrick.
+
+"Little Nut, little Nut of my heart, the little dwarf that was with
+Finn, when he would make tunes and songs he would put us all into deep
+sleep.
+
+"The twelve hounds that belonged to Finn, the time they would be let
+loose facing out from the Siuir, their cry was sweeter than harps and
+than pipes.
+
+"I have a little story about Finn; we were but fifteen men; we took the
+King of the Saxons of the feats, and we won a battle against the King of
+Greece.
+
+"We fought nine battles in Spain, and nine times twenty battles in
+Ireland; from Lochlann and from the eastern world there was a share of
+gold coming to Finn.
+
+"My grief! I to be stopping after him, and without delight in games or
+in music; to be withering away after my comrades; my grief it is to be
+living. I and the clerks of the Mass books are two that can never agree.
+
+"If Finn and the Fianna were living, I would leave the clerks and the
+bells; I would follow the deer through the valleys, I would like to be
+close on his track.
+
+"Ask Heaven of God, Patrick, for Finn of the Fianna and his race; make
+prayers for the great man; you never heard of his like."
+
+PATRICK. "I will not ask Heaven for Finn, man of good wit that my anger
+is rising against, since his delight was to be living in valleys with
+the noise of hunts."
+
+OISIN. "If you had been in company with the Fianna, Patrick of the
+joyless clerks and of the bells, you would not be attending on schools
+or giving heed to God."
+
+PATRICK. "I would not part from the Son of God for all that have lived
+east or west; O Oisin, O shaking poet, there will harm come on you in
+satisfaction for the priests."
+
+OISIN. "It was a delight to Finn the cry of his hounds on the mountains,
+the wild dogs leaving their harbours, the pride of his armies, those
+were his delights."
+
+PATRICK. "There was many a thing Finn took delight in, and there is not
+much heed given to it after him; Finn and his hounds are not living now,
+and you yourself will not always be living, Oisin."
+
+OISIN. "There is a greater story of Finn than of us, or of any that have
+lived in our time; all that are gone and all that are living, Finn was
+better to give out gold than themselves."
+
+PATRICK. "All the gold you and Finn used to be giving out, it is little
+it does for you now; he is in Hell in bonds because he did treachery and
+oppression."
+
+OISIN. "It is little I believe of your truth, man from Rome with the
+white books, Finn the open-handed head of the Fianna to be in the hands
+of devils or demons."
+
+PATRICK. "Finn is in bonds in Hell, the pleasant man that gave out
+gold; in satisfaction for his disrespect to God, he is under grief in
+the house of pain."
+
+OISIN. "If the sons of Morna were within it, or the strong men of the
+sons of Baiscne, they would take Finn out of it, or they would have the
+house for themselves."
+
+PATRICK. "If the five provinces of Ireland were within it, or the strong
+seven battalions of the Fianna, they would not be able to bring Finn out
+of it, however great their strength might be."
+
+OISIN. "If Faolan and Goll were living, and brown-haired Diarmuid and
+brave Osgar, Finn of the Fianna could not be held in any house that was
+made by God or devils."
+
+PATRICK. "If Faolan and Goll were living, and all the Fianna that ever
+were, they could not bring out Finn from the house where he is in pain."
+
+OISIN. "What did Finn do against God but to be attending on schools and
+on armies? Giving gold through a great part of his time, and for another
+while trying his hounds."
+
+PATRICK. "In payment for thinking of his hounds and for serving the
+schools of the poets, and because he gave no heed to God, Finn of the
+Fianna is held down."
+
+OISIN. "You say, Patrick of the Psalms, that the Fianna could not take
+out Finn, or the five provinces of Ireland along with them.
+
+"I have a little story about Finn. We were but fifteen men when we took
+the King of Britain of the feasts by the strength of our spears and our
+own strength.
+
+"We took Magnus the great, the son of the King of Lochlann of the
+speckled ships; we came back no way sorry or tired, we put our rent on
+far places.
+
+"O Patrick, the story is pitiful, the King of the Fianna to be under
+locks; a heart without envy, without hatred, a heart hard in earning
+victory.
+
+"It is an injustice, God to be unwilling to give food and riches; Finn
+never refused strong or poor, although cold Hell is now his
+dwelling-place.
+
+"It is what Finn had a mind for, to be listening to the sound of Druim
+Dearg; to sleep at the stream of Ess Ruadh, to be hunting the deer of
+Gallimh of the bays.
+
+"The cries of the blackbird of Leiter Laoi, the wave of Rudraighe
+beating the strand, the bellowing of the ox of Magh Maoin, the lowing of
+the calf of Gleann da Mhail.
+
+"The noise of the hunt on Slieve Crot, the sound of the fawns round
+Slieve Cua, the scream of the sea-gulls there beyond on Iorrus, the
+screech of the crows over the battle.
+
+"The waves vexing the breasts of the boats, the howling of the hounds at
+Druim Lis; the voice of Bran on Cnoc-an-Air, the outcry of the streams
+about Slieve Mis.
+
+"The call of Osgar going to the hunt; the voice of the hounds on the
+road of the Fianna, to be listening to them and to the poets, that was
+always his desire.
+
+"A desire of the desires of Osgar was to listen to the striking of
+shields; to be hacking at bones in a battle, it is what he had a mind
+for always.
+
+"We went westward one time to hunt at Formaid of the Fianna, to see the
+first running of our hounds.
+
+"It was Finn was holding Bran, and it is with myself Sceolan was;
+Diarmuid of the Women had Fearan, and Osgar had lucky Adhnuall.
+
+"Conan the Bald had Searc; Caoilte, son of Ronan, had Daol; Lugaidh's
+Son and Goll were holding Fuaim and Fothran.
+
+"That was the first day we loosed out a share of our hounds to a
+hunting; and Och! Patrick, of all that were in it, there is not one left
+living but myself.
+
+"O Patrick, it is a pity the way I am now, a spent old man without
+sway, without quickness, without strength, going to Mass at the altar.
+
+"Without the great deer of Slieve Luchra; without the hares of Slieve
+Cuilinn; without going into fights with Finn; without listening to the
+poets.
+
+"Without battles, without taking of spoils; without playing at nimble
+feats; without going courting or hunting, two trades that were my
+delight."
+
+PATRICK. "Leave off, old man, leave your foolishness; let what you have
+done be enough for you from this out. Think on the pains that are before
+you; the Fianna are gone, and you yourself will be going."
+
+OISIN. "If I go, may yourself not be left after me, Patrick of the
+hindering heart; if Conan, the least of the Fianna, were living, your
+buzzing would not be left long to you."
+
+"Or if this was the day I gave ten hundred cows to the headless woman
+that came to the Valley of the Two Oxen; the birds of the air brought
+away the ring I gave her, I never knew where she went herself from me."
+
+PATRICK. "That is little to trouble you, Oisin; it was but for a while
+she was with you; it is better for you to be as you are than to be among
+them again."
+
+OISIN. "O Son of Calphurn of the friendly talk, it is a pity for him
+that gives respect to clerks and bells; I and Caoilte my friend, we were
+not poor when we were together.
+
+"The music that put Finn to his sleep was the cackling of the ducks from
+the lake of the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of
+Doire an Cairn, the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries.
+
+"The whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories, or from the
+rough branches of the ridge by the stream; the grouse of the heather of
+Cruachan; the call of the otter of Druim-re-Coir.
+
+"The song of the blackbird of Doire an Cairn indeed I never heard
+sweeter music, if I could be under its nest.
+
+"My grief that I ever took baptism; it is little credit I got by it,
+being without food, without drink, doing fasting and praying."
+
+PATRICK. "In my opinion it did not harm you, old man; you will get nine
+score cakes of bread, wine and meat to put a taste on it; it is bad talk
+you are giving."
+
+OISIN. "This mouth that is talking with you, may it never confess to a
+priest, if I would not sooner have the leavings of Finn's house than a
+share of your own meals."
+
+PATRICK. "He got but what he gathered from the banks, or whatever he
+could kill on the rough hills; he got hell at the last because of his
+unbelief."
+
+OISIN. "That was not the way with us at all, but our fill of wine and of
+meat; justice and a right beginning at the feasts, sweet drinks and
+every one drinking them.
+
+"It is fretting after Diarmuid and Goll I am, and after Fergus of the
+True Lips, the time you will not let me be speaking of them, O new
+Patrick from Rome."
+
+PATRICK. "We would give you leave to be speaking of them, but first you
+should give heed to God. Since you are now at the end of your days,
+leave your foolishness, weak old man."
+
+OISIN. "O Patrick, tell me as a secret, since it is you have the best
+knowledge, will my dog or my hound be let in with me to the court of the
+King of Grace?"
+
+PATRICK. "Old man in your foolishness that I cannot put any bounds to,
+your dog or your hound will not be let in with you to the court of the
+King of Power."
+
+OISIN. "If I had acquaintance with God, and my hound to be at hand, I
+would make whoever gave food to myself give a share to my hound as well.
+
+"One strong champion that was with the Fianna of Ireland would be better
+than the Lord of Piety, and than you yourself, Patrick."
+
+PATRICK. "O Oisin of the sharp blades, it is mad words you are saying.
+God is better for one day than the whole of the Fianna of Ireland."
+
+OISIN. "Though I am now without sway and my life is spent to the end, do
+not put abuse, Patrick, on the great men of the sons of Baiscne.
+
+"If I had Conan with me, the man that used to be running down the
+Fianna, it is he would break your head within among your clerks and your
+priests."
+
+PATRICK. "It is a silly thing, old man, to be talking always of the
+Fianna; remember your end is come, and take the Son of God to help you."
+
+OISIN. "I used to sleep out on the mountain under the grey dew; I was
+never used to go to bed without food, while there was a deer on the hill
+beyond."
+
+PATRICK. "You are astray at the end of your life between the straight
+way and the crooked. Keep out from the crooked path of pains, and the
+angels of God will come beneath your head."
+
+OISIN. "If myself and open-handed Fergus and Diarmuid were together now
+on this spot, we would go in every path we ever went in, and ask no
+leave of the priests."
+
+PATRICK. "Leave off, Oisin; do not be speaking against the priests that
+are telling the word of God in every place. Unless you leave off your
+daring talk, it is great pain you will have in the end."
+
+OISIN. "When myself and the leader of the Fianna were looking for a boar
+in a valley, it was worse to me not to see it than all your clerks to be
+without their heads."
+
+PATRICK. "It is pitiful seeing you without sense; that is worse to you
+than your blindness; if you were to get sight within you, it is great
+your desire would be for Heaven."
+
+OISIN. "It is little good it would be to me to be sitting in that city,
+without Caoilte, without Osgar, without my father being with me.
+
+"The leap of the buck would be better to me, or the sight of badgers
+between two valleys, than all your mouth is promising me, and all the
+delights I could get in Heaven."
+
+PATRICK. "Your thoughts are foolish, they will come to nothing; your
+pleasure and your mirth are gone. Unless you will take my advice
+to-night, you will not get leave on this side or that."
+
+OISIN. "If myself and the Fianna were on the top of a hill to-day
+drawing our spear-heads, we would have our choice of being here or there
+in spite of books and priests and bells."
+
+PATRICK. "You were like the smoke of a wisp, or like a stream in a
+valley, or like a whirling wind on the top of a hill, every tribe of you
+that ever lived."
+
+OISIN. "If I was in company with the people of strong arms, the way I
+was at Bearna da Coill, I would sooner be looking at them than at this
+troop of the crooked croziers.
+
+"If I had Scolb Sceine with me, or Osgar, that was smart in battles, I
+would not be without meat to-night at the sound of the bell of the seven
+tolls."
+
+PATRICK. "Oisin, since your wits are gone from you be glad at what I
+say; it is certain to me you will leave the Fianna and that you will
+receive the God of the stars."
+
+OISIN. "There is wonder on me at your hasty talk, priest that has
+travelled in every part, to say that I would part from the Fianna, a
+generous people, never niggardly."
+
+PATRICK. "If you saw the people of God, the way they are settled at
+feasts, every good thing is more plentiful with them than with Finn's
+people, however great their name was.
+
+"Finn and the Fianna are lying now very sorrowful on the flag-stone of
+pain; take the Son of God in their place; make your repentance and do
+not lose Heaven."
+
+OISIN. "I do not believe your talk now. O Patrick of the crooked staves,
+Finn and the Fianna to be there within, unless they find pleasure being
+in it."
+
+PATRICK. "Make right repentance now, before you know when your end is
+coming; God is better for one hour than the whole of the Fianna of
+Ireland."
+
+OISIN. "That is a daring answer to make to me, Patrick of the crooked
+crozier; your crozier would be in little bits if I had Osgar with me
+now.
+
+"If my son Osgar and God were hand to hand on the Hill of the Fianna, if
+I saw my son put down, I would say that God was a strong man.
+
+"How could it be that God or his priests could be better men than Finn,
+the King of the Fianna, a generous man without crookedness.
+
+"If there was a place above or below better than the Heaven of God, it
+is there Finn would go, and all that are with him of his people.
+
+"You say that a generous man never goes to the hell of pain; there was
+not one among the Fianna that was not generous to all.
+
+"Ask of God, Patrick, does He remember when the Fianna were alive, or
+has He seen east or west any man better than themselves in their
+fighting.
+
+"The Fianna used not to be saying treachery; we never had the name of
+telling lies. By truth and the strength of our hands we came safe out of
+every battle.
+
+"There never sat a priest in a church, though you think it sweet to be
+singing psalms, was better to his word than the Fianna, or more generous
+than Finn himself.
+
+"If my comrades were living to-night, I would take no pleasure in your
+crooning in the church; as they are not living now, the rough voice of
+the bells has deafened me.
+
+"Och! in the place of battles and heavy fights, where I used to have my
+place and to take my pleasure, the crozier of Patrick being carried, and
+his clerks at their quarrelling.
+
+"Och! slothful, cheerless Conan, it is great abuse I used to be giving
+you; why do you not come to see me now? you would get leave for making
+fun and reviling through the whole of the niggardly clerks.
+
+"Och! where are the strong men gone that they do not come together to
+help me! O Osgar of the sharp sword of victory, come and free your
+father from his bonds!
+
+"Where is the strong son of Lugaidh? Och! Diarmuid of all the women!
+Och! Caoilte, son of Ronan, think of our love, and travel to me!"
+
+PATRICK. "Stop your talk, you withered, witless old man; it is my King
+that made the Heavens, it is He that gives blossom to the trees, it is
+He made the moon and the sun, the fields and the grass."
+
+OISIN. "It was not in shaping fields and grass that my king took his
+delight, but in overthrowing fighting men, and defending countries, and
+bringing his name into every part.
+
+"In courting, in playing, in hunting, in baring his banner at the first
+of a fight; in playing at chess, at swimming, in looking around him at
+the drinking-hall.
+
+"O Patrick, where was your God when the two came over the sea that
+brought away the queen of Lochlann of the Ships? Where was He when Dearg
+came, the son of the King of Lochlann of the golden shields? Why did not
+the King of Heaven protect them from the blows of the big man?
+
+"Or when Tailc, son of Treon, came, the man that did great slaughter on
+the Fianna; it was not by God that champion fell, but by Osgar, in the
+sight of all.
+
+"Many a battle and many a victory was gained by the Fianna of Ireland; I
+never heard any great deed was done by the King of Saints, or that He
+ever reddened His hand.
+
+"It would be a great shame for God not to take the locks of pain off
+Finn; if God Himself were in bonds, my king would fight for His sake.
+
+"Finn left no one in pain or in danger without freeing him by silver or
+gold, or by fighting till he got the victory.
+
+"For the strength of your love, Patrick, do not forsake the great men;
+bring in the Fianna unknown to the King of Heaven.
+
+"It is a good claim I have on your God, to be among his clerks the way I
+am; without food, without clothing, without music, without giving
+rewards to poets.
+
+"Without the cry of the hounds or the horns, without guarding coasts,
+without courting generous women; for all that I have suffered by the
+want of food, I forgive the King of Heaven in my will."
+
+Oisin said: "My story is sorrowful. The sound of your voice is not
+pleasant to me. I will cry my fill, but not for God, but because Finn
+and the Fianna are not living."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S LAMENTS
+
+
+And Oisin used to be making laments, and sometimes he would be making
+praises of the old times and of Finn; and these are some of them that
+are remembered yet:--
+
+     I saw the household of Finn; it was not the household of a soft
+     race; I had a vision of that man yesterday.
+
+     I saw the household of the High King, he with the brown,
+     sweet-voiced son; I never saw a better man.
+
+     I saw the household of Finn; no one saw it as I saw it; I saw Finn
+     with the sword, Mac an Luin. Och! it was sorrowful to see it.
+
+     I cannot tell out every harm that is on my head; free us from our
+     trouble for ever; I have seen the household of Finn.
+
+It is a week from yesterday I last saw Finn; I never saw a braver man. A
+king of heavy blows; my law, my adviser, my sense and my wisdom, prince
+and poet, braver than kings, King of the Fianna, brave in all countries;
+golden salmon of the sea, clean hawk of the air, rightly taught,
+avoiding lies; strong in his doings, a right judge, ready in courage, a
+high messenger in bravery and in music.
+
+His skin lime-white, his hair golden; ready to work, gentle to women.
+His great green vessels full of rough sharp wine, it is rich the king
+was, the head of his people.
+
+Seven sides Finn's house had, and seven score shields on every side.
+Fifty fighting men he had about him having woollen cloaks; ten bright
+drinking-cups in his hall; ten blue vessels, ten golden horns.
+
+It is a good household Finn had, without grudging, without lust, without
+vain boasting, without chattering, without any slur on any one of the
+Fianna.
+
+Finn never refused any man; he never put away any one that came to his
+house. If the brown leaves falling in the woods were gold, if the white
+waves were silver, Finn would have given away the whole of it.
+
+Blackbird of Doire an Chairn, your voice is sweet; I never heard on any
+height of the world music was sweeter than your voice, and you at the
+foot of your nest.
+
+The music is sweetest in the world, it is a pity not to be listening to
+it for a while, O son of Calphurn of the sweet bells, and you would
+overtake your nones again.
+
+If you knew the story of the bird the way I know it, you would be crying
+lasting tears, and you would give no heed to your God for a while.
+
+In the country of Lochlann of the blue streams, Finn, son of Cumhal, of
+the red-gold cups, found that bird you hear now; I will tell you its
+story truly.
+
+Doire an Chairn, that wood there to the west, where the Fianna used to
+be delaying, it is there they put the blackbird, in the beauty of the
+pleasant trees.
+
+The stag of the heather of quiet Cruachan, the sorrowful croak from the
+ridge of the Two Lakes; the voice of the eagle of the Valley of the
+Shapes, the voice of the cuckoo on the Hill of Brambles.
+
+The voice of the hounds in the pleasant valley; the scream of the eagle
+on the edge of the wood; the early outcry of the hounds going over the
+Strand of the Red Stones.
+
+The time Finn lived and the Fianna, it was sweet to them to be listening
+to the whistle of the blackbird; the voice of the bells would not have
+been sweet to them.
+
+
+There was no one of the Fianna without his fine silken shirt and his
+soft coat, without bright armour, without shining stones on his head,
+two spears in his hand, and a shield that brought victory.
+
+If you were to search the world you would not find a harder man, best of
+blood, best in battle; no one got the upper hand of him. When he went
+out trying his white hound, which of us could be put beside Finn?
+
+One time we went hunting on Slieve-nam-ban; the sun was beautiful
+overhead, the voice of the hounds went east and west, from hill to hill.
+Finn and Bran sat for a while on the hill, every man was jealous for the
+hunt. We let out three thousand hounds from their golden chains; every
+hound of them brought down two deer.
+
+Patrick of the true crozier, did you ever see, east or west, a greater
+hunt than that hunt of Finn and the Fianna? O son of Calphurn of the
+bells, that day was better to me than to be listening to your
+lamentations in the church.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no strength in my hands to-night, there is no power within me;
+it is no wonder I to be sorowful, being thrown down in the sorrow of old
+age.
+
+Everything is a grief to me beyond any other man on the face of the
+earth, to be dragging stones along to the church and the hill of the
+priests.
+
+I have a little story of our people. One time Finn had a mind to make a
+dun on the bald hill of Cuailgne, and he put it on the Fianna of Ireland
+to bring stones for building it; a third on the sons of Morna, a third
+on myself, and a third on the sons of Baiscne.
+
+I gave an answer to Finn, son of Cumhal; I said I would be under his
+sway no longer, and that I would obey him no more.
+
+When Finn heard that, he was silent a long time, the man without a He,
+without fear. And he said to me then: "You yourself will be dragging
+stones before your death comes to you."
+
+I rose up then with anger on me, and there followed me the fourth of the
+brave battalions of the Fianna. I gave my own judgments, there were many
+of the Fianna with me.
+
+Now my strength is gone from me, I that was adviser to the Fianna; my
+whole body is tired to-night, my hands, my feet, and my head, tired,
+tired, tired.
+
+It is bad the way I am after Finn of the Fianna; since he is gone away,
+every good is behind me.
+
+Without great people, without mannerly ways; it is sorrowful I am after
+our king that is gone.
+
+I am a shaking tree, my leaves gone from me; an empty nut, a horse
+without a bridle; a people without a dwelling-place, I Oisin, son of
+Finn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is long the clouds are over me to-night! it is long last night was;
+although this day is long, yesterday was longer again to me; every day
+that comes is long to me!
+
+That is not the way I used to be, without fighting, without battles,
+without learning feats, without young girls, without music, without
+harps, without bruising bones, without great deeds; without increase of
+learning, without generosity, without drinking at feasts, without
+courting, without hunting, the two trades I was used to; without going
+out to battle, Ochone! the want of them is sorrowful to me.
+
+No hunting of deer or stag, it is not like that I would wish to be; no
+leashes for our hounds, no hounds; it is long the clouds are over me
+to-night!
+
+Without rising up to do bravery as we were used, without playing as we
+had a mind; without swimming of our fighting men in the lake; it is long
+the clouds are over me to-night!
+
+There is no one at all in the world the way I am; it is a pity the way I
+am; an old man dragging stones; it is long the clouds are over me
+to-night!
+
+I am the last of the Fianna, great Oisin, son of Finn, listening to the
+voice of bells; it is long the clouds are over me to-night!
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+I. THE APOLOGY
+
+
+The Irish text of the greater number of the stories in this book has
+been published, and from this text I have worked, making my own
+translation as far as my scholarship goes, and when it fails, taking the
+meaning given by better scholars. In some cases the Irish text has not
+been printed, and I have had to work by comparing and piecing together
+various translations. I have had to put a connecting sentence of my own
+here and there, and I have fused different versions together, and
+condensed many passages, and I have left out many, using the choice that
+is a perpetual refusing, in trying to get some clear outline of the
+doings of the heroes.
+
+I have found it more natural to tell the stories in the manner of the
+thatched houses, where I have heard so many legends of Finn and his
+friends, and Oisin and Patrick, and the Ever-Living Ones, and the
+Country of the Young, rather than in the manner of the slated houses,
+where I have not heard them.
+
+Four years ago, Dr Atkinson, a Professor of Trinity College, Dublin, in
+his evidence before the Commission of Intermediate Education, said of
+the old literature of Ireland:--"It has scarcely been touched by the
+movements of the great literatures; it is the untrained popular feeling.
+Therefore it is almost intolerably low in tone--I do not mean naughty,
+but low; and every now and then, when the circumstance occasions it, it
+goes down lower than low ... If I read the books in the Greek, the Latin
+or the French course, in almost every one of them there is something
+with an ideal ring about it--something that I can read with positive
+pleasure--something that has what the child might take with him as a
+[Greek: ktêma eis dei]--a perpetual treasure; but if I read the Irish
+books, I see nothing ideal in them, and my astonishment is that through
+the whole range of Irish literature that I have read (and I have read
+an enormous range of it), the smallness of the element of idealism is
+most noticeable ... And as there is very little idealism there is very
+little imagination ... The Irish tales as a rule are devoid of it
+fundamentally."
+
+Dr Atkinson is an Englishman, but unfortunately not only
+fellow-professors in Trinity but undergraduates there have been
+influenced by his opinion, that Irish literature is a thing to be
+despised. I do not quote his words to draw attention to a battle that is
+still being fought, but to explain my own object in working, as I have
+worked ever since that evidence was given, to make a part of Irish
+literature accessible to many, especially among my young countrymen, who
+have not opportunity to read the translations of the chief scholars,
+scattered here and there in learned periodicals, or patience and time to
+disentangle overlapping and contradictory versions, that they may judge
+for themselves as to its "lowness" and "want of imagination," and the
+other well-known charges brought against it before the same Commission.
+
+I believe that those who have once learned to care for the story of
+Cuchulain of Muirthemne, and of Finn and Lugh and Etain, and to
+recognise the enduring belief in an invisible world and an immortal life
+behind the visible and the mortal, will not be content with my
+redaction, but will go, first to the fuller versions of the best
+scholars, and then to the manuscripts themselves. I believe the forty
+students of old Irish lately called together by Professor Kuno Meyer
+will not rest satisfied until they have explored the scores and scores
+of uncatalogued and untranslated manuscripts in Trinity College Library,
+and that the enthusiasm which the Gaelic League has given birth to will
+lead to much fine scholarship.
+
+A day or two ago I had a letter from one of the best Greek scholars and
+translators in England, who says of my "Cuchulain": "It opened up a
+great world of beautiful legend which, though accounting myself as an
+Irishman, I had never known at all. I am sending out copies to Irish
+friends in Australia who, I am sure, will receive the same sort of
+impression, almost an impression of pride in the beauty of the Irish
+mind, as I received myself." And President Roosevelt wrote to me a
+little time ago that after he had read "Cuchulain of Muirthemne," he had
+sent for all the other translations from the Irish he could get, to take
+on his journey to the Western States.
+
+I give these appreciative words not, I think, from vanity, for they are
+not for me but for my material, to show the effect our old literature
+has on those who come fresh to it, and that they do not complain of its
+"want of imagination." I am, of course, very proud and glad in having
+had the opportunity of helping to make it known, and the task has been
+pleasant, although toil-some. Just now, indeed, on the 6th October, I am
+tired enough, and I think with sympathy of the old Highland piper, who
+complained that he was "withered with yelping the seven Fenian
+battalions."
+
+
+
+
+II. THE AGE AND ORIGIN OF THE STORIES OF THE FIANNA
+
+
+Mr Alfred Nutt says in _Ossian and the Ossianic Literature,_ No. 3 of
+his excellent series of sixpenny pamphlets, _Popular Studies in
+Mythology, Romance, and Folklore_:--
+
+"The body of Gaelic literature connected with the name of Ossian is of
+very considerable extent and of respectable antiquity. The oldest texts,
+prose for the most part, but also in verse, are preserved in Irish MSS.
+of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and go back to a period from one
+hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty years older at least. The
+bulk of Ossianic literature is, however, of later date as far as the
+form under which it has come down to us is concerned. A number of
+important texts, prose for the most part, are preserved in MSS. of the
+fourteenth century, but were probably redacted in the thirteenth and
+twelfth centuries. But by far the largest mass consists of narrative
+poems, as a rule dramatic in structure. These have come down to us in
+MSS. written in Scotland from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of
+the seventeenth century, in Ireland from the sixteenth down to the
+middle of the nineteenth century. The Gaelic-speaking peasantry, alike
+in Ireland and Scotland, have preserved orally a large number of these
+ballads, as also a great mass of prose narratives, the heroes of which
+are Ossian and his comrades.
+
+"Were all Ossianic texts preserved in MSS. older than the present
+century to be printed, they would fill some eight to ten thousand octavo
+pages. The mere bulk of the literature, even if we allow for
+considerable repetition of incident, arrests attention. If we further
+recall that for the last five hundred years this body of romance has
+formed the chief imaginative recreation of Gaeldom, alike in Ireland and
+Scotland, and that a peasantry unable to read or write has yet preserved
+it almost entire, its claims to consideration and study will appear
+manifest."
+
+He then goes on to discuss how far the incidents in the stories can be
+accepted as they were accepted by Irish historical writers of the
+eleventh century as authentic history:--
+
+"Fortunately there is little need for me to discuss the credibility or
+otherwise of the historic records concerning Finn, his family, and his
+band of warriors. They may be accepted or rejected according to
+individual bent of mind without really modifying our view of the
+literature. For when we turn to the romances, whether in prose or verse,
+we find that, although the history is professedly the same as that of
+the Annals, firstly, we are transported to a world entirely romantic, in
+which divine and semi-divine beings, ungainly monsters and giants, play a
+prominent part, in which men and women change shapes with animals, in
+which the lives of the heroes are miraculously prolonged--in short, we
+find ourselves in a land of Faery; secondly, we find that the historic
+conditions in which the heroes are represented as living do not, for the
+most part, answer to anything we know or can surmise of the third
+century. For Finn and his warriors are perpetually on the watch to guard
+Ireland against the attacks of over-sea raiders, styled Lochlannac by
+the narrators, and by them undoubtedly thought of as Norsemen. But the
+latter, as is well known, only came to Ireland at the close of the
+eighth century, and the heroic period of their invasions extended for
+about a century, from 825 to 925; to be followed by a period of
+comparative settlement during the tenth century, until at the opening of
+the eleventh century the battle of Clontarf, fought by Brian, the great
+South Irish chieftain, marked the break-up of the separate Teutonic
+organisations and the absorption of the Teutons into the fabric of Irish
+life. In these pages then we may disregard the otherwise interesting
+question of historic credibility in the Ossianic romances: firstly,
+because they have their being in a land unaffected by fact; secondly,
+because if they ever did reflect the history of the third century the
+reflection was distorted in after-times, and a pseudo-history based upon
+events of the ninth and tenth centuries was substituted for it. What the
+historian seeks for in legend is far more a picture of the society in
+which it took rise than a record of the events which it commemorates."
+
+In a later part of the pamphlet Mr Nutt discusses such questions as
+whether we may look for examples of third-century customs in the
+stories, what part of the stories first found their way into writing,
+whether the Oisin and Patrick dialogues were written under the influence
+of actual Pagan feeling persisting from Pagan times, or whether "a
+change came over the feeling of Gaeldom during the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries," when the Oisin and Patrick dialogues in their
+present form began to be written. His final summing-up is that
+"well-nigh the same stories that were told of Finn and his warrior
+braves by the Gael of the eleventh century are told in well-nigh the
+same way by his descendant to-day." Mr Nutt does not enquire how long
+the stories may have been told before the first story was written down.
+Larminie, however, whose early death was the first great loss of our
+intellectual movement, pushes them backward for untold ages in the
+introduction to his _West Irish Folk Tales and Romances_. He builds up a
+detailed and careful argument, for which I must refer readers to his
+book, to prove that the Scottish Highlands and Ireland have received
+their folk-lore both from "Aryan and Non-Aryan sources," and that in the
+Highlands there is more non-Aryan influence and more non-Aryan blood
+than in Ireland. He argues that nothing is more improbable than that all
+folk-tales are Aryan, as has sometimes been supposed, and sums up as
+follows:--
+
+"They bear the stamp of the genius of more than one race. The pure and
+placid but often cold imagination of the Aryan has been at work on some.
+In others we trace the more picturesque fancy, the fierceness and
+sensuality, the greater sense of artistic elegance belonging to races
+whom the Aryan, in spite of his occasional faults of hardness and
+coarseness, has, on the whole, left behind him. But as the greatest
+results in the realm of the highest art have always been achieved in the
+case of certain blends of Aryan with other blood, I should hardly deem
+it extravagant if it were asserted that in the humbler regions of the
+folk-tale we might trace the working of the same law. The process which
+has gone on may in part have been as follows:--Every race which has
+acquired very definite characteristics must have been for a long time
+isolated. The Aryans during their period of isolation probably developed
+many of their folk-germs into their larger myths, owing to the greater
+constructiveness of their imagination, and thus, in a way, they used up
+part of their material. Afterwards, when they became blended with other
+races less advanced, they acquired fresh material to work on. We have in
+Ireland an instance to hand, of which a brief discussion may help to
+illustrate the whole race theory.
+
+"The larger Irish legendary literature divides itself into three
+cycles--the divine, the heroic, the Fenian. Of these three the last is
+so well-known orally in Scotland that it has been a matter of dispute to
+which country it really belongs. It belongs, in fact, to both. Here,
+however, comes in a strange contrast with the other cycles. The first
+is, so far as I am aware, wholly unknown in Scotland, the second
+comparatively unknown. What is the explanation? Professor Zimmer not
+having established his late-historical view as regards Finn, and the
+general opinion among scholars having tended of recent years towards the
+mythical view, we want to know why there is so much more community in
+one case than in the other. Mr O'Grady long since seeing this
+difficulty, and then believing Finn to be historical, was induced to
+place the latter in point of time before Cuchulain and his compeers. But
+this view is of course inadmissible when Finn is seen not to be
+historical at all. There remains but one explanation. The various bodies
+of legend in question are, so far as Ireland is concerned, only earlier
+or later, as they came into the island with the various races to which
+they belonged. The wider prevalence, then, of the Finn Saga would
+indicate that it belonged to an early race occupying both Ireland and
+Scotland. Then entered the Aryan Gael, and for him henceforth, as the
+ruler of the island, his own gods and heroes were sung by his own bards.
+His legends became the subject of what I may call the court poetry, the
+aristocratic literature. When he conquered Scotland, he took with him
+his own gods and heroes; but in the latter country the bardic system
+never became established, and hence we find but feeble echoes of the
+heroic cycle among the mountains of the North. That this is the
+explanation is shown by what took place in Ireland. Here the heroic
+cycle has been handed down in remembrance almost solely by the bardic
+literature. The popular memory retains but few traces of it. Its
+essentially aristocratic character is shown by the fact that the people
+have all but forgotten it, if they ever knew it. But the Fenian cycle
+has not been forgotten. Prevailing everywhere, still cherished by the
+conquered peoples, it held its ground in Scotland and Ireland alike,
+forcing its way in the latter country even into the written literature,
+and so securing a twofold lease of existence ... The Fenian cycle, in a
+word, is non-Aryan folk-literature partially subjected to Aryan
+treatment."
+
+The whole problem is extremely complex, and several other writers have
+written upon it. Mr Borlase, for instance, has argued in his big book on
+the Dolmens that the cromlechs, and presumably the Diarmuid and Crania
+legend, is connected with old religious rites of an erotic nature coming
+down from a very primitive state of society.
+
+I have come to my own conclusion not so much because of any weight of
+argument, as because I found it impossible to arrange the stories in a
+coherent form so long as I considered them a part of history. I tried to
+work on the foundation of the Annalists, and fit the Fianna into a
+definite historical epoch, but the whole story seemed trivial and
+incoherent until I began to think of them as almost contemporaneous with
+the battle of Magh Tuireadh, which even the Annalists put back into
+mythical ages. In this I have only followed some of the story-tellers,
+who have made the mother of Lugh of the Long Hand the grandmother of
+Finn, and given him a shield soaked with the blood of Balor. I cannot
+think of any of the stories as having had a modern origin, or that the
+century in which each was written down gives any evidence as to its age.
+"How Diarmuid got his Love-Spot," for instance, which was taken down
+only a few years ago from some old man's recitation by Dr Hyde, may well
+be as old as "Finn and the Phantoms," which is in one of the earliest
+manuscripts. It seems to me that one cannot choose any definite period
+either from the vast living mass of folk-lore in the country or from the
+written text, and that there is as good evidence of Finn being of the
+blood of the gods as of his being, as some of the people tell me, "the
+son of an O'Shaughnessy who lived at Kiltartan Cross."
+
+Dr Douglas Hyde, although he placed the Fenian after the Cuchulain cycle
+in his _History of Irish Literature_, has allowed me to print this
+note:--
+
+"While believing in the real objective existence of the Fenians as a
+body of Janissaries who actually lived, ruled, and hunted in King
+Cormac's time, I think it equally certain that hundreds of stories,
+traits, and legends far older and more primitive than any to which they
+themselves could have given rise, have clustered about them. There is
+probably as large a bulk of primitive mythology to be found in the Finn
+legend as in that of the Red Branch itself. The story of the Fenians was
+a kind of nucleus to which a vast amount of the flotsam and jetsam of a
+far older period attached itself, and has thus been preserved."
+
+As I found it impossible to give that historical date to the stories, I,
+while not adding in anything to support my theory, left out such names
+as those of Cormac and Art, and such more or less historical personages,
+substituting "the High King." And in the "Battle of the White Strand," I
+left out the name of Caelur, Tadg's wife, because I had already followed
+another chronicler in giving him Ethlinn for a wife. In the earlier part
+I have given back to Angus Og the name of "The Disturber," which had, as
+I believe, strayed from him to the Saint of the same name.
+
+
+
+
+III. THE AUTHORITIES
+
+
+The following is a list of the authorities I have been chiefly helped by
+in putting these stories together and in translation of the text. But I
+cannot make it quite accurate, for I have sometimes transferred a mere
+phrase, sometimes a whole passage from one story to another, where it
+seemed to fit better. I have sometimes, in the second part of the book,
+used stories preserved in the Scottish Gaelic, as will be seen by my
+references. I am obliged to write these notes away from libraries, and
+cannot verify them, but I think they are fairly correct.
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE. BOOKS ONE, TWO, AND THREE
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN, AND LUGH OF
+THE LONG HAND, AND THE COMING OF THE GAEL.--
+  O'Curry, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_;
+  _MSS. Materials_;
+  _Atlantis_;
+  De Jubainville, _Cycle Mythologique_;
+  Hennessy, _Chronicum Scotorum_;
+  Atkinson, _Book of Leinster_;
+  _Annals of the Four Masters_;
+  Nennius, _Hist, Brit._ (Irish Version);
+  Zimmer, _Glossae Hibernacae_;
+  Whitley Stokes, _Three Irish Glossaries_;
+  _Revue Celtique_ and _Irische Texte_;
+  _Gaedelica_;
+  Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_;
+  _Proceedings Ossianic Societ_;
+  O'Beirne Crowe, _Amra Columcille_;
+  Dean of Lismore's Book;
+  Windisch, _Irische Texte_;
+  Hennessy and others in _Revue Celtique_;
+  _Kilkenny Archaeological Journal_;
+  Keatinge's _History_;
+  _Ogyia_;
+  Curtin's _Folk Tales_;
+  _Proceedings Royal Irish Academy_, MSS. Series;
+  Dr Sigerson, _Bards of Gael and Gall_;
+  Miscellanies, _Celtic Society_.
+
+
+BOOK FOUR
+
+THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES
+
+I have used many of the above, and for separate stories, I may
+give these authorities:--
+
+MIDHIR AND ETAIN.--
+  O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_;
+  Whitley Stokes, _Dinnsenchus_;
+  Müller, _Revue Celtique_;
+  Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_;
+  De Jubainville, _Epopée Celtique_;
+  Standish Hayes O'Grady, MS. lent me by him.
+
+MANANNAN AT PLAY.--
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+HIS CALL TO BRAN.--
+  Professor Kuno Meyer in Nutt's _Voyage of Bran_;
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  De Jubainville, _Cycle Mythologique_.
+
+HIS THREE CALLS TO CORMAC.--
+  Whitley Stokes, _Irische Texte_.
+
+CLIODNA'S WAVE.--
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Whitley Stokes, _Dinnsenchus_.
+
+HIS CALL TO CONNLA.--
+  O'Beirne Crowe, _Kilkenny Arch. Journal_;
+  Windisch, _Irische Texte_.
+
+TADG IN THE ISLANDS.--
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+LAEGAIRE IN THE HAPPY PLAIN.--
+  S.H. O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Kuno Meyer in Nutt's _Voyage of Bran_.
+
+FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR.--
+  O'Curry, _Atlantis_.
+
+
+PART TWO. THE FIANNA
+
+THE COMING OF FINN, AND FINN'S HOUSEHOLD.--
+  _Proceedings Ossianic Society_;
+  Kuno Meyer, _Four Songs of Summer and Winter_;
+  _Revue Celtique_;
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Curtin's _Folk Tales_.
+
+BIRTH OF BRAN.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+OISIN'S MOTHER.--
+  Kennedy, _Legendary Fictions Irish Celts_;
+  Mac Innis;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_.
+
+BEST MEN OF THE FIANNA.--
+  Dean of Lismore's Book;
+  _Silva Gaedelica;
+  Leabhar na Feinne_.
+
+LAD OF THE SKINS.--
+  _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_;
+  Larminie's _Folk Tales_;
+  Curtin's _Tales_.
+
+THE HOUND.--
+ _Silva Gaedelica_;
+ Whitley Stokes, _Dinnsenchus_.
+
+RED RIDGE.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND.--
+  Kuno Meyer, _Anec. Oxonienses_;
+  Hanmer's _Chronicle_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  Curtin's _Tales_;
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+KING OF BRITAIN'S SON.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+DONN, SON OF MIDHIR.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+HOSPITALITY OF CUANNA'S HOUSE.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+CAT-HEADS AND DOG-HEADS.--
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales of the Western Highlands_.
+
+LOMNA'S HEAD.--
+  O'Curry, _Orc. Treith_, O'Donovan, ed. Stokes.
+
+ILBREC OF ESS RUADH.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+CAVE OF CRUACHAN.--
+  Stokes, _Irische Texts._
+
+WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+THE SHADOWY ONE.--
+  O'Curry.
+
+FINN'S MADNESS.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+THE RED WOMAN.--
+  Hyde, _Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach_.
+
+FINN AND THE PHANTOMS.--
+  Kuno Meyer, _Revue Celtique_.
+
+THE PIGS OF ANGUS.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+OISIN'S CHILDREN.--
+  O'Curry;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales of the Western Highlands_;
+  Stokes, _Irische Texte_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Celtic Magazine_;
+  _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_.
+
+BIRTH OF DIARMUID.--
+  _Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grania_
+      (Society for Preservation of the Irish Language);
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales_.
+
+HOW DIARMUID GOT HIS LOVE-SPOT.--
+  Hyde, _Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach_.
+
+DAUGHTER OF KING UNDER-WAVE.--
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales_.
+
+THE HARD SERVANT.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES.--
+  MSS. in Royal Irish Academy, and in Dr Hyde's possession.
+
+DIARMUID AND GRANIA.--
+  Text Published by S. Hayes O'Grady,
+      _Proc. Ossianic Society_,
+      and re-edited by N. O'Duffey for
+      Society for Preservation of the Irish Language;
+   Kuno Meyer, _Revue Celtique_, and _Four Songs_;
+   _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+   Campbell's _Popular Tales_;
+   _Kilkenny Arch. Journal_;
+   _Folk Lore_, vol. vii., 1896;
+   Dean of Lismore;
+   Nutt, _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_.
+
+CNOC-AN-AIR, ETC.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales_;
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_;
+  O'Curry;
+  _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_;
+  Stokes, _Irische Texte_.
+
+THE END OF THE FIANNA.--
+  Hyde, _Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach_;
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_;
+  _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Miss Brooke's _Reliques_;
+  _Annals of the Four Masters_;
+  _Celtic Magazine_.
+
+OISIN AND PATRICK, AND OISIN'S LAMENTS.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Kilkenny Arch, fournal_;
+  Curtin's _Tales_.
+
+I have taken Grania's sleepy song, and the description of Finn's shield
+and of Cumhal's treasure-bag, and the fact of Finn's descent from
+Ethlinn, from _Duanaire Finn_, now being edited for the Irish Texts
+Society by Mr John MacNeill, the proofs of which I have been kindly
+allowed to see. And I have used sometimes parts of stories, or comments
+on them gathered directly from the people, who have kept these heroes so
+much in mind. The story of Caoilte coming to the help of the King of
+Ireland in a dark wood is the only one I have given without either a
+literary or a folk ancestry. It was heard or read by Mr Yeats, he cannot
+remember where, but he had, with it in his mind, written of "Caoilte's
+burning hair" in one of his poems.
+
+I and my readers owe special thanks to those good workers in the
+discovery of Irish literature, Professor Kuno Meyer and Mr Whitley
+Stokes, translators of so many manuscripts; and to my friend and kinsman
+Standish Hayes O'Grady, for what I have taken from that wonderful
+treasure-house, his _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE PRONUNCIATION
+
+
+This is the approximate pronunciation of some of the more difficult
+names:
+
+Adhnuall             Ai-noo-al.
+Ailbhe.              Alva.
+Almhuin              All-oon, _or_ Alvin.
+Aobh                 Aev, _or_ Eev.
+Aodh                 Ae (rhyming to "day").
+Aoibhill             Evill.
+Aoife                Eefa.
+
+Badb                 Bibe.
+Beltaine,
+    or Bealtaine     Bal-tinna.
+Bladhma              Bly-ma.
+Bodb Dearg           Bove Darrig.
+
+Caoilte              Cweeltia.
+Cam Ruidhe           Corn Rwee.
+Ciabhan              Kee-a-van.
+Cliodna              Cleevna.
+Coincheann           Kun-Kann.
+Crann Buidhe         Cran bwee.
+Credhe               Crae-a.
+Cumhal               Coo-al.
+
+Deaghadh             D'ya-a.
+Dubhthach            Duffach.
+Duibhreann           Dhiv-ran.
+Duibhrium            Dhiv-rinn.
+Dun                  Doon.
+
+Eimher               Aevir.
+Emhain               Avvin.
+Eochaid              Eohee.
+Eoghan               Owen.
+
+Fionnchad            Finn-ach-a.
+Fodhla               Fóla.
+Fodla                Fola.
+
+Gallimh              Gol-yiv.
+Glas Gaibhnenn       Glos Gov-nan.
+
+Leith Laeig          Leh Laeg.
+Loch Dairbhreach     Loch Darvragh.
+Lugaidh              Loo-ee, _or_ Lewy.
+Lugh                 Loo.
+
+Magh an Ionganaidh   Moy-in-eean-ee.
+Magh Cuillean        Moy Cullin.
+Magh Feabhail        Moy Fowl.
+Magh Macraimhe       Moy Mucrivva.
+Magh Mell            Moy Mal.
+Magh Rein            Moy Raen.
+Magh Tuireadh        Moytirra.
+Manannan             Mananaun.
+Midhe                Mee.
+Midhna               Mec-na.
+Mochaomhog           Mo-cwecv-og.
+Muadhan              Moo-aun.
+Murchadh             Murachu.
+
+Nemhnain             Now-nin.
+Niamh                Nee-av.
+
+Og                   Og.
+
+Rath Medba,
+    or Meadhbha      Ra Maev-a.
+Rudraighe            Rury.
+
+Samhain              Sow-in.
+Scathniamh           Scau-nee-av.
+Sceolan              Skolaun.
+Searbhan             Sharavaun.
+Sidhe                Shee.
+Slieve Echtge        Sleev Acht-ga.
+
+Tadg                 Teig.
+Teamhair             T'yower, _or_ Tavvir.
+Tuatha de Danaan     Too-a-ha dae Donnan.
+Tuathmumhain         Too-moon.
+
+I have not followed a fixed rule as to the spelling of Irish names; I
+have taken the spelling I give from various good authorities, but they
+vary so much that, complete accuracy not being easy, I sometimes look to
+custom and convenience. I use, for instance, "Slieve" for "Sliabh,"
+because it comes so often, and a mispronunciation would spoil so many
+names. I have treated "Inbhir" (a river mouth) in the same way, spelling
+it "Inver," and even adopting it as an English word, because it is so
+useful. The forty scholars of the New School of Old Irish will do us
+good service if they work at the question both of spelling and of
+pronunciation of the old names and settle them as far as is possible.
+
+
+V. THE PLACE NAMES
+
+Accuill                Achill, Co. Mayo.
+Aine Cliach            Cnoc Aine, Co. Limerick.
+Almhuin                Near Kildare.
+Ath Cliath             Dublin.
+Athluain               Athlone.
+Ath na Riogh           Athenry.
+Badhamain              Cahir, Co. Tipperary.
+Baile Cronin           Barony of Imokilty, Co. Cork.
+Banna                  The Bann.
+Beare                  Berehaven.
+Bearna na Eadargana    Roscommon.
+Bearnas Mor            Co. Donegal.
+Beinn Gulbain          Benbulban, Co. Sligo.
+Beire do Bhunadas      Berehaven.
+Bel-atha Senaig        Ballyshannon.
+Belgata                In Connemara.
+Benna Boirde           Source of the Bann and Mourne Mountains.
+Berramain              Near Tralee.
+Bhas                   River Bush.
+Boinn                  River Boyne.
+Bri Leith              Co. Longford.
+
+Cairbre                Carbury.
+Cairgin                Three miles south of Londonderry.
+Carrthach River        River Carra, near Dunkerrin Mountains.
+Ceanntaile             Kinsale.
+Ceiscorainn            Co. Sligo.
+Cill Dolun             Killaloe, Co. Clare.
+Cliodna's Wave         At Glandore, Co. Cork.
+Cluantarbh             Clontarf.
+Cnoc Aine              Co. Limerick.
+Cnoc-an-Air            Co. Kerry.
+Cnoc na righ           Co. Sligo.
+Corca Duibhne          Corcaguiny, Co. Kerry.
+Corrslieve             Carlow Mountains.
+Crotta Cliach          Galtee Mountains.
+Cruachan               Co. Roscommon.
+Cruachan Aigle         Croagh Patrick.
+
+Doire a Cairn          Derrycarn, Co. Meath.
+Doire-da-Bhoth         In Slieve Echtge.
+Druim Cleibh           Co. Sligo.
+Druim Lis              Near Loch Gill.
+Druimscarha            Near River Arighis, Co. Cork.
+Dun Sobairce           Dunsevenh, Co. Antrim.
+Durlas                 Thurles.
+
+Ess Dara               Near Sligo.
+Ess Ruadh              Assaroe, Co. Donegal.
+Fidh Gaible            Fergill, Co. Sligo.
+Finntraighe            Ventry.
+Fionn                  The Finn.
+Fionnabraic            Kilfenna, Co. Clare.
+Fionntutach            Co. Limerick.
+Fleisge                Co. Kerry.
+
+Gabhra                 Near Tara.
+Gaibh atha na Fiann    River Leamhar, flows from Killarney.
+Gairech and Ilgairech  Hills near Mullingar.
+Gallimh                Galway.
+Gleann na Caor         Co. Cork.
+Gullach Dollairb       Barony of Rathconrath.
+
+Hill of Bairnech       Near Killarney.
+Hill of Uisnech        Co. Westmeath.
+
+Inver Cechmaine        East coast of Ulster.
+Inver Colpa            Drogheda.
+Inver Slane            N.E. of Leinster.
+Irrus Domnann          Erris, Co. Mayo.
+Island of Toraig       Tory Island, Co. Donegal.
+
+Laoi                   River Lee.
+Leith Laoi             Leitrim.
+Linn Feic              Near Slaney.
+Loch Bel Sead          Co. Tipperary.
+Loch Cé                Co. Roscommon.
+Loch Dairbhreach       Loch Derryvaragh, Co. Westmeath.
+Loch Deirg Dheirc      Loch Derg on the Shannon.
+Loch Eirne             Loch Erne.
+Loch Feabhail          Loch Foyle.
+Loch Lein              Killarney.
+Loch Orbson            Loch Corrib.
+Loch na-n Ean          In Co. Roscommon.
+Lough Neatach          Loch Neagh.
+Luimneach              Limerick.
+
+Maev Mhagh             Plain about Loughrea.
+Magh Cobha             Iveagh, Co. Down.
+Magh Cuilenn           Moycullen, Co. Galway.
+Magh Femen             Co. Tipperary.
+Magh Larg              Co. Roscommon.
+Magh Leine             King's County.
+Magh Luirg             Co. Roscommon.
+Magh Maini             Co. Wexford.
+Magh Mucraimhe         Near Athenry.
+Magh Nia               Same as Magh Tuireadh.
+Magh Rein              Co. Leitrim.
+Magh Tuireadh          Moytura near Sligo, scene of great
+                          battle, and Moytura, near
+                          Cong, scene of first battle.
+March of Finnliath     River Lee, near Tralee.
+Midhe                  Meath, west of Ardagh.
+Mis Geadh              In Bay of Erris.
+Muaid                  River Moy.
+Muc-inis               Muckinish, off Connemara.
+
+Nas                    Naas.
+Nem                    The Nem.
+
+Oenach Clochan         Morristown, Co. Limerick.
+Osraige                Ossory.
+
+Paps of Dana           Co. Kerry.
+Portlairge             Waterford.
+
+River Maigh            Co. Limerick.
+Ros da Shioleach       Limerick.
+Ruirlech               Liffey.
+
+Samair                 R. Cumhair, runs through Bruff.
+Sionnan                River Shannon.
+Siuir                  River Suir, Co. Tipperary.
+Siuir and Beoir        Suir and Nore and Barrow.
+   and Berba
+Slieve Baisne          Co. Roscommon.
+Slieve Bladmai         Slieve Bloom.
+Slieve Buane           Slieve Banne, Co. Roscommon.
+Slieve Conaill         Border of Leitrim and Donegal.
+Slieve Crot            Co. Tipperary.
+Slieve Cua             Co. Waterford.
+Slieve Cua
+   and Slieve Crot     In Galtee Mountains.
+Slieve Cuailgne        Co. Louth.
+Slieve Echtge          Co. Galway.
+Slieve Fuad            Co. Armagh.
+Slieve Guaire          Co. Cavan.
+Slieve Luchra          Co. Kerry.
+Slieve Lugha           Co. Mayo.
+Slieve Mis             Co. Kerry.
+Slieve Muice           Co. Tipperary.
+Slieve-nam-Ban         Co. Tipperary
+Sligach                Sligo.
+Srub Bruin             In West Kerry.
+Sruth na Maoile        Mull of Cantire.
+
+Tailltin               Telltown.
+Teamhair               Tara, Co. Meath.
+Teunhair Luchra        Near Castle Island, Co. Kerry.
+The Beith              River Behy, Barony of Dunkerrin.
+The Beoir              The Berba.
+The Islands of Mod     In Clew Bay.
+The Lemain             River Laune, Co. Kerry.
+The Muaidh             River Moy, Co. Sligo.
+Tonn Toime             Toines, near Killarney.
+Traigh Eothaile        Near Ballisodare.
+Tuathmumain            Thomond.
+
+Ui Chonaill Gabhra       Co. Limerick.
+Ui Fiachraih, Fiachraig  Co. Mayo.
+
+Wave of Rudraighe      Bay of Dundrum.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Gods and Fighting Men, by Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODS AND FIGHTING MEN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 14465-8.txt or 14465-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/6/14465/
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Ledger and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/14465-8.zip b/old/14465-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9fd8add
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14465-8.zip
diff --git a/old/14465-h.zip b/old/14465-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56a10e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14465-h.zip
diff --git a/old/14465-h/14465-h.htm b/old/14465-h/14465-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4063909
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14465-h/14465-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,17029 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gods And Fighting Men:, by Augusta Gregory.
+    </title>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" />
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+      }
+    p.head {
+        font-weight: bold;
+        margin-bottom:0;
+        text-align:left;
+      }
+    p.list {
+        margin-top: .25em;
+        margin-left:2em;
+        text-align: left;
+      }
+
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr { width: 65%;
+         margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+         }
+     hr.thought-break {width: 45%;
+         }
+     body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+
+    .bb       {border-bottom: solid 2px;}
+    .bl       {border-left: solid 2px;}
+    .bt       {border-top: solid 2px;}
+    .br       {border-right: solid 2px;}
+    .bbox     {border: solid 2px;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    ul.TOC {
+	   list-style-type: none;
+	   position: relative;
+    }
+    ul.TOCSub {
+        margin-right: 5%;
+        list-style-type: none;
+        position: relative;
+    }
+
+    li { margin-top: 0.53em; line-height: 1.2em }
+    li.book { margin-top: 2em; }
+    li.part { margin-top: 3 em;}
+
+    ul.auth {
+        font-weight: bold;
+        list-style-type: none;
+        position: relative;
+    }
+    ul.authSub {
+        font-weight: normal;
+        margin-right: 2.5%;
+        list-style-type: none;
+        position: relative;
+    }
+
+    .author {
+        margin-top: 1em;
+	    width=100%;
+	    text-align: right;
+	    font-weight: bold;
+    }
+
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gods and Fighting Men, by Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gods and Fighting Men
+
+Author: Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14465]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODS AND FIGHTING MEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Ledger and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1><a name="home" id="home" />GODS AND FIGHTING MEN:</h1>
+
+<h3>THE STORY OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN
+AND OF THE FIANNA OF IRELAND,</h3>
+
+<h3>ARRANGED AND PUT INTO ENGLISH BY LADY GREGORY.</h3>
+
+<h3>WITH A PREFACE BY W.B.&nbsp;YEATS</h3>
+
+<h1>1905</h1>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L1" id="L1" />DEDICATION TO THE MEMBERS OF THE IRISH LITERARY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK</h2>
+
+
+<p>My Friends, those I know and those I do not know, I am glad in the year
+of the birth of your Society to have this book to offer you.</p>
+
+<p>It has given great courage to many workers here&mdash;working to build up
+broken walls&mdash;to know you have such friendly thoughts of them in your
+minds. A few of you have already come to see us, and we begin to hope
+that one day the steamers across the Atlantic will not go out full, but
+come back full, until some of you find your real home is here, and say
+as some of us say, like Finn to the woman of enchantments&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><img src="images/gaelic.png"
+      alt="Irish Gaelic."
+      title="Irish Gaelic." style="width: 100%"/></p>
+
+<p>"We would not give up our own country&mdash;Ireland&mdash;if we were to get the
+whole world as an estate, and the Country of the Young along with it."
+
+<span class="author">AUGUSTA GREGORY.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<a name="L2" id="L2" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<ul class="TOC">
+<li><a href="#L1">DEDICATION</a></li>
+<li><a href="#L2">CONTENTS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#L3">PREFACE</a></li>
+
+<li class="part"><a href="#L4">PART ONE: THE GODS.</a></li>
+
+<li class="book"><a href="#L4">BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN.</a>
+	<ul class="TOCSub">
+	   <li><a href="#L4">CHAPTER I. THE FIGHT WITH THE FIRBOLGS</a></li>
+	   <li><a href="#L5">CHAPTER II. THE REIGN OF BRES</a></li>
+	</ul>
+</li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L6">BOOK TWO: LUGH OF THE LONG HAND.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L6">CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF LUGH</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L7">CHAPTER II. THE SONS OF TUIREANN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L8">CHAPTER III. THE GREAT BATTLE OF MAGH TUIREADH</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L9">CHAPTER IV. THE HIDDEN HOUSE OF LUGH</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L10">BOOK THREE: THE COMING OF THE GAEL.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L10">CHAPTER I. THE LANDING</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L11">CHAPTER II. THE BATTLE OF TAILLTIN</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L12">BOOK FOUR: THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L12">CHAPTER I. BODB DEARG.</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L13">CHAPTER II. THE DAGDA</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L14">CHAPTER III. ANGUS OG</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L15">CHAPTER IV. THE MORRIGU</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L16">CHAPTER V. AINE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L17">CHAPTER VI. AOIBHELL</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L18">CHAPTER VII. MIDHIR AND ETAIN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L19">CHAPTER VIII. MANANNAN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L20">CHAPTER IX. MANANNAN AT PLAY</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L21">CHAPTER X. HIS CALL TO BRAN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L22">CHAPTER XI. HIS THREE CALLS TO CORMAC</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L23">CHAPTER XII. CLIODNA'S WAVE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L24">CHAPTER XIII. HIS CALL TO CONNLA</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L25">CHAPTER XIV. TADG IN MANANNAN'S ISLANDS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L26">CHAPTER XV. LAEGAIRE IN THE HAPPY PLAIN</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book"><a href="#L27">BOOK FIVE: THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR</a></li>
+
+<li class="part"><a href="#L28">PART TWO: THE FIANNA.</a></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L28">BOOK ONE: FINN, SON OF CUMHAL.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L28">CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF FINN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L29">CHAPTER II. FINN'S HOUSEHOLD</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L30">CHAPTER III. BIRTH OF BRAN.</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L31">CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S MOTHER.</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L32">CHAPTER V. THE BEST MEN OF THE FIANNA</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L33">BOOK TWO: FINN'S HELPERS</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L33"> CHAPTER I. THE LAD OF THE SKINS </a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L34">CHAPTER II. BLACK, BROWN, AND GREY</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L35">CHAPTER III. THE HOUND</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L36">CHAPTER IV. RED RIDGE</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L37">BOOK THREE: THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L37"> CHAPTER I. THE ENEMIES OF IRELAND</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L38">CHAPTER II. CAEL AND CREDHE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L39">CHAPTER III. CONN CRITHER</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L40">CHAPTER IV. GLAS, SON OF BREMEN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L41">CHAPTER V. THE HELP OF THE MEN OF DEA</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L42">CHAPTER VI. THE MARCH OF THE FIANNA</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L43">CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST FIGHTERS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L44">CHAPTER VIII. THE KING OF ULSTER'S SON</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L45">CHAPTER IX. THE HIGH KING'S SON</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L46">CHAPTER X. THE KING OF LOCHLANN AND HIS SONS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L47">CHAPTER XI. LABRAN'S JOURNEY</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L48">CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT FIGHT</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L49">CHAPTER XIII. CREDHE'S LAMENT</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L50">BOOK FOUR: HUNTINGS AND ENCHANTMENTS.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L50"> CHAPTER I. THE KING OF BRITAIN'S SON</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L51">CHAPTER II. THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L52">CHAPTER III. DONN SON OF MIDHIR</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L53">CHAPTER IV. THE HOSPITALITY OF CUANNA'S HOUSE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L54">CHAPTER V. CAT-HEADS AND DOG-HEADS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L55">CHAPTER VI. LOMNA'S HEAD</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L56">CHAPTER VII. ILBREC OF ESS RUADH</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L57">CHAPTER VIII. THE CAVE OF CRUACHAN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L58">CHAPTER IX. THE WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L59">CHAPTER X. THE SHADOWY ONE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L60">CHAPTER XII. THE RED WOMAN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L61">CHAPTER XIII. FINN AND THE PHANTOMS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L62">CHAPTER XIV. THE PIGS OF ANGUS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L63">CHAPTER XV. THE HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L64">BOOK FIVE: OISIN'S CHILDREN</a></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L65">BOOK SIX: DIARMUID.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L65">CHAPTER I. BIRTH OF DIARMUID</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L66">CHAPTER II. HOW DIARMUID GOT HIS LOVE-SPOT</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L67">CHAPTER III. THE DAUGHTER OF KING UNDER-WAVE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L68">CHAPTER IV. THE HARD SERVANT</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L69">CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L70">BOOK SEVEN: DIARMUID AND GRANIA.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L70"> CHAPTER I. THE FLIGHT FROM TEAMHAIR</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L71">CHAPTER II. THE PURSUIT</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L72">CHAPTER III. THE GREEN CHAMPIONS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L73">CHAPTER IV. THE WOOD OF DUBHROS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L74">CHAPTER V. THE QUARREL</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L75">CHAPTER VI. THE WANDERERS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L76">CHAPTER VII. FIGHTING AND PEACE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L77">CHAPTER VIII. THE BOAR OF BEINN GULBAIN</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book"><a href="#L78">BOOK EIGHT: CNOC-AN-AIR.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L78">CHAPTER I. TAILC, SON OF TREON</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L79">CHAPTER II. MEARGACH'S WIFE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L80">CHAPTER III. AILNE'S REVENGE</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+  <a href="#L81">BOOK NINE: THE WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L81">CHAPTER I. THE QUARREL WITH THE SONS OF MORNA</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L82">CHAPTER II. DEATH OF GOLL</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L83">CHAPTER III. THE BATTLE OF GABHRA</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L84">BOOK TEN: THE END OF THE FIANNA.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L84">CHAPTER I. DEATH OF BRAN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L85">CHAPTER II. THE CALL OF OISIN</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L86">CHAPTER III. THE LAST OF THE GREAT MEN</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="book">
+<a href="#L87">BOOK ELEVEN: OISIN AND PATRICK.</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L87">CHAPTER I. OISIN'S STORY</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L88">CHAPTER II. OISIN IN PATRICK'S HOUSE</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L89">CHAPTER III. THE ARGUMENTS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L90">CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S LAMENTS</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="part"><a href="#L91">NOTES</a>
+<ul class="TOCSub">
+ <li><a href="#L91">I. THE APOLOGY</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L92">II. THE AGE AND ORIGIN OF THE STORIES OF THE FIANNA</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L93">III. THE AUTHORITIES</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L95">IV. THE PRONUNCIATION</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#L96">V. THE PLACE NAMES</a></li>
+
+</ul></li>
+
+
+</ul>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L3" id="L3" />PREFACE</h2>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>A few months ago I was on the bare Hill of Allen, "wide Almhuin of
+Leinster," where Finn and the Fianna lived, according to the stories,
+although there are no earthen mounds there like those that mark the
+sites of old buildings on so many hills. A hot sun beat down upon
+flowering gorse and flowerless heather; and on every side except the
+east, where there were green trees and distant hills, one saw a level
+horizon and brown boglands with a few green places and here and there
+the glitter of water. One could imagine that had it been twilight and
+not early afternoon, and had there been vapours drifting and frothing
+where there were now but shadows of clouds, it would have set stirring
+in one, as few places even in Ireland can, a thought that is peculiar to
+Celtic romance, as I think, a thought of a mystery coming not as with
+Gothic nations out of the pressure of darkness, but out of great spaces
+and windy light. The hill of Teamhair, or Tara, as it is now called,
+with its green mounds and its partly wooded sides, and its more gradual
+slope set among fat grazing lands, with great trees in the hedgerows,
+had brought before one imaginations, not of heroes who were in their
+youth for hundreds of years, or of women who came to them in the
+likeness of hunted fawns, but of kings that lived brief and politic
+lives, and of the five white roads that carried their armies to the
+lesser kingdoms of Ireland, or brought to the great fair that had given
+Teamhair its sovereignty, all that sought justice or pleasure or had
+goods to barter.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>It is certain that we must not confuse these kings, as did the medi&aelig;val
+chroniclers, with those half-divine kings of Almhuin. The chroniclers,
+perhaps because they loved tradition too well to cast out utterly much
+that they dreaded as Christians, and perhaps because popular imagination
+had begun the mixture, have mixed one with another ingeniously, making
+Finn the head of a kind of Militia under Cormac MacArt, who is supposed
+to have reigned at Teamhair in the second century, and making Grania,
+who travels to enchanted houses under the cloak of Angus, god of Love,
+and keeps her troubling beauty longer than did Helen hers, Cormac's
+daughter, and giving the stories of the Fianna, although the impossible
+has thrust its proud finger into them all, a curious air of precise
+history. It is only when one separates the stories from that medi&aelig;val
+pedantry, as in this book, that one recognises one of the oldest worlds
+that man has imagined, an older world certainly than one finds in the
+stories of Cuchulain, who lived, according to the chroniclers, about the
+time of the birth of Christ. They are far better known, and one may be
+certain of the antiquity of incidents that are known in one form or
+another to every Gaelic-speaking countryman in Ireland or in the
+Highlands of Scotland. Sometimes a labourer digging near to a cromlech,
+or Bed of Diarmuid and Crania as it is called, will tell one a tradition
+that seems older and more barbaric than any description of their
+adventures or of themselves in written text or story that has taken form
+in the mouths of professed story-tellers. Finn and the Fianna found
+welcome among the court poets later than did Cuchulain; and one finds
+memories of Danish invasions and standing armies mixed with the
+imaginations of hunters and solitary fighters among great woods. One
+never hears of Cuchulain delighting in the hunt or in woodland things;
+and one imagines that the story-teller would have thought it unworthy in
+so great a man, who lived a well-ordered, elaborate life, and had his
+chariot and his chariot-driver and his barley-fed horses to delight in.
+If he is in the woods before dawn one is not told that he cannot know
+the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of the oak; and when Emer
+laments him no wild creature comes into her thoughts but the cuckoo that
+cries over cultivated fields. His story must have come out of a time
+when the wild wood was giving way to pasture and tillage, and men had no
+longer a reason to consider every cry of the birds or change of the
+night. Finn, who was always in the woods, whose battles were but hours
+amid years of hunting, delighted in the "cackling of ducks from the Lake
+of the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of Doire an
+Cairn; the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries; the
+whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories or from the rough
+branches of the Ridge of the Stream; the grouse of the heather of
+Cruachan; the call of the otter of Druim re Coir." When sorrow comes
+upon the queens of the stories, they have sympathy for the wild birds
+and beasts that are like themselves: "Credhe wife of Cael came with the
+others and went looking through the bodies for her comely comrade, and
+crying as she went. And as she was searching she saw a crane of the
+meadows and her two nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watching
+the nestlings; and when the crane covered one of the birds to save it,
+he would make a rush at the other bird, the way she had to stretch
+herself out over the birds; and she would sooner have got her own death
+by the fox than the nestlings to be killed by him. And Credhe was
+looking at that, and she said: 'It is no wonder I to have such love for
+my comely sweetheart, and the bird in that distress about her
+nestlings.'"</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that
+howls at something a man's eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive
+lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious of many
+things that we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly,
+more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away. Although the
+gods come to Cuchulain, and although he is the son of one of the
+greatest of them, their country and his are far apart, and they come to
+him as god to mortal; but Finn is their equal. He is continually in
+their houses; he meets with Bodb Dearg, and Angus, and Manannan, now as
+friend with friend, now as with an enemy he overcomes in battle; and
+when he has need of their help his messenger can say: "There is not a
+king's son or a prince, or a leader of the Fianna of Ireland, without
+having a wife or a mother or a foster-mother or a sweetheart of the
+Tuatha de Danaan." When the Fianna are broken up at last, after hundreds
+of years of hunting, it is doubtful that he dies at all, and certain
+that he comes again in some other shape, and Oisin, his son, is made
+king over a divine country. The birds and beasts that cross his path in
+the woods have been fighting men or great enchanters or fair women, and
+in a moment can take some beautiful or terrible shape. One thinks of him
+and of his people as great-bodied men with large movements, that seem,
+as it were, flowing out of some deep below the narrow stream of personal
+impulse, men that have broad brows and quiet eyes full of confidence in
+a good luck that proves every day afresh that they are a portion of the
+strength of things. They are hardly so much individual men as portions
+of universal nature, like the clouds that shape themselves and re-shape
+themselves momentarily, or like a bird between two boughs, or like the
+gods that have given the apples and the nuts; and yet this but brings
+them the nearer to us, for we can remake them in our image when we will,
+and the woods are the more beautiful for the thought. Do we not always
+fancy hunters to be something like this, and is not that why we think
+them poetical when we meet them of a sudden, as in these lines in
+"Pauline":</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">"An old hunter</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Talking with gods; or a nigh-crested chief</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>One must not expect in these stories the epic lineaments, the many
+incidents, woven into one great event of, let us say, the story of the
+War for the Brown Bull of Cuailgne, or that of the last gathering at
+Muirthemne. Even Diarmuid and Grania, which is a long story, has nothing
+of the clear outlines of Deirdre, and is indeed but a succession of
+detached episodes. The men who imagined the Fianna had the imagination
+of children, and as soon as they had invented one wonder, heaped another
+on top of it. Children&mdash;or, at any rate, it is so I remember my own
+childhood&mdash;do not understand large design, and they delight in little
+shut-in places where they can play at houses more than in great expanses
+where a country-side takes, as it were, the impression of a thought. The
+wild creatures and the green things are more to them than to us, for
+they creep towards our light by little holes and crevices. When they
+imagine a country for themselves, it is always a country where one can
+wander without aim, and where one can never know from one place what
+another will be like, or know from the one day's adventure what may meet
+one with to-morrow's sun. I have wished to become a child again that I
+might find this book, that not only tells one of such a country, but is
+fuller than any other book that tells of heroic life, of the childhood
+that is in all folk-lore, dearer to me than all the books of the western
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Children play at being great and wonderful people, at the ambitions
+they will put away for one reason or another before they grow into
+ordinary men and women. Mankind as a whole had a like dream once;
+everybody and nobody built up the dream bit by bit, and the ancient
+story-tellers are there to make us remember what mankind would have been
+like, had not fear and the failing will and the laws of nature tripped
+up its heels. The Fianna and their like are themselves so full of power,
+and they are set in a world so fluctuating and dream-like, that nothing
+can hold them from being all that the heart desires.</p>
+
+<p>I have read in a fabulous book that Adam had but to imagine a bird, and
+it was born into life, and that he created all things out of himself by
+nothing more important than an unflagging fancy; and heroes who can make
+a ship out of a shaving have but little less of the divine prerogatives.
+They have no speculative thoughts to wander through eternity and waste
+heroic blood; but how could that be otherwise, for it is at all times
+the proud angels who sit thinking upon the hill-side and not the people
+of Eden. One morning we meet them hunting a stag that is "as joyful as
+the leaves of a tree in summer-time"; and whatever they do, whether they
+listen to the harp or follow an enchanter over-sea, they do for the sake
+of joy, their joy in one another, or their joy in pride and movement;
+and even their battles are fought more because of their delight in a
+good fighter than because of any gain that is in victory. They live
+always as if they were playing a game; and so far as they have any
+deliberate purpose at all, it is that they may become great gentlemen
+and be worthy of the songs of poets. It has been said, and I think the
+Japanese were the first to say it, that the four essential virtues are
+to be generous among the weak, and truthful among one's friends, and
+brave among one's enemies, and courteous at all times; and if we
+understand by courtesy not merely the gentleness the story-tellers have
+celebrated, but a delight in courtly things, in beautiful clothing and
+in beautiful verse, one understands that it was no formal succession of
+trials that bound the Fianna to one another. Only the Table Round, that
+is indeed, as it seems, a rivulet from the same river, is bound in a
+like fellowship, and there the four heroic virtues are troubled by the
+abstract virtues of the cloister. Every now and then some noble knight
+builds himself a cell upon the hill-side, or leaves kind women and
+joyful knights to seek the vision of the Grail in lonely adventures. But
+when Oisin or some kingly forerunner&mdash;Bran, son of Febal, or the
+like&mdash;rides or sails in an enchanted ship to some divine country, he but
+looks for a more delighted companionship, or to be in love with faces
+that will never fade. No thought of any life greater than that of love,
+and the companionship of those that have drawn their swords upon the
+darkness of the world, ever troubles their delight in one another as it
+troubles Iseult amid her love, or Arthur amid his battles. It is one of
+the ailments of our speculation that thought, when it is not the
+planning of something, or the doing of something or some memory of a
+plain circumstance separates us from one another because it makes us
+always more unlike, and because no thought passes through another's ear
+unchanged. Companionship can only be perfect when it is founded on
+things, for things are always the same under the hand, and at last one
+comes to hear with envy of the voices of boys lighting a lantern to
+ensnare moths, or of the maids chattering in the kitchen about the fox
+that carried off a turkey before breakfast. This book is full of
+fellowship untroubled like theirs, and made noble by a courtesy that has
+gone perhaps out of the world. I do not know in literature better
+friends and lovers. When one of the Fianna finds Osgar dying the proud
+death of a young man, and asks is it well with him, he is answered, "I
+am as you would have me be." The very heroism of the Fianna is indeed
+but their pride and joy in one another, their good fellowship. Goll, old
+and savage, and letting himself die of hunger in a cave because he is
+angry and sorry, can speak lovely words to the wife whose help he
+refuses. "'It is best as it is,' he said, 'and I never took the advice
+of a woman east or west, and I never will take it. And oh, sweet-voiced
+queen,' he said, 'what ails you to be fretting after me? and remember
+now your silver and your gold, and your silks ... and do not be crying
+tears after me, queen with the white hands,' he said, 'but remember your
+constant lover Aodh, son of the best woman of the world, that came from
+Spain asking for you, and that I fought on Corcar-an-Dearg; and go to
+him now,' he said, 'for it is bad when a woman is without a good man.'"</p>
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>They have no asceticism, but they are more visionary than any ascetic,
+and their invisible life is but the life about them made more perfect
+and more lasting, and the invisible people are their own images in the
+water. Their gods may have been much besides this, for we know them from
+fragments of mythology picked out with trouble from a fantastic history
+running backward to Adam and Eve, and many things that may have seemed
+wicked to the monks who imagined that history, may have been altered or
+left out; but this they must have been essentially, for the old stories
+are confirmed by apparitions among the country-people to-day. The Men of
+Dea fought against the mis-shapen Fomor, as Finn fights against the
+Cat-Heads and the Dog-Heads; and when they are overcome at last by men,
+they make themselves houses in the hearts of hills that are like the
+houses of men. When they call men to their houses and to their country
+Under-Wave they promise them all that they have upon earth, only in
+greater abundance. The god Midhir sings to Queen Etain in one of the
+most beautiful of the stories: "The young never grow old; the fields and
+the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's eggs;
+warm streams of mead and wine flow through that country; there is no
+care or no sorrow on any person; we see others, but we ourselves are not
+seen." These gods are indeed more wise and beautiful than men; but men,
+when they are great men, are stronger than they are, for men are, as it
+were, the foaming tide-line of their sea. One remembers the Druid who
+answered, when some one asked him who made the world, "The Druids made
+it." All was indeed but one life flowing everywhere, and taking one
+quality here, another there. It sometimes seems to one as if there is a
+kind of day and night of religion, and that a period when the influences
+are those that shape the world is followed by a period when the greater
+power is in influences that would lure the soul out of the world, out of
+the body. When Oisin is speaking with S. Patrick of the friends and the
+life he has outlived, he can but cry out constantly against a religion
+that has no meaning for him. He laments, and the country-people have
+remembered his words for centuries: "I will cry my fill, but not for
+God, but because Finn and the Fianna are not living."</p>
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>Old writers had an admirable symbolism that attributed certain energies
+to the influence of the sun, and certain others to the lunar influence.
+To lunar influence belong all thoughts and emotions that were created by
+the community, by the common people, by nobody knows who, and to the sun
+all that came from the high disciplined or individual kingly mind. I
+myself imagine a marriage of the sun and moon in the arts I take most
+pleasure in; and now bride and bridegroom but exchange, as it were, full
+cups of gold and silver, and now they are one in a mystical embrace.
+From the moon come the folk-songs imagined by reapers and spinners out
+of the common impulse of their labour, and made not by putting words
+together, but by mixing verses and phrases, and the folk-tales made by
+the capricious mixing of incidents known to everybody in new ways, as
+one deals out cards, never getting the same hand twice over. When one
+hears some fine story, one never knows whether it has not been hazard
+that put the last touch of adventure. Such poetry, as it seems to me,
+desires an infinity of wonder or emotion, for where there is no
+individual mind there is no measurer-out, no marker-in of limits. The
+poor fisher has no possession of the world and no responsibility for it;
+and if he dreams of a love-gift better than the brown shawl that seems
+too common for poetry, why should he not dream of a glove made from the
+skin of a bird, or shoes made from the skin of a fish, or a coat made
+from the glittering garment of the salmon? Was it not Aeschylus who said
+he but served up fragments from the banquet of Homer?&mdash;but Homer himself
+found the great banquet on an earthen floor and under a broken roof. We
+do not know who at the foundation of the world made the banquet for the
+first time, or who put the pack of cards into rough hands; but we do
+know that, unless those that have made many inventions are about to
+change the nature of poetry, we may have to go where Homer went if we
+are to sing a new song. Is it because all that is under the moon thirsts
+to escape out of bounds, to lose itself in some unbounded tidal stream,
+that the songs of the folk are mournful, and that the story of the
+Fianna, whenever the queens lament for their lovers, reminds us of songs
+that are still sung in country-places? Their grief, even when it is to
+be brief like Grania's, goes up into the waste places of the sky. But
+in supreme art or in supreme life there is the influence of the sun too,
+and the sun brings with it, as old writers tell us, not merely
+discipline but joy; for its discipline is not of the kind the multitudes
+impose upon us by their weight and pressure, but the expression of the
+individual soul turning itself into a pure fire and imposing its own
+pattern, its own music, upon the heaviness and the dumbness that is in
+others and in itself. When we have drunk the cold cup of the moon's
+intoxication, we thirst for something beyond ourselves, and the mind
+flows outward to a natural immensity; but if we have drunk from the hot
+cup of the sun, our own fullness awakens, we desire little, for wherever
+one goes one's heart goes too; and if any ask what music is the
+sweetest, we can but answer, as Finn answered, "what happens." And yet
+the songs and stories that have come from either influence are a part,
+neither less than the other, of the pleasure that is the bride-bed of
+poetry.</p>
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+<p>Gaelic-speaking Ireland, because its art has been made, not by the
+artist choosing his material from wherever he has a mind to, but by
+adding a little to something which it has taken generations to invent,
+has always had a popular literature. One cannot say how much that
+literature has done for the vigour of the race, for one cannot count the
+hands its praise of kings and high-hearted queens made hot upon the
+sword-hilt, or the amorous eyes it made lustful for strength and beauty.
+One remembers indeed that when the farming people and the labourers of
+the towns made their last attempt to cast out England by force of arms
+they named themselves after the companions of Finn. Even when Gaelic has
+gone, and the poetry with it, something of the habit of mind remains in
+ways of speech and thought and "come-all-ye"s and poetical saying; nor
+is it only among the poor that the old thought has been for strength or
+weakness. Surely these old stories, whether of Finn or Cuchulain, helped
+to sing the old Irish and the old Norman-Irish aristocracy to their end.
+They heard their hereditary poets and story-tellers, and they took to
+horse and died fighting against Elizabeth or against Cromwell; and when
+an English-speaking aristocracy had their place, it listened to no
+poetry indeed, but it felt about it in the popular mind an exacting and
+ancient tribunal, and began a play that had for spectators men and women
+that loved the high wasteful virtues. I do not think that their own
+mixed blood or the habit of their time need take all, or nearly all,
+credit or discredit for the impulse that made our modern gentlemen fight
+duels over pocket-handkerchiefs, and set out to play ball against the
+gates of Jerusalem for a wager, and scatter money before the public eye;
+and at last, after an epoch of such eloquence the world has hardly seen
+its like, lose their public spirit and their high heart and grow
+querulous and selfish as men do who have played life out not heartily
+but with noise and tumult. Had they understood the people and the game a
+little better, they might have created an aristocracy in an age that has
+lost the meaning of the word. When one reads of the Fianna, or of
+Cuchulain, or of some great hero, one remembers that the fine life is
+always a part played finely before fine spectators. There also one
+notices the hot cup and the cold cup of intoxication; and when the fine
+spectators have ended, surely the fine players grow weary, and
+aristocratic life is ended. When O'Connell covered with a dark glove the
+hand that had killed a man in the duelling field, he played his part;
+and when Alexander stayed his army marching to the conquest of the world
+that he might contemplate the beauty of a plane-tree, he played his
+part. When Osgar complained as he lay dying, of the keening of the women
+and the old fighting men, he too played his part; "No man ever knew any
+heart in me," he said, "but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered with
+iron; but the howling of the dogs beside me," he said, "and the keening
+of the old fighting men and the crying of the women one after another,
+those are the things that are vexing me." If we would create a great
+community&mdash;and what other game is so worth the labour?&mdash;we must recreate
+the old foundations of life, not as they existed in that splendid
+misunderstanding of the eighteenth century, but as they must always
+exist when the finest minds and Ned the beggar and Seaghan the fool
+think about the same thing, although they may not think the same thought
+about it.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+<p>When I asked the little boy who had shown me the pathway up the Hill of
+Allen if he knew stories of Finn and Oisin, he said he did not, but that
+he had often heard his grandfather telling them to his mother in Irish.
+He did not know Irish, but he was learning it at school, and all the
+little boys he knew were learning it. In a little while he will know
+enough stories of Finn and Oisin to tell them to his children some day.
+It is the owners of the land whose children might never have known what
+would give them so much happiness. But now they can read this book to
+their children, and it will make Slieve-na-man, Allen, and Benbulben,
+the great mountain that showed itself before me every day through all my
+childhood and was yet unpeopled, and half the country-sides of south and
+west, as populous with memories as are Dundealgan and Emain Macha and
+Muirthemne; and after a while somebody may even take them to some famous
+place and say, "This land where your fathers lived proudly and finely
+should be dear and dear and again dear"; and perhaps when many names
+have grown musical to their ears, a more imaginative love will have
+taught them a better service.</p>
+
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+<p>I need say nothing about the translation and arrangement of this book
+except that it is worthy to be put beside "Cuchulain of Muirthemne."
+Such books should not be commended by written words but by spoken words,
+were that possible, for the written words commending a book, wherein
+something is done supremely well, remain, to sound in the ears of a
+later generation, like the foolish sound of church bells from the tower
+of a church when every pew is full.</p>
+
+<p class="author">W.B. YEATS.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L4" id="L4" />PART ONE: THE GODS.</h2>
+
+<h2>BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE FIGHT WITH THE FIRBOLGS</h2>
+
+<p>It was in a mist the Tuatha de Danaan, the people of the gods of Dana,
+or as some called them, the Men of Dea, came through the air and the
+high air to Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>It was from the north they came; and in the place they came from they
+had four cities, where they fought their battle for learning: great
+Falias, and shining Gorias, and Finias, and rich Murias that lay to the
+south. And in those cities they had four wise men to teach their young
+men skill and knowledge and perfect wisdom: Senias in Murias; and Arias,
+the fair-haired poet, in Finias; and Urias of the noble nature in
+Gorias; and Morias in Falias itself. And they brought from those four
+cities their four treasures: a Stone of Virtue from Falias, that was
+called the Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny; and from Gorias they brought
+a Sword; and from Finias a Spear of Victory; and from Murias the fourth
+treasure, the Cauldron that no company ever went away from unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>It was Nuada was king of the Tuatha de Danaan at that time, but
+Manannan, son of Lir, was greater again. And of the others that were
+chief among them were Ogma, brother to the king, that taught them
+writing, and Diancecht, that understood healing, and Neit, a god of
+battle, and Credenus the Craftsman, and Goibniu the Smith. And the
+greatest among their women were Badb, a battle goddess; and Macha, whose
+mast-feeding was the heads of men killed in battle; and the Morrigu,
+the Crow of Battle; and Eire and Fodla and Banba, daughters of the
+Dagda, that all three gave their names to Ireland afterwards; and Eadon,
+the nurse of poets; and Brigit, that was a woman of poetry, and poets
+worshipped her, for her sway was very great and very noble. And she was
+a woman of healing along with that, and a woman of smith's work, and it
+was she first made the whistle for calling one to another through the
+night. And the one side of her face was ugly, but the other side was
+very comely. And the meaning of her name was Breo-saighit, a fiery
+arrow. And among the other women there were many shadow-forms and great
+queens; but Dana, that was called the Mother of the Gods, was beyond
+them all.</p>
+
+<p>And the three things they put above all others were the plough and the
+sun and the hazel-tree, so that it was said in the time to come that
+Ireland was divided between those three, Coll the hazel, and Cecht the
+plough, and Grian the sun.</p>
+
+<p>And they had a well below the sea where the nine hazels of wisdom were
+growing; that is, the hazels of inspiration and of the knowledge of
+poetry. And their leaves and their blossoms would break out in the same
+hour, and would fall on the well in a shower that raised a purple wave.
+And then the five salmon that were waiting there would eat the nuts, and
+their colour would come out in the red spots of their skin, and any
+person that would eat one of those salmon would know all wisdom and all
+poetry. And there were seven streams of wisdom that sprang from that
+well and turned back to it again; and the people of many arts have all
+drank from that well.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the first day of Beltaine, that is called now May Day, the
+Tuatha de Danaan came, and it was to the north-west of Connacht they
+landed. But the Firbolgs, the Men of the Bag, that were in Ireland
+before them, and that had come from the South, saw nothing but a mist,
+and it lying on the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Eochaid, son of Erc, was king of the Firbolgs at that time, and
+messengers came to him at Teamhair, and told him there was a new race of
+people come into Ireland, but whether from the earth or the skies or on
+the wind was not known, and that they had settled themselves at Magh
+Rein.</p>
+
+<p>They thought there would be wonder on Eochaid when he heard that news;
+but there was no wonder on him, for a dream had come to him in the
+night, and when he asked his Druids the meaning of the dream, it is what
+they said, that it would not be long till there would be a strong enemy
+coming against him.</p>
+
+<p>Then King Eochaid took counsel with his chief advisers, and it is what
+they agreed, to send a good champion of their own to see the strangers
+and to speak with them. So they chose out Sreng, that was a great
+fighting man, and he rose up and took his strong red-brown shield, and
+his two thick-handled spears, and his sword, and his head-covering, and
+his thick iron club, and he set out from Teamhair, and went on towards
+the place the strangers were, at Magh Rein.</p>
+
+<p>But before he reached it, the watchers of the Tuatha de Danaan got sight
+of him, and they sent out one of their own champions, Bres, with his
+shield and his sword and his two spears, to meet him and to talk with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>So the two champions went one towards the other slowly, and keeping a
+good watch on one another, and wondering at one another's arms, till
+they came near enough for talking; and then they stopped, and each put
+his shield before his body and struck it hard into the ground, and they
+looked at one another over the rim. Bres was the first to speak, and
+when Sreng heard it was Irish he was talking, his own tongue, he was
+less uneasy, and they drew nearer, and asked questions as to one
+another's family and race.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while they put their shields away, and it was what Sreng
+said, that he had raised his in dread of the thin, sharp spears Bres had
+in his hand. And Bres said he himself was in dread of the thick-handled
+spears he saw with Sreng, and he asked were all the arms of the Firbolgs
+of the same sort. And Sreng took off the tyings of his spears to show
+them better, and Bres wondered at them, being so strong and so heavy,
+and so sharp at the sides though they had no points. And Sreng told him
+the name of those spears was Craisech, and that they would break through
+shields and crush flesh and bones, so that their thrust was death or
+wounds that never healed. And then he looked at the sharp, thin,
+hard-pointed spears that were with Bres. And in the end they made an
+exchange of spears, the way the fighters on each side would see the
+weapons the others were used to. And it is the message Bres sent to the
+Firbolgs, that if they would give up one half of Ireland, his people
+would be content to take it in peace; but if they would not give up that
+much, there should be a battle. And he and Sreng said to one another
+that whatever might happen in the future, they themselves would be
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>Sreng went back then to Teamhair and gave the message and showed the
+spear; and it is what he advised his people, to share the country and
+not to go into battle with a people that had weapons so much better than
+their own. But Eochaid and his chief men consulted together, and they
+said in the end: "We will not give up the half of the country to these
+strangers; for if we do," they said, "they will soon take the whole."</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the Men of Dea, when Bres went back to them, and showed them
+the heavy spear, and told them of the strong, fierce man he had got it
+from, and how sturdy he was and well armed, they thought it likely there
+would soon be a battle. And they went back from where they were to a
+better place, farther west in Connacht, and there they settled
+themselves, and made walls and ditches on the plain of Magh Nia, where
+they had the great mountain, Belgata, in their rear. And while they were
+moving there and putting up their walls, three queens of them, Badb and
+Macha and the Morrigu, went to Teamhair where the Firbolgs were making
+their plans. And by the power of their enchantments they brought mists
+and clouds of darkness over the whole place, and they sent showers of
+fire and of blood over the people, the way they could not see or speak
+with one another through the length of three days. But at the end of
+that time, the three Druids of the Firbolgs, Cesarn and Gnathach and
+Ingnathach, broke the enchantment.</p>
+
+<p>The Firbolgs gathered their men together then, and they came with their
+eleven battalions and took their stand at the eastern end of the plain
+of Magh Nia.</p>
+
+<p>And Nuada, king of the Men of Dea, sent his poets to make the same offer
+he made before, to be content with the half of the country if it was
+given up to him. King Eochaid bade the poets to ask an answer of his
+chief men that were gathered there; and when they heard the offer they
+would not consent. So the messengers asked them when would they begin
+the battle. "We must have a delay," they said; "for we want time to put
+our spears and our armour in order, and to brighten our helmets and to
+sharpen our swords, and to have spears made like the ones you have. And
+as to yourselves," they said, "you will be wanting to have spears like
+our Craisechs made for you." So they agreed then to make a delay of a
+quarter of a year for preparation.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a Midsummer day they began the battle. Three times nine
+hurlers of the Tuatha de Danaan went out against three times nine
+hurlers of the Firbolgs, and they were beaten, and every one of them was
+killed. And the king, Eochaid, sent a messenger to ask would they have
+the battle every day or every second day. And it is what Nuada answered
+that they would have it every day, but there should be just the same
+number of men fighting on each side. Eochaid agreed to that, but he was
+not well pleased, for there were more men of the Firbolgs than of the
+Men of Dea.</p>
+
+<p>So the battle went on for four days, and there were great feats done on
+each side, and a great many champions came to their death. But for those
+that were alive at evening, the physicians on each side used to make a
+bath of healing, with every sort of healing plant or herb in it, the way
+they would be strong and sound for the next day's fight.</p>
+
+<p>And on the fourth day the Men of Dea got the upper hand, and the
+Firbolgs were driven back. And a great thirst came on Eochaid, their
+king, in the battle, and he went off the field looking for a drink, and
+three fifties of his men protecting him; but three fifties of the Tuatha
+de Danaan followed after them till they came to the strand that is
+called Traigh Eothaile, and they had a fierce fight there, and at the
+last King Eochaid fell, and they buried him there, and they raised a
+great heap of stones over his grave.</p>
+
+<p>And when there were but three hundred men left of the eleven battalions
+of the Firbolgs, and Sreng at the head of them, Nuada offered them
+peace, and their choice among the five provinces of Ireland. And Sreng
+said they would take Connacht; and he and his people lived there and
+their children after them. It is of them Ferdiad came afterwards that
+made such a good fight against Cuchulain, and Erc, son of Cairbre, that
+gave him his death. And that battle, that was the first fought in
+Ireland by the Men of Dea, was called by some the first battle of Magh
+Tuireadh.</p>
+
+<p>And the Tuatha de Danaan took possession of Teamhair, that was sometimes
+called Druim Cain, the Beautiful Ridge, and Liathdruim, the Grey Ridge,
+and Druim na Descan, the Ridge of the Outlook, all those names were
+given to Teamhair. And from that time it was above all other places, for
+its king was the High King over all Ireland. The king's rath lay to the
+north, and the Hill of the Hostages to the north-east of the High Seat,
+and the Green of Teamhair to the west of the Hill of the Hostages. And
+to the north-east, in the Hill of the Sidhe, was a well called Nemnach,
+and out of it there flowed a stream called Nith, and on that stream the
+first mill was built in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And to the north of the Hill of the Hostages was the stone, the Lia
+Fail, and it used to roar under the feet of every king that would take
+possession of Ireland. And the Wall of the Three Whispers was near the
+House of the Women that had seven doors to the east, and seven doors to
+the west; and it is in that house the feasts of Teamhair used to be
+held. And there was the Great House of a Thousand Soldiers, and near it,
+to the south, the little Hill of the Woman Soldiers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L5" id="L5" />CHAPTER II. THE REIGN OF BRES</h2>
+
+
+<p>But if Nuada won the battle, he lost his own arm in it, that was struck
+off by Sreng; and by that loss there came troubles and vexation on his
+people.</p>
+
+<p>For it was a law with the Tuatha de Danaan that no man that was not
+perfect in shape should be king. And after Nuada had lost the battle he
+was put out of the kingship on that account.</p>
+
+<p>And the king they chose in his place was Bres, that was the most
+beautiful of all their young men, so that if a person wanted to praise
+any beautiful thing, whether it was a plain, or a dun, or ale, or a
+flame, or a woman, or a man, or a horse, it is what he would say, "It is
+as beautiful as Bres." And he was the son of a woman of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, but who his father was no one knew but herself.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of Bres being so beautiful, his reign brought no great good
+luck to his people; for the Fomor, whose dwelling-place was beyond the
+sea, or as some say below the sea westward, began putting tribute on
+them, the way they would get them under their own rule.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long time before that the Fomor came first to Ireland; dreadful
+they were to look at, and maimed, having but one foot or one hand, and
+they under the leadership of a giant and his mother. There never came to
+Ireland an army more horrible or more dreadful than that army of the
+Fomor. And they were friendly with the Firbolgs and content to leave
+Ireland to them, but there was jealousy between them and the Men of Dea.</p>
+
+<p>And it was a hard tax they put on them, a third part of their corn they
+asked, and a third part of their milk, and a third part of their
+children, so that there was not smoke rising from a roof in Ireland but
+was under tribute to them. And Bres made no stand against them, but let
+them get their way.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Bres himself, he put a tax on every house in Ireland of the
+milk of hornless dun cows, or of the milk of cows of some other single
+colour, enough for a hundred men. And one time, to deceive him, Nechtan
+singed all the cows of Ireland in a fire of fern, and then he smeared
+them with the ashes of flax seed, the way they were all dark brown. He
+did that by the advice of the Druid Findgoll, son of Findemas. And
+another time they made three hundred cows of wood with dark brown pails
+in place of udders, and the pails were filled with black bog stuff. Then
+Bres came to look at the cows, and to see them milked before him, and
+Cian, father of Lugh, was there. And when they were milked it was the
+bog stuff that was squeezed out; and Bres took a drink of it thinking it
+to be milk, and he was not the better of it for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>And there was another thing against Bres; he was no way open-handed, and
+the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan grumbled against him, for their
+knives were never greased in his house, and however often they might
+visit him there was no smell of ale on their breath. And there was no
+sort of pleasure or merriment in his house, and no call for their poets,
+or singers, or harpers, or pipers, or horn-blowers, or jugglers, or
+fools. And as to the trials of strength they were used to see between
+their champions, the only use their strength was put to now was to be
+doing work for the king. Ogma himself, the shining poet, was under
+orders to bring firing to the palace every day for the whole army from
+the Islands of Mod; and he so weak for want of food that the sea would
+sweep away two-thirds of his bundle every day. And as to the Dagda, he
+was put to build raths, for he was a good builder, and he made a trench
+round Rath Brese. And he used often to be tired at the work, and one
+time he nearly gave in altogether for want of food, and this is the way
+that happened. He used to meet in the house an idle blind man, Cridenbel
+his name was, that had a sharp tongue, and that coveted the Dagda's
+share of food, for he thought his own to be small beside it. So he said
+to him: "For the sake of your good name let the three best bits of your
+share be given to me." And the Dagda gave in to that every night; but he
+was the worse of it, for what the blind man called a bit would be the
+size of a good pig, and with his three bits he would take a full third
+of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>But one day, as the Dagda was in the trench, he saw his son, Angus Og,
+coming to him. "That is a good meeting," said Angus; "but what is on
+you, for you have no good appearance to-day?" "There is a reason for
+that," said the Dagda, "for every evening, Cridenbel, the blind man,
+makes a demand for the three best bits of my share of food, and takes
+them from me." "I will give you an advice," said Angus. He put his hand
+in his bag then, and took out three pieces of gold and gave them to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Put these pieces of gold into the three bits you will give this evening
+to Cridenbel," he said, "and they will be the best bits in the dish, and
+the gold will turn within him the way he will die."</p>
+
+<p>So in the evening the Dagda did that; and no sooner had Cridenbel
+swallowed down the gold than he died. Some of the people said then to
+the king: "The Dagda has killed Cridenbel, giving him some deadly herb."
+The king believed that, and there was anger on him against the Dagda,
+and he gave orders he should be put to death. But the Dagda said: "You
+are not giving the right judgment of a prince." And he told all that had
+happened, and how Cridenbel used to say, "Give me the three best bits
+before you, for my own share is not good to-night." "And on this
+night," he said, "the three pieces of gold were the best things before
+me, and I gave them to him, and he died."</p>
+
+<p>The king gave orders then to have the body cut open. And they found the
+gold inside it, and they knew it was the truth the Dagda had told.</p>
+
+<p>And Angus came to him again the next day, and he said: "Your work will
+soon be done, and when you are given your wages, take nothing they may
+offer you till the cattle of Ireland are brought before you, and choose
+out a heifer then, black and black-maned, that I will tell you the signs
+of."</p>
+
+<p>So when the Dagda had brought his work to an end, and they asked him
+what reward he wanted, he did as Angus had bidden him. And that seemed
+folly to Bres; he thought the Dagda would have asked more than a heifer
+of him.</p>
+
+<p>There came a day at last when a poet came to look for hospitality at the
+king's house, Corpre, son of Etain, poet of the Tuatha de Danaan. And it
+is how he was treated, he was put in a little dark narrow house where
+there was no fire, or furniture, or bed; and for a feast three small
+cakes, and they dry, were brought to him on a little dish. When he rose
+up on the morrow he was no way thankful, and as he was going across the
+green, it is what he said: "Without food ready on a dish; without milk
+enough for a calf to grow on; without shelter; without light in the
+darkness of night; without enough to pay a story-teller; may that be the
+prosperity of Bres."</p>
+
+<p>And from that day there was no good luck with Bres, but it is going down
+he was for ever after. And that was the first satire ever made in
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to Nuada: after his arm being struck off, he was in his sickness
+for a while, and then Diancecht, the healer, made an arm of silver for
+him, with movement in every finger of it, and put it on him. And from
+that he was called Nuada Argat-lamh, of the Silver Hand, for ever after.</p>
+
+<p>Now Miach, son of Diancecht, was a better hand at healing than his
+father, and had done many things. He met a young man, having but one
+eye, at Teamhair one time, and the young man said: "If you are a good
+physician you will put an eye in the place of the eye I lost." "I could
+put the eye of that cat in your lap in its place," said Miach. "I would
+like that well," said the young man. So Miach put the cat's eye in his
+head; but he would as soon have been without it after, for when he
+wanted to sleep and take his rest, it is then the eye would start at the
+squeaking of the mice, or the flight of the birds, or the movement of
+the rushes; and when he was wanting to watch an army or a gathering, it
+is then it was sure to be in a deep sleep.</p>
+
+<p>And Miach was not satisfied with what his father had done to the king,
+and he took Nuada's own hand that had been struck off, and brought it to
+him and set it in its place, and he said: "Joint to joint, and sinew to
+sinew." Three days and three nights he was with the king; the first day
+he put the hand against his side, and the second day against his breast,
+till it was covered with skin, and the third day he put bulrushes that
+were blackened in the fire on it, and at the end of that time the king
+was healed.</p>
+
+<p>But Diancecht was vexed when he saw his son doing a better cure than
+himself, and he threw his sword at his head, that it cut the flesh, but
+the lad healed the wound by means of his skill. Then Diancecht threw it
+a second time, that it reached the bone, but the lad was able to cure
+the wound. Then he struck him the third time and the fourth, till he cut
+out the brain, for he knew no physician could cure him after that blow;
+and Miach died, and he buried him.</p>
+
+<p>And herbs grew up from his grave, to the number of his joints and
+sinews, three hundred and sixty-five. And Airmed, his sister, came and
+spread out her cloak and laid out the herbs in it, according to their
+virtue. But Diancecht saw her doing that, and he came and mixed up the
+herbs, so that no one knows all their right powers to this day.</p>
+
+<p>Then when the Tuatha de Danaan saw Nuada as well as he was before, they
+gathered together to Teamhair, where Bres was, and they bade him give up
+the kingship, for he had held it long enough. So he had to give it up,
+though he was not very willing, and Nuada was put back in the kingship
+again.</p>
+
+<p>There was great vexation on Bres then, and he searched his mind to know
+how could he be avenged on those that had put him out, and how he could
+gather an army against them; and he went to his mother, Eri, daughter of
+Delbaith, and bade her tell him what his race was.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that well," she said; and she told him then that his father was
+a king of the Fomor, Elathan, son of Dalbaech, and that he came to her
+one time over a level sea in some great vessel that seemed to be of
+silver, but she could not see its shape, and he himself having the
+appearance of a young man with yellow hair, and his clothes sewed with
+gold, and five rings of gold about his neck. And she that had refused
+the love of all the young men of her own people, gave him her love, and
+she cried when he left her. And he gave her a ring from his hand, and
+bade her give it only to the man whose finger it would fit, and he went
+away then the same way as he had come.</p>
+
+<p>And she brought out the ring then to Bres, and he put it round his
+middle finger, and it fitted him well. And they went then together to
+the hill where she was the time she saw the silver vessel coming, and
+down to the strand, and she and Bres and his people set out for the
+country of the Fomor.</p>
+
+<p>And when they came to that country they found a great plain with many
+gatherings of people on it, and they went to the gathering that looked
+the best, and the people asked where did they come from, and they said
+they were come from Ireland. "Have you hounds with you?" they asked them
+then, for it was the custom at that time, when strangers came to a
+gathering, to give them some friendly challenge. "We have hounds," said
+Bres. So the hounds were matched against one another, and the hounds of
+the Tuatha de Danaan were better than the hounds of the Fomor. "Have you
+horses for a race?" they asked then. "We have," said Bres. And the
+horses of the Tuatha de Danaan beat the horses of the Fomor.</p>
+
+<p>Then they asked was any one among them a good hand with the sword, and
+they said Bres was the best. But when he put his hand to his sword,
+Elathan, his father, that was among them, knew the ring, and he asked
+who was this young man. Then his mother answered him and told the whole
+story, and that Bres was his own son.</p>
+
+<p>There was sorrow on his father then, and he said: "What was it drove you
+out of the country you were king over?" And Bres said: "Nothing drove me
+out but my own injustice and my own hardness; I took away their
+treasures from the people, and their jewels, and their food itself. And
+there were never taxes put on them before I was their king."</p>
+
+<p>"That is bad," said his father; "it is of their prosperity you had a
+right to think more than of your own kingship. And their good-will
+would be better than their curses," he said; "and what is it you are
+come to look for here?" "I am come to look for fighting men," said Bres,
+"that I may take Ireland by force." "You have no right to get it by
+injustice when you could not keep it by justice," said his father. "What
+advice have you for me then?" said Bres.</p>
+
+<p>And Elathan bade him go to the chief king of the Fomor, Balor of the
+Evil Eye, to see what advice and what help would he give him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L6" id="L6" />BOOK TWO: LUGH OF THE LONG HAND.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF LUGH</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now as to Nuada of the Silver Hand, he was holding a great feast at
+Teamhair one time, after he was back in the kingship. And there were two
+door-keepers at Teamhair, Gamal, son of Figal, and Camel, son of
+Riagall. And a young man came to the door where one of them was, and
+bade him bring him in to the king. "Who are you yourself?" said the
+door-keeper. "I am Lugh, son of Cian of the Tuatha de Danaan, and of
+Ethlinn, daughter of Balor, King of the Fomor," he said; "and I am
+foster-son of Taillte, daughter of the King of the Great Plain, and of
+Echaid the Rough, son of Duach." "What are you skilled in?" said the
+door-keeper; "for no one without an art comes into Teamhair." "Question
+me," said Lugh; "I am a carpenter." "We do not want you; we have a
+carpenter ourselves, Luchtar, son of Luachaid." "Then I am a smith." "We
+have a smith ourselves, Colum Cuaillemech of the Three New Ways." "Then
+I am a champion." "That is no use to us; we have a champion before,
+Ogma, brother to the king." "Question me again," he said; "I am a
+harper." "That is no use to us; we have a harper ourselves, Abhean, son
+of Bicelmos, that the Men of the Three Gods brought from the hills." "I
+am-a poet," he said then, "and a teller of tales." "That is no use to
+us; we have a teller of tales ourselves, Ere, son of Ethaman." "And I am
+a magician." "That is no use to us; we have plenty of magicians and
+people of power." "I am a physician," he said. "That is no use; we have
+Diancecht-for our physician." "Let me be a cup-bearer," he said. "We do
+not want you; we have nine cup-bearers ourselves." "I am a good worker
+in brass." "We have a worker in brass ourselves, that is Credne Cerd."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh said: "Go and ask the king if he has any one man that can do
+all these things, and if he has, I will not ask to come into Teamhair."
+The door-keeper went into the king's house then and told him all that.
+"There is a young man at the door," he said, "and his name should be the
+Ild&aacute;nach, the Master of all Arts, for all the things the people of your
+house can do, he himself is able to do every one of them." "Try him with
+the chess-boards," said Nuada. So the chess-boards were brought out, and
+every game that was played, Lugh won it. And when Nuada was told that,
+he said: "Let him in, for the like of him never came into Teamhair
+before."</p>
+
+<p>Then the door-keeper let him pass, and he came into the king's house and
+sat down in the seat of knowledge. And there was a great flag-stone
+there that could hardly be moved by four times twenty yoke of oxen, and
+Ogma took it up and hurled it out through the house, so that it lay on
+the outside of Teamhair, as a challenge to Lugh. But Lugh hurled it back
+again that it lay in the middle of the king's house. He played the harp
+for them then, and he had them laughing and crying, till he put them
+asleep at the end with a sleepy tune. And when Nuada saw all the things
+Lugh could do, he began to think that by his help the country might get
+free of the taxes and the tyranny put on it by the Fomor. And it is what
+he did, he came down from his throne, and he put Lugh on it in his
+place, for the length of thirteen days, the way they might all listen to
+the advice he would give.</p>
+
+<p>This now is the story of the birth of Lugh. The time the Fomor used to
+be coming to Ireland, Balor of the Strong Blows, or, as some called
+him, of the Evil Eye, was living on the Island of the Tower of Glass.
+There was danger for ships that went near that island, for the Fomor
+would come out and take them. And some say the sons of Nemed in the old
+time, before the Firbolgs were in Ireland, passed near it in their
+ships, and what they saw was a tower of glass in the middle of the sea,
+and on the tower something that had the appearance of men, and they went
+against it with Druid spells to attack it. And the Fomor worked against
+them with Druid spells of their own; and the sons of Nemed attacked the
+tower, and it vanished, and they thought it was destroyed. But a great
+wave rose over them then, and all their ships went down and all that
+were in them.</p>
+
+<p>And the tower was there as it was before, and Balor living in it. And it
+is the reason he was called "of the Evil Eye," there was a power of
+death in one of his eyes, so that no person could look at it and live.
+It is the way it got that power, he was passing one time by a house
+where his father's Druids were making spells of death, and the window
+being open he looked in, and the smoke of the poisonous spells was
+rising up, and it went into his eye. And from that time he had to keep
+it closed unless he wanted to be the death of some enemy, and then the
+men that were with him would lift the eyelid with a ring of ivory.</p>
+
+<p>Now a Druid foretold one time that it was by his own grandson he would
+get his death. And he had at that time but one child, a daughter whose
+name was Ethlinn; and when he heard what the Druid said, he shut her up
+in the tower on the island. And he put twelve women with her to take
+charge of her and to guard her, and he bade them never to let her see a
+man or hear the name of a man.</p>
+
+<p>So Ethlinn was brought up in the tower, and she grew to be very
+beautiful; and sometimes she would see men passing in the currachs, and
+sometimes she would see a man in her dreams. But when she would speak of
+that to the women, they would give her no answer.</p>
+
+<p>So there was no fear on Balor, and he went on with war and robbery as he
+was used, seizing every ship that passed by, and sometimes going over to
+Ireland to do destruction there.</p>
+
+<p>Now it chanced at that time there were three brothers of the Tuatha de
+Danaan living together in a place that was called Druim na Teine, the
+Ridge of the Fire, Goibniu and Samthainn and Cian. Cian was a lord of
+land, and Goibniu was the smith that had such a great name. Now Cian had
+a wonderful cow, the Glas Gaibhnenn, and her milk never failed. And
+every one that heard of her coveted her, and many had tried to steal her
+away, so that she had to be watched night and day.</p>
+
+<p>And one time Cian was wanting some swords made, and he went to Goibniu's
+forge, and he brought the Glas Gaibhnenn with him, holding her by a
+halter. When he came to the forge his two brothers were there together,
+for Samthainn had brought some steel to have weapons made for himself;
+and Cian bade Samthainn to hold the halter while he went into the forge
+to speak with Goibniu.</p>
+
+<p>Now Balor had set his mind for a long time on the Glas Gaibhnenn, but he
+had never been able to get near her up to this time. And he was watching
+not far off, and when he saw Samthainn holding the cow, he put on the
+appearance of a little boy, having red hair, and came up to him and told
+him he heard his two brothers that were in the forge saying to one
+another that they would use all his steel for their own swords, and make
+his of iron. "By my word," said Samthainn, "they will not deceive me so
+easily. Let you hold the cow, little lad," he said, "and I will go in to
+them." With that he rushed into the forge, and great anger on him. And
+no sooner did Balor get the halter in his hand than he set out, dragging
+the Glas along with him, to the strand, and across the sea to his own
+island.</p>
+
+<p>When Cian saw his brother coming in he rushed out, and there he saw
+Balor and the Glas out in the sea. And he had nothing to do then but to
+reproach his brother, and to wander about as if his wits had left him,
+not knowing what way to get his cow back from Balor. At last he went to
+a Druid to ask an advice from him; and it is what the Druid told him,
+that so long as Balor lived, the cow would never be brought back, for no
+one would go within reach of his Evil Eye.</p>
+
+<p>Cian went then to a woman-Druid, Birog of the Mountain, for her help.
+And she dressed him in a woman's clothes, and brought him across the sea
+in a blast of wind, to the tower where Ethlinn was. Then she called to
+the women in the tower, and asked them for shelter for a high queen she
+was after saving from some hardship, and the women in the tower did not
+like to refuse a woman of the Tuatha de Danaan, and they let her and her
+comrade in. Then Birog by her enchantments put them all into a deep
+sleep, and Cian went to speak with Ethlinn. And when she saw him she
+said that was the face she had seen in her dreams. So she gave him her
+love; but after a while he was brought away again on a blast of wind.</p>
+
+<p>And when her time came, Ethlinn gave birth to a son. And when Balor knew
+that, he bade his people put the child in a cloth and fasten it with a
+pin, and throw him into a current of the sea. And as they were carrying
+the child across an arm of the sea, the pin dropped out, and the child
+slipped from the cloth into the water, and they thought he was drowned.
+But he was brought away by Birog of the Mountain, and she brought him to
+his father Cian; and he gave him to be fostered by Taillte, daughter of
+the King of the Great Plain. It is thus Lugh was born and reared.</p>
+
+<p>And some say Balor came and struck the head off Cian on a white stone,
+that has the blood marks on it to this day; but it is likely it was some
+other man he struck the head off, for it was by the sons of Tuireann
+that Cian came to his death.</p>
+
+<p>And after Lugh had come to Teamhair, and made his mind up to join with
+his father's people against the Fomor, he put his mind to the work; and
+he went to a quiet place in Grellach Dollaid, with Nuada and the Dagda,
+and with Ogma; and Goibniu and Diancecht were called to them there. A
+full year they stopped there, making their plans together in secret, the
+way the Fomor would not know they were going to rise against them till
+such time as all would be ready, and till they would know what their
+strength was. And it is from that council the place got the name
+afterwards of "The Whisper of the Men of Dea."</p>
+
+<p>And they broke up the council, and agreed to meet again that day three
+years, and every one of them went his own way, and Lugh went back to his
+own friends, the sons of Manannan.</p>
+
+<p>And it was a good while after that, Nuada was holding a great assembly
+of the people on the Hill of Uisnech, on the west side of Teamhair. And
+they were not long there before they saw an armed troop coming towards
+them from the east, over the plain; and there was a young man in front
+of the troop, in command over the rest, and the brightness of his face
+was like the setting sun, so that they were not able to look at him
+because of its brightness.</p>
+
+<p>And when he came nearer they knew it was Lugh Lamh-Fada, of the Long
+Hand, that had come back to them, and along with him were the Riders of
+the Sidhe from the Land of Promise, and his own foster-brothers, the
+sons of Manannan, Sgoith Gleigeil, the White Flower, and Goitne
+Gorm-Shuileach, the Blue-eyed Spear, and Sine Sindearg, of the Red Ring,
+and Donall Donn-Ruadh, of the Red-brown Hair. And it is the way Lugh
+was, he had Manannan's horse, the Aonbharr, of the One Mane, under him,
+that was as swift as the naked cold wind of spring, and the sea was the
+same as dry land to her, and the rider was never killed off her back.
+And he had Manannan's breast-plate on him, that kept whoever was wearing
+it from wounds, and a helmet on his head with two beautiful precious
+stones set in the front of it and one at the back, and when he took it
+off, his forehead was like the sun on a dry summer day. And he had
+Manannan's sword, the Freagarthach, the Answerer, at his side, and no
+one that was wounded by it would ever get away alive; and when that
+sword was bared in a battle, no man that saw it coming against him had
+any more strength than a woman in child-birth.</p>
+
+<p>And the troop came to where the King of Ireland was with the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and they welcomed one another.</p>
+
+<p>And they were not long there till they saw a surly, slovenly troop
+coming towards them, nine times nine of the messengers of the Fomor,
+that were coming to ask rent and taxes from the men of Ireland; and the
+names of the four that were the hardest and the most cruel were Eine and
+Eathfaigh and Coron and Compar; and there was such great dread of these
+four on the Tuatha de Danaan, that not one of them would so much as
+punish his own son or his foster-son without leave from them.</p>
+
+<p>They came up then to where the King of Ireland was with the Riders of
+the Sidhe, and the king and all the Tuatha de Danaan stood up before
+them. And Lugh of the Long Hand said: "Why do you rise up before that
+surly, slovenly troop, when you did not rise up before us?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is needful for us to do it," said the king; "for if there was but a
+child of us sitting before them, they would not think that too small a
+cause for killing him." "By my word," said Lugh, "there is a great
+desire coming on me to kill themselves." "That is a thing would bring
+harm on us," said the king, "for we would meet our own death and
+destruction through it." "It is too long a time you have been under this
+oppression," said Lugh. And with that he started up and made an attack
+on the Fomor, killing and wounding them, till he had made an end of
+eight nines of them, but he let the last nine go under the protection of
+Nuada the king. "And I would kill you along with the others," he said,
+"but I would sooner see you go with messages to your own country than my
+own people, for fear they might get any ill-treatment."</p>
+
+<p>So the nine went back then till they came to Lochlann, where the men of
+the Fomor were, and they told them the story from beginning to end, and
+how a young well-featured lad had come into Ireland and had killed all
+the tax-gatherers but themselves, "and it is the reason he let us off,"
+they said, "that we might tell you the story ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know who is the young man?" said Balor of the Evil Eye then.</p>
+
+<p>"I know well," said Ceithlenn, his wife; "he is the son of your
+daughter and mine. And it was foretold," she said, "that from the time
+he would come into Ireland, we would never have power there again for
+ever."</p>
+
+<p>Then the chief men of the Fomor went into a council, Eab, son of Neid,
+and Seanchab, grandson of Neid, and Sital Salmhor, and Liath, son of
+Lobais, and the nine poets of the Fomor that had learning and the gift
+of foreknowledge, and Lobais the Druid, and Balor himself and his twelve
+white-mouthed sons, and Ceithlenn of the Crooked Teeth, his queen.</p>
+
+<p>And it was just at that time Bres and his father Elathan were come to
+ask help of the Fomor, and Bres said: "I myself will go to Ireland, and
+seven great battalions of the Riders of the Fomor along with me, and I
+will give battle to this Ild&aacute;nach, this master of all arts, and I will
+strike his head off and bring it here to you, to the green of Berbhe."
+"It would be a fitting thing for you to do," said they all. "Let my
+ships be made ready for me," said Bres, "and let food and provisions be
+put in them."</p>
+
+<p>So they made no delay, but went and got the ships ready, and they put
+plenty of food and drink in them, and the two swift Luaths were sent out
+to gather the army to Bres. And when they were all gathered, they made
+ready their armour and their weapons, and they set out for Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And Balor the king followed them to the harbour, and he said: "Give
+battle to that Ild&aacute;nach, and strike off his head; and tie that island
+that is called Ireland to the back of your ships, and let the destroying
+water take its place, and put it on the north side of Lochlann, and not
+one of the Men of Dea will follow it there to the end of life and time."</p>
+
+<p>Then they pushed out their ships and put up their painted sails, and
+went out from the harbour on the untilled country, on the ridges of the
+wide-lying sea, and they never turned from their course till they came
+to the harbour of Eas Dara. And from that they sent out an army through
+West Connacht and destroyed it altogether, through and through. And the
+King of Connacht at that time was Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L7" id="L7" />CHAPTER II. THE SONS OF TUIREANN</h2>
+
+
+<p>And Lugh of the Long Hand was at that time at Teamhair with the King of
+Ireland, and it was showed to him that the Fomor were after landing at
+Eas Dara. And when he knew that, he made ready Manannan's horse, the
+Aonbharr, at the time of the battle of the day and night; and he went
+where Nuada the king was, and told him how the Fomor had landed at Eas
+Dara and had spoiled Bodb Dearg's country; "and it is what I want," he
+said, "to get help from you to give battle to them." But Nuada was not
+minded to avenge the destruction that was done on Bodb Dearg and not on
+himself, and Lugh was not well pleased with his answer, and he went
+riding out of Teamhair westward. And presently he saw three armed men
+coming towards him, his own father Cian, with his brothers Cu and
+Ceithen, that were the three sons of Cainte, and they saluted him. "What
+is the cause of your early rising?" they said. "It is good cause I have
+for it," said Lugh, "for the Fomor are come into Ireland and have robbed
+Bodb Dearg; and what help will you give me against them?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Each one of us will keep off a hundred from you in the battle," said
+they. "That is a good help," said Lugh; "but there is a help I would
+sooner have from you than that: to gather the Riders of the Sidhe to me
+from every place where they are."</p>
+
+<p>So Cu and Ceithen went towards the south, and Cian set out northward,
+and he did not stop till he reached the Plain of Muirthemne. And as he
+was going across the plain he saw three armed men before him, that were
+the three sons of Tuireann, son of Ogma. And it is the way it was
+between the three sons of Tuireann and the three sons of Cainte, they
+were in hatred and enmity towards one another, so that whenever they met
+there was sure to be fighting among them.</p>
+
+<p>Then Cian said: "If my two brothers had been here it is a brave fight we
+would make; but since they are not, it is best for me to fall back."
+Then he saw a great herd of pigs near him, and he struck himself with a
+Druid rod that put on him the shape of a pig of the herd, and he began
+rooting up the ground like the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Then Brian, one of the sons of Tuireann, said to his brothers: "Did you
+see that armed man that was walking the plain a while ago?" "We did see
+him," said they. "Do you know what was it took him away?" said Brian.
+"We do not know that," said they. "It is a pity you not to be keeping a
+better watch over the plains of the open country in time of war," said
+Brian; "and I know well what happened him, for he struck himself with
+his Druid rod into the shape of a pig of these pigs, and he is rooting
+up the ground now like any one of them; and whoever he is, he is no
+friend to us." "That is bad for us," said the other two, "for the pigs
+belong to some one of the Tuatha de Danaan, and even if we kill them
+all, the Druid pig might chance to escape us in the end."</p>
+
+<p>"It is badly you got your learning in the city of learning," said Brian,
+"when you cannot tell an enchanted beast from a natural beast." And
+while he was saying that, he struck his two brothers with his Druid
+rod, and he turned them into two thin, fast hounds, and they began to
+yelp sharply on the track of the enchanted pig.</p>
+
+<p>And it was not long before the pig fell out from among the others, and
+not one of the others made away but only itself, and it made for a wood,
+and at the edge of the wood Brian gave a cast of his spear that went
+through its body. And the pig cried out, and it said: "It is a bad thing
+you have done to have made a cast at me when you knew me." "It seems to
+me you have the talk of a man," said Brian. "I was a man indeed," said
+he; "I am Cian, son of Cainte, and give me your protection now." "I
+swear by the gods of the air," said Brian, "that if the life came back
+seven times to you, I would take it from you every time." "If that is
+so," said Cian, "give me one request: let me go into my own shape
+again." "We will do that," said Brian, "for it is easier to me to kill a
+man than a pig."</p>
+
+<p>So Cian took his own shape then, and he said: "Give me mercy now." "We
+will not give it," said Brian. "Well, I have got the better of you for
+all that," said Cian; "for if it was in the shape of a pig you had killed
+me there would only be the blood money for a pig on me; but as it is in
+my own shape you will kill me, there never was and never will be any
+person killed for whose sake a heavier fine will be paid than for
+myself. And the arms I am killed with," he said, "it is they will tell
+the deed to my son."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not with weapons you will be killed, but with the stones lying on
+the ground," said Brian. And with that they pelted him with stones,
+fiercely and roughly, till all that was left of him was a poor,
+miserable, broken heap; and they buried him the depth of a man's body in
+the earth, and the earth would not receive that murder from them, but
+cast it up again. Brian said it should go into the earth again, and they
+put it in the second time, and the second time the earth would not take
+it. And six times the sons of Tuireann buried the body, and six times it
+was cast up again; but the seventh time it was put underground the earth
+kept it. And then they went on to join Lugh of the Long Hand for the
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to Lugh; upon parting with his father he went forward from
+Teamhair westward, to the hills that were called afterwards Gairech and
+Ilgairech, and to the ford of the Shannon that is now called Athluain,
+and to Bearna nah-Eadargana, the Gap of Separation, and over Magh Luirg,
+the Plain of Following, and to Corr Slieve na Seaghsa, the Round
+Mountain of the Poet's Spring, and to the head of Sean-Slieve, and
+through the place of the bright-faced Corann, and from that to Magh Mor
+an Aonaigh, the Great Plain of the Fair, where the Fomor were, and the
+spoils of Connacht with them.</p>
+
+<p>It is then Bres, son of Elathan, rose up and said: "It is a wonder to me
+the sun to be rising in the west to-day, and it rising in the east every
+other day." "It would be better for us it to be the sun," said the
+Druids. "What else is it?" said he. "It is the shining of the face of
+Lugh, son of Ethlinn," said they.</p>
+
+<p>Lugh came up to them then and saluted them. "Why do you come like a
+friend to us?" said they. "There is good cause for that," he said, "for
+there is but one half of me of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the other half
+of yourselves. And give me back now the milch cows of the men of
+Ireland," he said. "May early good luck not come to you till you get
+either a dry or a milch cow here," said a man of them, and anger on him.</p>
+
+<p>But Lugh stopped near them for three days and three nights, and at the
+end of that time the Riders of the Sidhe came to him. And Bodb Dearg,
+son of the Dagda, came with twenty-nine hundred men, and he said:</p>
+
+<p>"What is the cause of your delay in giving battle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Waiting for you I was," said Lugh.</p>
+
+<p>Then the kings and chief men of the men of Ireland took their armour on
+them, and they raised the points of their spears over their heads, and
+they made close fences of their shields. And they attacked their enemies
+on Magh Mor an Aonaigh, and their enemies answered them, and they threw
+their whining spears at one another, and when their spears were broken
+they drew their swords from their blue-bordered sheaths and began to
+strike at one another, and thickets of brown flames rose above them from
+the bitterness of their many-edged weapons.</p>
+
+<p>And Lugh saw the battle pen where Bres, son of Elathan, was, and he made
+a fierce attack on him and on the men that were guarding him, till he
+had made an end of two hundred of them.</p>
+
+<p>When Bres saw that, he gave himself up to Lugh's protection. "Give me my
+life this time," he said, "and I will bring the whole race of the Fomor
+to fight it out with you in a great battle; and I bind myself to that,
+by the sun and the moon, the sea and the land," he said.</p>
+
+<p>On that Lugh gave him his life, and then the Druids that were with him
+asked his protection for themselves. "By my word," said Lugh, "if the
+whole race of the Fomor went under my protection they would not be
+destroyed by me." So then Bres and the Druids set out for their own
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to Lugh and the sons of Tuireann. After the battle of Magh Mor an
+Aonaigh, he met two of his kinsmen and asked them did they see his
+father in the fight. "We did not," said they. "I am sure he is not
+living," said Lugh; "and I give my word," he said, "there will no food
+or drink go into my mouth till I get knowledge by what death my father
+died."</p>
+
+<p>Then he set out, and the Riders of the Sidhe after him, till they came
+to the place where he and his father parted from one another, and from
+that to the place where his father went into the shape of a pig when he
+saw the sons of Tuireann.</p>
+
+<p>And when Lugh came to that place the earth spoke to him, and it said:
+"It is in great danger your father was here, Lugh, when he saw the sons
+of Tuireann before him, and it is into the shape of a pig he had to go,
+but it is in his own shape they killed him."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh told that to his people, and he found the spot where his
+father was buried, and he bade them dig there, the way he would know by
+what death the sons of Tuireann had made an end of him.</p>
+
+<p>Then they raised the body out of the grave and looked at it, and it was
+all one bed of wounds. And Lugh said: "It was the death of an enemy the
+sons of Tuireann gave my dear father." And he gave him three kisses, and
+it is what he said: "It is bad the way I am myself after this death, for
+I can hear nothing with my ears, and I can see nothing with my eyes, and
+there is not a living pulse in my heart, with grief after my father. And
+you gods I worship," he said, "it is a pity I not to have come here the
+time this thing was done. And it is a great thing that has been done
+here," he said, "the people of the gods of Dana to have done treachery
+on one another, and it is long they will be under loss by it and be
+weakened by it. And Ireland will never be free from trouble from this
+out, east and west," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then they put Cian under the earth again, and after that there was
+keening made over his grave, and a stone was raised on it, and his name
+was written in Ogham, And Lugh said: "This hill will take its name from
+Cian, although he himself is stripped and broken. And it was the sons of
+Tuireann did this thing," he said, "and there will grief and anguish
+fall on them from it, and on their children after them. And it is no
+lying story I am telling you," he said; "and it is a pity the way I am,
+and my heart is broken in my breast since Cian, the brave man, is not
+living."</p>
+
+<p>Then he bade his people to go before him to Teamhair, "But do not tell
+the story till I tell it myself," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And when Lugh came to Teamhair he sat in the high seat of the king, and
+he looked about him and he saw the three sons of Tuireann. And those
+were the three that were beyond all others at Teamhair at that time for
+quickness and skill, for a good hand in battle, for beauty and an
+honourable name.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh bade his people to shake the chain of silence, and they did
+so, and they all listened. And Lugh said: "What are your minds fixed on
+at this time, Men of Dea?" "On yourself indeed," said they. "I have a
+question to ask of you," he said. "What is the vengeance each one of you
+would take on the man that would kill your father?"</p>
+
+<p>There was great wonder on them when they heard that, and one of the
+chief men among them said: "Tell us was it your own father that was
+killed?" "It was indeed," said Lugh; "and I see now in this house," he
+said, "the men that killed him, and they know themselves what way they
+killed him better than I know it." Then the king said: "It is not a
+death of one day only I would give the man that had killed my father, if
+he was in my power, but to cut off one of his limbs from day to day till
+I would make an end of him." All the chief men said the same, and the
+sons of Tuireann like the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"There are making that answer," said Lugh, "the three men that killed my
+father; and let them pay the fine for him now, since you are all
+together in the one place. And if they will not," he said, "I will not
+break the protection of the king's house, but they must make no attempt
+to quit this house till they have settled with me."</p>
+
+<p>"If it was I myself had killed your father," said the king, "I would be
+well content you to take a fine from me for him."</p>
+
+<p>"It is at us Lugh is saying all this," said the sons of Tuireann among
+themselves. "Let us acknowledge the killing of his father to him," said
+Iuchar and Iucharba. "I am in dread," said Brian, "that it is wanting an
+acknowledgment from us he is, in the presence of all the rest, and that
+he will not let us off with a fine afterwards." "It is best to
+acknowledge it," said the others; "and let you speak it out since you
+are the eldest."</p>
+
+<p>Then Brian, son of Tuireann, said: "It is at us you are speaking, Lugh,
+for you are thinking we went against the sons of Cainte before now; and
+we did not kill your father," he said, "but we will pay the fine for him
+the same as if we did kill him." "I will take a fine from you that you
+do not think of," said Lugh, "and I will say here what it is, and if it
+is too much for you, I will let you off a share of it." "Let us hear it
+from you," said they. "Here it is," said Lugh; "three apples, and the
+skin of a pig, and a spear, and two horses, and a chariot, and seven
+pigs, and a dog's whelp, and a cooking-spit, and three shouts on a hill.
+That is the fine I am asking," he said; "and if it is too much for you,
+a part of it will be taken off you presently, and if you do not think it
+too much, then pay it"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not too much," said Brian, "or a hundred times of it would not be
+too much. And we think it likely," he said, "because of its smallness
+that you have some treachery towards us behind it." "I do not think it
+too little of a fine," said Lugh; "and I give you the guarantee of the
+Tuatha de Danaan I will ask no other thing, and I will be faithful to
+you, and let you give the same pledge to me." "It is a pity you to ask
+that," said Brian, "for our own pledge is as good as any pledge in the
+world." "Your own pledge is not enough," said Lugh, "for it is often the
+like of you promised to pay a fine in this way, and would try to back
+out of it after."</p>
+
+<p>So then the sons of Tuireann bound themselves by the King of Ireland,
+and by Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and by the chief men of the Tuatha
+de Danaan, that they would pay that fine to Lugh.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be well for me now," said Lugh, "to give you better knowledge
+of the fine." "It would be well indeed," said they.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the way of it then," said Lugh. "The three apples I asked of
+you are the three apples from the Garden in the East of the World, and
+no other apples will do but these, for they are the most beautiful and
+have most virtue in them of the apples of the whole world. And it is
+what they are like, they are of the colour of burned gold, and they are
+the size of the head of a child a month old, and there is the taste of
+honey on them, and they do not leave the pain of wounds or the vexation
+of sickness on any one that eats them, and they do not lessen by being
+eaten for ever. And the skin I asked of you," he said, "is the pig skin
+of Tuis, King of Greece, and it heals all the wounds and all the
+sickness of the world, and whatever danger a man may be in, if it can
+but overtake the life in him, it will cure him; and it is the way it was
+with that pig, every stream of water it would go through would be turned
+into wine to the end of nine days after, and every wound it touched was
+healed; and it is what the Druids of Greece said, that it is not in
+itself this virtue was, but in the skin, and they skinned it, and the
+skin is there ever since. And I think, too, it will not be easy for you
+to get it, with or without leave."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know what is the spear I am asking of you?" he said. "We do
+not," said they. "It is a very deadly spear belonging to the King of
+Persia, the Luin it is called, and every choice thing is done by it, and
+its head is kept steeped in a vessel of water, the way it will not burn
+down the place where it is, and it will be hard to get it. And do you
+know what two horses and what chariot I am asking of you? They are the
+chariot and the two wonderful horses of Dobar, King of Siogair, and the
+sea is the same as land to them, and there are no faster horses than
+themselves, and there is no chariot equal to that one in shape and in
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know what are the seven pigs I asked of you? They are the
+pigs of Easal, King of the Golden Pillars; and though they are killed
+every night, they are found alive again the next day, and there will be
+no disease or no sickness on any person that will eat a share of them.</p>
+
+<p>"And the whelp I asked of you is Fail-Inis, the whelp belonging to the
+King of Ioruaidh, the Cold Country. And all the wild beasts of the world
+would fall down at the sight of her, and she is more beautiful than the
+sun in his fiery wheels, and it will be hard to get her.</p>
+
+<p>"And the cooking-spit I asked of you is a spit of the spits of the women
+of Inis Cenn-fhinne, the Island of Caer of the Fair Hair. And the three
+shouts you are to give on a hill must be given on the Hill of Miochaoin
+in the north of Lochlann. And Miochaoin and his sons are under bonds not
+to allow any shouts to be given on that hill; and it was with them my
+father got his learning, and if I would forgive you his death, they
+would not forgive you. And if you get through all your other voyages
+before you reach to them, it is my opinion they themselves will avenge
+him on you. And that is the fine I have asked of you," said Lugh.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence and darkness on the sons of Tuireann when they heard
+that. And they went to where their father was, and told him the fine
+that had been put on them. "It is bad news that is," said Tuireann; "and
+it is to your death and your destruction you will be going, looking for
+those things. But for all that, if Lugh himself had a mind to help you,
+you could work out the fine, and all the men of the world could not do
+it but by the power of Manannan or of Lugh. Go then and ask the loan of
+Manannan's horse, the Aonbharr, from Lugh, and if he has any wish to get
+the fine, he will give it to you; but if he does not wish it he will say
+the horse is not his, and that he would not give the loan of a loan. Ask
+him then for the loan of Manannan's curragh, the Scuabtuinne, the
+Sweeper of the Waves. And he will give that, for he is under bonds not
+to refuse a second request, and the curragh is better for you than the
+horse," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So the sons of Tuireann went to where Lugh was, and they saluted him,
+and they said they could not bring him the fine without his own help,
+and for that reason it would be well for them to get a loan of the
+Aonbharr. "I have that horse only on loan myself," said Lugh, "and I
+will not give a loan of a loan."</p>
+
+<p>"If that is so, give us the loan of Manannan's curragh," said Brian. "I
+will give that," said Lugh. "What place is it?" said they. "At Brugh na
+Boinn," said Lugh.</p>
+
+<p>Then they went back again to where Tuireann was, and his daughter Ethne,
+their sister, with him, and they told him they had got the curragh. "It
+is not much the better you will be for it," said Tuireann, "although
+Lugh would like well to get every part of this fine he could make use of
+before the battle with the Fomor. But he would like yourselves to come
+to your death looking for it."</p>
+
+<p>Then they went away, and they left Tuireann sorrowful and lamenting, and
+Ethne went with them to where the curragh was. And Brian got into it,
+and he said: "There is place but for one other person along with me
+here." And he began to find fault with its narrowness. "You ought not to
+be faulting the curragh," said Ethne; "and O my dear brother," she said,
+"it was a bad thing you did, to kill the father of Lugh of the Long
+Hand; and whatever harm may come to you from it, it is but just." "Do
+not say that, Ethne," they said, "for we are in good heart, and we will
+do brave deeds. And we would sooner be killed a hundred times over,"
+they said, "than to meet with the death of cowards." "My grief," said
+Ethne, "there is nothing more sorrowful than this, to see you driven out
+from your own country."</p>
+
+<p>Then the three pushed out their curragh from the beautiful clear-bayed
+shore of Ireland. "What course shall we take first?" said they. "We will
+go look for the apples," said Brian, "as they were the first thing we
+were bade bring. And so we ask of you, curragh of Manannan that is under
+us, to sail to the Garden in the East of the World."</p>
+
+<p>And the curragh did not neglect that order, but it sailed forward over
+the green-sided waves and deep places till it came to its harbour in the
+east of the world.</p>
+
+<p>And then Brian asked his brothers: "What way have you a mind to get into
+the garden? for I think," he said, "the king's champions and the
+fighting men of the country are always guarding it, and the king himself
+is chief over them." "What should we do," said his brothers, "but to
+make straight at them and attack them, and bring away the apples or fall
+ourselves, since we cannot escape from these dangers that are before us
+without meeting our death in some place." "It would be better," said
+Brian, "the story of our bravery and our craftiness to be told and to
+live after us, than folly and cowardice to be told of us. And what is
+best for us to do now," he said, "is to go in the shape of swift hawks
+into the garden, and the watchers have but their light spears to throw
+at us, and let you take good care to keep out of their reach; and after
+they have thrown them all, make a quick flight to the apples and let
+each of you bring away an apple of them in your claws, and I will bring
+away the third."</p>
+
+<p>They said that was a good advice, and Brian struck himself and the
+others with his Druid rod, and changed them into beautiful hawks. And
+they flew towards the garden, and the watchers took notice of them and
+shouted on every side of them, and threw showers of spears and darts,
+but the hawks kept out of their reach as Brian had bade them, till all
+the spears were spent, and then they swept down bravely on the apples,
+and brought them away with them, without so much as a wound.</p>
+
+<p>And the news went through the city and the whole district, and the king
+had three wise, crafty daughters, and they put themselves into the shape
+of three ospreys, and they followed the hawks to the sea, and sent
+flashes of lightning before them and after them, that scorched them
+greatly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity the way we are now," said the sons of Tuireann, "for we
+will be burned through and through with this lightning if we do not get
+some relief." "If I can give you relief I will do it," said Brian. With
+that he struck himself and his brothers with the Druid rod, and they
+were turned into three swans, and they went down quickly into the sea,
+and the ospreys went away from them then, and the sons of Tuireann went
+into their boat.</p>
+
+<p>After that they consulted together, and it is what they agreed, to go to
+Greece and to bring away the skin of the pig, with or without leave. So
+they went forward till they came near to the court of the King of
+Greece.</p>
+
+<p>"What appearance should we put on us going in here?" said Brian. "What
+appearance should we go in with but our own?" said the others. "That is
+not what I think best," said Brian; "but to go in with the appearance of
+poets from Ireland, the way the high people of Greece will hold us in
+respect and in honour." "It would be hard for us to do that," they said,
+"and we without a poem, and it is little we know how to make one."</p>
+
+<p>However, they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they knocked at the
+door of the court, and the door-keeper asked who was in it. "We are
+poets of Ireland," said Brian, "and we are come with a poem to the
+king."</p>
+
+<p>The door-keeper went in and told the king that there were poets from
+Ireland at the door. "Let them in," said the king, "for it is in search
+of a good man they came so far from their own country." And the king
+gave orders that everything should be well set out in the court, the way
+they would say they had seen no place so grand in all their travels.</p>
+
+<p>The sons of Tuireann were let in then, having the appearance of poets,
+and they fell to drinking and pleasure without delay; and they thought
+they had never seen, and there was not in the world, a court so good as
+that or so large a household, or a place where they had met with better
+treatment.</p>
+
+<p>Then the king's poets got up to give out their poems and songs. And then
+Brian, son of Tuireann, bade his brothers to say a poem for the king.
+"We have no poem," said they; "and do not ask any poem of us, but the
+one we know before, and that is to take what we want by the strength of
+our hand if we are the strongest, or to fall by those that are against
+us if they are the strongest." "That is not a good way to make a poem,"
+said Brian. And with that he rose up himself and asked a hearing. And
+they all listened to him, and it is what he said:</p>
+
+<p>"O Tuis, we do not hide your fame; we praise you as the oak among kings;
+the skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I ask for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"The war of a neighbour against an ear; the fair ear of his neighbour
+will be against him; he who gives us what he owns, his court will not be
+the scarcer for it.</p>
+
+<p>"A raging army and a sudden sea are a danger to whoever goes against
+them. The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I
+ask, O Tuis."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a good poem," said the king; "but I do not know a word of its
+meaning." "I will tell you its meaning," said Brian. "'O Tuis, we do not
+hide your fame; we praise you as the oak above the kings.' That is, as
+the oak is beyond the kingly trees of the wood, so are you beyond the
+kings of the world for open-handedness and for grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>"'The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness.' That is, the skin of a
+pig you own is what I would wish to get from you as a reward for my
+poem.</p>
+
+<p>"'The war of a neighbour against an ear, the fair ear of his neighbour
+will be against him.' That is, you and I will be by the ears about the
+skin, unless I get it with your consent.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is the meaning of the poem," said Brian.</p>
+
+<p>"I would praise your poem," said the king, "if there was not so much
+about my pig-skin in it; and you have no good sense, man of poetry," he
+said, "to be asking that thing of me, and I would not give it to all
+the poets and the learned men and the great men of the world, since they
+could not take it away without my consent. But I will give you three
+times the full of the skin of gold as the price of your poem," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"May good be with you, king," said Brian, "and I know well it was no
+easy thing I was asking, but I knew I would get a good ransom for it.
+And I am that covetous," he said, "I will not be satisfied without
+seeing the gold measured myself into the skin."</p>
+
+<p>The king sent his servants with them then to the treasure-house to
+measure the gold. "Measure out the full of it to my brothers first,"
+said Brian, "and then give good measure to myself, since it was I made
+the poem."</p>
+
+<p>But when the skin was brought out, Brian made a quick sudden snatch at
+it with his left hand, and drew his sword and made a stroke at the man
+nearest him, and made two halves of him. And then he kept a hold of the
+skin and put it about himself, and the three of them rushed out of the
+court, cutting down every armed man before them, so that not one escaped
+death or wounding. And then Brian went to where the king himself was,
+and the king made no delay in attacking him, and they made a hard fight
+of it, and at the end the King of Greece fell by the hand of Brian, son
+of Tuireann.</p>
+
+<p>The three brothers rested for a while after that, and then they said
+they would go and look for some other part of the fine. "We will go to
+Pisear, King of Persia," said Brian, "and ask him for the spear."</p>
+
+<p>So they went into their boat, and they left the blue streams of the
+coast of Greece, and they said: "We are well off when we have the apples
+and the skin." And they stopped nowhere till they came to the borders of
+Persia.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go to the court with the appearance of poets," said Brian, "the
+same as we went to the King of Greece." "We are content to do that,"
+said the others, "as all turned out so well the last time we took to
+poetry; not that it is easy for us to take to a calling that does not
+belong to us."</p>
+
+<p>So they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they were as well treated
+as they were at the other court; and when the time came for poems Brian
+rose up, and it is what he said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is little any spear looks to Pisear; the battles of enemies are
+broken, it is not too much for Pisear to wound every one of them.</p>
+
+<p>"A yew, the most beautiful of the wood, it is called a king, it is not
+bulky. May the spear drive on the whole crowd to their wounds of death."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a good poem," said the king, "but I do not understand why my
+own spear is brought into it, O Man of Poetry from Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>"It is because it is that spear of your own I would wish to get as the
+reward of my poem," said Brian. "It is little sense you have to be
+asking that of me," said the king; "and the people of my court never
+showed greater respect for poetry than now, when they did not put you to
+death on the spot."</p>
+
+<p>When Brian heard that talk from the king, he thought of the apple that
+was in his hand, and he made a straight cast and hit him in the
+forehead, so that his brains were put out at the back of his head, and
+he bared the sword and made an attack on the people about him. And the
+other two did not fail to do the same, and they gave him their help
+bravely till they had made an end of all they met of the people of the
+court. And then they found the spear, and its head in a cauldron of
+water, the way it would not set fire to the place.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while they said it was time for them to go and look for the
+rest of the great fine that was on them, and they asked one another what
+way should they go. "We will go to the King of the Island of Siogair,"
+said Brian, "for it is with him are the two horses and the chariot the
+Ild&aacute;nach asked of us."</p>
+
+<p>They went forward then and brought the spear with them, and it is proud
+the three champions were after all they had done. And they went on till
+they were come to the court of the King of Siogair.</p>
+
+<p>"It is what we will do this time," said Brian, "we will go in with the
+appearance of paid soldiers from Ireland, and we will make friends with
+the king, the way we will get to know in what place the horses and the
+chariot are kept." And when they had settled on that they went forward
+to the lawn before the king's house.</p>
+
+<p>The king and the chief men that were with him rose up and came through
+the fair that was going on there, and they saluted the king, and he
+asked who were they. "We are trained fighting men from Ireland," they
+said, "and we are earning wages from the kings of the world." "Is it
+your wish to stop with me for a while?" said the king. "That is what we
+are wanting," said they. So then they made an agreement and took service
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>They stopped in the court a fortnight and a month, and they never saw
+the horses through that time. Then Brian said: "This is a bad way we are
+in, to have no more news of the horses now than the first day we came to
+the place." "What is best for us to do now?" said his brothers. "Let us
+do this," said Brian, "let us take our arms and gather our things
+together, and go to the king and tell him we will leave the country and
+this part of the world unless he will show us those horses."</p>
+
+<p>So they went to the king that very day, and he asked them what did they
+mean by getting themselves ready for a journey. "You will hear that,
+high king," said Brian; "it is because trained fighting men from
+Ireland, like ourselves, have always trust put in them by the kings they
+guard, and we are used to be told the secrets and the whispers of any
+person we are with, and that is not the way you have treated us since we
+came to you. For you have two horses and a chariot that are the best in
+the world, as we have been told, and we have not been given a sight of
+them yet." "It would be a pity you to go on that account," said the
+king, "when I would have showed them to you the first day, if I had
+known you had a wish to see them. And if you have a mind to see them
+now," he said, "you may see them; for I think there never came soldiers
+from Ireland to this place that were thought more of by myself and by my
+people than yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>He sent for the horses then, and they were yoked to the chariot, and
+their going was as fast as the cold spring wind, and the sea was the
+same as the land to them.</p>
+
+<p>And Brian was watching the horses closely, and on a sudden he took hold
+of the chariot and took the chariot driver out and dashed him against
+the nearest rock, and made a leap into his place himself, and made a
+cast of the Persian spear at the king, that went through his heart. And
+then he and his brothers scattered the people before them, and brought
+away the chariot.</p>
+
+<p>"We will go now to Easal, the King of the Golden Pillars," said Brian,
+"to look for the seven pigs the Ild&aacute;nach bade us bring him."</p>
+
+<p>They sailed on then without delay or drawback to that high country. And
+it is the way the people of that country were, watching their harbours
+for fear of the sons of Tuireann, for the story of them had been told
+in all parts, how they had been sent out of Ireland by force, and how
+they were bringing away with them all the gifted treasures of the whole
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Easal came to the edge of the harbour to meet them, and he asked was it
+true what he heard, that the king of every country they had gone to had
+fallen by them. Brian said it was true, whatever he might wish to do to
+them for it. "What was it made you do that?" said Easal. Brian told him
+then it was the oppression and the hard sentence of another had put them
+to it; and he told him all that had happened, and how they had put down
+all that offered to stand against them until that time.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you come to this country now for?" said the king. "For the
+pigs belonging to yourself," said Brian; "for to bring them away with us
+is a part of the fine." "What way do you think to get them?" said the
+king. "If we get them with good-will," said Brian, "we are ready to take
+them thankfully; and if we do not, we are ready to do battle with
+yourself and your people on the head of them, that you may fall by us,
+and we may bring away the pigs in spite of you." "If that is to be the
+end of it," said the king, "it would be a pity to bring my people into a
+battle." "It would be a pity indeed," said Brian.</p>
+
+<p>Then the king whispered and took advice with his people about the
+matter, and it is what they agreed, to give up the pigs of their own
+free will to the sons of Tuireann, since they could not see that any one
+had been able to stand against them up to that time.</p>
+
+<p>Then the sons of Tuireann gave their thanks to Easal, and there was
+wonder on them to have got the pigs like that, when they had to fight
+for every other part of the fine. And more than that, they had left a
+share of their blood in every other place till then.</p>
+
+<p>Easal brought them to his own house that night, and they were served
+with food, and drink, and good beds, and all they could wish for. And
+they rose up on the morrow and came into the king's presence, and the
+pigs were given to them. "It is well you have done by us, giving us
+these pigs," said Brian, "for we did not get any share of the fine
+without fighting but these alone." And he made a poem for the king then,
+praising him, and putting a great name on him for what he had done.</p>
+
+<p>"What journey are you going to make now, sons of Tuireann?" said Easal.
+"We are going," they said, "to the country of Ioruaidh, on account of a
+whelp that is there." "Give me one request," said Easal, "and that is to
+bring me with you to the King of Ioruaidh, for a daughter of mine is his
+wife, and I would wish to persuade him to give you the whelp without a
+battle." "That will please us well," they said.</p>
+
+<p>So the king's ship was made ready, and we have no knowledge of what
+happened till they came to the delightful, wonderful coast of Ioruaidh.
+The people and the armies were watching the harbours and landing-places
+before them, and they knew them at once and shouted at them.</p>
+
+<p>Then Easal went on shore peaceably, and he went to where his son-in-law,
+the king, was, and told him the story of the sons of Tuireann from
+beginning to end. "What has brought them to this country?" said the King
+of Ioruaidh. "To ask for the hound you have," said Easal. "It was a bad
+thought you had coming with them to ask it," said the king, "for the
+gods have not given that much luck to any three champions in the world,
+that they would get my hound by force or by good-will." "It would be
+better for you to let them have the hound," said Easal, "since they have
+put down so many of the kings of the world."</p>
+
+<p>But all he could say was only idleness to the king. So he went then to
+where the sons of Tuireann were, and gave them the whole account. And
+when they heard the king's answer, they made no delay, but put quick
+hands on their arms, and offered to give battle to the army of Ioruaidh.
+And when they met, there was a brave battle fought on both sides. And as
+for the sons of Tuireann, they began to kill and to strike at the men of
+Ioruaidh till they parted from one another in the fight, so that Iuchar
+and Iucharba chanced to be on one side, and Brian by himself on the
+other side. It was a gap of danger and a breaking of ranks was before
+Brian in every path he took, till he came to the King of Ioruaidh in the
+battle pen where he was. And then the two brave champions began a fierce
+fight together, and they did not spare one another in it. And at the
+last Brian overcame the king, and bound him, and brought him through the
+middle of the army, till he came to the place where Easal was, and it is
+what he said: "There is your son-in-law for you, and I swear by my hand
+of valour, I would think it easier to kill him three times than to bring
+him to you once like this."</p>
+
+<p>So then the whelp was given to the sons of Tuireann, and the king was
+unbound, and peace was made between them. And when they had brought all
+this to an end, they bade farewell to Easal and to all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to Lugh of the Long Hand, it was showed to him that the sons of
+Tuireann had got all the things that were wanting to him against the
+battle with the Fomor; and on that he sent a Druid spell after them to
+put forgetfulness on them of the rest of the fine that they had not got.
+And he put a great desire and longing on them to go back to Ireland; so
+they forgot that a part of the fine was wanting to them, and they turned
+back again toward home.</p>
+
+<p>And it is the place where Lugh was at the time, at a gathering of the
+people for a fair on the green outside Teamhair, and the King of Ireland
+along with him. And it was made known to Lugh that the sons of Tuireann
+were landed at Brugh na Boinn. And he went into the city of Teamhair,
+and shut the gate after him, and he put on Manannan's smooth armour, and
+the cloak, of the daughters of Flidais, and he took his own arms in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>And the sons of Tuireann came where the king was, and they were made
+welcome by him and by the Tuatha de Danaan. And the king asked them did
+they get the fine. "We did get it," said they; "and where is Lugh till
+we give it to him?" "He was here a while ago," said the king. And the
+whole fair was searched for him, but he was not found.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the place where he is," said Brian; "for it has been made known
+to him that we are come to Ireland, and these deadly arms with us, and
+he is gone into Teamhair to avoid us."</p>
+
+<p>Messengers were sent to him then, and it is the answer he gave them that
+he would not come, but that the fine should be given to the king.</p>
+
+<p>So the sons of Tuireann did that, and when the king had taken the fine
+they all went to the palace in Teamhair; and Lugh came out on the lawn
+and the fine was given to him, and it is what he said: "There is a good
+payment here for any one that ever was killed or that ever will be
+killed. But there is something wanting to it yet that it is not lawful
+to leave out. And where is the cooking-spit?" he said; "and where are
+the three shouts on the hill that you did not give yet?"</p>
+
+<p>And when the sons of Tuireann heard that there came clouds of weakness
+on them. And they left the place and went to their father's house that
+night, and they told him all they had done, and the way Lugh had treated
+them.</p>
+
+<p>There was grief and darkness on Tuireann then, and they spent the night
+together. And on the morrow they went to their ship, and Ethne, their
+sister, with them, and she was crying and lamenting, and it is what she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity, Brian of my life, it is not to Teamhair your going is,
+after all the troubles you have had before this, even if I could not
+follow you.</p>
+
+<p>"O Salmon of the dumb Boinn, O Salmon of the Lif&eacute; River, since I cannot
+keep you here I am loath to part from you.</p>
+
+<p>"O Rider of the Wave of Tuaidh, the man that stands best in the fight,
+if you come back again, I think it will not be pleasing to your enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there pity with you for the sons of Tuireann leaning now on their
+green shields? Their going is a cause for pity, my mind is filled up
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>"You to be to-night at Beinn Edair till the heavy coming of the morning,
+you who have taken forfeits from brave men, it is you have increased our
+grief.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity your journey is from Teamhair, and from the pleasant
+plains, and from great Uisnech of Midhe; there is nothing so pitiful as
+this."</p>
+
+<p>After that complaint they went out on the rough waves of the green sea;
+and they were a quarter of a year on the sea without getting any news of
+the island.</p>
+
+<p>Then Brian put on his water dress and he made a leap, and he was a long
+time walking in the sea looking for the Island of the Fair-Haired Women,
+and he found it in the end. And he went looking for the court, and when
+he came to it, all he found was a troop of women doing needlework and
+embroidering borders. And among all the other things they had with them,
+there was the cooking-spit.</p>
+
+<p>And when Brian saw it, he took it up in his hand and he was going to
+bring it with him to the door. And all the women began laughing when
+they saw him doing that, and it is what they said: "It is a brave deed
+you put your hand to; for even if your brothers were along with you, the
+least of the three times fifty women of us would not let the spit go
+with you or with them. But for all that," they said, "take a spit of the
+spits with you, since you had the daring to try and take it in spite of
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Brian bade them farewell then, and went to look for the boat. And his
+brothers thought it was too long he was away from them, and just as they
+were going to leave the place they were, they saw him coming towards
+them, and that raised their courage greatly.</p>
+
+<p>And he went into the boat, and they went on to look for the Hill of
+Miochaoin. And when they came there, Miochaoin, that was the guardian of
+the hill, came towards them; and when Brian saw him he attacked him, and
+the fight of those two champions was like the fight of two lions, till
+Miochaoin fell at the last.</p>
+
+<p>And after Miochaoin had fallen, his three sons came out to fight with
+the three sons of Tuireann. And if any one ever came from the east of
+the world to look at any fight, it is to see the fight of these
+champions he had a right to come, for the greatness of their blows and
+the courage of their minds. The names of the sons of Miochaoin were Core
+and Conn and Aedh, and they drove their three spears through the bodies
+of the sons of Tuireann, and that did not discourage them at all and
+they put their own three spears through the bodies of the sons of
+Miochaoin, so that they fell into the clouds and the faintness of death.</p>
+
+<p>And then Brian said: "What way are you now, my dear brothers?" "We are
+near our death," said they. "Let us rise up," he said, "and give three
+shouts upon the hill, for I see the signs of death coming on us." "We
+are not able to do that," said they. Then Brian rose up and raised each
+of them with one hand, and he shedding blood heavily all the time,
+until they gave the three shouts.</p>
+
+<p>After that Brian brought them with him to the boat, and they were
+travelling the sea for a long time, but at last Brian said: "I see Beinn
+Edair and our father's dun, and Teamhair of the Kings." "We would have
+our fill of health if we could see that," said the others; "and for the
+love of your good name, brother," they said, "raise up our heads on your
+breast till we see Ireland again, and life or death will be the same to
+us after that. And O Brian," they said, "Flame of Valour without
+treachery, we would sooner death to bring ourselves away, than to see
+you with wounds upon your body, and with no physician to heal you."</p>
+
+<p>Then they came to Beinn Edair, and from that they went on to their
+father's house, and Brian said to Tuireann: "Go, dear father, to
+Teamhair, and give this spit to Lugh, and bring the skin that has
+healing in it for our relief. Ask it from him for the sake of
+friendship," he said, "for we are of the one blood, and let him not give
+hardness for hardness. And O dear father," he said, "do not be long on
+your journey, or you will not find us alive before you."</p>
+
+<p>Then Tuireann went to Teamhair, and he found Lugh of the Long Hand
+before him, and he gave him the spit, and he asked the skin of him to
+heal his children, and Lugh said he would not give it And Tuireann came
+back to them and told them he had not got the skin. And Brian said:
+"Bring me with you to Lugh, to see would I get it from him."</p>
+
+<p>So they went to Lugh, and Brian asked the skin of him. And Lugh said he
+would not give it, and that if they would give him the breadth of the
+earth in gold for it, he would not take it from them, unless he was sure
+their death would come on them in satisfaction for the deed they had
+done.</p>
+
+<p>When Brian heard that, he went to the place his two brothers were, and
+he lay down between them, and his life went out from him, and out from
+the other two at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>And their father cried and lamented over his three beautiful sons, that
+had the making of a king of Ireland in each of them, and his strength
+left him and he died; and they were buried in the one grave.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L8" id="L8" />CHAPTER III. THE GREAT BATTLE OF MAGH TUIREADH</h2>
+
+
+<p>And it was not long after Lugh had got the fine from the sons of
+Tuireann that the Fomor came and landed at Scetne.</p>
+
+<p>The whole host of the Fomor were come this time, and their king, Balor,
+of the Strong Blows and of the Evil Eye, along with them; and Bres, and
+Indech, son of De Domnann, a king of the Fomor, and Elathan, son of
+Lobos, and Goll and Ingol, and Octriallach, son of Indech, and Elathan,
+son of Delbaeth.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh sent the Dagda to spy out the Fomor, and to delay them till
+such time as the men of Ireland would come to the battle.</p>
+
+<p>So the Dagda went to their camp, and he asked them for a delay, and they
+said he might have that. And then to make sport of him, the Fomor made
+broth for him, for he had a great love for broth. So they filled the
+king's cauldron with four times twenty gallons of new milk, and the same
+of meal and fat, and they put in goats and sheep and pigs along with
+that, and boiled all together, and then they poured it all out into a
+great hole in the ground. And they called him to it then, and told him
+he should eat his fill, the way the Fomor would not be reproached for
+want of hospitality the way Bres was. "We will make an end of you if
+you leave any part of it after you," said Indech, son of De Domnann.</p>
+
+<p>So the Dagda took the ladle, and it big enough for a man and a woman to
+lie in the bowl of it, and he took out bits with it, the half of a
+salted pig, and a quarter of lard a bit would be. "If the broth tastes
+as well as the bits taste, this is good food," he said. And he went on
+putting the full of the ladle into his mouth till the hole was empty;
+and when all was gone he put down his hand and scraped up all that was
+left among the earth and the gravel.</p>
+
+<p>Sleep came on him then after eating the broth, and the Fomor were
+laughing at him, for his belly was the size of the cauldron of a great
+house. But he rose up after a while, and, heavy as he was, he made his
+way home; and indeed his dress was no way sightly, a cape to the hollow
+of the elbows, and a brown coat, long in the breast and short behind,
+and on his feet brogues of horse hide, with the hair outside, and in his
+hand a wheeled fork it would take eight men to carry, so that the track
+he left after him was deep enough for the boundary ditch of a province.
+And on his way he saw the Battle-Crow, the Morrigu, washing herself in
+the river Unius of Connacht, and one of her two feet at Ullad Echne, to
+the south of the water, and the other at Loscuinn, to the north of the
+water, and her hair hanging in nine loosened locks. And she said to the
+Dagda, that she would bring the heart's blood of Indech, son of De
+Domnann, that had threatened him, to the men of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And while he was away Lugh had called together the Druids, and smiths,
+and physicians, and law-makers, and chariot-drivers of Ireland, to make
+plans for the battle.</p>
+
+<p>And he asked the great magician Mathgen what could he do to help them.
+"It is what I can do," said Mathgen, "through my power I can throw down
+all the mountains of Ireland on the Fomor, until their tops will be
+rolling on the ground. And the twelve chief mountains of Ireland will
+bring you their help," he said, "and will fight for you: Slieve Leag and
+Denda Ulad, and Bennai Boirche and Bri Ruri, and Slieve Bladma and
+Slieve Snechtae, and Slieve Mis and Blai-Slieve, and Nemthann and Slieve
+Macca Belgodon, and Segois and Cruachan Aigle."</p>
+
+<p>Then he asked the cup-bearers what help they could give. "We will put a
+strong thirst on the Fomor," they said, "and then we will bring the
+twelve chief lochs of Ireland before them, and however great their
+thirst may be, they will find no water in them: Derc-Loch, Loch
+Luimnech, Loch Orbsen, Loch Righ, Loch Mescdhae, Loch Cuan, Loch Laeig,
+Loch Echach, Loch Febail, Loch Decket, Loch Riach, Mor-Loch. And we will
+go," they said, "to the twelve chief rivers of Ireland: the Buas, the
+Boinn, the Banna, the Nem, the Laoi, the Sionnan, the Muaid, the
+Sligech, the Samair, the Fionn, the Ruirtech, the Siuir; and they will
+all be hidden away from the Fomor the way they will not find a drop in
+them. But as for the men of Ireland," they said, "there will be drink
+for them if they were to be in the battle to the end of seven years."</p>
+
+<p>And Figol, son of Mamos, the Druid, was asked then what he would do, and
+he said: "It is what I will do, I will cause three showers of fire to
+pour on the faces of the army of the Fomor, and I will take from them
+two-thirds of their bravery and their strength, and I will put sickness
+on their bodies, and on the bodies of their horses. But as to the men of
+Ireland," he said, "every breath they breathe will be an increase of
+strength and of bravery to them; and if they are seven years in the
+battle they will never be any way tired."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh asked his two witches, Bechulle and Dianan: "What power can
+you bring to the battle?" "It is easy to say that," they said. "We will
+put enchantment on the trees and the stones and the sods of the earth,
+till they become an armed host against the Fomor, and put terror on them
+and put them to the rout."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh asked Carpre, the poet, son of Etain, what could he do. "It is
+not hard to say that," said Carpre. "I will make a satire on them at
+sunrise, and the wind from the north, and I on a hill-top and my back to
+a thorn-tree, and a stone and a thorn in my hand. And with that satire,"
+he said, "I will put shame on them and enchantment, the way they will
+not be able to stand against fighting men."</p>
+
+<p>Then he asked Goibniu the Smith what would he be able to do. "I will do
+this," he said. "If the men of Ireland stop in the battle to the end of
+seven years, for every sword that is broken and for every spear that is
+lost from its shaft, I will put a new one in its place. And no
+spear-point that will be made by my hand," he said, "will ever miss its
+mark; and no man it touches will ever taste life again. And that is more
+than Dolb, the smith of the Fomor, can do," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Credne," Lugh said then to his worker in brass, "what help can
+you give to our men in the battle?" "It is not hard to tell that," said
+Credne, "rivets for their spears and hilts for their swords and bosses
+and rims for their shields, I will supply them all."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Luchta," he said then to his carpenter, "what will you do?" "I
+will give them all they want of shields and of spear shafts," said
+Luchta.</p>
+
+<p>Then he asked Diancecht, the physician, what would he do, and it is what
+he said: "Every man that will be wounded there, unless his head is
+struck off, or his brain or his marrow cut through, I will make him
+whole and sound again for the battle of the morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Dagda said: "Those great things you are boasting you will do,
+I will do them all with only myself." "It is you are the good god!" said
+they, and they all gave a great shout of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh spoke to the whole army and put strength in them, so that each
+one had the spirit in him of a king or a great lord.</p>
+
+<p>Then when the delay was at an end, the Fomor and the men of Ireland came
+on towards one another till they came to the plain of Magh Tuireadh.
+That now was not the same Magh Tuireadh where the first battle was
+fought, but it was to the north, near Ess Dara.</p>
+
+<p>And then the two armies threatened one another. "The men of Ireland are
+daring enough to offer battle to us," said Bres to Indech, son of De
+Domnann. "I give my word," said Indech, "it is in small pieces their
+bones will be, if they do not give in to us and pay their tribute."</p>
+
+<p>Now the Men of Dea had determined not to let Lugh go into the battle,
+because of the loss his death would be to them; and they left nine of
+their men keeping a watch on him.</p>
+
+<p>And on the first day none of the kings or princes went into the battle,
+but only the common fighting men, and they fierce and proud enough.</p>
+
+<p>And the battle went on like that from day to day with no great advantage
+to one or the other side. But there was wonder on the Fomor on account
+of one thing. Such of their own weapons as were broken or blunted in the
+fight lay there as they were, and such of their own men as were killed
+showed no sign of life on the morrow; but it was not so with the Tuatha
+de Danaan, for if their men were killed or their weapons were broken
+to-day, they were as good as before on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>And this is the way that happened. The well of Slaine lay to the west
+of Magh Tuireadh to the east of Loch Arboch. And Diancecht and his son
+Octruil and his daughter Airmed used to be singing spells over the well
+and to be putting herbs in it; and the men that were wounded to death in
+the battle would be brought to the well and put into it as dead men, and
+they would come out of it whole and sound, through the power of the
+spells. And not only were they healed, but there was such fire put into
+them that they would be quicker in the fight than they were before.</p>
+
+<p>And as to the arms, it is the way they were made new every day. Goibniu
+the Smith used to be in the forge making swords and spears, and he would
+make a spear-head by three turns, and then Luchta the Carpenter would
+make the shaft by three cuts, and the third cut was a finish, and would
+set it in the ring of the spear. And when the spear-heads were stuck in
+the side of the forge, he would throw the shaft and the rings the way
+they would go into the spear-head and want no more setting. And then
+Credne the Brazier would make the rivets by three turns and would cast
+the rings of the spears to them, and with that they were ready and were
+set together.</p>
+
+<p>And all this went against the Fomor, and they sent one of their young
+men to spy about the camp and to see could he find out how these things
+were done. It was Ruadan, son of Bres and of Brigit daughter of the
+Dagda they sent, for he was a son and grandson of the Tuatha de Danaan.
+So he went and saw all that was done, and came back to the Fomor.</p>
+
+<p>And when they heard his story it is what they thought, that Goibniu the
+Smith was the man that hindered them most. And they sent Ruadan back
+again, and bade him make an end of him.</p>
+
+<p>So he went back again to the forge, and he asked Goibniu would he give
+him a spear-head. And then he asked rivets of Credne, and a shaft of
+the carpenter, and all was given to him as he asked. And there was a
+woman there, Cron, mother to Fianlug, grinding the spears.</p>
+
+<p>And after the spear being given to Ruadan, he turned and threw it at
+Goibniu, that it wounded him. But Goibniu pulled it out and made a cast
+of it at Ruadan, that it went through him and he died; and Bres, his
+father, and the army of the Fomor, saw him die. And then Brigit came and
+keened her son with shrieking and with crying.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Goibniu, he went into the well and was healed. But after that
+Octriallach, son of Indech, called to the Fomor and bade each man of
+them bring a stone of the stones of Drinnes and throw them into the well
+of Slane. And they did that till the well was dried up, and a cairn
+raised over it, that is called Octriallach's Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>And it was while Goibniu was making spear-heads for the battle of Magh
+Tuireadh, a charge was brought against his wife. And it was seen that it
+was heavy news to him, and that jealousy came on him. And it is what he
+did, there was a spear-shaft in his hand when he heard the story, Nes
+its name was; and he sang spells over the spear-shaft, and any one that
+was struck with that spear afterwards, it would burn him up like fire.</p>
+
+<p>And at last the day of the great battle came, and the Fomor came out of
+their camp and stood in strong ranks. And there was not a leader or a
+fighting man of them was without good armour to his skin, and a helmet
+on his head, a broad spear in his right hand, a heavy sword in his belt,
+a strong shield on his shoulder. And to attack the army of the Fomor
+that day was to strike the head against a rock, or to go up fighting
+against a fire.</p>
+
+<p>And the Men of Dea rose up and left Lugh and his nine comrades keeping
+him, and they went on to the battle; and Midhir was with them, and Bodb
+Dearg and Diancecht. And Badb and Macha and the Morrigu called out that
+they would go along with them.</p>
+
+<p>And it was a hard battle was fought, and for a while it was going
+against the Tuatha de Danaan; and Nuada of the Silver Hand, their King,
+and Macha, daughter of Emmass, fell by Balor, King of the Fomor. And
+Cass-mail fell by Octriallach, and the Dagda got a dreadful wound from a
+casting spear that was thrown by Ceithlenn, wife of Balor.</p>
+
+<p>But when the battle was going on, Lugh broke away from those that were
+keeping him, and rushed out to the front of the Men of Dea. And then
+there was a fierce battle fought, and Lugh was heartening the men of
+Ireland to fight well, the way they would not be in bonds any longer.
+For it was better for them, he said, to die protecting their own country
+than to live under bonds and under tribute any longer. And he sang a
+song of courage to them, and the hosts gave a great shout as they went
+into battle, and then they met together, and each of them began to
+attack the other.</p>
+
+<p>And there was great slaughter, and laying low in graves, and many comely
+men fell there in the stall of death. Pride and shame were there side by
+side, and hardness and red anger, and there was red blood on the white
+skin of young fighting men. And the dashing of spear against shield, and
+sword against sword, and the shouting of the fighters, and the whistling
+of casting spears and the rattling of scabbards was like harsh thunder
+through the battle. And many slipped in the blood that was under their
+feet, and they fell, striking their heads one against another; and the
+river carried away bodies of friends and enemies together.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugh and Balor met in the battle, and Lugh called out reproaches to
+him; and there was anger on Balor, and he said to the men that were with
+him: "Lift up my eyelid till I see this chatterer that is talking to
+me." Then they raised Balor's eyelid, but Lugh made a cast of his red
+spear at him, that brought the eye out through the back of his head, so
+that it was towards his own army it fell, and three times nine of the
+Fomor died when they looked at it. And if Lugh had not put out that eye
+when he did, the whole of Ireland would have been burned in one flash.
+And after this, Lugh struck his head off.</p>
+
+<p>And as for Indech, son of De Domnann, he fell and was crushed in the
+battle, and blood burst from his mouth, and he called out for Leat Glas,
+his poet, as he lay there, but he was not able to help him. And then the
+Morrigu came into the battle, and she was heartening the Tuatha de
+Danaan to fight the battle well; and, as she had promised the Dagda, she
+took the full of her two hands of Indech's blood, and gave it to the
+armies that were waiting at the ford of Unius; and it was called the
+Ford of Destruction from that day.</p>
+
+<p>And after that it was not a battle any more, but a rout, and the Fomor
+were beaten back to the sea. And Lugh and his comrades were following
+them, and they came up with Bres, son of Elathan, and no guard with him,
+and he said: "It is better for you to spare my life than to kill me. And
+if you spare me now," he said, "the cows of Ireland will never go dry."
+"I will ask an advice about that from our wise men," said Lugh. So he
+told Maeltine Mor-Brethach, of the Great Judgments, what Bres was after
+saying. But Maeltine said: "Do not spare him for that, for he has no
+power over their offspring, though he has power so long as they are
+living."</p>
+
+<p>Then Bres said: "If you spare me, the men of Ireland will reap a harvest
+of corn every quarter." But Maeltine said: "The spring is for ploughing
+and sowing, and the beginning of summer for the strength of corn, and
+the beginning of autumn for its ripeness, and the winter for using it."</p>
+
+<p>"That does not save you," said Lugh then to Bres. But then to make an
+excuse for sparing him, Lugh said: "Tell us what is the best way for the
+men of Ireland to plough and to sow and to reap."</p>
+
+<p>"Let their ploughing be on a Tuesday, and their casting seed into the
+field on a Tuesday, and their reaping on a Tuesday," said Bres. So Lugh
+said that would do, and he let him go free after that.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this battle Ogma found Orna, the sword of Tethra, a king of
+the Fomor, and he took it from its sheath and cleaned it. And when the
+sword was taken out of the sheath, it told all the deeds that had been
+done by it, for there used to be that power in swords.</p>
+
+<p>And Lugh and the Dagda and Ogma followed after the Fomor, for they had
+brought away the Dagda's harp with them, that was called Uaitne. And
+they came to a feasting-house, and in it they found Bres and his father
+Elathan, and there was the harp hanging on the wall. And it was in that
+harp the Dagda had bound the music, so that it would not sound till he
+would call to it. And sometimes it was called Dur-da-Bla, the Oak of Two
+Blossoms, and sometimes Coir-cethar-chuin, the Four-Angled Music.</p>
+
+<p>And when he saw it hanging on the wall it is what he said: "Come summer,
+come winter, from the mouth of harps and bags and pipes." Then the harp
+sprang from the wall, and came to the Dagda, and it killed nine men on
+its way.</p>
+
+<p>And then he played for them the three things harpers understand, the
+sleepy tune, and the laughing tune, and the crying tune. And when he
+played the crying tune, their tearful women cried, and then he played
+the laughing tune, till their women and children laughed; and then he
+played the sleepy tune, and all the hosts fell asleep. And through that
+sleep the three went away through the Fomor that would have been glad to
+harm them. And when all was over, the Dagda brought out the heifer he
+had got as wages from Bres at the time he was making his dun. And she
+called to her calf, and at the sound of her call all the cattle of
+Ireland the Fomor had brought away as tribute, were back in their fields
+again.</p>
+
+<p>And C&eacute;, the Druid of Nuada of the Silver Hand, was wounded in the
+battle, and he went southward till he came to Carn Corrslebe. And there
+he sat down to rest, tired with his wounds and with the fear that was on
+him, and the journey. And he saw a smooth plain before him, and it full
+of flowers, and a great desire came on him to reach to that plain, and
+he went on till he came to it, and there he died. And when his grave was
+made there, a lake burst out over it and over the whole plain, and it
+was given the name of Loch C&eacute;. And there were but four men of the Fomor
+left in Ireland after the battle, and they used to be going through the
+country, spoiling corn and milk and fruit, and whatever came from the
+sea, till they were driven out one Samhain night by the Morrigu and by
+Angus Og, that the Fomor might never be over Ireland again.</p>
+
+<p>And after the battle was won, and the bodies were cleared away, the
+Morrigu gave out the news of the great victory to the hosts and to the
+royal heights of Ireland and to its chief rivers and its invers, and it
+is what she said: "Peace up to the skies, the skies down to earth, the
+earth under the skies; strength to every one."</p>
+
+<p>And as to the number of men that fell in the battle, it will not be
+known till we number the stars of the sky, or flakes of snow, or the dew
+on the grass, or grass under the feet of cattle, or the horses of the
+Son of Lir in a stormy sea.</p>
+
+<p>And Lugh was made king over the Men of Dea then, and it was at Nas he
+had his court.</p>
+
+<p>And while he was king, his foster-mother Taillte, daughter of Magh Mor,
+the Great Plain, died. And before her death she bade her husband Duach
+the Dark, he that built the Fort of the Hostages in Teamhair, to clear
+away the wood of Cuan, the way there could be a gathering of the people
+around her grave. So he called to the men of Ireland to cut down the
+wood with their wide-bladed knives and bill-hooks and hatchets, and
+within a month the whole wood was cut down.</p>
+
+<p>And Lugh buried her in the plain of Midhe, and raised a mound over her,
+that is to be seen to this day. And he ordered fires to be kindled, and
+keening to be made, and games and sports to be held in the summer of
+every year out of respect to her. And the place they were held got its
+name from her, that is Taillten.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Lugh's own mother, that was tall beautiful Ethlinn, she came
+to Teamhair after the battle of Magh Tuireadh, and he gave her in
+marriage to Tadg, son of Nuada. And the children that were born to them
+were Muirne, mother of Finn, the Head of the Fianna of Ireland, and
+Tuiren, that was mother of Bran.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L9" id="L9" />CHAPTER IV. THE HIDDEN HOUSE OF LUGH</h2>
+
+
+<p>And after Lugh had held the kingship for a long time, the Dagda was made
+king in his place.</p>
+
+<p>And Lugh went away out of Ireland, and some said he died at Uisnech, the
+place where the five provinces meet, and the first place there was ever
+a fire kindled in Ireland. It was by Mide, son of Brath, it was kindled,
+for the sons of Nemed, and it was burning through six years, and it was
+from that fire every chief fire was kindled in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>But Lugh was seen again in Ireland at the time Conchubar and the Men of
+the Red Branch went following white birds southward to the Boinn at the
+time of Cuchulain's birth. And it was he came and kept watch over
+Cuchulain in his three days' sleep at the time of the War for the Bull
+of Cuailgne.</p>
+
+<p>And after that again he was seen by Conn of the Hundred Battles, and
+this is the way that happened.</p>
+
+<p>Conn was in Teamhair one time, and he went up in the early morning to
+the Rath of the Kings at the rising of the sun, and his three Druids
+with him, Maol and Bloc and Bhuice; and his three poets, Ethain and Corb
+and Cesarn. And the reason he had for going up there with them every
+day, was to look about on every side, the way if any men of the Sidhe
+would come into Ireland they would not come unknown to him. And on this
+day he chanced to stand upon a stone that was in the rath, and the stone
+screamed under his feet, that it was heard all over Teamhair and as far
+as Bregia.</p>
+
+<p>Then Conn asked his chief Druid how the stone came there, and what it
+screamed for. And the Druid said he would not answer that till the end
+of fifty-three days. And at the end of that time, Conn asked him again,
+and it is what the Druid said: "The Lia Fail is the name of the stone;
+it is out of Falias it was brought, and it is in Teamhair it was set up,
+and in Teamhair it will stay for ever. And as long as there is a king in
+Teamhair it is here will be the gathering place for games, and if there
+is no king to come to the last day of the gathering, there will be
+hardness in that year. And when the stone screamed under your feet," he
+said, "the number of the screams it gave was a foretelling of the number
+of kings of your race that would come after you. But it is not I myself
+will name them for you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And while they were in the same place, there came a great mist about
+them and a darkness, so that they could not know what way they were
+going, and they heard the noise of a rider coming towards them. "It
+would be a great grief to us," said Conn, "to be brought away into a
+strange country." Then the rider threw three spears at them, and every
+one came faster than the other. "It is the wounding of a king indeed,"
+said the Druids, "any one to cast at Conn of Teamhair."</p>
+
+<p>The rider stopped casting his spears on that, and he came to them and
+bade Conn welcome, and asked him to come to his house. They went on then
+till they came to a beautiful plain, and there they saw a king's rath,
+and a golden tree at its door, and inside the rath a grand house with a
+roof of white bronze. So they went into the house, and the rider that
+had come to meet them was there before them, in his royal seat, and
+there had never been seen a man like him in Teamhair for comeliness or
+for beauty, or the wonder of his face.</p>
+
+<p>And there was a young woman in the house, having a band of gold on her
+head, and a silver vessel with hoops of gold beside her, and it full of
+red ale, and a golden bowl on its edge, and a golden cup at its mouth.
+She said then to the master of the house: "Who am I to serve drink to?"
+"Serve it to Conn of the Hundred Battles," he said, "for he will gain a
+hundred battles before he dies." And after that he bade her to pour out
+the ale for Art of the Three Shouts, the son of Conn; and after that he
+went through the names of all the kings of Ireland that would come after
+Conn, and he told what would be the length of their lifetime. And the
+young woman left the vessel with Conn, and the cup and the bowl, and she
+gave him along with that the rib of an ox and of a hog; twenty-four feet
+was the length of the ox-rib.</p>
+
+<p>And the master of the house told them the young woman was the Kingship
+of Ireland for ever. "And as for myself," he said, "I am Lugh of the
+Long Hand, son of Ethlinn."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L10" id="L10" />BOOK THREE: THE COMING OF THE GAEL.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE LANDING</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is not known, now, for what length of time the Tuatha de Danaan had
+the sway over Ireland, and it is likely it was a long time they had it,
+but they were put from it at last.</p>
+
+<p>It was at Inver Slane, to the north of Leinster, the sons of Gaedhal of
+the Shining Armour, the Very Gentle, that were called afterwards the
+Sons of the Gael, made their first attempt to land in Ireland to avenge
+Ith, one of their race that had come there one time and had met with his
+death.</p>
+
+<p>It is under the leadership of the sons of Miled they were, and it was
+from the south they came, and their Druids had told them there was no
+country for them to settle in till they would come to that island in the
+west. "And if you do not get possession of it yourselves," they said,
+"your children will get possession of it."</p>
+
+<p>But when the Tuatha de Danaan saw the ships coming, they flocked to the
+shore, and by their enchantments they cast such a cloud over the whole
+island that the sons of Miled were confused, and all they could see was
+some large thing that had the appearance of a pig.</p>
+
+<p>And when they were hindered from landing there by enchantments, they
+went sailing along the coast till at last they were able to make a
+landing at Inver Sceine in the west of Munster.</p>
+
+<p>From that they marched in good order as far as Slieve Mis. And there
+they were met by a queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, and a train of
+beautiful women attending on her, and her Druids and wise men following
+her. Amergin, one of the sons of Miled, spoke to her then, and asked her
+name, and she said it was Banba, wife of Mac Cuill, Son of the Hazel.</p>
+
+<p>They went on then till they came to Slieve Eibhline, and there another
+queen of the Tuatha de Danaan met them, and her women and her Druids
+after her, and they asked her name, and she said it was Fodhla, wife of
+Mac Cecht, Son of the Plough.</p>
+
+<p>They went on then till they came to the hill of Uisnech, and there they
+saw another woman coming towards them. And there was wonder on them
+while they were looking at her, for in the one moment she would be a
+wide-eyed most beautiful queen, and in another she would be a
+sharp-beaked, grey-white crow. She came on to where Eremon, one of the
+sons of Miled, was, and sat down before him, and he asked her who was
+she, and she said: "I am Eriu, wife of Mac Greine, Son of the Sun."</p>
+
+<p>And the names of those three queens were often given to Ireland in the
+after time.</p>
+
+<p>The Sons of the Gael went on after that to Teamhair, where the three
+sons of Cermait Honey-Mouth, son of the Dagda, that had the kingship
+between them at that time held their court. And these three were
+quarrelling with one another about the division of the treasures their
+father had left, and the quarrel was so hot it seemed likely it would
+come to a battle in the end.</p>
+
+<p>And the Sons of the Gael wondered to see them quarrelling about such
+things, and they having so fruitful an island, where the air was so
+wholesome, and the sun not too strong, or the cold too bitter, and where
+there was such a plenty of honey and acorns, and of milk, and of fish,
+and of corn, and room enough for them all.</p>
+
+<p>Great grandeur they were living in, and their Druids about them, at the
+palace of Teamhair. And Amergin went to them, and it is what he said,
+that they must give up the kingship there and then, or they must leave
+it to the chance of a battle. And he said he asked this in revenge for
+the death of Ith, of the race of the Gael, that had come to their court
+before that time, and that had been killed by treachery.</p>
+
+<p>When the sons of Cermait Honey-Mouth heard Amergin saying such fierce
+words, there was wonder on them, and it is what they said, that they
+were not willing to fight at that time, for their army was not ready.
+"But let you make an offer to us," they said, "for we see well you have
+good judgment and knowledge. But if you make an offer that is not fair,"
+they said, "we will destroy you with our enchantments."</p>
+
+<p>At that Amergin bade the men that were with him to go back to Inver
+Sceine, and to hurry again into their ships with the rest of the Sons of
+the Gael, and to go out the length of nine waves from the shore. And
+then he made his offer to the Tuatha de Danaan, that if they could
+hinder his men from landing on their island, he and all his ships would
+go back again to their own country, and would never make any attempt to
+come again; but that if the Sons of the Gael could land on the coast in
+spite of them, then the Tuatha de Danaan should give up the kingship and
+be under their sway.</p>
+
+<p>The Tuatha de Danaan were well pleased with that offer, for they thought
+that by the powers of their enchantments over the winds and the sea, and
+by their arts, they would be well able to keep them from ever setting
+foot in the country again.</p>
+
+<p>So the Sons of the Gael did as Amergin bade them and they went back into
+their ship and drew up their anchors, and moved out to the length of
+nine waves from the shore. And as soon as the Men of Dea saw they had
+left the land, they took to their enchantments and spells, and they
+raised a great wind that scattered the ships of the Gael, and drove them
+from one another. But Amergin knew it was not a natural storm was in
+it, and Arranan, son of Miled, knew that as well, and he went up in the
+mast of his ship to look about him. But a great blast of wind came
+against him, and he fell back into the ship and died on the moment. And
+there was great confusion on the Gael, for the ships were tossed to and
+fro, and had like to be lost. And the ship that Donn, son of Miled, was
+in command of was parted from the others by the dint of the storm, and
+was broken in pieces, and he himself and all with him were drowned,
+four-and-twenty men and women in all. And Ir, son of Miled, came to his
+death in the same way, and his body was cast on the shore, and it was
+buried in a small island that is now called Sceilg Michill. A brave man
+Ir was, leading the Sons of the Gael to the front of every battle, and
+their help and their shelter in battle, and his enemies were in dread of
+his name.</p>
+
+<p>And Heremon, another of the sons of Miled, with his share of the ships,
+was driven to the left of the island, and it is hardly he got safe to
+land. And the place where he landed was called Inver Colpa, because
+Colpa of the Sword, another of the sons of Miled, was drowned there, and
+he trying to get to land. Five of the sons of Miled in all were
+destroyed by the storm and the winds the Men of Dea had raised by their
+enchantments, and there were but three of them left, Heber, and Heremon,
+and Amergin.</p>
+
+<p>And one of them, Donn, before he was swept into the sea, called out: "It
+is treachery our knowledgeable men are doing on us, not to put down this
+wind." "There is no treachery," said Amergin, his brother. And he rose
+up then before them, and whatever enchantment he did on the winds and
+the sea, he said these words along with it:</p>
+
+<p>"That they that are tossing in the great wide food-giving sea may reach
+now to the land.</p>
+
+<p>"That they may find a place upon its plains, its mountains, and its
+valleys; in its forests that are full of nuts and of all fruits; on its
+rivers and its streams, on its lakes and its great waters.</p>
+
+<p>"That we may have our gatherings and our races in this land; that there
+may be a king of our own in Teamhair; that it may be the possession of
+our many kings.</p>
+
+<p>"That the sons of Miled may be seen in this land, that their ships and
+their boats may find a place there.</p>
+
+<p>"This land that is now under darkness, it is for it we are asking; let
+our chief men, let their learned wives, ask that we may come to the
+noble woman, great Eriu."</p>
+
+<p>After he had said this, the wind went down and the sea was quiet again
+on the moment.</p>
+
+<p>And those that were left of the sons of Miled and of the Sons of the
+Gael landed then at Inver Sceine.</p>
+
+<p>And Amergin was the first to put his foot on land, and when he stood on
+the shore of Ireland, it is what he said:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"I am the wind on the sea;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am the wave of the sea;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am the bull of seven battles;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am the eagle on the rock;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am a flash from the sun;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am the most beautiful of plants;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am a strong wild boar;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am a salmon in the water;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am a lake in the plain;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am the word of knowledge;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am the head of the spear in battle;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am the god that puts fire in the head;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Who can tell the ages of the moon?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Who can tell the place where the sun rests?"</span><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L11" id="L11" />CHAPTER II. THE BATTLE OF TAILLTIN</h2>
+
+
+<p>And three days after the landing of the Gael, they were attacked by
+Eriu, wife of Mac Greine, Son of the Sun, and she having a good share of
+men with her. And they fought a hard battle, and many were killed on
+both sides. And this was the first battle fought between the Sons of the
+Gael and the Men of Dea for the kingship of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>It was in that battle Fais, wife of Un, was killed in a valley at the
+foot of the mountain, and it was called after her, the Valley of Fais.
+And Scota, wife of Miled, got her death in the battle, and she was
+buried in a valley on the north side of the mountain near the sea. But
+the Sons of the Gael lost no more than three hundred men, and they beat
+back the Men of Dea and killed a thousand of them. And Eriu was beaten
+back to Tailltin, and as many of her men as she could hold together; and
+when she came there she told the people how she had been worsted in the
+battle, and the best of her men had got their death. But the Gael
+stopped on the battle-field, and buried their dead, and they gave a
+great burial to two of their Druids, Aer and Eithis, that were killed in
+the fight.</p>
+
+<p>And after they had rested for a while, they went on to Inver Colpa in
+Leinster, and Heremon and his men joined them there. And then they sent
+messengers to the three kings of Ireland, the three sons of Cermait
+Honey-Mouth, and bade them to come out and fight a battle that would
+settle the ownership of the country once for all.</p>
+
+<p>So they came out, and the best of the fighters of the Tuatha de Danaan
+with them, to Tailltin. And there they attacked one another, and the
+Sons of the Gael remembered the death of Ith, and there was great anger
+on them, and they fell on the Men of Dea to avenge him, and there was a
+fierce battle fought. And for a while neither side got the better of the
+other, but at the last the Gael broke through the army of the Men of Dea
+and put them to the rout, with great slaughter, and drove them out of
+the place. And their three kings were killed in the rout, and the three
+queens of Ireland, Eriu and Fodhla and Banba. And when the Tuatha de
+Danaan saw their leaders were dead they fell back in great disorder, and
+the Sons of the Gael followed after them. But in following them they
+lost two of their best leaders, Cuailgne, son of Breagan, at Slieve
+Cuailgne, and Fuad, his brother, at Slieve Fuad. But they were no way
+daunted by that, but followed the Men of Dea so hotly that they were
+never able to bring their army together again, but had to own themselves
+beaten, and to give up the country to the Gael.</p>
+
+<p>And the leaders, the sons of Miled, divided the provinces of Ireland
+between them. Heber took the two provinces of Munster, and he gave a
+share of it to Amergin; and Heremon got Leinster and Connacht for his
+share, and Ulster was divided between Eimhir, son of Ir, son of Miled,
+and some others of their chief men. And it was of the sons of Eimhir,
+that were called the Children of Rudraighe, and that lived in Emain
+Macha for nine hundred years, some of the best men of Ireland came;
+Fergus, son of Rogh, was of them, and Conall Cearnach, of the Red Branch
+of Ulster.</p>
+
+<p>And from the sons of Ith, the first of the Gael to get his death in
+Ireland, there came in the after time Fathadh Canaan, that got the sway
+over the whole world from the rising to the setting sun, and that took
+hostages of the streams and the birds and the languages.</p>
+
+<p>And it is what the poets of Ireland used to be saying, that every brave
+man, good at fighting, and every man that could do great deeds and not
+be making much talk about them, was of the Sons of the Gael; and that
+every skilled man that had music and that did enchantments secretly,
+was of the Tuatha de Danaan. But they put a bad name on the Firbolgs and
+the men of Domnand and the Gaileoin, for lies and for big talk and
+injustice. But for all that there were good fighters among them, and
+Ferdiad, that made so good a stand against Cuchulain, in the war for the
+Bull of Cuailgne was one of them. And the Gaileoin fought well in the
+same war; but the men of Ireland had no great liking for them, and their
+Druids drove them out of the country afterwards.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L12" id="L12" />BOOK FOUR: THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. BODB DEARG</h2>
+
+
+<p>But as to the Tuatha de Danaan after they were beaten, they would not go
+under the sway of the sons of Miled, but they went away by themselves.
+And because Manannan, son of Lir, understood all enchantments, they left
+it to him to find places for them where they would be safe from their
+enemies. So he chose out the most beautiful of the hills and valleys of
+Ireland for them to settle in; and he put hidden walls about them, that
+no man could see through, but they themselves could see through them and
+pass through them.</p>
+
+<p>And he made the Feast of Age for them, and what they drank at it was the
+ale of Goibniu the Smith, that kept whoever tasted it from age and from
+sickness and from death. And for food at the feast he gave them his own
+swine, that though they were killed and eaten one day, would be alive
+and fit for eating again the next day, and that would go on in that way
+for ever.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while they said: "It would be better for us one king to be
+over us, than to be scattered the way we are through the whole of
+Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>Now the men among them that had the best chance of getting the kingship
+at that time were Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda; and Ilbrech of Ess
+Ruadh; and Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, the Hill of the White Field, on
+Slieve Fuad; and Midhir the Proud of Bri Leith, and Angus Og, son of the
+Dagda; but he did not covet the kingship at all, but would sooner be
+left as he was. Then all the chief men but those five went into council
+together, and it is what they agreed, to give the kingship to Bodb
+Dearg, for the sake of his father, for his own sake, and because he was
+the eldest among the children of the Dagda.</p>
+
+<p>It was in Sidhe Femen Bodb Dearg had his house, and he put great
+enchantments about it. Cliach, the Harper of the King of the Three
+Rosses in Connacht, went one time to ask one of his daughters in
+marriage, and he stayed outside the place through the whole length of a
+year, playing his harp, and able to get no nearer to Bodb or to his
+daughter. And he went on playing till a lake burst up under his feet,
+the lake that is on the top of a mountain, Loch Bel Sead.</p>
+
+<p>It was Bodb's swineherd went to Da Derga's Inn, and his squealing pig
+along with him, the night Conaire, the High King of Ireland, met with
+his death; and it was said that whatever feast that swineherd would go
+to, there would blood be shed before it was over.</p>
+
+<p>And Bodb had three sons, Angus, and Artrach, and Aedh. And they used
+often to be living among men in the time of the Fianna afterwards.
+Artrach had a house with seven doors, and a free welcome for all that
+came, and the king's son of Ireland, and of Alban, used to be coming to
+Angus to learn the throwing of spears and darts; and troops of poets
+from Alban and from Ireland used to be with Aedh, that was the comeliest
+of Bodb's sons, so that his place used to be called "The Rath of Aedh of
+the Poets." And indeed it was a beautiful rath at that time, with
+golden-yellow apples in it and crimson-pointed nuts of the wood. But
+after the passing away of the Fianna, the three brothers went back to
+the Tuatha de Danaan.</p>
+
+<p>And Bodb Dearg was not always in his own place, but sometimes he was
+with Angus at Brugh na Boinn.</p>
+
+<p>Three sons of Lugaidh Menn, King of Ireland, Eochaid, and Fiacha, and
+Ruide, went there one time, for their father refused them any land till
+they would win it for themselves. And when he said that, they rose with
+the ready rising of one man, and went and sat down on the green of Brugh
+na Boinn, and fasted there on the Tuatha de Danaan, to see if they
+could win some good thing from them.</p>
+
+<p>And they were not long there till they saw a young man, quiet and with
+pleasant looks, coming towards them, and he wished them good health, and
+they answered him the same way. "Where are you come from?" they asked
+him then. "From the rath beyond, with the many lights," he said. "And I
+am Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda," he said, "and come in with me now to
+the rath."</p>
+
+<p>So they went in, and supper was made ready for them, but they did not
+use it. Bodb Dearg asked them then why was it they were using nothing.
+"It is because our father has refused land to us," said they; "and there
+are in Ireland but the two races, the Sons of the Gael and the Men of
+Dea, and when the one failed us we are come to the other."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Men of Dea consulted together. And the chief among them was
+Midhir of the Yellow Hair, and it is what he said: "Let us give a wife
+to every one of these three men, for it is from a wife that good or bad
+fortune comes."</p>
+
+<p>So they agreed to that, and Midhir's three daughters, Doirenn, and Aife,
+and Aillbhe, were given to them. Then Midhir asked Bodb to say what
+marriage portion should be given to them. "I will tell you that," said
+Bodb. "We are three times fifty sons of kings in this hill; let every
+king's son give three times fifty ounces of red gold. And I myself," he
+said, "will give them along with that, three times fifty suits of
+clothing of all colours." "I will give them a gift," said a young man of
+the Tuatha de Danaan, from Rachlainn in the sea. "A horn I will give
+them, and a vat. And there is nothing wanting but to fill the vat with
+pure water, and it will turn into mead, fit to drink, and strong enough
+to make drunken. And into the horn," he said, "you have but to put salt
+water from the sea, and it will turn into wine on the moment." "A gift
+to them from me," said Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, "three times fifty
+swords, and three times fifty well-riveted long spears." "A gift from
+me," said Angus Og, son of the Dagda, "a rath and a good town with high
+walls, and with bright sunny houses, and with wide houses, in whatever
+place it will please them between Rath Chobtaige and Teamhair." "A gift
+to them from me," said Aine, daughter of Modharn, "a woman-cook that I
+have, and there is <i>geasa</i> on her not to refuse food to any; and
+according as she serves it out, her store fills up of itself again."
+"Another gift to them from me," said Bodb Dearg, "a good musician that I
+have, Fertuinne, son of Trogain; and although there were women in the
+sharpest pains of childbirth, and brave men wounded early in the day, in
+a place where there were saws going through wood, they would sleep at
+the sweetness of the music he makes. And whatever house he may be in,
+the people of the whole country round will hear him."</p>
+
+<p>So they stopped in Brugh na Boinne three days and three nights, and when
+they left it, Angus bade them bring away from the oak-wood three
+apple-trees, one in full bloom, and one shedding its blossom, and the
+third covered with ripe fruit.</p>
+
+<p>They went then to their own dun that was given them, and it is a good
+place they had there, and a troop of young men, and great troops of
+horses and of greyhounds; and they had three sorts of music that comely
+kings liked to be listening to, the music of harps and of lutes, and the
+chanting of Trogain's son; and there were three great sounds, the
+tramping on the green, and the uproar of racing, and the lowing of
+cattle; and three other sounds, the grunting of good pigs with the fat
+thick on them, and the voices of the crowd on the green lawn, and the
+noise of men drinking inside the house. And as to Eochaid, it was said
+of him that he never took a step backwards in flight, and his house was
+never without music or drinking of ale. And it was said of Fiacha that
+there was no man of his time braver than himself, and that he never said
+a word too much. And as to Ruide, he never refused any one, and never
+asked anything at all of any man.</p>
+
+<p>And when their lifetime was over, they went back to the Tuatha de
+Danaan, for they belonged to them through their wives, and there they
+have stopped ever since.</p>
+
+<p>And Bodb Dearg had a daughter, Scathniamh, the Flower of Brightness,
+that gave her love to Caoilte in the time of the Fianna; and they were
+forced to part from one another, and they never met again till the time
+Caoilte was, old and withered, and one of the last that was left of the
+Fianna. And she came to him out of the cave of Cruachan, and asked him
+for the bride-price he had promised her, and that she was never able to
+come and ask for till then. And Caoilte went to a cairn that was near
+and that was full up of gold, that was wages earned by Conan Maol and
+hidden there, and he gave the gold to Bodb Dearg's daughter. And the
+people that were there wondered to see the girl so young and comely, and
+Caoilte so grey and bent and withered. "There is no wonder in that,"
+said Caoilte, "for I am of the sons of Miled that wither and fade away,
+but she is of the Tuatha de Danaan that never change and that never
+die."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L13" id="L13" />CHAPTER II. THE DAGDA</h2>
+
+
+<p>And it was at Brugh na Boinne the Dagda, the Red Man of all Knowledge,
+had his house. And the most noticeable things in it were the Hall of the
+Morrigu, and the Bed of the Dagda, and the Birthplace of Cermait
+Honey-Mouth, and the Prison of the Grey of Macha that was Cuchulain's
+horse afterwards. And there was a little hill by the house that was
+called the Comb and the Casket of the Dagda's wife; and another that was
+called the Hill of Dabilla, that was the little hound belonging to
+Boann. And the Valley of the Mata was there, the Sea-Turtle that could
+suck down a man in armour.</p>
+
+<p>And it is likely the Dagda put up his cooking oven there, that Druimne,
+son of Luchair, made for him at Teamhair. And it is the way it was, the
+axle and the wheel were of wood, and the body was iron, and there were
+twice nine wheels in its axle, that it might turn the faster; and it was
+as quick as the quickness of a stream in turning, and there were three
+times nine spits from it, and three times nine pots. And it used to lie
+down with the cinders and to rise to the height of the roof with the
+flame.</p>
+
+<p>The Dagda himself made a great vat one time for Ainge, his daughter, but
+she was not well satisfied with it, for it would not stop from dripping
+while the sea was in flood, though it would not lose a drop during the
+ebb-tide. And she gathered a bundle of twigs to make a new vat for
+herself, but Gaible, son of Nuada of the Silver Hand, stole it from her
+and hurled it away. And in the place where it fell a beautiful wood grew
+up, that was called Gaible's Wood.</p>
+
+<p>And the Dagda had his household at Brugh na Boinne, and his steward was
+Dichu, and Len Linfiaclach was the smith of the Brugh. It was he lived
+in the lake, making the bright vessels of Fand, daughter of Flidhais;
+and every evening when he left off work he would make a cast of the
+anvil eastward to Indeoin na Dese, the Anvil of the Dese, as far as the
+Grave End. Three showers it used to cast, a shower of fire, and a shower
+of water, and a shower of precious stones of pure purple.</p>
+
+<p>But Tuirbe, father of Goibniu the Smith, used to throw better again, for
+he would make a cast of his axe from Tulach na Bela, the Hill of the
+Axe, in the face of the flood tide, and he would put his order on the
+sea, and it would not come over the axe.</p>
+
+<p>And Corann was the best of the harpers of the household; he was harper
+to the Dagda's son, Diancecht. And one time he called with his harp to
+Cailcheir, one of the swine of Debrann. And it ran northward with all
+the strength of its legs, and the champions of Connacht were following
+after it with all their strength of running, and their hounds with them,
+till they got as far as Ceis Corain, and they gave it up there, all
+except Niall that went on the track of the swine till he found it in the
+oak-wood of Tarba, and then it made away over the plain of Ai, and
+through a lake. And Niall and his hound were drowned in following it
+through the lake. And the Dagda gave Corann a great tract of land for
+doing his harping so well.</p>
+
+<p>But however great a house the Dagda had, Angus got it away from him in
+the end, through the help of Manannan, son of Lir. For Manannan bade him
+to ask his father for it for the length of a day and a night, and that
+he by his art would take away his power of refusing. So Angus asked for
+the Brugh, and his father gave it to him for a day and a night. But when
+he asked it back again, it is what Angus said, that it had been given to
+him for ever, for the whole of life and time is made up of a day and a
+night, one following after the other.</p>
+
+<p>So when the Dagda heard that he went away and his people and his
+household with him, for Manannan had put an enchantment on them all.</p>
+
+<p>But Dichu the Steward was away at the time, and his wife and his son,
+for they were gone out to get provisions for a feast for Manannan and
+his friends. And when he came back and knew his master was gone, he took
+service with Angus.</p>
+
+<p>And Angus stopped in Brugh na Boinne, and some say he is there to this
+day, with the hidden walls about him, drinking Goibniu's ale and eating
+the pigs that never fail.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Dagda, he took no revenge, though he had the name of being
+revengeful and quick in his temper. And some say it was at Teamhair he
+made his dwelling-place after that, but wherever it was, a great
+misfortune came on him.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced one time Corrgenn, a great man of Connacht, came to visit
+him, and his wife along with him. And while they were there, Corrgenn
+got it in his mind that there was something that was not right going on
+between his wife and Aedh, one of the sons of the Dagda. And great
+jealousy and anger came on him, and he struck at the young man and
+killed him before his father's face.</p>
+
+<p>Every one thought the Dagda would take Corrgenn's life then and there in
+revenge for his son's life. But he would not do that, for he said if his
+son was guilty, there was no blame to be put on Corrgenn for doing what
+he did. So he spared his life for that time, but if he did, Corrgenn did
+not gain much by it. For the punishment he put on him was to take the
+dead body of the young man on his back, and never to lay it down till he
+would find a stone that would be its very fit in length and in breadth,
+and that would make a gravestone for him; and when he had found that, he
+could bury him in the nearest hill.</p>
+
+<p>So Corrgenn had no choice but to go, and he set out with his load; but
+he had a long way to travel before he could find a stone that would fit,
+and it is where he found one at last, on the shore of Loch Feabhail. So
+then he left the body up on the nearest hill, and he went down and
+raised the stone and brought it up and dug a grave and buried the
+Dagda's son. And it is many an Ochone! he gave when he was putting the
+stone over him, and when he had that done he was spent, and he dropped
+dead there and then.</p>
+
+<p>And the Dagda brought his two builders, Garbhan and Imheall, to the
+place, and he bade them build a rath there round the grave. It was
+Garbhan cut the stones and shaped them, and Imheall set them all round
+the house till the work was finished, and then he closed the top of the
+house with a slab. And the place was called the Hill of Aileac, that is,
+the Hill of Sighs and of a Stone, for it was tears of blood the Dagda
+shed on account of the death of his son.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L14" id="L14" />CHAPTER III. ANGUS OG</h2>
+
+
+<p>And as to Angus Og, son of the Dagda, sometimes he would come from Brugh
+na Boinn and let himself be seen upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long time after the coming of the Gael that he was seen by
+Cormac, King of Teamhair, and this is the account he gave of him.</p>
+
+<p>He was by himself one day in his Hall of Judgment, for he used to be
+often reading the laws and thinking how he could best carry them out.
+And on a sudden he saw a stranger, a very comely young man, at the end
+of the hall; and he knew on the moment it was Angus Og, for he had often
+heard his people talking of him, but he himself used to be saying he did
+not believe there was any such person at all. And when his people came
+back to the hall, he told them how he had seen Angus himself, and had
+talked with him, and Angus had told him his name, and had foretold what
+would happen him in the future. "And he was a beautiful young man," he
+said, "with high looks, and his appearance was more beautiful than all
+beauty, and there were ornaments of gold on his dress; in his hand he
+held a silver harp with strings of red gold, and the sound of its
+strings was sweeter than all music under the sky; and over the harp were
+two birds that seemed to be playing on it. He sat beside me pleasantly
+and played his sweet music to me, and in the end he foretold things that
+put drunkenness on my wits."</p>
+
+<p>The birds, now, that used to be with Angus were four of his kisses that
+turned into birds and that used to be coming about the young men of
+Ireland, and crying after them. "Come, come," two of them would say, and
+"I go, I go," the other two would say, and it was hard to get free of
+them. But as to Angus, even when he was in his young youth, he used to
+be called the Frightener, or the Disturber; for the plough teams of the
+world, and every sort of cattle that is used by men, would make away in
+terror before him.</p>
+
+<p>And one time he appeared in the shape of a land-holder to two men, Ribh
+and Eocho, that were looking for a place to settle in. The first place
+they chose was near Bregia on a plain that was belonging to Angus; and
+it was then he came to them, leading his horse in his hand, and told
+them they should not stop there. And they said they could not carry away
+their goods without horses. Then he gave them his horse, and bade them
+to put all they had a mind to on that horse and he would carry it, and
+so he did. But the next place they chose was Magh Find, the Fine Plain,
+that was the playing ground of Angus and of Midhir. And that time Midhir
+came to them in the same way and gave them a horse to put their goods
+on, and he went on with them as far as Magh Dairbthenn.</p>
+
+<p>And there were many women loved Angus, and there was one Enghi, daughter
+of Elcmair, loved him though she had not seen him. And she went one time
+looking for him to the gathering for games between Cletech and Sidhe in
+Broga; and the bright troops of the Sidhe used to come to that gathering
+every Samhain evening, bringing a moderate share of food with them, that
+is, a nut. And the sons of Derc came from the north, out of Sidhe
+Findabrach, and they went round about the young men and women without
+their knowledge and they brought away Elcmair's daughter. There were
+great lamentations made then, and the name the place got was Cnoguba,
+the Nut Lamentation, from the crying there was at that gathering.</p>
+
+<p>And Derbrenn, Eochaid Fedlech's daughter, was another that was loved by
+Angus, and she had six fosterlings, three boys and three girls. But the
+mother of the boys, Dalb Garb, the Rough, put a spell on them she made
+from a gathering of the nuts of Caill Ochuid, that turned them into
+swine.</p>
+
+<p>And Angus gave them into the care of Buichet, the Hospitaller of
+Leinster, and they stopped a year with him. But at the end of that time
+there came a longing On Buichet's wife to eat a bit of the flesh of one
+of them. So she gathered a hundred armed men and a hundred hounds to
+take them. But the pigs made away, and went to Brugh na Boinn, to Angus,
+and he bade them welcome, and they asked him to give them his help. But
+he said he could not do that till they had shaken the Tree of Tarbga,
+and eaten the salmon of Inver Umaill.</p>
+
+<p>So they went to Glascarn, and stopped a year in hiding with Derbrenn.
+And then they shook the Tree of Tarbga, and they went on towards Inver
+Umaill. But Maeve gathered the men of Connacht to hunt them, and they
+all fell but one, and their heads were put in a mound, and it got the
+name of Duma Selga, the Mound of the Hunting.</p>
+
+<p>And it was in the time of Maeve of Cruachan that Angus set his love on
+Caer Ormaith, of the Province of Connacht, and brought her away to Brugh
+na Boinn.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L15" id="L15" />CHAPTER IV. THE MORRIGU</h2>
+
+
+<p>As to the Morrigu, the Great Queen, the Crow of Battle, where she lived
+after the coming of the Gael is not known, but before that time it was
+in Teamhair she lived. And she had a great cooking-spit there, that held
+three sorts of food on it at the one time: a piece of raw meat, and a
+piece of dressed meat, and a piece of butter. And the raw was dressed,
+and the dressed was not burned, and the butter did not melt, and the
+three together on the spit.</p>
+
+<p>Nine men that were outlaws went to her one time and asked for a spit to
+be made for themselves. And they brought it away with them, and it had
+nine ribs in it, and every one of the outlaws would carry a rib in his
+hand wherever he would go, till they would all meet together at the
+close of day. And if they wanted the spit to be high, it could be raised
+to a man's height, and at another time it would not be more than the
+height of a fist over the fire, without breaking and without lessening.</p>
+
+<p>And Mechi, the son the Morrigu had, was killed by Mac Cecht on Magh
+Mechi, that till that time had been called Magh Fertaige. Three hearts
+he had, and it is the way they were, they had the shapes of three
+serpents through them. And if Mechi had not met with his death, those
+serpents in him would have grown, and what they left alive in Ireland
+would have wasted away. And Mac Cecht burned the three hearts on Magh
+Luathad, the Plain of Ashes, and he threw the ashes into the stream; and
+the rushing water of the stream stopped and boiled up, and every
+creature in it died.</p>
+
+<p>And the Morrigu used often to be meddling in Ireland in Cuchulain's
+time, stirring up wars and quarrels. It was she came and roused up
+Cuchulain one time when he was but a lad, and was near giving in to some
+enchantment that was used against him. "There is not the making of a
+hero in you," she said to him, "and you lying there under the feet of
+shadows." And with that Cuchulain rose up and struck off the head of a
+shadow that was standing over him, with his hurling stick. And the time
+Conchubar was sending out Finched to rouse up the men of Ulster at the
+time of the war for the Bull of Cuailgne, he bade him to go to that
+terrible fury, the Morrigu, to get help for Cuchulain. And she had a
+dispute with Cuchulain one time he met her, and she bringing away a cow
+from the Hill of Cruachan; and another time she helped Talchinem, a
+Druid of the household of Conaire Mor, to bring away a bull his wife had
+set her mind on. And indeed she was much given to meddling with cattle,
+and one time she brought away a cow from Odras, that was of the
+household of the cow-chief of Cormac Hua Cuined, and that was going
+after her husband with cattle. And the Morrigu brought the cow away with
+her to the Cave of Cruachan, and the Hill of the Sidhe. And Odras
+followed her there till sleep fell on her in the oak-wood of Falga; and
+the Morrigu awoke her and sang spells over her, and made of her a pool
+of water that went to the river that flows to the west of Slieve Buane.</p>
+
+<p>And in the battle of Magh Rath, she fluttered over Congal Claen in the
+shape of a bird, till he did not know friend from foe. And after that
+again at the battle of Cluantarbh, she was flying over the head of
+Murchadh, son of Brian; for she had many shapes, and it was in the shape
+of a crow she would sometimes fight her battles.</p>
+
+<p>And if it was not the Morrigu, it was Badb that showed herself in the
+battle of Dunbolg, where the men of Ireland were fighting under Aedh,
+son of Niall; and Brigit was seen in the same battle on the side of the
+men of Leinster.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L16" id="L16" />CHAPTER V. AINE</h2>
+
+
+<p>And as to Aine, that some said was a daughter of Manannan, but some said
+was the Morrigu herself, there was a stone belonging to her that was
+called Cathair Aine. And if any one would sit on that stone he would be
+in danger of losing his wits, and any one that would sit on it three
+times would lose them for ever. And people whose wits were astray would
+make their way to it, and mad dogs would come from all parts of the
+country, and would flock around it, and then they would go into the sea
+to Aine's place there. But those that did cures by herbs said she had
+power over the whole body; and she used to give gifts of poetry and of
+music, and she often gave her love to men, and they called her the
+Leanan Sidhe, the Sweet-heart of the Sidhe.</p>
+
+<p>And it was no safe thing to offend Aine, for she was very revengeful.
+Oilioll Oluim, a king of Ireland, killed her brother one time, and it is
+what she did, she made a great yew-tree by enchantment beside the river
+Maigh in Luimnech, and she put a little man in it, playing sweet music
+on a harp. And Oilioll's son was passing the river with his
+step-brother, and they saw the tree and heard the sweet music from it.
+And first they quarrelled as to which of them would have the little
+harper, and then they quarrelled about the tree, and they asked a
+judgment from Oilioll, and he gave it for his own son. And it was the
+bad feeling about that judgment that led to the battle of Magh
+Mucruimhe, and Oilioll and his seven sons were killed there, and so Aine
+got her revenge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L17" id="L17" />CHAPTER VI. AOIBHELL</h2>
+
+
+<p>And Aoibhell, another woman of the Sidhe, made her dwelling-place in
+Craig Liath, and at the time of the battle of Cluantarbh she set her
+love on a young man of Munster, Dubhlaing ua Artigan, that had been sent
+away in disgrace by the King of Ireland. But before the battle he came
+back to join with Murchadh, the king's son, and to fight for the Gael.
+And Aoibhell came to stop him; and when he would not stop with her she
+put a Druid covering about him, the way no one could see him.</p>
+
+<p>And he went where Murchadh was fighting, and he made a great attack on
+the enemies of Ireland, and struck them down on every side. And Murchadh
+looked around him, and he said; "It seems to me I hear the sound of the
+blows of Dubhlaing ua Artigan, but I do not see himself." Then Dubhlaing
+threw off the Druid covering that was about him, and he said: "I will
+not keep this covering upon me when you cannot see me through it. And
+come now across the plain to where Aoibhell is," he said, "for she can
+give us news of the battle."</p>
+
+<p>So they went where she was, and she bade them both to quit the battle,
+for they would lose their lives in it. But Murchadh said to her, "I will
+tell you a little true story," he said; "that fear for my own body will
+never make me change my face. And if we fall," he said, "the strangers
+will fall with us; and it is many a man will fall by my own hand, and
+the Gael will be sharing their strong places." "Stop with me,
+Dubhlaing," she said then, "and you will have two hundred years of happy
+life with myself." "I will not give up Murchadh," he said, "or my own
+good name, for silver or gold." And there was anger on Aoibhell when he
+said that, and she said: "Murchadh will fall, and you yourself will
+fall, and your proud blood will be on the plain to-morrow." And they
+went back into the battle, and got their death there.</p>
+
+<p>And it was Aoibhell gave a golden harp to the son of Meardha the time
+he was getting his learning at the school of the Sidhe in Connacht and
+that he heard his father had got his death by the King of Lochlann. And
+whoever heard the playing of that harp would not live long after it. And
+Meardha's son went where the three sons of the King of Lochlann were,
+and played on his harp for them, and they died.</p>
+
+<p>It was that harp Cuchulain heard the time his enemies were gathering
+against him at Muirthemne, and he knew by it that his life was near its
+end.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L18" id="L18" />CHAPTER VII. MIDHIR AND ETAIN</h2>
+
+
+<p>And Midhir took a hill for himself, and his wife Fuamach was with him
+there, and his daughter, Bri. And Leith, son of Celtchar of Cualu, was
+the most beautiful among the young men of the Sidhe of Ireland at that
+time, and he loved Bri, Midhir's daughter. And Bri went out with her
+young girls to meet him one time at the Grave of the Daughters beside
+Teamhair. And Leith came and his young men along with him till he was on
+the Hill of the After Repentance. And they could not come nearer to one
+another because of the slingers on Midhir's hill that were answering one
+another till their spears were as many as a swarm of bees on a day of
+beauty. And Cochlan, Leith's servant, got a sharp wound from them and he
+died.</p>
+
+<p>Then the girl turned back to Midhir's hill, and her heart broke in her
+and she died. And Leith said: "Although I am not let come to this girl,
+I will leave my name with her." And the hill was called Bri Leith from
+that time.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Midhir took Etain Echraide to be his wife. And there was
+great jealousy on Fuamach, the wife he had before, when she saw the
+love that Midhir gave to Etain, and she called to the Druid, Bresal
+Etarlaim to help her, and he put spells on Etain the way Fuamach was
+able to drive her away.</p>
+
+<p>And when she was driven out of Bri Leith, Angus Og, son of the Dagda,
+took her into his keeping; and when Midhir asked her back, he would not
+give her up, but he brought her about with him to every place he went.
+And wherever they rested, he made a sunny house for her, and put
+sweet-smelling flowers in it, and he made invisible walls about it, that
+no one could see through and that could not be seen.</p>
+
+<p>But when news came to Fuamach that Etain was so well cared by Angus,
+anger and jealousy came on her again, and she searched her mind for a
+way to destroy Etain altogether.</p>
+
+<p>And it is what she did, she persuaded Midhir and Angus to go out and
+meet one another and to make peace, for there had been a quarrel between
+them ever since the time Etain was sent away. And when Angus was away
+from Brugh na Boinn, Fuamach went and found Etain there, in her sunny
+house. And she turned her with Druid spells into a fly, and then she
+sent a blast of wind into the house, that swept her away through the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>But as to Midhir and Angus, they waited a while for Fuamach to come and
+join them. And when she did not come they were uneasy in their minds,
+and Angus hurried back to Brugh na Boinn. And when he found the sunny
+house empty, he went in search of Fuamach, and it was along with
+Etarlaim, the Druid, he found her, and he struck her head off there and
+then.</p>
+
+<p>And for seven years Etain was blown to and fro through Ireland in great
+misery. And at last she came to the house of Etar, of Inver Cechmaine,
+where there was a feast going on, and she fell from a beam of the roof
+into the golden cup that was beside Etar's wife. And Etar's wife drank
+her down with the wine, and at the end of nine months she was born again
+as Etar's daughter.</p>
+
+<p>And she had the same name as before, Etain; and she was reared as a
+king's daughter, and there were fifty young girls, daughters of princes,
+brought up with her to keep her company.</p>
+
+<p>And it happened one day Etain and all the rest of the young girls were
+out bathing in the bay at Inver Cechmaine, and they saw from the water a
+man, with very high looks, coming towards them over the plain, and he
+riding a bay horse with mane and tail curled. A long green cloak he had
+on him, and a shirt woven with threads of red gold, and a brooch of gold
+that reached across to his shoulders on each side. And he had on his
+back a shield of silver with a rim of gold and a boss of gold, and in
+his hand a sharp-pointed spear covered with rings of gold from heel to
+socket. Fair yellow hair he had, coming over his forehead, and it bound
+with a golden band to keep it from loosening.</p>
+
+<p>And when he came near them he got down from his horse, and sat down on
+the bank, and it is what he said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is here Etain is to-day, at the Mound of Fair Women. It is among
+little children is her life on the strand of Inver Cechmaine.</p>
+
+<p>"It is she healed the eye of the king from the well of Loch da Lig; it
+is she was swallowed in a heavy drink by the wife of Etar.</p>
+
+<p>"Many great battles will happen for your sake to Echaid of Midhe;
+destruction will fall upon the Sidhe, and war on thousands of men."</p>
+
+<p>And when he had said that, he vanished, and no one knew where he went.
+And they did not know the man that had come to them was Midhir of Bri
+Leith.</p>
+
+<p>And when Etain was grown to be a beautiful young woman, she was seen by
+Eochaid Feidlech, High King of Ireland, and this is the way that
+happened.</p>
+
+<p>He was going one time over the fair green of Bri Leith, and he saw at
+the side of a well a woman, with a bright comb of gold and silver, and
+she washing in a silver basin having four golden birds on it, and little
+bright purple stones set in the rim of the basin. A beautiful purple
+cloak she had, and silver fringes to it, and a gold brooch; and she had
+on her a dress of green silk with a long hood, embroidered in red gold,
+and wonderful clasps of gold and silver on her breasts and on her
+shoulder. The sunlight was falling on her, so that the gold and the
+green silk were shining out. Two plaits of hair she had, four locks in
+each plait, and a bead at the point of every lock, and the colour of her
+hair was like yellow flags in summer, or like red gold after it is
+rubbed.</p>
+
+<p>There she was, letting down her hair to wash it, and her arms out
+through the sleeve-holes of her shift. Her soft hands were as white as
+the snow of a single night, and her eyes as blue as any blue flower, and
+her lips as red as the berries of the rowan-tree, and her body as white
+as the foam of a wave. The bright light of the moon was in her face, the
+highness of pride in her eyebrows, a dimple of delight in each of her
+cheeks, the light of wooing in her eyes, and when she walked she had a
+step that was steady and even like the walk of a queen.</p>
+
+<p>And Eochaid sent his people to bring her to him, and he asked her name,
+and she told him her name was Etain, daughter of Etar, King of the
+Riders of the Sidhe. And Eochaid gave her his love, and he paid the
+bride-price, and brought her home to Teamhair as his wife, and there was
+a great welcome before her there.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while there was a great feast made at Teamhair, and all the
+chief men of Ireland came to it, and it lasted from the fortnight before
+Samhain to the fortnight after it. And King Eochaid's brother Ailell,
+that was afterwards called Ailell Anglonach, of the Only Fault, came to
+the feast. And when he saw his brother's wife Etain, he fell in love
+with her on the moment, and all through the length of the feast he was
+not content unless he could be looking at her. And a woman, the daughter
+of Luchta Lamdearg, of the Red Hand, took notice of it, and she said:
+"What far thing are you looking at, Ailell? It is what I think, that to
+be looking the way you are doing is a sign of love." Then Ailell checked
+himself, and did not look towards Etain any more.</p>
+
+<p>But when the feast was at an end, and the gathering broken up, great
+desire and envy came on Ailell, so that he fell sick, and they brought
+him to a house in Teffia. And he stopped there through the length of a
+year, and he was wasting away, but he told no one the cause of his
+sickness. And at the end of the year, Eochaid came to visit his brother,
+and he passed his hand over his breast, and Ailell let a groan. "What
+way are you?" said Eochaid then. "Are you getting any easier, for you
+must not let this illness come to a bad end." "By my word," said Ailell,
+"it is not easier I am, but worse and worse every day and every night."
+"What is it ails you?" said Eochaid. "And what is it that is coming
+against you." "By my word, I cannot tell you that," said Ailell. "I will
+bring one here that will know the cause of your sickness," said the
+king.</p>
+
+<p>With that he sent Fachtna, his own physician, to Ailell; and when he
+came he passed his hand over Ailell's heart, and at that he groaned
+again. "This sickness will not be your death," said Fachtna then; "and I
+know well what it comes from. It is either from the pains of jealousy,
+or from love you have given, and that you have not found a way out of."
+But there was shame on Ailell, and he would not confess to the physician
+that what he said was right. So Fachtna went away then and left him.</p>
+
+<p>As to King Eochaid, he went away to visit all the provinces of Ireland
+that were under his kingship, and he left Etain after him, and it is
+what he said: "Good Etain," he said, "take tender care of Ailell so long
+as he is living; and if he should die from us, make a sodded grave for
+him, and raise a pillar stone over it, and write his name on it in
+Ogham." And with that he went away on his journey.</p>
+
+<p>One day, now, Etain went into the house where Ailell was lying in his
+sickness, and they talked together, and then she made a little song for
+him, and it is what she said:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it ails you, young man, for it is a long time you are wasted
+with this sickness, and it is not the hardness of the weather has
+stopped your light footstep."</p>
+
+<p>And Ailell answered her in the same way, and he said: "I have good cause
+for my hurt; the music of my own harp does not please me; there is no
+sort of food is pleasant to me, and so I am wasted away." Then Etain
+said: "Tell me what is it ails you, for I am a woman that is wise. Tell
+me is there anything that would cure you, the way I may help you to it?"
+And Ailell answered her: "O kind, beautiful woman, it is not good to
+tell a secret to a woman, but sometimes it may be known through the
+eyes." And Etain said: "Though it is bad to tell a secret, yet it ought
+to be told now, or how can help be given to you?" And Ailell answered:
+"My blessing on you, fair-haired Etain. It is not fit I am to be spoken
+with; my wits have been no good help to me; my body is a rebel to me.
+All Ireland knows, O king's wife, there is sickness in my head and in my
+body." And Etain said: "If there is a woman of the fair-faced women of
+Ireland tormenting you this way, she must come to you here if it
+pleases you; and it is I myself will woo her for you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ailell said to her: "Woman, it would be easy for you yourself to
+put my sickness from me. And my desire," he said, "is a desire that is
+as long as a year; but it is love given to an echo, the spending of
+grief on a wave, a lonely fight with a shadow, that is what my love and
+my desire have been to me."</p>
+
+<p>And it is then Etain knew what was the sickness that was on him, and it
+was a heavy trouble to her.</p>
+
+<p>But she came to him every day to tend him, and to make ready his food,
+and to pour water over his hands, and all she could do she did for him,
+for it was a grief to her, he to wither away and to be lost for her
+sake. And at last one day she said to him: "Rise up, Ailell, son of a
+king, man of high deeds, and I will do your healing."</p>
+
+<p>Then he put his arms about her, and she kissed him, and she said: "Come
+at the morning of to-morrow at the break of day to the house outside the
+dun, and I will give you all your desire."</p>
+
+<p>That night Ailell lay without sleep until the morning was at hand. And
+at the very time he should have risen to go to her, it was at that time
+his sleep settled down upon him, and he slept on till the full light of
+day.</p>
+
+<p>But Etain went to the house outside the dun, and she was not long there
+when she saw a man coming towards her having the appearance of Ailell,
+sick and tired and worn. But when he came near and she looked closely at
+him, she saw it was not Ailell that was in it. Then he went away, and
+after she had waited a while, she herself went back into the dun.</p>
+
+<p>And it was then Ailell awoke, and when he knew the morning had passed
+by, he would sooner have had death than life, and he fretted greatly.
+And Etain came in then, and he told her what had happened him. And she
+said: "Come to-morrow to the same place."</p>
+
+<p>But the same thing happened the next day. And when it happened on the
+third day, and the same man came to meet Etain, she said to him: "It is
+not you at all I come to meet here, and why is it that you come to meet
+me? And as to him I came to meet," she said, "indeed it is not for gain
+or through lightness I bade him come to me, but to heal him of the
+sickness he is lying under for my sake." Then the man said: "It would be
+more fitting for you to come to meet me than any other one. For in the
+time long ago," he said, "I was your first husband, and your first man."
+"What is it you are saying," she said, "and who are you yourself?" "It
+is easy to tell that," he said; "I am Midhir of Bri Leith." "And what
+parted us if I was your wife?" said Etain. "It was through Fuamach's
+sharp jealousy and through the spells of Bresal Etarlaim, the Druid, we
+were parted. And will you come away with me now?" he said. But Etain
+said: "It is not for a man whose kindred is unknown I will give up the
+High King of Ireland." And Midhir said: "Surely it was I myself put that
+great desire for you on Ailell, and it was I hindered him from going to
+meet you, the way you might keep your good name."</p>
+
+<p>And when she went back to Ailell's house, she found his sickness was
+gone from him, and his desire. And she told him all that had happened,
+and he said: "It has turned out well for us both: I am well of my
+sickness and your good name is not lessened." "We give thanks to our
+gods for that," said Etain, "for we are well pleased to have it so."</p>
+
+<p>And just at that time Eochaid came back from his journey, and they told
+him the whole story, and he was thankful to his wife for the kindness
+she had showed to Ailell.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good while after that, there was a great fair held at Teamhair,
+and Etain was out on the green looking at the games and the races. And
+she saw a rider coming towards her, but no one could see him but
+herself; and when he came near she saw he had the same appearance as
+the man that came and spoke with her and her young girls the time they
+were out in the sea at Inver Cechmaine. And when he came up to her he
+began to sing words to her that no one could hear but herself. And it is
+what he said:</p>
+
+<p>"O beautiful woman, will you come with me to the wonderful country that
+is mine? It is pleasant to be looking at the people there, beautiful
+people without any blemish; their hair is of the colour of the
+flag-flower, their fair body is as white as snow, the colour of the
+foxglove is on every cheek. The young never grow old there; the fields
+and the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's
+eggs; warm, sweet streams of mead and of wine flow through that country;
+there is no care and no sorrow on any person; we see others, but we
+ourselves are not seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Though the plains of Ireland are beautiful, it is little you would
+think of them after our great plain; though the ale of Ireland is heady,
+the ale of the great country is still more heady. O beautiful woman, if
+you come to my proud people it is the flesh of pigs newly killed I will
+give you for food; it is ale and new milk I will give you for drink; it
+is feasting you will have with me there; it is a crown of gold you will
+have upon your hair, O beautiful woman!</p>
+
+<p>"And will you come there with me, Etain?" he said. But Etain said she
+would not leave Eochaid the High King. "Will you come if Eochaid gives
+you leave?" Midhir said then. "I will do that," said Etain.</p>
+
+<p>One day, after that time, Eochaid the High King was looking out from his
+palace at Teamhair, and he saw a strange man coming across the plain.
+Yellow hair he had, and eyes blue and shining like the flame of a
+candle, and a purple dress on him, and in his hand a five-pronged spear
+and a shield having gold knobs on it.</p>
+
+<p>He came up to the king, and the king bade him welcome. "Who are you
+yourself?" he said; "and what are you come for, for you are a stranger
+to me?" "If I am a stranger to you, you are no stranger to me, for I
+have known you this long time," said the strange man. "What is your
+name?" said the king. "It is nothing very great," said he; "I am called
+Midhir of Bri Leith." "What is it brings you here?" said Eochaid. "I am
+come to play a game of chess with you," said the stranger. "Are you a
+good player?" said the king. "A trial will tell you that," said Midhir.
+"The chessboard is in the queen's house, and she is in her sleep at this
+time," said Eochaid. "That is no matter," said Midhir, "for I have with
+me a chess-board as good as your own." And with that he brought out his
+chessboard, and it made of silver, and precious stones shining in every
+corner of it. And then he brought out the chessmen, and they made of
+gold, from a bag that was of shining gold threads.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us play now," said Midhir. "I will not play without a stake," said
+the king. "What stake shall We play for?" said Midhir. "We can settle
+that after the game is over," said the king.</p>
+
+<p>They played together then, and Midhir was beaten, and it is what the
+king asked of him, fifty brown horses to be given to him. And then they
+played the second time, and Midhir was beaten again, and this time the
+king gave him four hard things to do: to make a road over Moin Lamraide,
+and to clear Midhe of stones, and to cover the district of Tethra with
+rushes, and the district of Darbrech with trees.</p>
+
+<p>So Midhir brought his people from Bri Leith to do those things, and it
+is bard work they had doing them. And Eochaid used to be out watching
+them, and he took notice that when the men of the Sidhe yoked their
+oxen, it was by the neck and the shoulder they used to yoke them, and
+not by the forehead and the head. And it was after Eochaid taught his
+people to yoke them that way, he was given the name of Eochaid Airem,
+that is, of the Plough.</p>
+
+<p>And when all was done, Midhir came to Eochaid again, looking thin and
+wasted enough with the dint of the hard work he had been doing, and he
+asked Eochaid to play the third game with him. Eochaid agreed, and it
+was settled as before, the stake to be settled by the winner. It was
+Midhir won the game that time, and when the king asked him what he
+wanted, "It is Etain, your wife, I want," said he. "I will not give her
+to you," said the king. "All I will ask then," said Midhir, "is to put
+my arms about her and to kiss her once." "You may do that," said the
+king, "if you will wait to the end of a month." So Midhir agreed to
+that, and went away for that time.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the month he came back again, and stood in the great hall
+at Teamhair, and no one had ever seen him look so comely as he did that
+night. And Eochaid had all his best fighting men gathered in the hall,
+and he shut all the doors of the palace when he saw Midhir come in, for
+fear he would try to bring away Etain by force.</p>
+
+<p>"I am come to be paid what is due to me," said Midhir. "I have not been
+thinking of it up to this time," said Eochaid, and there was anger on
+him. "You promised me Etain, your wife," said Midhir. The redness of
+shame came on Etain when she heard that, but Midhir said: "Let there be
+no shame on you, Etain, for it is through the length of a year I have
+been asking your love, and I have offered you every sort of treasure and
+riches, and you refused to come to me till such a time as your husband
+would give you leave." "It is true I said that," said Etain, "I will go
+if Eochaid gives me up to you." "I will not give you up," said Eochaid;
+"I will let him do no more than put his arms about you in this place, as
+was promised him." "I will do that," said Midhir.</p>
+
+<p>With that he took his sword in his left hand, and he took Etain in his
+right arm and kissed her. All the armed men in the house made a rush at
+him then, but he rose up through the roof bringing Etain with him, and
+when they rushed out of the house to follow him, all they could see was
+two swans high up in the air, linked together by a chain of gold.</p>
+
+<p>There was great anger on Eochaid then, and he went and searched all
+through Ireland, but there were no tidings of them to be had, for they
+were in the houses of the Sidhe.</p>
+
+<p>It was to the Brugh of Angus on the Boinn they went first, and after
+they had stopped there a while they went to a hill of the Sidhe in
+Connacht. And there was a serving-maid with Etain at that time, Cruachan
+Croderg her name was, and she said to Midhir: "Is this your own place we
+are in?" "It is not," said Midhir; "my own place is nearer to the rising
+of the sun." She was not well pleased to stop there when she heard that,
+and Midhir said to quiet her: "It is your own name will be put on this
+place from this out." And the hill was called the Hill of Cruachan from
+that time.</p>
+
+<p>Then they went to Bri Leith; and Etain's daughter Esa came to them
+there, and she brought a hundred of every sort of cattle with her, and
+Midhir fostered her for seven years. And all through that time Eochaid
+the High King was making a search for them.</p>
+
+<p>But at last Codal of the Withered Breast took four rods of yew and wrote
+Oghams on them, and through them and through his enchantments he found
+out that Etain was with Midhir in Bri Leith.</p>
+
+<p>So Eochaid went there, and made an attack on the place, and he was for
+nine years besieging it, and Midhir was driving him away. And then his
+people began digging through the hill; and when they were getting near
+to where Etain was, Midhir sent three times twenty beautiful women,
+having all of them the appearance of Etain, and he bade the king choose
+her out from among them. And the first he chose was his own daughter
+Esa. But then Etain called to him, and he knew her, and he brought her
+home to Teamhair.</p>
+
+<p>And Eochaid gave his daughter Esa her choice of a place for herself. And
+she chose it, and made a rath there, that got the name of Rath Esa. And
+from it she could see three notable places, the Hill of the Sidhe in
+Broga, and the Hill of the Hostages in Teamhair, and Dun Crimthain on
+Beinn Edair.</p>
+
+<p>But there was great anger on Midhir and his people because of their hill
+being attacked and dug into. And it was in revenge for that insult they
+brought Conaire, High King of Ireland, that was grandson of Eochaid and
+of Etain, to his death afterwards at Da Derga's Inn.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L19" id="L19" />CHAPTER VIII. MANANNAN</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now as to Manannan the Proud, son of Lir, after he had made places for
+the rest of the Tuatha de Danaan to live in, he went away out of Ireland
+himself. And some said he was dead, and that he got his death by Uillenn
+Faebarderg, of the Red Edge, in battle. And it is what they said, that
+the battle was fought at Magh Cuilenn, and that Manannan was buried
+standing on his feet, and no sooner was he buried than a great lake
+burst up under his feet in the place that was a red bog till that time.
+And the lake got the name of Loch Orbson, from one of the names of
+Manannan. And it was said that red Badb was glad and many women were
+sorry at that battle.</p>
+
+<p>But he had many places of living, and he was often heard of in Ireland
+after. It was he sent a messenger to Etain, mother of Conaire the High
+King, the time she was hidden in the cowherd's house. And it was he
+brought up Deirdre's children in Emhain of the Apple Trees, and it was
+said of that place, "a house of peace is the hill of the Sidhe of
+Emhain." And it was he taught Diarmuid of the Fianna the use of weapons,
+and it was he taught Cuchulain the use of the Gae Bulg, and some say it
+was he was Deirdre's father, and that he brought Conchubar, king of
+Ulster, to the place she was hidden, and he running with the appearance
+of a hare before the hounds of the men of Ulster to bring them there.</p>
+
+<p>And it is what they say, that the time Conchubar had brought the sons of
+Usnach to Emain Macha, and could not come at them to kill them because
+of their bravery, it was to Manannan he went for help. And Manannan said
+he would give him no help, for he had told him at the time he brought
+Deirdre away that she would be the cause of the breaking up of his
+kingdom, and he took her away in spite of him. But Conchubar asked him
+to put blindness for a while on the sons of Usnach, or the whole army
+would be destroyed with their blows. So after a while he consented to
+that. And when the sons of Usnach came out again against the army of
+Ulster, the blindness came on them, and it was at one another they
+struck, not seeing who was near them, and it was by one another's hands
+they fell. But more say Manannan had no hand in it, and that it was
+Cathbad, the Druid, put a sea about them and brought them to their death
+by his enchantments.</p>
+
+<p>And some say Culain, the Smith, that gave his name to Cuchulain
+afterwards, was Manannan himself, for he had many shapes.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, before Culain came to Ulster, he was living in the Island of
+Falga, that was one of Manannan's places. And one time before Conchubar
+came into the kingdom, he went to ask advice of a Druid, and the Druid
+bade him to go to the Island of Falga and to ask Culain, the smith he
+would find there, to make arms for him. So Conchubar did so, and the
+smith promised to make a sword and spear and shield for him.</p>
+
+<p>And while he was working at them Conchubar went out one morning early to
+walk on the strand, and there he saw a sea-woman asleep on the shore.
+And he put bonds on her in her sleep, the way she would not make her
+escape. But when she awoke and saw what had happened, she asked him to
+set her free. "And I am Tiabhal," she said, "one of the queens of the
+sea. And bid Culain," she said, "that is making your shield for you, to
+put my likeness on it and my name about it. And whenever you will go
+into a battle with that shield the strength of your enemies will lessen,
+and your own strength and the strength of your people will increase."</p>
+
+<p>So Conchubar let her go, and bade the smith do as she had told him. And
+when he went back to Ireland he got the victory wherever he brought that
+shield.</p>
+
+<p>And he sent for Culain then, and offered him a place on the plains of
+Muirthemne. And whether he was or was not Manannan, it is likely he gave
+Cuchulain good teaching the time he stopped with him there after killing
+his great dog.</p>
+
+<p>Manannan had good hounds one time, but they went hunting after a pig
+that was destroying the whole country, and making a desert of it. And
+they followed it till they came to a lake, and there it turned on them,
+and no hound of them escaped alive, but they were all drowned or maimed.
+And the pig made for an island then, that got the name of Muc-inis, the
+Pigs Island afterwards; and the lake got the name of Loch Conn, the
+Lake of the Hounds.</p>
+
+<p>And it was through Manannan the wave of Tuaig, one of the three great
+waves of Ireland, got its name, and this is the way that happened.</p>
+
+<p>There was a young girl of the name of Tuag, a fosterling of Conaire the
+High King, was reared in Teamhair, and a great company of the daughters
+of the kings of Ireland were put about her to protect her, the way she
+would be kept for a king's asking. But Manannan sent Fer Ferdiad, of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, that was a pupil of his own and a Druid, in the shape
+of a woman of his own household, and he went where Tuag was, and sang a
+sleep-spell over her, and brought her away to Inver Glas. And there he
+laid her down while he went looking for a boat, that he might bring her
+away in her sleep to the Land of the Ever-Living Women. But a wave of
+the flood-tide came over the girl, and she was drowned, and Manannan
+killed Fer Ferdiad in his anger.</p>
+
+<p>And one time Manannan's cows came up out of the sea at Baile Cronin,
+three of them, a red, and a white, and a black, and the people that were
+there saw them standing on the strand for a while, as if thinking, and
+then they all walked up together, side by side, from the strand. And at
+that time there were no roads in Ireland, and there was great wonder on
+the people when they saw a good wide road ready before the three cows to
+walk on. And when they got about a mile from the sea they parted; the
+white cow went to the north-west, towards Luimnech, and the red cow went
+to the south-west, and on round the coast of Ireland, and the black cow
+went to the north-east, towards Lis Mor, in the district of Portlairge,
+and a road opened before each of them, that is to be seen to this day.</p>
+
+<p>And some say it was Manannan went to Finn and the Fianna in the form of
+the Gilla Decair, the Bad Servant, and brought them away to
+Land-under-Wave. Anyway, he used often to go hunting with them on Cnoc
+Aine, and sometimes he came to their help.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L20" id="L20" />CHAPTER IX. MANANNAN AT PLAY</h2>
+
+
+<p>And it was he went playing tricks through Ireland a long time after that
+again, the time he got the name of O'Donnell's Kern. And it is the way
+it happened, Aodh Dubh O'Donnell was holding a feast one time in
+Bel-atha Senaig, and his people were boasting of the goodness of his
+house and of his musicians.</p>
+
+<p>And while they were talking, they saw a clown coming towards them, old
+striped clothes he had, and puddle water splashing in his shoes, and his
+sword sticking out naked behind him, and his ears through the old cloak
+that was over his head, and in his hand he had three spears of hollywood
+scorched and blackened.</p>
+
+<p>He wished O'Donnell good health, and O'Donnell did the same to him, and
+asked where did he come from. "It is where I am," he said, "I slept last
+night at Dun Monaidhe, of the King of Alban; I am a day in Ile, a day in
+Cionn-tire, a day in Rachlainn, a day in the Watchman's Seat in Slieve
+Fuad; a pleasant, rambling, wandering man I am, and it is with yourself
+I am now, O'Donnell," he said. "Let the gate-keeper be brought to me,"
+said O'Donnell. And when the gate-keeper came, he asked was it he let in
+this man, and the gate-keeper said he did not, and that he never saw him
+before. "Let him off, O'Donnell," said the stranger, "for it was as easy
+for me to come in, as it will be to me to go out again." There was
+wonder on them all then, any man to have come into the house without
+passing the gate.</p>
+
+<p>The musicians began playing their music then, and all the best musicians
+of the country were there at the time, and they played very sweet tunes
+on their harps. But the strange man called out: "By my word, O'Donnell,
+there was never a noise of hammers beating on iron in any bad place was
+so bad to listen to as this noise your people are making."</p>
+
+<p>With that he took a harp, and he made music that would put women in
+their pains and wounded men after a battle into a sweet sleep, and it is
+what O'Donnell said: "Since I first heard talk of the music of the Sidhe
+that is played in the hills and under the earth below us, I never heard
+better music than your own. And it is a very sweet player you are," he
+said. "One day I am sweet, another day I am sour," said the clown.</p>
+
+<p>Then O'Donnell bade his people to bring him up to sit near himself. "I
+have no mind to do that," he said; "I would sooner be as I am, an ugly
+clown, making sport for high-up people." Then O'Donnell sent him down
+clothes, a hat and a striped shirt and a coat, but he would not have
+them. "I have no mind," he said, "to let high-up people be making a
+boast of giving them to me."</p>
+
+<p>They were afraid then he might go from them, and they put twenty armed
+horsemen and twenty men on foot to hold him back from leaving the house,
+and as many more outside at the gate, for they knew him not to be a man
+of this world. "What are these men for?" said he. "They are to keep you
+here," said O'Donnell. "By my word, it is not with you I will be eating
+my supper to-morrow," he said, "but at Cnoc Aine, where Seaghan, Son of
+the Earl is, in Desmumain." "If I find you giving one stir out of
+yourself, between this and morning, I will knock you into a round lump
+there on the ground," said O'Donnell.</p>
+
+<p>But at that the stranger took up the harp again, and he made the same
+sweet music as before. And when they were all listening to him, he
+called out to the men outside: "Here I am coming, and watch me well now
+or you will lose me." When the men that were watching the gate heard
+that, they lifted up their axes to strike at him, but in their haste it
+was at one another they struck, till they were all lying stretched in
+blood. Then the clown said to the gate-keeper: "Let you ask twenty cows
+and a hundred of free land of O'Donnell as a fee for bringing his people
+back to life. And take this herb," he said, "and rub it in the mouth of
+each man of them, and he will rise up whole and well again." So the
+gate-keeper did that, and he got the cows and the land from O'Donnell,
+and he brought all the people to life again.</p>
+
+<p>Now at that time Seaghan, Son of the Earl, was holding a gathering on
+the green in front of his dun, and he saw the same man coming towards
+him, and dressed in the same way, and the water splashing in his shoes.
+But when he asked who was he, he gave himself the name of a very learned
+man, Duartane O'Duartane, and he said it was by Ess Ruadh he was come,
+and by Ceiscorainn and from that to Corrslieve, and to Magh Lorg of the
+Dagda, and into the district of Hy'Conaill Gabhra, "till I came to
+yourself," he said, "by Cruachan of Magh Ai." So they brought him into
+the house, and gave him wine for drinking and water for washing his
+feet, and he slept till the rising of the sun on the morrow. And at that
+time Seaghan, Son of the Earl, came to visit him, and he said: "It is a
+long sleep you had, and there is no wonder in that, and your journey so
+long yesterday. But I often heard of your learning in books and of your
+skill on the harp, and I would like to hear you this morning," he said.
+"I am good in those arts indeed," said the stranger. So they brought him
+a book, but he could not read a word of it, and then they brought him a
+harp, and he could not play any tune. "It is likely your reading and
+your music are gone from you," said Seaghan; and he made a little rann
+on him, saying it was a strange thing Duartane O'Duartane that had such
+a great name not to be able to read a line of a book, or even to
+remember one. But when the stranger heard how he was being mocked at, he
+took up the book, and read from the top to the bottom of the page very
+well and in a sweet-sounding voice. And after that he took the harp and
+played and sang the same way he did at O'Donnell's house the day before.
+"It is a very sweet man of learning you are," said Seaghan. "One day I
+am sweet, another day I am sour," said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>They walked out together then on Cnoc Aine, but while they were talking
+there, the stranger was gone all of a minute, and Seaghan, Son of the
+Earl, could not see where he went.</p>
+
+<p>And after that he went on, and he reached Sligach just at the time
+O'Conchubar was setting out with the men of Connacht to avenge the
+Connacht hag's basket on the hag of Munster. And this time he gave
+himself the name of the Gilla Decair, the Bad Servant. And he joined
+with the men of Connacht, and they went over the Sionnan westward into
+Munster, and there they hunted and drove every creature that could be
+made travel, cattle and horses and flocks, into one place, till they got
+the hornless bull of the Munster hag and her two speckled cows, and
+O'Conchubar brought them away to give to the Connacht hag in
+satisfaction for her basket.</p>
+
+<p>But the men of Munster made an attack on them as they were going back;
+and the Gilla Decair asked O'Conchubar would he sooner have the cows
+driven, or have the Munster men checked, and he said he would sooner
+have the Munster men checked. So the Gilla Decair turned on them, and
+with his bow and twenty-four arrows he kept them back till O'Conchubar
+and his people were safe out of their reach in Connacht.</p>
+
+<p>But he took some offence then, on account of O'Conchubar taking the
+first drink himself when they came to his house, and not giving it to
+him, that had done so much, and he took his leave and went from them on
+the moment.</p>
+
+<p>After that he went to where Tadg O'Cealaigh was, and having his old
+striped clothes and his old shoes as before. And when they asked him
+what art he had, he said: "I am good at tricks. And if you will give me
+five marks I will show you a trick," he said. "I will give that," said
+Tadg.</p>
+
+<p>With that the stranger put three rushes on the palm of his hand. "I will
+blow away the middle rush now," he said, "and the other two will stop as
+they are." So they told him to do that, and he put the tops of two of
+his fingers on the two outside rushes, and blew the middle one away.
+"There is a trick now for you, Tadg O'Cealaigh," he said then. "By my
+word, that is not a bad trick," said O'Cealaigh. But one of his men
+said: "That there may be no good luck with him that did it. And give me
+the half of that money now, Tadg," he said, "and I will do the same
+trick for you myself." "I will give you the half of what I got if you
+will do it," said the stranger. So the other put the rushes on his hand,
+but if he did, when he tried to do the trick, his two finger-tips went
+through the palm of his hand. "Ob-Ob-Ob!" said the stranger, "that is
+not the way I did the trick. But as you have lost the money," he said,
+"I will heal you again."</p>
+
+<p>"I could do another trick for you," he said; "I could wag the ear on
+one side of my head and the ear on the other side would stay still." "Do
+it then," said O'Cealaigh. So the man of tricks took hold of one of his
+ears and wagged it up and down. "That is a good trick indeed," said
+O'Cealaigh. "I will show you another one now," he said.</p>
+
+<p>With that he took from his bag a thread of silk, and gave a cast of it
+up into the air, that it was made fast to a cloud. And then he took a
+hare out of the same bag, and it ran up the thread; and then took out a
+little dog and laid it on after the hare, and it followed yelping on its
+track; and after that again he brought out a little serving-boy and bade
+him to follow dog and hare up the thread. Then out of another bag he had
+with him he brought out a beautiful, well-dressed young woman, and bade
+her to follow after the hound and the boy, and to take care and not let
+the hare be torn by the dog. She went up then quickly after them, and it
+was a delight to Tadg O'Cealaigh to be looking at them and to be
+listening to the sound of the hunt going on in the air.</p>
+
+<p>All was quiet then for a long time, and then the man of tricks said: "I
+am afraid there is some bad work going on up there." "What is that?"
+said O'Cealaigh. "I am thinking," said he, "the hound might be eating
+the hare, and the serving-boy courting the girl." "It is likely enough
+they are," said O'Cealaigh. With that the stranger drew in the thread,
+and it is what he found, the boy making love to the girl and the hound
+chewing the bones of the hare. There was great anger on the man of
+tricks when he saw that, and he took his sword and struck the head off
+the boy. "I do not like a thing of that sort to be done in my presence,"
+said Tadg O'Cealaigh. "If it did not please you, I can set all right
+again," said the stranger. And with that he took up the head and made a
+cast of it at the body, and it joined to it, and the young man stood
+up, but if he did his face was turned backwards. "It would be better for
+him to be dead than to be living like that," said O'Cealaigh. When the
+man of tricks heard that, he took hold of the boy and twisted his head
+straight, and he was as well as before.</p>
+
+<p>And with that the man of tricks vanished, and no one saw where was he
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>That is the way Manannan used to be going round Ireland, doing tricks
+and wonders. And no one could keep him in any place, and if he was put
+on a gallows itself, he would be found safe in the house after, and some
+other man on the gallows in his place. But he did no harm, and those
+that would be put to death by him, he would bring them to life again
+with a herb out of his bag.</p>
+
+<p>And all the food he would use would be a vessel of sour milk and a few
+crab-apples. And there never was any music sweeter than the music he
+used to be playing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L21" id="L21" />CHAPTER X. HIS CALL TO BRAN</h2>
+
+
+<p>And there were some that went to Manannan's country beyond the sea, and
+that gave an account of it afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>One time Bran, son of Febal, was out by himself near his dun, and he
+heard music behind him. And it kept always after him, and at last he
+fell asleep with the sweetness of the sound. And when he awoke from his
+sleep he saw beside him a branch of silver, and it having white
+blossoms, and the whiteness of the silver was the same as the whiteness
+of the blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>And he brought the branch in his hand into the royal house, and when all
+his people were with him they saw a woman with strange clothing standing
+in the house.</p>
+
+<p>And she began to make a song for Bran, and all the people were looking
+at her and listening to her, and it is what she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I bring a branch of the apple-tree from Emhain, from the far island
+around which are the shining horses of the Son of Lir. A delight of the
+eyes is the plain where the hosts hold their games; curragh racing
+against chariot in the White Silver Plain to the south.</p>
+
+<p>"There are feet of white bronze under it, shining through life and time;
+a comely level land through the length of the world's age, and many
+blossoms falling on it.</p>
+
+<p>"There is an old tree there with blossoms, and birds calling from among
+them; every colour is shining there, delight is common, and music, in
+the Gentle-Voiced Plain, in the Silver Cloud Plain to the south.</p>
+
+<p>"Keening is not used, or treachery, in the tilled familiar land; there
+is nothing hard or rough, but sweet music striking on the ear.</p>
+
+<p>"To be without grief, without sorrow, without death, without any
+sickness, without weakness; that is the sign of Emhain; it is not common
+wonder that is.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to liken its mists to, the sea washes the wave against
+the land; brightness falls from its hair.</p>
+
+<p>"There are riches, there are treasures of every colour in the Gentle
+Land, the Bountiful Land. Sweet music to be listening to; the best of
+wine to drink.</p>
+
+<p>"Golden chariots in the Plain of the Sea, rising up to the sun with the
+tide; silver chariots and bronze chariots on the Plain of Sports.</p>
+
+<p>"Gold-yellow horses on the strand, and crimson horses, and others with
+wool on their backs, blue like the colour of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a day of lasting weather, silver is dropping on the land; a pure
+white cliff on the edge of the sea, getting its warmth from the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"The host race over the Plain of Sports; it is beautiful and not weak
+their game is; death or the ebbing of the tide will not come to them in
+the Many-Coloured Land.</p>
+
+<p>"There will come at sunrise a fair man, lighting up the level lands; he
+rides upon the plain that is beaten by the waves, he stirs the sea till
+it is like blood.</p>
+
+<p>"An army will come over the clear sea, rowing to the stone that is in
+sight, that a hundred sounds of music come from.</p>
+
+<p>"It sings a song to the army; it is not sad through the length of time;
+it increases music with hundreds singing together; they do not look for
+death or the ebb-tide.</p>
+
+<p>"There are three times fifty far islands in the ocean to the west of us,
+and every one of them twice or three times more than Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not to all of you I am speaking, though I have made all these
+wonders known. Let Bran listen from the crowd of the world to all the
+wisdom that has been told him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not fall upon a bed of sloth; do not be overcome by drunkenness; set
+out on your voyage over the clear sea, and you may chance to come to the
+Land of Women."</p>
+
+<p>With that the woman went from them, and they did not know where she
+went. And she brought away her branch with her, for it leaped into her
+hand from Bran's hand, and he had not the strength to hold it.</p>
+
+<p>Then on the morrow Bran set out upon the sea, and three companies of
+nine along with him; and one of his foster-brothers and comrades was set
+over each company of nine.</p>
+
+<p>And when they had been rowing for two days and two nights, they saw a
+man coming towards them in a chariot, over the sea. And the man made
+himself known to them, and he said that he was Manannan, son of Lir.</p>
+
+<p>And then Manannan spoke to him in a song, and it is what he said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is what Bran thinks, he is going in his curragh over the wonderful,
+beautiful clear sea; but to me, from far off in my chariot, it is a
+flowery plain he is riding on.</p>
+
+<p>"What is a clear sea to the good boat Bran is in, is a happy plain with
+many flowers to me in my two-wheeled chariot.</p>
+
+<p>"It is what Bran sees, many waves beating across the clear sea; it is
+what I myself see, red flowers without any fault.</p>
+
+<p>"The sea-horses are bright in summer-time, as far as Bran's eyes can
+reach; there is a wood of beautiful acorns under the head of your little
+boat.</p>
+
+<p>"A wood with blossom and with fruit, that has the smell of wine; a wood
+without fault, without withering, with leaves of the colour of gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Let Bran row on steadily, it is not far to the Land of Women; before
+the setting of the sun you will reach Emhain, of many-coloured
+hospitality."</p>
+
+<p>With that Bran went from him; and after a while he saw an island, and he
+rowed around it, and there was a crowd on it, wondering at them, and
+laughing; and they were all looking at Bran and at his people, but they
+would not stop to talk with them, but went on giving out gusts of
+laughter. Bran put one of his men on the island then, but he joined with
+the others, and began to stare the same way as the men of the island.
+And Bran went on rowing round about the island; and whenever they went
+past his own man, his comrades would speak to him, but he would not
+answer them, but would only stare and wonder at them. So they went away
+and left him on that island that is called the Island of Joy.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after that they reached to the Land of Women. And they
+saw the chief one of the women at the landing-place, and it is what she
+said: "Come hither to land, Bran, son of Febal, it is welcome your
+coming is." But Bran did not dare to go on shore. Then the woman threw a
+ball of thread straight to him, and he caught it in his hand, and it
+held fast to his palm, and the woman kept the thread in her own hand,
+and she pulled the curragh to the landing-place.</p>
+
+<p>On that they went into a grand house, where there was a bed for every
+couple, three times nine beds. And the food that was put on every dish
+never came to an end, and they had every sort of food and of drink they
+wished for.</p>
+
+<p>And it seemed to them they were only a year there when the desire of
+home took hold on one of them, Nechtan, son of Collbrain, and his
+kinsmen were begging and praying Bran to go back with him to Ireland.
+The woman said there would be repentance on them if they went; but in
+spite of that they set out in the end. And the woman said to them not to
+touch the land when they would come to Ireland, and she bade them to
+visit and to bring with them the man they left in the Island of Joy.</p>
+
+<p>So they went on towards Ireland till they came to a place called Srub
+Bruin. And there were people on the strand that asked them who they were
+that were coming over the sea. And Bran said: "I am Bran, son of Febal."
+But the people said: "We know of no such man, though the voyage of Bran
+is in our very old stories."</p>
+
+<p>Then Nechtan, son of Collbrain, made a leap out of the curragh, and no
+sooner did he touch the shore of Ireland than he was a heap of ashes,
+the same as if he had been in the earth through hundreds of years.</p>
+
+<p>And then Bran told the whole story of his wanderings to the people,
+from the beginning. And after that he bade them farewell, and his
+wanderings from that time are not known.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L22" id="L22" />CHAPTER XI. HIS THREE CALLS TO CORMAC</h2>
+
+
+<p>And another that went to Manannan's country was Cormac, grandson of
+Conn, King of Teamhair, and this is the way it happened. He was by
+himself in Teamhair one time, and he saw an armed man coming towards
+him, quiet, with high looks, and having grey hair; a shirt ribbed with
+gold thread next his skin, broad shoes of white bronze between his feet
+and the ground, a shining branch, having nine apples of red gold, on his
+shoulder. And it is delightful the sound of that branch was, and no one
+on earth would keep in mind any want, or trouble, or tiredness, when
+that branch was shaken for him; and whatever trouble there might be on
+him, he would forget it at the sound.</p>
+
+<p>Then Cormac and the armed man saluted one another, and Cormac asked
+where did he come from. "I come," he said, "from a country where there
+is nothing but truth, and where there is neither age nor withering away,
+nor heaviness, nor sadness, nor jealousy nor envy, nor pride." "That is
+not so with us," said Cormac, "and I would be well pleased to have your
+friendship," he said. "I am well pleased to give it," said the stranger.
+"Give me your branch along with it," said Cormac. "I will give it," said
+the stranger, "if you will give me the three gifts I ask in return." "I
+will give them to you indeed," said Cormac.</p>
+
+<p>Then the strange man left the branch and went away, and Cormac did not
+know where was he gone to.</p>
+
+<p>He went back then into the royal house, and there was wonder on all the
+people when they saw the branch. And he shook it at them, and it put
+them all asleep from that day to the same time on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a year the strange man came back again, and he asked for
+the first of his three requests. "You will get it," said Cormac. "I will
+take your daughter, Aille, to-day," said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>So he brought away the girl with him, and the women of Ireland gave
+three loud cries after the king's daughter. But Cormac shook the branch
+at them, until it put away sorrow from them, and put them all into their
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>That day month the stranger came again, and he brought Cormac's son,
+Carpre Lifecar, away with him. There was crying and lamenting without
+end in Teamhair after the boy, and on that night no one ate or slept,
+and they were all under grief and very downhearted. But when Cormac
+shook the branch their sorrow went from them.</p>
+
+<p>Then the stranger came the third time, and Cormac asked him what did he
+want. "It is your wife, Ethne, I am asking this time," he said. And he
+went away then, bringing Ethne, the queen, along with him.</p>
+
+<p>But Cormac would not bear that, and he went after them, and all his
+people were following him. But in the middle of the Plain of the Wall, a
+thick mist came on them, and when it was gone, Cormac found himself
+alone on a great plain. And he saw a great dun in the middle of the
+plain, with a wall of bronze around it, and in the dun a house of white
+silver, and it half thatched with the white wings of birds. And there
+was a great troop of the Riders of the Sidhe all about the house, and
+their arms full of white birds' wings for thatching. But as soon as they
+would put on the thatch, a blast of wind would come and carry it away
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw a man kindling a fire, and he used to throw a thick
+oak-tree upon it. And when he would come back with a second tree, the
+first one would be burned out. "I will be looking at you no longer,"
+Cormac said then, "for there is no one here to tell me your story, and I
+think I could find good sense in your meanings if I understood them," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Then he went on to where there was another dun, very large and royal,
+and another wall of bronze around it, and four houses within it. And he
+went in and saw a great king's house, having beams of bronze and walls
+of silver, and its thatch of the wings of white birds. And then he saw
+on the green a shining well, and five streams flowing from it, and the
+armies drinking water in turn, and the nine lasting purple hazels of
+Buan growing over it. And they were dropping their nuts into the water,
+and the five salmon would catch them and send their husks floating down
+the streams. And the sound of the flowing of those streams is sweeter
+than any music that men sing.</p>
+
+<p>Then he went into the palace, and he found there waiting for him a man
+and a woman, very tall, and having clothes of many colours. The man was
+beautiful as to shape, and his face wonderful to look at; and as to the
+young woman that was with him, she was the loveliest of all the women of
+the world, and she having yellow hair and a golden helmet. And there was
+a bath there, and heated stones going in and out of the water of
+themselves, and Cormac bathed himself in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Rise up, man of the house," the woman said after that, "for this is a
+comely traveller is come to us; and if you have one kind of food or meat
+better than another, let it be brought in." The man rose up then and he
+said: "I have but seven pigs, but I could feed the whole world with
+them, for the pig that is killed and eaten to-day, you will find it
+alive again to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Another man came into the house then, having an axe in his right hand,
+and a log in his left hand, and a pig behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is time to make ready," said the man of the house, "for we have a
+high guest with us to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Then the man struck the pig and killed it, and he cut the logs and made
+a fire and put the pig on it in a cauldron. "It is time for you to turn
+it," said the master of the house after a while. "There would be no use
+doing that," said the man, "for never and never will the pig be boiled
+until a truth is told for every quarter of it." "Then let you tell yours
+first," said the master of the house. "One day," said the man, "I found
+another man's cows in my land, and I brought them with me into a cattle
+pound. The owner of the cows followed me, and he said he would give me a
+reward to let the cows go free. So I gave them back to him, and he gave
+me an axe, and when a pig is to be killed, it is with the axe it is
+killed, and the log is cut with it, and there is enough wood to boil the
+pig, and enough for the palace besides. And that is not all, for the log
+is found whole again in the morning. And from that time till now, that
+is the way they are."</p>
+
+<p>"It is true indeed that story is," said the man of the house.</p>
+
+<p>They turned the pig in the cauldron then, and but one quarter of it was
+found to be cooked. "Let us tell another true story," they said. "I will
+tell one," said the master of the house. "Ploughing time had come, and
+when we had a mind to plough that field outside, it is the way we found
+it, ploughed, and harrowed, and sowed with wheat. When we had a mind to
+reap it, the wheat was found in the haggard, all in one thatched rick.
+We have been using it from that day to this, and it is no bigger and no
+less."</p>
+
+<p>Then they turned the pig, and another quarter was found to be ready. "It
+is my turn now," said the woman. "I have seven cows," she said, "and
+seven sheep. And the milk of the seven cows would satisfy the whole of
+the men of the world, if they were in the plain drinking it, and it is
+enough for all the people of the Land of Promise, and it is from the
+wool of the seven sheep all the clothes they wear are made." And at that
+story the third quarter of the pig was boiled.</p>
+
+<p>"If these stories are true," said Cormac to the man of the house, "you
+are Manannan, and this is Manannan's wife; for no one on the whole ridge
+of the world owns these treasures but himself. It was to the Land of
+Promise he went to look for that woman, and he got those seven cows with
+her."</p>
+
+<p>They said to Cormac that it was his turn now. So Cormac told them how
+his wife, and his son, and his daughter, had been brought away from him,
+and how he himself had followed them till he came to that place.</p>
+
+<p>And with that the whole pig was boiled, and they cut it up, and Cormac's
+share was put before him. "I never used a meal yet," said he, "having
+two persons only in my company." The man of the house began singing to
+him then, and put him asleep. And when he awoke, he saw fifty armed men,
+and his son, and his wife, and his daughter, along with them. There was
+great gladness and courage on him then, and ale and food were given out
+to them all. And there was a gold cup put in the hand of the master of
+the house, and Cormac was wondering at it, for the number of the shapes
+on it, and for the strangeness of the work. "There is a stranger thing
+yet about it," the man said; "let three lying words be spoken under it,
+and it will break into three, and then let three true words be spoken
+under it, and it will be as good as before." So he said three lying
+words under it, and it broke in three pieces. "It is best to speak truth
+now under it," he said, "and to mend it. And I give my word, Cormac," he
+said, "that until to-day neither your wife or your daughter has seen the
+face of a man since they were brought away from you out of Teamhair, and
+that your son has never seen the face of a woman." And with that the cup
+was whole again on the moment. "Bring away your wife and your children
+with you now," he said, "and this cup along with them, the way you will
+have it for judging between truth and untruth. And I will leave the
+branch with you for music and delight, but on the day of your death they
+will be taken from you again." "And I myself," he said, "am Manannan, son
+of Lir, King of the Land of Promise, and I brought you here by
+enchantments that you might be with me to-night in friendship.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Riders you saw thatching the house," he said, "are the men of
+art and poets, and all that look for a fortune in Ireland, putting
+together cattle and riches. For when they go out, all that they leave in
+their houses goes to nothing, and so they go on for ever.</p>
+
+<p>"And the man you saw kindling the fire," he said, "is a young lord that
+is more liberal than he can afford, and every one else is served while
+he is getting the feast ready, and every one else profiting by it.</p>
+
+<p>"And the well you saw is the Well of Knowledge, and the streams are the
+five streams through which all knowledge goes. And no one will have
+knowledge who does not drink a draught out of the well itself or out of
+the streams. And the people of many arts are those who drink from them
+all."</p>
+
+<p>And on the morning of the morrow, when Cormac rose up, he found himself
+on the green of Teamhair, and his wife, and his son, and his daughter,
+along with him, and he having his branch and his cup. And it was given
+the name of Cormac's Cup, and it used to judge between truth and
+falsehood among the Gael. But it was not left in Ireland after the night
+of Cormac's death, as Manannan had foretold him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L23" id="L23" />CHAPTER XII. CLIODNA'S WAVE</h2>
+
+<p>And it was in the time of the Fianna of Ireland that Ciabhan of the
+Curling Hair, the king of Ulster's son, went to Manannan's country.</p>
+
+<p>Ciabhan now was the most beautiful of the young men of the world at that
+time, and he was as far beyond all other kings' sons as the moon is
+beyond the stars. And Finn liked him well, but the rest of the Fianna
+got to be tired of him because there was not a woman of their women, wed
+or unwed, but gave him her love. And Finn had to send him away at the
+last, for he was in dread of the men of the Fianna because of the
+greatness of their jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>So Ciabhan went on till he came to the Strand of the Cairn, that is
+called now the Strand of the Strong Man, between Dun Sobairce and the
+sea. And there he saw a curragh, and it having a narrow stern of copper.
+And Ciabhan got into the curragh, and his people said: "Is it to leave
+Ireland you have a mind, Ciabhan?" "It is indeed," he said, "for in
+Ireland I get neither shelter or protection." He bade farewell to his
+people then, and he left them very sorrowful after him, for to part with
+him was like the parting of life from the body.</p>
+
+<p>And Ciabhan went on in the curragh, and great white shouting waves rose
+up about him, every one of them the size of a mountain; and the
+beautiful speckled salmon that are used to stop in the sand and the
+shingle rose up to the sides of the curragh, till great dread came on
+Ciabhan, and he said: "By my word, if it was on land I was I could make
+a better fight for myself"</p>
+
+<p>And he was in this danger till he saw a rider coming towards him on a
+dark grey horse having a golden bridle, and he would be under the sea
+for the length of nine waves, and he would rise with the tenth wave, and
+no wet on him at all. And he said: "What reward would you give to
+whoever would bring you out of this great danger?" "Is there anything in
+my hand worth offering you?" said Ciabhan. "There is," said the rider,
+"that you would give your service to whoever would give you his help."
+Ciabhan agreed to that, and he put his hand into the rider's hand.</p>
+
+<p>With that the rider drew him on to the horse, and the curragh came on
+beside them till they reached to the shore of Tir Tairngaire, the Land
+of Promise. They got off the horse there, and came to Loch Luchra, the
+Lake of the Dwarfs, and to Manannan's city, and a feast was after being
+made ready there, and comely serving-boys were going round with smooth
+horns, and playing on sweet-sounding harps till the whole house was
+filled with the music.</p>
+
+<p>Then there came in clowns, long-snouted, long-heeled, lean and bald and
+red, that used to be doing tricks in Manannan's house. And one of these
+tricks was, a man of them to take nine straight willow rods, and to
+throw them up to the rafters of the house, and to catch them again as
+they came down, and he standing on one leg, and having but one hand
+free. And they thought no one could do that trick but themselves, and
+they were used to ask strangers to do it, the way they could see them
+fail.</p>
+
+<p>So this night when one of them had done the trick, he came up to
+Ciabhan, that was beyond all the Men of Dea or the Sons of the Gael that
+were in the house, in shape and in walk and in name, and he put the nine
+rods in his hand. And Ciabhan stood up and he did the feat before them
+all, the same as if he had never learned to do any other thing.</p>
+
+<p>Now Gebann, that was a chief Druid in Manannan's country, had a
+daughter, Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that had never given her love to any
+man. But when she saw Ciabhan she gave him her love, and she agreed to
+go away with him on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>And they went down to the landing-place and got into a curragh, and they
+went on till they came to Teite's Strand in the southern part of
+Ireland. It was from Teite Brec the Freckled the strand got its name,
+that went there one time for a wave game, and three times fifty young
+girls with her, and they were all drowned in that place.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Ciabhan, he came on shore, and went looking for deer, as was
+right, under the thick branches of the wood; and he left the young girl
+in the boat on the strand.</p>
+
+<p>But the people of Manannan's house came after them, having forty ships.
+And Iuchnu, that was in the curragh with Cliodna, did treachery, and he
+played music to her till she lay down in the boat and fell asleep. And
+then a great wave came up on the strand and swept her away.</p>
+
+<p>And the wave got its name from Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that will be
+long remembered.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L24" id="L24" />CHAPTER XIII. HIS CALL TO CONNLA</h2>
+
+
+<p>And it is likely it was Manannan sent his messenger for Connla of the
+Red Hair the time he went away out of Ireland, for it is to his country
+Connla was brought; and this is the way he got the call.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced one day he was with his father Conn, King of Teamhair, on the
+Hill of Uisnach, and he saw a woman having wonderful clothing coming
+towards him. "Where is it you come from?" he asked her. "I come," she
+said, "from Tir-nam-Beo, the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, where no
+death comes. We use feasts that are lasting," she said, "and we do every
+kind thing without quarrelling, and we are called the people of the
+Sidhe." "Who are you speaking to, boy?" said Conn to him then, for no
+one saw the strange woman but only Connla. "He is speaking to a high
+woman that death or old age will never come to," she said. "I am asking
+him to come to Magh Mell, the Pleasant Plain where the triumphant king
+is living, and there he will be a king for ever without sorrow or fret.
+Come with me, Connla of the Red Hair," she said, "of the fair freckled
+neck and of the ruddy cheek; come with me, and your body will not wither
+from its youth and its comeliness for ever."</p>
+
+<p>They could all hear the woman's words then, though they could not see
+her, and it is what Conn said to Coran his Druid: "Help me, Coran, you
+that sing spells of the great arts. There is an attack made on me that
+is beyond my wisdom and beyond my power, I never knew so strong an
+attack since the first day I was a king. There is an unseen figure
+fighting with me; she is using her strength against me to bring away my
+beautiful son; the call of a woman is bringing him away from the hands
+of the king."</p>
+
+<p>Then Coran, the Druid, began singing spells against the woman of the
+Sidhe, the way no one would hear her voice, and Connla could not see her
+any more. But when she was being driven away by the spells of the Druid,
+she threw an apple to Connla.</p>
+
+<p>And through the length of a month from that time, Connla used no other
+food nor drink but that apple, for he thought no other food or drink
+worth the using. And for all he ate of it, the apple grew no smaller,
+but was whole all the while. And there was great trouble on Connla on
+account of the woman he had seen.</p>
+
+<p>And at the end of a month Connla was at his father's side in Magh
+Archomnim, and he saw the same woman coming towards him, and it is what
+she said: "It is a high place indeed Connla has among dying people, and
+death before him. But the Ever-Living Living Ones," she said, "are
+asking you to take the sway over the people of Tethra, for they are
+looking at you every day in the gatherings of your country among your
+dear friends."</p>
+
+<p>When Conn, the king, heard her voice, he said to his people: "Call
+Coran, the Druid to me, for I hear the sound of the woman's voice
+again." But on that she said: "O Conn, fighter of a hundred, it is
+little love and little respect the wonderful tribes of Traig Mor, the
+Great Strand, have for Druids; and where its law comes, it scatters the
+spells on their lips."</p>
+
+<p>Then Conn looked to his son Connla to see what he would say, and Connla
+said: "My own people are dearer to me than any other thing, yet sorrow
+has taken hold of me because of this woman." Then the woman spoke to him
+again, and it is what she said: "Come now into my shining ship, if you
+will come to the Plain of Victory. There is another country it would not
+be worse for you to look for; though the bright sun is going down, we
+shall reach to that country before night. That is the country that
+delights the mind of every one that turns to me. There is no living race
+in it but women and girls only."</p>
+
+<p>And when the woman had ended her song, Connla made a leap from his
+people into the shining boat, and they saw him sailing away from them
+far off and as if in a mist, as far as their eyes could see. It is away
+across the sea they went, and they have never come back again, and only
+the gods know where was it they went.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L25" id="L25" />CHAPTER XIV. TADG IN MANANNAN'S ISLANDS</h2>
+
+
+<p>And another that went to the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, but that came
+back again, was Tadg, son of Cian, son of Olioll; and this is the way
+that happened.</p>
+
+<p>It was one time Tadg was going his next heir's round, into the west of
+Munster, and his two brothers, Airnelach and Eoghan, along with him. And
+Cathmann, son of Tabarn, that was king of the beautiful country of
+Fresen that lay to the south-east of the Great Plain, was searching the
+sea for what he could find just at that time, and nine of his ships with
+him. And they landed at Beire do Bhunadas, to the west of Munster, and
+the country had no stir in it, and so they slipped ashore, and no one
+took notice of them till all were surrounded, both men and cattle. And
+Tadg's wife Liban, daughter of Conchubar Abratrudh of the Red Brows, and
+his two brothers, and a great many of the people of Munster, were taken
+by the foreigners and brought away to the coasts of Fresen. And Cathmann
+took Liban to be his own wife, and he put hardship on Tadg's two
+brothers: Eoghan he put to work a common ferry across a channel of the
+coast, and Airnelach to cut firing and to keep up fires for all the
+people; and all the food they got was barley seed and muddy water.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Tadg himself, it was only by his courage and the use of his
+sword he made his escape, but there was great grief and discouragement
+on him, his wife and his brothers to have been brought away. But he had
+forty of his fighting men left that had each killed a man of the
+foreigners, and they had brought one in alive. And this man told them
+news of the country he came from. And when Tadg heard that, he made a
+plan in his own head, and he gave orders for a curragh to be built that
+would be fit for a long voyage. Very strong it was, and forty ox-hides
+on it of hard red leather, that was after being soaked in bark. And it
+was well fitted with masts, and oars, and pitch, and everything that was
+wanting. And they put every sort of meat, and drink, and of clothes in
+it, that would last them through the length of a year.</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, and the curragh out in the tide, Tadg said to his
+people: "Let us set out now on the high sea, looking for our own people
+that are away from us this long time."</p>
+
+<p>They set out then over the stormy, heavy flood, till at last they saw no
+land before them or behind them, but only the hillsides of the great
+sea. And farther on again they heard the singing of a great flock of
+unknown birds; and pleasant white-bellied salmon were leaping about the
+curragh on every side, and seals, very big and dark, were coming after
+them, breaking through the shining wash of the oars; and great whales
+after them again, so that the young men liked to be looking at them, for
+they were not used to see the like before.</p>
+
+<p>They went on rowing through twenty days and twenty nights, and at the
+end of that time they got sight of a high land, having a smooth coast.
+And when they reached it they all landed, and they pulled up the curragh
+and lit their fires, and food was given out to them, and they were not
+long making an end of it. They made beds for themselves then on the
+beautiful green grass, and enjoyed their sleep till the rising of the
+sun on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Tadg rose up then and put on his arms, and went out, and thirty of his
+men along with him, to search the whole island.</p>
+
+<p>They went all through it, but they found no living thing on it, man or
+beast, but only flocks of sheep. And the size of the sheep was past all
+telling, as big as horses they were, and the whole island was filled
+with their wool. And there was one great flock beyond all the others,
+all of very big rams, and one of them was biggest of all, nine horns he
+had, and he charged on Tadg's chief men, attacking them and butting at
+them.</p>
+
+<p>There was vexation on them then, and they attacked him again, and there
+was a struggle between them. And at the first the ram broke through five
+of their shields. But Tadg took his spear that there was no escape from,
+and made a lucky cast at the ram and killed him. And they brought the
+ram to the curragh and made it ready for the young men to eat, and they
+stopped three nights on the island, and every night it was a sheep they
+had for their food. And they gathered a good share of the wool and put
+it in the curragh because of the wonder and the beauty of it. And they
+found the bones of very big men on the island, but whether they died of
+sickness or were killed by the rams they did not know.</p>
+
+<p>They left that island then and went forward till they found two strange
+islands where there were great flocks of wonderful birds, like
+blackbirds, and some of them the size of eagles or of cranes, and they
+red with green heads on them, and the eggs they had were blue and pure
+crimson. And some of the men began eating the eggs, and on the moment
+feathers began to grow out on them. But they went bathing after that,
+and the feathers dropped off them again as quick as they came.</p>
+
+<p>It was the foreigner they had with them gave them the course up to this
+time, for he had been on the same track before. But now they went on
+through the length of six weeks and never saw land, and he said then,
+"We are astray on the great ocean that has no boundaries." Then the wind
+with its sharp voice began to rise, and there was a noise like the
+tramping of feet in the sea, and it rose up into great mountains hard to
+climb, and there was great fear on Tadg's people, for they had never
+seen the like. But he began to stir them up and to rouse them, and he
+bade them to meet the sea like men. "Do bravery," he said, "young men of
+Munster, and fight for your lives against the waves that are rising up
+and coming at the sides of the curragh." Tadg took one side of the
+curragh then and his men took the other side, and he was able to pull it
+round against the whole twenty-nine of them, and to bale it out and keep
+it dry along with that. And after a while they got a fair wind and put
+up their sail, the way less water came into the curragh, and then the
+sea went down and lay flat and calm, and there were strange birds of
+many shapes singing around them in every part. They saw land before them
+then, with a good coast, and with that courage and gladness came on
+them.</p>
+
+<p>And when they came nearer to the land they found a beautiful inver, a
+river's mouth, with green hills about it, and the bottom of it sandy and
+as bright as silver, and red-speckled salmon in it, and pleasant woods
+with purple tree-tops edging the stream. "It is a beautiful country
+this is," said Tadg, "and it would be happy for him that would be always
+in it; and let you pull up the ship now," he said, "and dry it out."</p>
+
+<p>A score of them went forward then into the country, and a score stopped
+to mind the curragh. And for all the cold and discouragement and bad
+weather they had gone through, they felt no wish at all for food or for
+fire, but the sweet smell of the crimson branches in the place they were
+come to satisfied them. They went on through the wood, and after a while
+they came to an apple garden having red apples in it, and leafy
+oak-trees, and hazels yellow with nuts. "It is a wonder to me," said
+Tadg, "to find summer here, and it winter time in our own country."</p>
+
+<p>It was a delightful place they were in, but they went on into another
+wood, very sweet smelling, and round purple berries in it, every one of
+them bigger than a man's head, and beautiful shining birds eating the
+berries, strange birds they were, having white bodies and purple heads
+and golden beaks. And while they were eating the berries they were
+singing sweet music, that would have put sick men and wounded men into
+their sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Tadg and his men went farther on again till they came to a great smooth
+flowery plain with a dew of honey over it, and three steep hills on the
+plain, having a very strong dun on every one of them. And when they got
+to the nearest hill they found a white-bodied woman, the best of the
+women of the whole world, and it is what she said: "Your coming is
+welcome, Tadg, son of Cian, and there will be food and provision for you
+as you want it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of that welcome," said Tadg; "and tell me now, woman of sweet
+words," he said, "what is that royal dun on the hill, having walls of
+white marble around it?" "That is the dun of the royal line of the kings
+of Ireland, from Heremon, son of Miled, to Conn of the Hundred Battles,
+that was the last to go into it." "What is the name of this country?"
+Tadg said then. "It is Inislocha, the Lake Island," she said, "and there
+are two kings over it, Rudrach and Dergcroche, sons of Bodb." And then
+she told Tadg the whole story of Ireland, to the time of the coming of
+the Sons of the Gael. "That is well," said Tadg then, "and you have good
+knowledge and learning. And tell me now," he said, "who is living in
+that middle dun that has the colour of gold?" "It is not myself will
+tell you that," she said, "but go on to it yourself and you will get
+knowledge of it." And with that she went from them into the dun of white
+marble.</p>
+
+<p>Tadg and his men went on then till they came to the middle dun, and
+there they found a queen of beautiful shape, and she wearing a golden
+dress. "Health to you, Tadg," she said. "I thank you for that," said
+Tadg. "It is a long time your coming on this journey was foretold," she
+said. "What is your name?" he asked then. "I am Cesair," she said, "the
+first that ever reached Ireland. But since I and the men that were with
+me came out of that dark, unquiet land, we are living for ever in this
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, woman," said Tadg, "who is it lives in that dun having a wall
+of gold about it?" "It is not hard to tell that," she said, "every king,
+and every chief man, and every noble person that was in a high place of
+all those that had power in Ireland, it is in that dun beyond they are;
+Parthalon and Nemed, Firbolgs and Tuatha de Danaan." "It is good
+knowledge and learning you have," said Tadg. "Indeed I have good
+knowledge of the history of the world," she said, "and this island," she
+said, "is the fourth paradise of the world; and as to the others, they
+are Inis Daleb to the south, and Inis Ercandra to the north, and Adam's
+Paradise in the east of the world." "Who is there living in that dun
+with the silver walls?" said Tadg then. "I will not tell you that,
+although I have knowledge of it," said the woman; "but go to the
+beautiful hill where it is, and you will get knowledge of it."</p>
+
+<p>They went on then to the third hill, and on the top of the hill was a
+very beautiful resting-place, and two sweethearts there, a boy and a
+girl, comely and gentle. Smooth hair they had, shining like gold, and
+beautiful green clothes of the one sort, and any one would think them to
+have had the same father and mother. Gold chains they had around their
+necks, and bands of gold above those again. And Tadg spoke to them: "O
+bright, comely children," he said, "it is a pleasant place you have
+here." And they answered him back, and they were praising his courage
+and his strength and his wisdom, and they gave him their blessing.</p>
+
+<p>And it is how the young man was, he had a sweet-smelling apple, having
+the colour of gold, in his hand, and he would eat a third part of it,
+and with all he would eat, it would never be less. And that was the food
+that nourished the two of them, and neither age or sorrow could touch
+them when once they had tasted it.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you yourself?" Tadg asked him then. "I am son to Conn of the
+Hundred Battles," he said. "Is it Connla you are?" said Tadg. "I am
+indeed," said the young man, "and it is this girl of many shapes that
+brought me here." And the girl said: "I have given him my love and my
+affection, and it is because of that I brought him to this place, the
+way we might be looking at one another for ever, and beyond that we have
+never gone."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a beautiful thing and a strange thing," said Tadg, "and a thing
+to wonder at. And who is there in that grand dun with the silver
+walls?" he said. "There is no one at all in it," said the girl. "What is
+the reason of that?" said Tadg. "It is for the kings that are to rule
+Ireland yet," she said; "and there will be a place in it for yourself,
+Tadg. And come now," she said, "till you see it."</p>
+
+<p>The lovers went on to the dun, and it is hardly the green grass was bent
+under their white feet. And Tadg and his people went along with them.</p>
+
+<p>They came then to the great wonderful house that was ready for the
+company of the kings; it is a pleasant house that was, and any one would
+like to be in it. Walls of white bronze it had, set with crystal and
+with carbuncles, that were shining through the night as well as through
+the day.</p>
+
+<p>Tadg looked out from the house then, and he saw to one side of him a
+great sheltering apple-tree, and blossoms and ripe fruit on it. "What is
+that apple tree beyond?" said Tadg. "It is the fruit of that tree is
+food for the host in this house," said the woman. "And it was an apple
+of that apple-tree brought Connla here to me; a good tree it is, with
+its white-blossomed branches, and its golden apples that would satisfy
+the whole house."</p>
+
+<p>And then Connla and the young girl left them, and they saw coming
+towards them a troop of beautiful women. And there was one among them
+was most beautiful of all, and when she was come to them she said: "A
+welcome to you, Tadg." "I thank you for that welcome," said Tadg; "and
+tell me," he said, "who are you yourself?" "I am Cliodna of the Fair
+Hair," she said, "daughter of Gebann, son of Treon, of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, a sweetheart of Ciabhan of the Curling Hair; and it is from me
+Cliodna's wave on the coast of Munster got its name; and I am a long
+time now in this island, and it is the apples of that tree you saw that
+we use for food." And Tadg was well pleased to be listening to her talk,
+but after a while he said: "It is best for us to go on now to look for
+our people." "We will be well pleased if you stop longer with us," said
+the woman.</p>
+
+<p>And while she was saying those words they saw three beautiful birds
+coming to them, one of them blue and his head crimson, and one was
+crimson and his head green, and the third was speckled and his head the
+colour of gold, and they lit on the great apple-tree, and every bird of
+them ate an apple, and they sang sweet music then, that would put sick
+men into their sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Those birds will go with you," Cliodna said then; "they will give you
+guidance on your way, and they will make music for you, and there will
+be neither sorrow or sadness on you, by land or by sea, till you come to
+Ireland. And bring away this beautiful green cup with you," she said,
+"for there is power in it, and if you do but pour water into it, it will
+be turned to wine on the moment. And do not let it out of your hand,"
+she said, "but keep it with you; for at whatever time it will escape
+from you, your death will not be far away. And it is where you will meet
+your death, in the green valley at the side of the Boinn; and it is a
+wandering wild deer will give you a wound, and after that, it is
+strangers will put an end to you. And I myself will bury your body, and
+there will be a hill over it, and the name it will get is Croidhe Essu."</p>
+
+<p>They went out of the shining house then, and Cliodna of the Fair Hair
+went with them to the place they had left their ship, and she bade their
+comrades a kindly welcome; and she asked them how long had they been in
+that country. "It seems to us," they said, "we are not in it but one day
+only." "You are in it through the whole length of a year," said she,
+"and through all that time you used neither food nor drink. But however
+long you would stop here," she said, "cold or hunger would never come on
+you." "It would be a good thing to live this way always," said Tadg's
+people when they heard that. But he himself said: "It is best for us to
+go on and to look for our people. And we must leave this country,
+although it is displeasing to us to leave it."</p>
+
+<p>Then Cliodna and Tadg bade farewell to one another, and she gave her
+blessing to him and to his people. And they set out then over the ridges
+of the sea; and they were downhearted after leaving that country until
+the birds began to sing for them, and then their courage rose up, and
+they were glad and light-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>And when they looked back they could not see the island they had come
+from, because of a Druid mist that came on it and hid it from them.</p>
+
+<p>Then by the leading of the birds they came to the country of Fresen, and
+they were in a deep sleep through the whole voyage. And then they
+attacked the foreigners and got the better of them, and Tadg killed
+Cathmann, the king, after a hard fight; and Liban his wife made no
+delay, and came to meet her husband and her sweetheart, and it is glad
+she was to see him.</p>
+
+<p>And after they had rested a while they faced the sea again, and Tadg and
+his wife Liban, and his two brothers, and a great many other treasures
+along with them, and they came home to Ireland safely at the last.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L26" id="L26" />CHAPTER XV. LAEGAIRE IN THE HAPPY PLAIN</h2>
+
+
+<p>And another that went to visit Magh Mell, the Happy Plain, was Laegaire,
+son of the King of Connacht, Crimthan Cass.</p>
+
+<p>He was out one day with the king, his father, near Loch na-n Ean, the
+Lake of Birds, and the men of Connacht with them, and they saw a man
+coming to them through the mist. Long golden-yellow hair he had, and it
+streaming after him, and at his belt a gold-hilted sword, and in his
+hand two five-barbed darts, a gold-rimmed shield on his back, a
+five-folded crimson cloak about his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Give a welcome to the man that is coming towards you," said Laegaire,
+that had the best name of all the men of Connacht, to his people. And to
+the stranger he said: "A welcome to the champion we do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"I am thankful to you all," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you are come for, and where are you going?" said Laegaire
+then.</p>
+
+<p>"I am come to look for the help of fighting men," said the stranger.
+"And my name," he said, "is Fiachna, son of Betach, of the men of the
+Sidhe; and it is what ails me, my wife was taken from my pillow and
+brought away by Eochaid, son of Sal. And we fought together, and I
+killed him, and now she is gone to a brother's son of his, Goll, son of
+Dalbh, king of a people of Magh Mell. Seven battles I gave him, but they
+all went against me; and on this very day there is another to be fought,
+and I am come to ask help. And to every one that deserves it, I will
+give a good reward of gold and of silver for that help."</p>
+
+<p>And it is what he said:</p>
+
+<p>"The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the Two Mists; it is not
+far from this; it is a host of the men of the Sidhe full of courage are
+stirring up pools of blood upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"We have drawn red blood from the bodies of high nobles; many women are
+keening them with cries and with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"The men of the host in good order go out ahead of their beautiful king;
+they march among blue spears, white troops of fighters with curled hair.</p>
+
+<p>"They scatter the troops of their enemies, they destroy every country
+they make an attack on; they are beautiful in battle, a host with high
+looks, rushing, avenging.</p>
+
+<p>"It is no wonder they to have such strength: every one of them is the
+son of a king and a queen; manes of hair they have of the colour of
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Their bodies smooth and comely; their eyes blue and far-seeing; their
+teeth bright like crystal, within their thin red lips.</p>
+
+<p>"White shields they have in their hands, with patterns on them of white
+silver; blue shining swords, red horns set with gold.</p>
+
+<p>"They are good at killing men in battle; good at song-making, good at
+chess-playing.</p>
+
+<p>"The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the Two Mists; the men of
+the Sidhe are stirring up pools of blood on it; it is not far from this
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a shameful thing not to give our help to this man," said
+Laegaire.</p>
+
+<p>Fiachna, son of Betach, went down into the lake then, for it was out of
+it he had come, and Laegaire went down into it after him, and fifty
+fighting men along with him.</p>
+
+<p>They saw a strong place before them then, and a company of armed men,
+and Goll, son of Dalbh, at the head of them.</p>
+
+<p>"That is well," said Laegaire, "I and my fifty men will go out against
+this troop." "I will answer you," said Goll, son of Dalbh.</p>
+
+<p>The two fifties attacked one another then, and Goll fell, but Laegaire
+and his fifty escaped with their lives and made a great slaughter of
+their enemies, that not one of them made his escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the woman now?" said Laegaire. "She is within the dun of Magh
+Mell, and a troop of armed men keeping guard about it," said Fiachna.
+"Let you stop here, and I and my fifty will go there," said Laegaire.</p>
+
+<p>So he and his men went on to the dun, and Laegaire called out to the men
+that were about it: "Your king has got his death, your chief men have
+fallen, let the woman come out, and I will give you your own lives." The
+men agreed to that, and they brought the woman out. And when she came
+out she made this complaint:</p>
+
+<p>"It is a sorrowful day that swords are reddened for the sake of the dear
+dead body of Goll, son of Dalbh. It was he that loved me, it was himself
+I loved, it is little Laegaire Liban cares for that.</p>
+
+<p>"Weapons were hacked and were split by Goll; it is to Fiachna, son of
+Betach, I must go; it is Goll son of Dalbh, I loved."</p>
+
+<p>And that complaint got the name of "The Lament of the Daughter of
+Eochaid the Dumb."</p>
+
+<p>Laegaire went back with her then till he put her hand in Fiachna's hand.
+And that night Fiachna's daughter, Deorgreine, a Tear of the Sun, was
+given to Laegaire as his wife, and fifty other women were given to his
+fifty fighting men, and they stopped with them there to the end of a
+year.</p>
+
+<p>And at the end of that time, Laegaire said: "Let us go and ask news of
+our own country." "If you have a mind to go," said Fiachna, "bring
+horses with you; but whatever happens," he said, "do not get off from
+them."</p>
+
+<p>So they set out then; and when they got back to Ireland, they found a
+great gathering of the whole of the men of Connacht that were keening
+them.</p>
+
+<p>And when the men of Connacht saw them coming they rose up to meet them,
+and to bid them welcome. But Laegaire called out: "Do not come to us,
+for it is to bid you farewell we are here." "Do not go from us again,"
+said Crimthan, his father, "and I will give you the sway over the three
+Connachts, their silver and their gold, their horses and their bridles,
+and their beautiful women, if you will not go from us."</p>
+
+<p>And it is what Laegaire said: "In the place we are gone to, the armies
+move from kingdom to kingdom, they listen to the sweet-sounding music of
+the Sidhe, they drink from shining cups, we talk with those we love, it
+is beer that falls instead of rain.</p>
+
+<p>"We have brought from the dun of the Pleasant Plain thirty cauldrons,
+thirty drinking horns; we have brought the complaint that was sung by
+the Sea, by the daughter of Eochaid the Dumb.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a wife for every man of the fifty; my own wife to me is the
+Tear of the Sun; I am made master of a blue sword; I would not give for
+all your whole kingdom one night of the nights of the Sidhe."</p>
+
+<p>With that Laegaire turned from them, and went back to the kingdom. And
+he was made king there along with Fiachna, son of Betach, and his
+daughter, and he did not come out of it yet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L27" id="L27" />BOOK FIVE: THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now at the time when the Tuatha de Danaan chose a king for themselves
+after the battle of Tailltin, and Lir heard the kingship was given to
+Bodb Dearg, it did not please him, and he left the gathering without
+leave and with no word to any one; for he thought it was he himself had
+a right to be made king. But if he went away himself, Bodb was given the
+kingship none the less, for not one of the five begrudged it to him but
+only Lir, And it is what they determined, to follow after Lir, and to
+burn down his house, and to attack himself with spear and sword, on
+account of his not giving obedience to the king they had chosen. "We
+will not do that," said Bodb Dearg, "for that man would defend any place
+he is in; and besides that," he said, "I am none the less king over the
+Tuatha de Danaan, although he does not submit to me."</p>
+
+<p>All went on like that for a good while, but at last a great misfortune
+came on Lir, for his wife died from him after a sickness of three
+nights. And that came very hard on Lir, and there was heaviness on his
+mind after her. And there was great talk of the death of that woman in
+her own time.</p>
+
+<p>And the news of it was told all through Ireland, and it came to the
+house of Bodb, and the best of the Men of Dea were with him at that
+time. And Bodb said: "If Lir had a mind for it," he said, "my help and
+my friendship would be good for him now, since his wife is not living to
+him. For I have here with me the three young girls of the best shape,
+and the best appearance, and the best name in all Ireland, Aobh, Aoife,
+and Ailbhe, the three daughters of Oilell of Aran, my own three
+nurselings." The Men of Dea said then it was a good thought he had, and
+that what he said was true.</p>
+
+<p>Messages and messengers were sent then from Bodb Dearg to the place Lir
+was, to say that if he had a mind to join with the Son of the Dagda and
+to acknowledge his lordship, he would give him a foster-child of his
+foster-children. And Lir thought well of the offer, and he set out on
+the morrow with fifty chariots from Sidhe Fionnachaidh; and he went by
+every short way till he came to Bodb's dwelling-place at Loch Dearg, and
+there was a welcome before him there, and all the people were merry and
+pleasant before him, and he and his people got good attendance that
+night.</p>
+
+<p>And the three daughters of Oilell of Aran were sitting on the one seat
+with Bodb Dearg's wife, the queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was
+their foster-mother. And Bodb said: "You may have your choice of the
+three young girls, Lir." "I cannot say," said Lir, "which one of them is
+my choice, but whichever of them is the eldest, she is the noblest, and
+it is best for me to take her." "If that is so," said Bodb, "it is Aobh
+is the eldest, and she will be given to you, if it is your wish." "It is
+my wish," he said. And he took Aobh for his wife that night, and he
+stopped there for a fortnight, and then he brought her away to his own
+house, till he would make a great wedding-feast.</p>
+
+<p>And in the course of time Aobh brought forth two children, a daughter
+and a son, Fionnuala and Aodh their names were. And after a while she
+was brought to bed again, and this time she gave birth to two sons, and
+they called them Fiachra and Conn. And she herself died at their birth.
+And that weighed very heavy on Lir, and only for the way his mind was
+set on his four children he would have gone near to die of grief.</p>
+
+<p>The news came to Bodb Dearg's place, and all the people gave out three
+loud, high cries, keening their nursling. And after they had keened her
+it is what Bodb Dearg said: "It is a fret to us our daughter to have
+died, for her own sake and for the sake of the good man we gave her to,
+for we are thankful for his friendship and his faithfulness. However,"
+he said, "our friendship with one another will not be broken, for I will
+give him for a wife her sister Aoife."</p>
+
+<p>When Lir heard that, he came for the girl and married her, and brought
+her home to his house. And there was honour and affection with Aoife for
+her sister's children; and indeed no person at all could see those four
+children without giving them the heart's love.</p>
+
+<p>And Bodb Dearg used often to be going to Lir's house for the sake of
+those children; and he used to bring them to his own place for a good
+length of time, and then he would let them go back to their own place
+again. And the Men of Dea were at that time using the Feast of Age in
+every hill of the Sidhe in turn; and when they came to Lir's hill those
+four children were their joy and delight, for the beauty of their
+appearance; and it is where they used to sleep, in beds in sight of
+their father Lir. And he used to rise up at the break of every morning,
+and to lie down among his children.</p>
+
+<p>But it is what came of all this, that a fire of jealousy was kindled in
+Aoife, and she got to have a dislike and a hatred of her sister's
+children.</p>
+
+<p>Then she let on to have a sickness, that lasted through nearly the
+length of a year. And the end of that time she did a deed of jealousy
+and cruel treachery against the children of Lir.</p>
+
+<p>And one day she got her chariot yoked, and she took the four children
+in it, and they went forward towards the house of Bodb Dearg; but
+Fionnuala had no mind to go with her, for she knew by her she had some
+plan for their death or their destruction, and she had seen in a dream
+that there was treachery against them in Aoife's mind. But all the same
+she was not able to escape from what was before her.</p>
+
+<p>And when they were on their way Aoife said to her people: "Let you kill
+now," she said, "the four children of Lir, for whose sake their father
+has given up my love, and I will give you your own choice of a reward
+out of all the good things of the world." "We will not do that indeed,"
+said they; "and it is a bad deed you have thought of, and harm will come
+to you out of it."</p>
+
+<p>And when they would not do as she bade them, she took out a sword
+herself to put an end to the children with; but she being a woman and
+with no good courage, and with no great strength in her mind, she was
+not able to do it.</p>
+
+<p>They went on then west to Loch Dairbhreach, the Lake of the Oaks, and
+the horses were stopped there. And Aoife bade the children of Lir to go
+out and bathe in the lake, and they did as she bade them. And as soon as
+Aoife saw them out in the lake she struck them with a Druid rod, and put
+on them the shape of four swans, white and beautiful. And it is what she
+said: "Out with you, children of the king, your luck is taken away from
+you for ever; it is sorrowful the story will be to your friends; it is
+with flocks of birds your cries will be heard for ever."</p>
+
+<p>And Fionnuala said: "Witch, we know now what your name is, you have
+struck us down with no hope of relief; but although you put us from wave
+to wave, there are times when we will touch the land. We shall get help
+when we are seen; help, and all that is best for us; even though we
+have to sleep upon the lake, it is our minds will be going abroad
+early."</p>
+
+<p>And then the four children of Lir turned towards Aoife, and it is what
+Fionnuala said: "It is a bad deed you have done, Aoife, and it is a bad
+fulfilling of friendship, you to destroy us without cause; and vengeance
+for it will come upon you, and you will fall in satisfaction for it, for
+your power for our destruction is not greater than the power of our
+friends to avenge it on you; and put some bounds now," she said, "to the
+time this enchantment is to stop on us." "I will do that," said Aoife,
+"and it is worse for you, you to have asked it of me. And the bounds I
+set to your time are this, till the Woman from the South and the Man
+from the North will come together. And since you ask to hear it of me,"
+she said, "no friends and no power that you have will be able to bring
+you out of these shapes you are in through the length of your lives,
+until you have been three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach, and three
+hundred years on Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban, and three
+hundred years at Irrus Domnann and Inis Gluaire; and these are to be
+your journeys from this out," she said.</p>
+
+<p>But then repentance came on Aoife, and she said: "Since there is no
+other help for me to give you now, you may keep your own speech; and you
+will be singing sweet music of the Sidhe, that would put the men of the
+earth to sleep, and there will be no music in the world equal to it; and
+your own sense and your own nobility will stay with you, the way it will
+not weigh so heavy on you to be in the shape of birds. And go away out
+of my sight now, children of Lir," she said, "with your white faces,
+with your stammering Irish. It is a great curse on tender lads, they to
+be driven out on the rough wind. Nine hundred years to be on the water,
+it is a long time for any one to be in pain; it is I put this on you
+through treachery, it is best for you to do as I tell you now.</p>
+
+<p>"Lir, that got victory with so many a good cast, his heart is a kernel
+of death in him now; the groaning of the great hero is a sickness to me,
+though it is I that have well earned his anger."</p>
+
+<p>And then the horses were caught for Aoife, and the chariot yoked for
+her, and she went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a
+welcome before her from the chief people of the place. And the son of
+the Dagda asked her why she did not bring the children of Lir with her.
+"I will tell you that," she said. "It is because Lir has no liking for
+you, and he will not trust you with his children, for fear you might
+keep them from him altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder at that," said Bodb Dearg, "for those children are dearer to
+me than my own children." And he thought in his own mind it was deceit
+the woman was doing on him, and it is what he did, he sent messengers to
+the north to Sidhe Fionnachaidh. And Lir asked them what did they come
+for. "On the head of your children," said they. "Are they not gone to
+you along with Aoife?" he said. "They are not," said they; "and Aoife
+said it was yourself would not let them come."</p>
+
+<p>It is downhearted and sorrowful Lir was at that news, for he understood
+well it was Aoife had destroyed or made an end of his children. And
+early in the morning of the morrow his horses were caught, and he set
+out on the road to the south-west. And when he was as far as the shore
+of Loch Dairbhreach, the four children saw the horses coming towards
+them, and it is what Fionnuala said: "A welcome to the troop of horses I
+see coming near to the lake; the people they are bringing are strong,
+there is sadness on them; it is us they are following, it is for us they
+are looking; let us move over to the shore, Aodh, Fiachra, and comely
+Conn. Those that are coming can be no others in the world but only Lir
+and his household."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lir came to the edge of the lake, and he took notice of the swans
+having the voice of living people, and he asked them why was it they had
+that voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you that, Lir," said Fionnuala. "We are your own four
+children, that are after being destroyed by your wife, and by the sister
+of our own mother, through the dint of her jealousy." "Is there any way
+to put you into your own shapes again?" said Lir. "There is no way,"
+said Fionnuala, "for all the men of the world could not help us till we
+have gone through our time, and that will not be," she said, "till the
+end of nine hundred years."</p>
+
+<p>When Lir and his people heard that, they gave out three great heavy
+shouts of grief and sorrow and crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a mind with you," said Lir, "to come to us on the land, since
+you have your own sense and your memory yet?" "We have not the power,"
+said Fionnuala, "to live with any person at all from this time; but we
+have our own language, the Irish, and we have the power to sing sweet
+music, and it is enough to satisfy the whole race of men to be listening
+to that music. And let you stop here to-night," she said, "and we will
+be making music for you."</p>
+
+<p>So Lir and his people stopped there listening to the music of the swans,
+and they slept there quietly that night. And Lir rose up early on the
+morning of the morrow and he made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is time to go out from this place. I do not sleep though I am in my
+lying down. To be parted from my dear children, it is that is tormenting
+my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a bad net I put over you, bringing Aoife, daughter of Oilell of
+Aran, to the house. I would never have followed that advice if I had
+known what it would bring upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"O Fionnuala, and comely Conn, O Aodh, O Fiachra of the beautiful arms;
+it is not ready I am to go away from you, from the border of the harbour
+where you are."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lir went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome
+before him there; and he got a reproach from Bodb Dearg for not bringing
+his children along with him. "My grief!" said Lir. "It is not I that
+would not bring my children along with me; it was Aoife there beyond,
+your own foster-child and the sister of their mother, that put them in
+the shape of four white swans on Loch Dairbhreach, in the sight of the
+whole of the men of Ireland; but they have their sense with them yet,
+and their reason, and their voice, and their Irish."</p>
+
+<p>Bodb Dearg gave a great start when he heard that, and he knew what Lir
+said was true, and he gave a very sharp reproach to Aoife, and he said:
+"This treachery will be worse for yourself in the end, Aoife, than to
+the children of Lir. And what shape would you yourself think worst of
+being in?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I would think worst of being a witch of the air," she said. "It is into
+that shape I will put you now," said Bodb. And with that he struck her
+with a Druid wand, and she was turned into a witch of the air there and
+then, and she went away on the wind in that shape, and she is in it yet,
+and will be in it to the end of life and time.</p>
+
+<p>As to Bodb Dearg and the Tuatha de Danaan they came to the shore of Loch
+Dairbhreach, and they made their camp there to be listening to the music
+of the swans.</p>
+
+<p>And the Sons of the Gael used to be coming no less than the Men of Dea
+to hear them from every part of Ireland, for there never was any music
+or any delight heard in Ireland to compare with that music of the swans.
+And they used to be telling stories, and to be talking with the men of
+Ireland every day, and with their teachers and their fellow-pupils and
+their friends. And every night they used to sing very sweet music of the
+Sidhe; and every one that heard that music would sleep sound and quiet
+whatever trouble or long sickness might be on him; for every one that
+heard the music of the birds, it is happy and contented he would be
+after it.</p>
+
+<p>These two gatherings now of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Sons of the
+Gael stopped there around Loch Dairbhreach through the length of three
+hundred years. And it is then Fionnuala said to her brothers: "Do you
+know," she said, "we have spent all we have to spend of our time here,
+but this one night only."</p>
+
+<p>And there was great sorrow on the sons of Lir when they heard that, for
+they thought it the same as to be living people again, to be talking
+with their friends and their companions on Loch Dairbhreach, in
+comparison with going on the cold, fretful sea of the Maoil in the
+north.</p>
+
+<p>And they came early on the morrow to speak with their father and with
+their foster-father, and they bade them farewell, and Fionnuala made
+this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell to you, Bodb Dearg, the man with whom all knowledge is in
+pledge. And farewell to our father along with you, Lir of the Hill of
+the White Field.</p>
+
+<p>"The time is come, as I think, for us to part from you, O pleasant
+company; my grief it is not on a visit we are going to you.</p>
+
+<p>"From this day out, O friends of our heart, our comrades, it is on the
+tormented course of the Maoil we will be, without the voice of any
+person near us.</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred years there, and three hundred years in the bay of the
+men of Domnann, it is a pity for the four comely children of Lir, the
+salt waves of the sea to be their covering by night.</p>
+
+<p>"O three brothers, with the ruddy faces gone from you, let them all
+leave the lake now, the great troop that loved us, it is sorrowful our
+parting is."</p>
+
+<p>After that complaint they took to flight, lightly, airily, till they
+came to Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban. And that was a grief
+to the men of Ireland, and they gave out an order no swan was to be
+killed from that out, whatever chance there might be of killing one, all
+through Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bad dwelling-place for the children of Lir they to be on Sruth
+na Maoile. When they saw the wide coast about them, they were filled
+with cold and with sorrow, and they thought nothing of all they had gone
+through before, in comparison to what they were going through on that
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>Now one night while they were there a great storm came on them, and it
+is what Fionnuala said: "My dear brothers," she said, "it is a pity for
+us not to be making ready for this night, for it is certain the storm
+will separate us from one another. And let us," she said, "settle on
+some place where we can meet afterwards, if we are driven from one
+another in the night."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us settle," said the others, "to meet one another at Carraig na
+Ron, the Rock of the Seals, for we all have knowledge of it."</p>
+
+<p>And when midnight came, the wind came on them with it, and the noise of
+the waves increased, and the lightning was flashing, and a rough storm
+came sweeping down, the way the children of Lir were scattered over the
+great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of
+them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great
+quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and
+when she took notice that her brothers were wanting she was lamenting
+after them greatly, and she made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity for me to be alive in the state I am; it is frozen to my
+sides my wings are; it is little that the wind has not broken my heart
+in my body, with the loss of Aodh.</p>
+
+<p>"To be three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach without going into my own
+shape, it is worse to me the time I am on Sruth na Maoile.</p>
+
+<p>"The three I loved, Och! the three I loved, that slept under the shelter
+of my feathers; till the dead come back to the living I will see them no
+more for ever.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity I to stay after Fiachra, and after Aodh, and after comely
+Conn, and with no account of them; my grief I to be here to face every
+hardship this night."</p>
+
+<p>She stopped all night there upon the Rock of the Seals until the rising
+of the sun, looking out over the sea on every side till at last she saw
+Conn coming to her, his feathers wet through and his head hanging, and
+her heart gave him a great welcome; and then Fiachra came wet and
+perished and worn out, and he could not say a word they could understand
+with the dint of the cold and the hardship he had gone through. And
+Fionnuala put him under her wings, and she said: "We would be well off
+now if Aodh would but come to us."</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after that, they saw Aodh coming, his head dry and his
+feathers beautiful, and Fionnuala gave him a great welcome, and she put
+him in under the feathers of her breast, and Fiachra under her right
+wing and Conn under her left wing, the way she could put her feathers
+over them all. "And Och! my brothers," she said, "this was a bad night
+to us, and it is many of its like are before us from this out."</p>
+
+<p>They stayed there a long time after that, suffering cold and misery on
+the Maoil, till at last a night came on them they had never known the
+like of before, for frost and snow and wind and cold. And they were
+crying and lamenting the hardship of their life, and the cold of the
+night and the greatness of the snow and the hardness of the wind. And
+after they had suffered cold to the end of a year, a worse night again
+came on them, in the middle of winter. And they were on Carraig na Ron,
+and the water froze about them, and as they rested on the rock, their
+feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they
+were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get
+away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the
+tops of their wings on the rock after them.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief, children of Lir," said Fionnuala, "it is bad our state is
+now, for we cannot bear the salt water to touch us, and there are bonds
+on us not to leave it; and if the salt water goes into our sores," she
+said, "we will get our death." And she made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is keening we are to-night; without feathers to cover our bodies; it
+is cold the rough, uneven rocks are under our bare feet.</p>
+
+<p>"It is bad our stepmother was to us the time she played enchantments on
+us, sending us out like swans upon the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Our washing place is on the ridge of the bay, in the foam of flying
+manes of the sea; our share of the ale feast is the salt water of the
+blue tide.</p>
+
+<p>"One daughter and three sons; it is in the clefts of the rocks we are;
+it is on the hard rocks we are, it is a pity the way we are."</p>
+
+<p>However, they came on to the course of the Maoil again, and the salt
+water was sharp and rough and bitter to them, but if it was itself, they
+were not able to avoid it or to get shelter from it. And they were there
+by the shore under that hardship till such time as their feathers grew
+again, and their wings, and till their sores were entirely healed. And
+then they used to go every day to the shore of Ireland or of Alban, but
+they had to come back to Sruth na Maoile every night.</p>
+
+<p>Now they came one day to the mouth of the Banna, to the north of
+Ireland, and they saw a troop of riders, beautiful, of the one colour,
+with well-trained pure white horses under them, and they travelling the
+road straight from the south-west.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know who those riders are, sons of Lir?" said Fionnuala.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not," they said; "but it is likely they might be some troop of
+the Sons of the Gael, or of the Tuatha de Danaan."</p>
+
+<p>They moved over closer to the shore then, that they might know who they
+were, and when the riders saw them they came to meet them until they
+were able to hold talk together.</p>
+
+<p>And the chief men among them were two sons of Bodb Dearg, Aodh
+Aithfhiosach, of the quick wits, and Fergus Fithchiollach, of the chess,
+and a third part of the Riders of the Sidhe along with them, and it was
+for the swans they had been looking for a long while before that, and
+when they came together they wished one another a kind and loving
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>And the children of Lir asked for news of all the Men of Dea, and above
+all of Lir, and Bodb Dearg and their people.</p>
+
+<p>"They are well, and they are in the one place together," said they, "in
+your father's house at Sidhe Fionnachaidh, using the Feast of Age
+pleasantly and happily, and with no uneasiness on them, only for being
+without yourselves, and without knowledge of what happened you from the
+day you left Loch Dairbhreach."</p>
+
+<p>"That has not been the way with us," said Fionnuala, "for we have gone
+through great hardship and uneasiness and misery on the tides of the sea
+until this day."</p>
+
+<p>And she made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is delight to-night with the household of Lir! Plenty of ale with
+them and of wine, although it is in a cold dwelling-place this night are
+the four children of the king.</p>
+
+<p>"It is without a spot our bedclothes are, our bodies covered over with
+curved feathers; but it is often we were dressed in purple, and we
+drinking pleasant mead.</p>
+
+<p>"It is what our food is and our drink, the white sand and the bitter
+water of the sea; it is often we drank mead of hazel-nuts from round
+four-lipped drinking cups.</p>
+
+<p>"It is what our beds are, bare rocks out of the power of the waves; it
+is often there used to be spread out for us beds of the breast-feathers
+of birds.</p>
+
+<p>"Though it is our work now to be swimming through the frost and through
+the noise of the waves, it is often a company of the sons of kings were
+riding after us to the Hill of Bodb.</p>
+
+<p>"It is what wasted my strength, to be going and coming over the current
+of the Maoil the way I never was used to, and never to be in the
+sunshine on the soft grass.</p>
+
+<p>"Fiachra's bed and Conn's bed is to come under the cover of my wings on
+the sea. Aodh has his place under the feathers of my breast, the four of
+us side by side.</p>
+
+<p>"The teaching of Manannan without deceit, the talk of Bodb Dearg on the
+pleasant ridge; the voice of Angus, his sweet kisses; it is by their
+side I used to be without grief."</p>
+
+<p>After that the riders went on to Lir's house, and they told the chief
+men of the Tuatha de Danaan all the birds had gone through, and the
+state they were in. "We have no power over them," the chief men said,
+"but we are glad they are living yet, for they will get help in the end
+of time."</p>
+
+<p>As to the children of Lir, they went back towards their old place in the
+Maoil, and they stopped there till the time they had to spend in it was
+spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to leave this
+place. And it is to Irrus Domnann we must go now," she said, "after our
+three hundred years here. And indeed there will be no rest for us there,
+or any standing ground, or any shelter from the storms. But since it is
+time for us to go, let us set out on the cold wind, the way we will not
+go astray."</p>
+
+<p>So they set out in that way, and left Sruth na Maoile behind them, and
+went to the point of Irrus Domnann, and there they stopped, and it is a
+life of misery and a cold life they led there. And one time the sea
+froze about them that they could not move at all, and the brothers were
+lamenting, and Fionnuala was comforting them, for she knew there would
+help come to them in the end.</p>
+
+<p>And they stayed at Irrus Domnann till the time they had to spend there
+was spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to go back
+to Sidhe Fionnachaidh, where our father is with his household and with
+all our own people."</p>
+
+<p>"It pleases us well to hear that," they said.</p>
+
+<p>So they set out flying through the air lightly till they came to Sidhe
+Fionnachaidh; and it is how they found the place, empty before them, and
+nothing in it but green hillocks and thickets of nettles, without a
+house, without a fire, without a hearthstone. And the four pressed close
+to one another then, and they gave out three sorrowful cries, and
+Fionnuala made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is a wonder to me this place is, and it without a house, without a
+dwelling-place. To see it the way it is now, Ochone! it is bitterness to
+my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Without dogs, without hounds for hunting, without women, without great
+kings; we never knew it to be like this when our father was in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Without horns, without cups, without drinking in the lighted house;
+without young men, without riders; the way it is to-night is a
+foretelling of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"The people of the place to be as they are now, Ochone! it is grief to
+my heart! It is plain to my mind to-night the lord of the house is not
+living.</p>
+
+<p>"Och, house where we used to see music and playing and the gathering of
+people! I think it a great change to see it lonely the way it is
+to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"The greatness of the hardships we have gone through going from one wave
+to another of the sea, we never heard of the like of them coming on any
+other person.</p>
+
+<p>"It is seldom this place had its part with grass and bushes; the man is
+not living that would know us, it would be a wonder to him to see us
+here."</p>
+
+<p>However, the children of Lir stopped that night in their father's place
+and their grandfather's, where they had been reared, and they were
+singing very sweet music of the Sidhe. And they rose up early on the
+morning of the morrow and went to Inis Gluaire, and all the birds of the
+country gathered near them on Loch na-n Ean, the Lake of the Birds. And
+they used to go out to feed every day to the far parts of the country,
+to Inis Geadh and to Accuill, the place Donn, son of Miled, and his
+people that were drowned were buried, and to all the western islands of
+Connacht, and they used to go back to Inis Gluaire every night.</p>
+
+<p>It was about that time it happened them to meet with a young man of good
+race, and his name was Aibric; and he often took notice of the birds,
+and their singing was sweet to him and he loved them greatly, and they
+loved him. And it is this young man that told the whole story of all
+that had happened them, and put it in order.</p>
+
+<p>And the story he told of what happened them in the end is this.</p>
+
+<p>It was after the faith of Christ and blessed Patrick came into Ireland,
+that Saint Mochaomhog came to Inis Gluaire. And the first night he came
+to the island, the children of Lir heard the voice of his bell, ringing
+near them. And the brothers started up with fright when they heard it
+"We do not know," they said, "what is that weak, unpleasing voice we
+hear."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the voice of the bell of Mochaomhog," said Fionnuala; "and it
+is through that bell," she said, "you will be set free from pain and
+from misery."</p>
+
+<p>They listened to that music of the bell till the matins were done, and
+then they began to sing the low, sweet music of the Sidhe.</p>
+
+<p>And Mochaomhog was listening to them, and he prayed to God to show him
+who was singing that music, and it was showed to him that the children
+of Lir were singing it. And on the morning of the morrow he went forward
+to the Lake of the Birds, and he saw the swans before him on the lake,
+and he went down to them at the brink of the shore. "Are you the
+children of Lir?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"We are indeed," said they.</p>
+
+<p>"I give thanks to God for that," said he, "for it is for your sakes I am
+come to this island beyond any other island, and let you come to land
+now," he said, "and give your trust to me, that you may do good deeds
+and part from your sins."</p>
+
+<p>They came to the land after that, and they put trust in Mochaomhog, and
+he brought them to his own dwelling-place, and they used to be hearing
+Mass with him. And he got a good smith and bade him make chains of
+bright silver for them, and he put a chain between Aodh and Fionnuala,
+and a chain between Conn and Fiachra. And the four of them were raising
+his heart and gladdening his mind, and no danger and no distress that
+was on the swans before put any trouble on them now.</p>
+
+<p>Now the king of Connacht at that time was Lairgnen, son of Colman, son
+of Cobthach, and Deoch, daughter of Finghin, was his wife. And that was
+the coming together of the Man from the North and the Woman from the
+South, that Aoife had spoken of.</p>
+
+<p>And the woman heard talk of the birds, and a great desire came on her to
+get them, and she bade Lairgnen to bring them to her, and he said he
+would ask them of Mochaomhog.</p>
+
+<p>And she gave her word she would not stop another night with him unless
+he would bring them to her. And she set out from the house there and
+then. And Lairgnen sent messengers after her to bring her back, and they
+did not overtake her till she was at Cill Dun. She went back home with
+them then, and Lairgnen sent messengers to ask the birds of Mochaomhog,
+and he did not get them.</p>
+
+<p>There was great anger on Lairgnen then, and he went himself to the place
+Mochaomhog was, and he asked was it true he had refused him the birds.
+"It is true indeed," said he. At that Lairgnen rose up, and he took hold
+of the swans, and pulled them off the altar, two birds in each hand, to
+bring them away to Deoch. But no sooner had he laid his hand on them
+than their bird skins fell off, and what was in their place was three
+lean, withered old men and a thin withered old woman, without blood or
+flesh.</p>
+
+<p>And Lairgnen gave a great start at that, and he went out from the
+place. It is then Fionnuala said to Mochaomhog: "Come and baptize us
+now, for it is short till our death comes; and it is certain you do not
+think worse of parting with us than we do of parting with you. And make
+our grave afterwards," she said, "and lay Conn at my right side and
+Fiachra on my left side, and Aodh before my face, between my two arms.
+And pray to the God of Heaven," she said, "that you may be able to
+baptize us."</p>
+
+<p>The children of Lir were baptized then, and they died and were buried as
+Fionnuala had desired; Fiachra and Conn one at each side of her, and
+Aodh before her face. And a stone was put over them, and their names
+were written in Ogham, and they were keened there, and heaven was gained
+for their souls.</p>
+
+<p>And that is the fate of the children of Lir so far.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L28" id="L28" />PART TWO: THE FIANNA.</h2>
+
+<h2>BOOK ONE: FINN, SON OF CUMHAL.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF FINN</h2>
+
+
+<p>At the time Finn was born his father Cumhal, of the sons of Baiscne,
+Head of the Fianna of Ireland, had been killed in battle by the sons of
+Morna that were fighting with him for the leadership. And his mother,
+that was beautiful long-haired Muirne, daughter of Tadg, son of Nuada of
+the Tuatha de Danaan and of Ethlinn, mother of Lugh of the Long Hand,
+did not dare to keep him with her; and two women, Bodhmall, the woman
+Druid, and Liath Luachra, came and brought him away to care him.</p>
+
+<p>It was to the woods of Slieve Bladhma they brought him, and they nursed
+him secretly, because of his father's enemies, the sons of Morna, and
+they kept him there a long time.</p>
+
+<p>And Muirne, his mother, took another husband that was king of Carraighe;
+but at the end of six years she came to see Finn, going through every
+lonely place till she came to the wood, and there she found the little
+hunting cabin, and the boy asleep in it, and she lifted him up in her
+arms and kissed him, and she sang a little sleepy song to him; and then
+she said farewell to the women, and she went away again.</p>
+
+<p>And the two women went on caring him till he came to sensible years; and
+one day when he went out he saw a wild duck on the lake with her clutch,
+and he made a cast at her that cut the wings off her that she could not
+fly, and he brought her back to the cabin, and that was his first hunt.</p>
+
+<p>And they gave him good training in running and leaping and swimming. One
+of them would run round a tree, and she having a thorn switch, and Finn
+after her with another switch, and each one trying to hit at the other;
+and they would leave him in a field, and hares along with him, and would
+bid him not to let the hares quit the field, but to keep before them
+whichever way they would go; and to teach him swimming they would throw
+him into the water and let him make his way out.</p>
+
+<p>But after a while he went away with a troop of poets, to hide from the
+sons of Morna, and they hid him in the mountain of Crotta Cliach; but
+there was a robber in Leinster at that time, Fiacuil, son of Codhna, and
+he came where the poets were in Fidh Gaible and killed them all. But he
+spared the child and brought him to his own house, that was in a cold
+marsh. But the two women, Bodhmall and Liath, came looking for him after
+a while, and Fiacuil gave him up to them, and they brought him back to
+the same place he was before.</p>
+
+<p>He grew up there, straight and strong and fair-haired and beautiful. And
+one day he was out in Slieve Bladhma, and the two women along with him,
+and they saw before them a herd of the wild deer of the mountain. "It is
+a pity," said the old women, "we not to be able to get a deer of those
+deer." "I will get one for you," said Finn; and with that he followed
+after them, and caught two stags of them and brought them home to the
+hunting cabin. And after that he used to be hunting for them every day.
+But at last they said to him: "It is best for you to leave us now, for
+the sons of Morna are watching again to kill you."</p>
+
+<p>So he went away then by himself, and never stopped till he came to Magh
+Lif&eacute;, and there he saw young lads swimming in a lake, and they called to
+him to swim against them. So he went into the lake, and he beat them at
+swimming. "Fair he is and well shaped," they said when they saw him
+swimming, and it was from that time he got the name of Finn, that is,
+Fair. But they got to be jealous of his strength, and he went away and
+left them.</p>
+
+<p>He went on then till he came to Loch Lein, and he took service there
+with the King of Finntraigh; and there was no hunter like him, and the
+king said: "If Cumhal had left a son, you would be that son."</p>
+
+<p>He went from that king after, and he went into Carraighe, and there he
+took service with the king, that had taken his mother Muirne for his
+wife. And one day they were playing chess together, and he won seven
+games one after another. "Who are you at all?" said the king then. "I am
+a son of a countryman of the Luigne of Teamhair," said Finn. "That is
+not so," said the king, "but you are the son that Muirne my wife bore to
+Cumhal. And do not stop here any longer," he said, "that you may not be
+killed under my protection."</p>
+
+<p>From that he went into Connacht looking for his father's brother,
+Crimall, son of Trenmor; and as he was going on his way he heard the
+crying of a lone woman. He went to her, and looked at her, and tears of
+blood were on her face. "Your face is red with blood, woman," he said.
+"I have reason for it," said she, "for my only son is after being killed
+by a great fighting man that came on us." And Finn followed after the
+big champion and fought with him and killed him. And the man he killed
+was the same man that had given Cumhal his first wound in the battle
+where he got his death, and had brought away his treasure-bag with him.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to that treasure-bag, it is of a crane skin it was made, that was
+one time the skin of Aoife, the beautiful sweetheart of Ilbrec, son of
+Manannan, that was put into the shape of a crane through jealousy. And
+it was in Manannan's house it used to be, and there were treasures kept
+in it, Manannan's shirt and his knife, and the belt and the smith's hook
+of Goibniu, and the shears of the King of Alban, and the helmet of the
+King of Lochlann, and a belt of the skin of a great fish, and the bones
+of Asal's pig that had been brought to Ireland by the sons of Tuireann.
+All those treasures would be in the bag at full tide, but at the ebbing
+of the tide it would be empty. And it went from Manannan to Lugh, son of
+Ethlinn, and after that to Cumhal, that was husband to Muirne, Ethlinn's
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn took the bag and brought it with him till he found Crimall,
+that was now an old man, living in a lonely place, and some of the old
+men of the Fianna were with him, and used to go hunting for him. And
+Finn gave him the bag, and told him his whole story.</p>
+
+<p>And then he said farewell to Crimall, and went on to learn poetry from
+Finegas, a poet that was living at the Boinn, for the poets thought it
+was always on the brink of water poetry was revealed to them. And he did
+not give him his own name, but he took the name of Deimne. Seven years,
+now, Finegas had stopped at the Boinn, watching the salmon, for it was
+in the prophecy that he would eat the salmon of knowledge that would
+come there, and that he would have all knowledge after. And when at the
+last the salmon of knowledge came, he brought it to where Finn was, and
+bade him to roast it, but he bade him not to eat any of it. And when
+Finn brought him the salmon after a while he said: "Did you eat any of
+it at all, boy?" "I did not," said Finn; "but I burned my thumb putting
+down a blister that rose on the skin, and after doing that, I put my
+thumb in my mouth." "What is your name, boy?" said Finegas. "Deimne,"
+said he. "It is not, but it is Finn your name is, and it is to you and
+not to myself the salmon was given in the prophecy." With that he gave
+Finn the whole of the salmon, and from that time Finn had the knowledge
+that came from the nuts of the nine hazels of wisdom that grow beside
+the well that is below the sea.</p>
+
+<p>And besides the wisdom he got then, there was a second wisdom came to
+him another time, and this is the way it happened. There was a well of
+the moon belonging to Beag, son of Buan, of the Tuatha de Danaan, and
+whoever would drink out of it would get wisdom, and after a second drink
+he would get the gift of foretelling. And the three daughters of Beag,
+son of Buan, had charge of the well, and they would not part with a
+vessel of it for anything less than red gold. And one day Finn chanced
+to be hunting in the rushes near the well, and the three women ran out
+to hinder him from coming to it, and one of them that had a vessel of
+the water in her hand, threw it at him to stop him, and a share of the
+water went into his mouth. And from that out he had all the knowledge
+that the water of that well could give.</p>
+
+<p>And he learned the three ways of poetry; and this is the poem he made to
+show he had got his learning well:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is the month of May is the pleasant time; its face is beautiful; the
+blackbird sings his full song, the living wood is his holding, the
+cuckoos are singing and ever singing; there is a welcome before the
+brightness of the summer.</p>
+
+<p>"Summer is lessening the rivers, the swift horses are looking for the
+pool; the heath spreads out its long hair, the weak white bog-down
+grows. A wildness comes on the heart of the deer; the sad restless sea
+is asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Bees with their little strength carry a load reaped from the flowers;
+the cattle go up muddy to the mountains; the ant has a good full feast.</p>
+
+<p>"The harp of the woods is playing music; there is colour on the hills,
+and a haze on the full lakes, and entire peace upon every sail.</p>
+
+<p>"The corncrake is speaking, a loud-voiced poet; the high lonely
+waterfall is singing a welcome to the warm pool, the talking of the
+rushes has begun.</p>
+
+<p>"The light swallows are darting; the loudness of music is around the
+hill; the fat soft mast is budding; there is grass on the trembling
+bogs.</p>
+
+<p>"The bog is as dark as the feathers of the raven; the cuckoo makes a
+loud welcome; the speckled salmon is leaping; as strong is the leaping
+of the swift fighting man.</p>
+
+<p>"The man is gaining; the girl is in her comely growing power; every wood
+is without fault from the top to the ground, and every wide good plain.</p>
+
+<p>"It is pleasant is the colour of the time; rough winter is gone; every
+plentiful wood is white; summer is a joyful peace.</p>
+
+<p>"A flock of birds pitches in the meadow; there are sounds in the green
+fields, there is in them a clear rushing stream.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a hot desire on you for the racing of horses; twisted holly
+makes a leash for the hound; a bright spear has been shot into the
+earth, and the flag-flower is golden under it.</p>
+
+<p>"A weak lasting little bird is singing at the top of his voice; the lark
+is singing clear tidings; May without fault, of beautiful colours.</p>
+
+<p>"I have another story for you; the ox is lowing, the winter is creeping
+in, the summer is gone. High and cold the wind, low the sun, cries are
+about us; the sea is quarrelling.</p>
+
+<p>"The ferns are reddened and their shape is hidden; the cry of the wild
+goose is heard; the cold has caught the wings of the birds; it is the
+time of ice-frost, hard, unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>And after that, Finn being but a young lad yet, made himself ready and
+went up at Samhain time to the gathering of the High King at Teamhair.
+And it was the law at that gathering, no one to raise a quarrel or
+bring out any grudge against another through the whole of the time it
+lasted. And the king and his chief men, and Goll, son of Morna, that was
+now Head of the Fianna, and Caoilte, son of Ronan, and Conan, son of
+Morna, of the sharp words, were sitting at a feast in the great house of
+the Middle Court; and the young lad came in and took his place among
+them, and none of them knew who he was.</p>
+
+<p>The High King looked at him then, and the horn of meetings was brought
+to him, and he put it into the boy's hand, and asked him who was he.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Finn, son of Cumhal," he said, "son of the man that used to be
+head over the Fianna, and king of Ireland; and I am come now to get your
+friendship, and to give you my service."</p>
+
+<p>"You are son of a friend, boy," said the king, "and son of a man I
+trusted."</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn rose up and made his agreement of service and of faithfulness
+to the king; and the king took him by the hand and put him sitting
+beside his own son, and they gave themselves to drinking and to pleasure
+for a while.</p>
+
+<p>Every year, now, at Samhain time, for nine years, there had come a man
+of the Tuatha de Danaan out of Sidhe Finnachaidh in the north, and had
+burned up Teamhair. Aillen, son of Midhna, his name was, and it is the
+way he used to come, playing music of the Sidhe, and all the people that
+heard it would fall asleep. And when they were all in their sleep, he
+would let a flame of fire out of his mouth, and would blow the flame
+till all Teamhair was burned.</p>
+
+<p>The king rose up at the feast after a while, and his smooth horn in his
+hand, and it is what he said: "If I could find among you, men of
+Ireland, any man that would keep Teamhair till the break of day
+to-morrow without being burned by Aillen, son of Midhna, I would give
+him whatever inheritance is right for him to have, whether it be much or
+little."</p>
+
+<p>But the men of Ireland made no answer, for they knew well that at the
+sound of the sweet pitiful music made by that comely man of the Sidhe,
+even women in their pains and men that were wounded would fall asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It is then Finn rose up and spoke to the King of Ireland. "Who will be
+your sureties that you will fulfil this?" he said. "The kings of the
+provinces of Ireland," said the king, "and Cithruadh with his Druids."
+So they gave their pledges, and Finn took in hand to keep Teamhair safe
+till the breaking of day on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Now there was a fighting man among the followers of the King of Ireland,
+Fiacha, son of Conga, that Cumhal, Finn's father, used to have a great
+liking for, and he said to Finn: "Well, boy," he said, "what reward
+would you give me if I would bring you a deadly spear, that no false
+cast was ever made with?" "What reward are you asking of me?" said Finn.
+"Whatever your right hand wins at any time, the third of it to be mine,"
+said Fiacha, "and a third of your trust and your friendship to be mine."
+"I will give you that," said Finn. Then Fiacha brought him
+the spear, unknown to the sons of Morna or to any other person, and he
+said: "When you will hear the music of the Sidhe, let you strip the
+covering off the head of the spear and put it to your forehead, and the
+power of the spear will not let sleep come upon you."</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn rose up before all the men of Ireland, and he made a round of
+the whole of Teamhair. And it was not long till he heard the sorrowful
+music, and he stripped the covering from the head of the spear, and he
+held the power of it to his forehead. And Aillen went on playing his
+little harp, till he had put every one in their sleep as he was used;
+and then he let a flame of fire out from his mouth to burn Teamhair.
+And Finn held up his fringed crimson cloak against the flame, and it
+fell down through the air and went into the ground, bringing the
+four-folded cloak with it deep into the earth.</p>
+
+<p>And when Aillen saw his spells were destroyed, he went back to Sidhe
+Finnachaidh on the top of Slieve Fuad; but Finn followed after him
+there, and as Aillen was going in at the door he made a cast of the
+spear that went through his heart. And he struck his head off then, and
+brought it back to Teamhair, and fixed it on a crooked pole and left it
+there till the rising of the sun over the heights and invers of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>And Aillen's mother came to where his body was lying, and there was
+great grief on her, and she made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ochone! Aillen is fallen, chief of the Sidhe of Beinn Boirche; the slow
+clouds of death are come on him. Och! he was pleasant, Och! he was kind.
+Aillen, son of Midhna of Slieve Fuad.</p>
+
+<p>"Nine times he burned Teamhair. It is a great name he was always looking
+for, Ochone, Ochone, Aillen!"</p>
+
+<p>And at the breaking of day, the king and all the men of Ireland came out
+upon the lawn at Teamhair where Finn was. "King," said Finn, "there is
+the head of the man that burned Teamhair, and the pipe and the harp that
+made his music. And it is what I think," he said, "that Teamhair and all
+that is in it is saved."</p>
+
+<p>Then they all came together into the place of counsel, and it is what
+they agreed, the headship of the Fianna of Ireland to be given to Finn.
+And the king said to Goll, son of Morna: "Well, Goll," he said, "is it
+your choice to quit Ireland or to put your hand in Finn's hand?" "By my
+word, I will give Finn my hand," said Goll.</p>
+
+<p>And when the charms that used to bring good luck had done their work,
+the chief men of the Fianna rose up and struck their hands in Finn's
+hand, and Goll, son of Morna, was the first to give him his hand the way
+there would be less shame on the rest for doing it.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn kept the headship of the Fianna until the end; and the place he
+lived in was Almhuin of Leinster, where the white dun was made by Nuada
+of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was as white as if all the lime in Ireland
+was put on it, and that got its name from the great herd of cattle that
+died fighting one time around the well, and that left their horns there,
+speckled horns and white.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn himself, he was a king and a seer and a poet; a Druid and
+a knowledgeable man; and everything he said was sweet-sounding to his
+people. And a better fighting man than Finn never struck his hand into a
+king's hand, and whatever any one ever said of him, he was three times
+better. And of his justice it used to be said, that if his enemy and his
+own son had come before him to be judged, it is a fair judgment he would
+have given between them. And as to his generosity it used to be said, he
+never denied any man as long as he had a mouth to eat with, and legs to
+bring away what he gave him; and he left no woman without her
+bride-price, and no man without his pay; and he never promised at night
+what he would not fulfil on the morrow, and he never promised in the day
+what he would not fulfil at night, and he never forsook his right-hand
+friend. And if he was quiet in peace he was angry in battle, and Oisin
+his son and Osgar his son's son followed him in that. There was a young
+man of Ulster came and claimed kinship with them one time, saying they
+were of the one blood. "If that is so," said Oisin, "it is from the men
+of Ulster we took the madness and the angry heart we have in battle."
+"That is so indeed," said Finn.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L29" id="L29" />CHAPTER II. FINN'S HOUSEHOLD</h2>
+
+
+<p>And the number of the Fianna of Ireland at that time was seven score and
+ten chief men, every one of them having three times nine righting men
+under him. And every man of them was bound to three things, to take no
+cattle by oppression, not to refuse any man, as to cattle or riches; no
+one of them to fall back before nine fighting men. And there was no man
+taken into the Fianna until his tribe and his kindred would give
+securities for him, that even if they themselves were all killed he
+would not look for satisfaction for their death. But if he himself would
+harm others, that harm was not to be avenged on his people. And there
+was no man taken into the Fianna till he knew the twelve books of
+poetry. And before any man was taken, he would be put into a deep hole
+in the ground up to his middle, and he having his shield and a hazel rod
+in his hand. And nine men would go the length of ten furrows from him
+and would cast their spears at him at the one time. And if he got a
+wound from one of them, he was not thought fit to join with the Fianna.
+And after that again, his hair would be fastened up, and he put to run
+through the woods of Ireland, and the Fianna following after him to try
+could they wound him, and only the length of a branch between themselves
+and himself when they started. And if they came up with him and wounded
+him, he was not let join them; or if his spears had trembled in his
+hand, or if a branch of a tree had undone the plaiting of his hair, or
+if he had cracked a dry stick under his foot, and he running. And they
+would not take him among them till he had made a leap over a stick the
+height of himself, and till he had stooped under one the height of his
+knee, and till he had taken a thorn out from his foot with his nail,
+and he running his fastest. But if he had done all these things, he was
+of Finn's people.</p>
+
+<p>It was good wages Finn and the Fianna got at that time; in every
+district a townland, in every house the fostering of a pup or a whelp
+from Samhain to Beltaine, and a great many things along with that. But
+good as the pay was, the hardships and the dangers they went through for
+it were greater. For they had to hinder the strangers and robbers from
+beyond the seas, and every bad thing, from coming into Ireland. And they
+had hard work enough in doing that.</p>
+
+<p>And besides the fighting men, Finn had with him his five Druids, the
+best that ever came into the west, Cainnelsciath, of the Shining Shield,
+one of them was, that used to bring down knowledge from the clouds in
+the sky before Finn, and that could foretell battles. And he had his
+five wonderful physicians, four of them belonging to Ireland, and one
+that came over the sea from the east. And he had his five high poets and
+his twelve musicians, that had among them Daighre, son of Morna, and
+Suanach, son of Senshenn, that was Finn's teller of old stories, the
+sweetest that ever took a harp in his hand in Ireland or in Alban. And
+he had his three cup-bearers and his six door-keepers and his
+horn-players and the stewards of his house and his huntsman, Comhrag of
+the five hundred hounds, and his serving-men that were under
+Garbhcronan, of the Rough Buzzing; and a great troop of others along
+with them.</p>
+
+<p>And there were fifty of the best sewing-women in Ireland brought
+together in a rath on Magh Feman, under the charge of a daughter of the
+King of Britain, and they used to be making clothing for the Fianna
+through the whole of the year. And three of them, that were a king's
+daughters, used to be making music for the rest on a little silver
+harp; and there was a very great candlestick of stone in the middle of
+the rath, for they were not willing to kindle a fire more than three
+times in the year for fear the smoke and the ashes might harm the
+needlework.</p>
+
+<p>And of all his musicians the one Finn thought most of was Cnu Deireoil,
+the Little Nut, that came to him from the Sidhe.</p>
+
+<p>It was at Slieve-nam-ban, for hunting, Finn was the time he came to him.
+Sitting down he was on the turf-built grave that is there; and when he
+looked around him he saw a small little man about four feet in height
+standing on the grass. Light yellow hair he had, hanging down to his
+waist, and he playing music on his harp. And the music he was making had
+no fault in it at all, and it is much that the whole of the Fianna did
+not fall asleep with the sweetness of its sound. He came up then, and
+put his hand in Finn's hand. "Where do you come from, little one,
+yourself and your sweet music?" said Finn. "I am come," he said, "out of
+the place of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban, where ale is drunk and made;
+and it is to be in your company for a while I am come here." "You will
+get good rewards from me, and riches and red gold," said Finn, "and my
+full friendship, for I like you well." "That is the best luck ever came
+to you, Finn," said all the rest of the Fianna, for they were well
+pleased to have him in their company. And they gave him the name of the
+Little Nut; and he was good in speaking, and he had so good a memory he
+never forgot anything he heard east or west; and there was no one but
+must listen to his music, and all the Fianna liked him well. And there
+were some said he was a son of Lugh Lamh-Fada, of the Long Hand.</p>
+
+<p>And the five musicians of the Fianna were brought to him, to learn the
+music of the Sidhe he had brought from that other place; for there was
+never any music heard on earth but his was better. These were the three
+best things Finn ever got, Bran and Sceolan that were without fault, and
+the Little Nut from the House of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L30" id="L30" />CHAPTER III. BIRTH OF BRAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>This, now, is the story of the birth of Bran.</p>
+
+<p>Finn's mother, Muirne, came one time to Almhuin, and she brought with
+her Tuiren, her sister. And Iollan Eachtach, a chief man of the Fianna
+of Ulster, was at Almhuin at the time, and he gave his love to Tuiren,
+and asked her in marriage, and brought her to his own house. But before
+they went, Finn made him gave his word he would bring her back safe and
+sound if ever he asked for her, and he bade him find sureties for
+himself among the chief men of the Fianna. And Iollan did that, and the
+sureties he got were Caoilte and Goll and Lugaidh Lamha, and it was
+Lugaidh gave her into the hand of Iollan Eachtach.</p>
+
+<p>But before Iollan made that marriage, he had a sweetheart of the Sidhe,
+Uchtdealb of the Fair Breast; and there came great jealousy on her when
+she knew he had taken a wife. And she took the appearance of Finn's
+woman-messenger, and she came to the house where Tuiren was, and she
+said: "Finn sends health and long life to you, queen, and he bids you to
+make a great feast; and come with me now," she said, "till I speak a few
+words with you, for there is hurry on me."</p>
+
+<p>So Tuiren went out with her, and when they were away from the house the
+woman of the Sidhe took out her dark Druid rod from under her cloak and
+gave her a blow of it that changed her into a hound, the most beautiful
+that was ever seen. And then she went on, bringing the hound with her,
+to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, king of the harbour of Gallimh. And
+it is the way Fergus was, he was the most unfriendly man to dogs in the
+whole world, and he would not let one stop in the same house with him.
+But it is what Uchtdealb said to him: "Finn wishes you life and health,
+Fergus, and he says to you to take good care of his hound till he comes
+himself; and mind her well," she said, "for she is with young, and do
+not let her go hunting when her time is near, or Finn will be no way
+thankful to you." "I wonder at that message," said Fergus, "for Finn
+knows well there is not in the world a man has less liking for dogs than
+myself. But for all that," he said, "I will not refuse Finn the first
+time he sent a hound to me."</p>
+
+<p>And when he brought the hound out to try her, she was the best he ever
+knew, and she never saw the wild creature she would not run down; and
+Fergus took a great liking for hounds from that out.</p>
+
+<p>And when her time came near, they did not let her go hunting any more,
+and she gave birth to two whelps.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn, when he heard his mother's sister was not living with
+Iollan Eachtach, he called to him for the fulfilment of the pledge that
+was given to the Fianna. And Iollan asked time to go looking for Tuiren,
+and he gave his word that if he did not find her, he would give himself
+up in satisfaction for her. So they agreed to that, and Iollan went to
+the hill where Uchtdealb was, his sweetheart of the Sidhe, and told her
+the way things were with him, and the promise he had made to give
+himself up to the Fianna. "If that is so," said she, "and if you will
+give me your pledge to keep me as your sweetheart to the end of your
+life, I will free you from that danger." So Iollan gave her his promise,
+and she went to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, and she brought Tuiren
+away and put her own shape on her again, and gave her up to Finn. And
+Finn gave her to Lugaidh Lamha that asked her in marriage.</p>
+
+<p>And as to the two whelps, they stopped always with Finn, and the names
+he gave them were Bran and Sceolan.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L31" id="L31" />CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S MOTHER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It happened one time Finn and his men were coming back from the hunting,
+a beautiful fawn started up before them, and they followed after it, men
+and dogs, till at last they were all tired and fell back, all but Finn
+himself and Bran and Sceolan. And suddenly as they were going through a
+valley, the fawn stopped and lay down on the smooth grass, and Bran and
+Sceolan came up with it, and they did not harm it at all, but went
+playing about it, licking its neck and its face.</p>
+
+<p>There was wonder on Finn when he saw that, and he went on home to
+Almhuin, and the fawn followed after him playing with the hounds, and it
+came with them into the house at Almhuin. And when Finn was alone late
+that evening, a beautiful young woman having a rich dress came before
+him, and she told him it was she herself was the fawn he was after
+hunting that day. "And it is for refusing the love of Fear Doirche, the
+Dark Druid of the Men of Dea," she said, "I was put in this shape. And
+through the length of three years," she said, "I have lived the life of
+a wild deer in a far part of Ireland, and I am hunted like a wild deer.
+And a serving-man of the Dark Druid took pity on me," she said, "and he
+said that if I was once within the dun of the Fianna of Ireland, the
+Druid would have no more power over me. So I made away, and I never
+stopped through the whole length of a day till I came into the district
+of Almhuin. And I never stopped then till there was no one after me but
+only Bran and Sceolan, that have human wits; and I was safe with them,
+for they knew my nature to be like their own."</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn gave her his love, and took her as his wife, and she stopped
+in Almhuin. And so great was his love for her, he gave up his hunting
+and all the things he used to take pleasure in, and gave his mind to no
+other thing but herself.</p>
+
+<p>But at last the men of Lochlann came against Ireland, and their ships
+were in the bay below Beinn Edair, and they landed there.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn and the battalions of the Fianna went out against them, and
+drove them back. And at the end of seven days Finn came back home, and
+he went quickly over the plain of Almhuin, thinking to see Sadbh his
+wife looking out from the dun, but there was no sign of her. And when he
+came to the dun, all his people came out to meet him, but they had a
+very downcast look. "Where is the flower of Almhuin, beautiful gentle
+Sadbh?" he asked them. And it is what they said: "While you were away
+fighting, your likeness, and the likeness of Bran and of Sceolan
+appeared before the dun, and we thought we heard the sweet call of the
+Dord Fiann. And Sadbh, that was so good and so beautiful, came out of
+the house," they said, "and she went out of the gates, and she would not
+listen to us, and we could not stop her." "Let me go meet my love," she
+said, "my husband, the father of the child that is not born." And with
+that she went running out towards the shadow of yourself that was before
+her, and that had its arms stretched out to her. But no sooner did she
+touch it than she gave a great cry, and the shadow lifted up a hazel
+rod, and on the moment it was a fawn was standing on the grass. Three
+times she turned and made for the gate of the dun, but the two hounds
+the shadow had with him went after her and took her by the throat and
+dragged her back to him. "And by your hand of valour, Finn," they said,
+"we ourselves made no delay till we went out on the plain after her. But
+it is our grief, they had all vanished, and there was not to be seen
+woman, or fawn or Druid, but we could hear the quick tread of feet on
+the hard plain, and the howling of dogs. And if you would ask every one
+of us in what quarter he heard those sounds, he would tell you a
+different one."</p>
+
+<p>When Finn heard that, he said no word at all, but he struck his breast
+over and over again with his shut hands. And he went then to his own
+inside room, and his people saw him no more for that day, or till the
+sun rose over Magh Lif&eacute; on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>And through the length of seven years from that time, whenever he was
+not out fighting against the enemies of Ireland, he went searching and
+ever searching in every far corner for beautiful Sadbh. And there was
+great trouble on him all the time, unless he might throw it off for a
+while in hunting or in battle. And through all that time he never
+brought out to any hunting but the five hounds he had most trust in,
+Bran and Sceolan and Lomaire and Brod and Lomluath, the way there would
+be no danger for Sadbh if ever he came on her track.</p>
+
+<p>But after the end of seven years, Finn and some of his chief men were
+hunting on the sides of Beinn Gulbain, and they heard a great outcry
+among the hounds, that were gone into some narrow place. And when they
+followed them there, they saw the five hounds of Finn in a ring, and
+they keeping back the other hounds, and in the middle of the ring was a
+young boy, with high looks, and he naked and having long hair. And he
+was no way daunted by the noise of the hounds, and did not look at them
+at all, but at the men that were coming up. And as soon as the fight was
+stopped Bran and Sceolan went up to the little lad, and whined and
+licked him, that any one would think they had forgotten their master.
+Finn and the others came up to him then, and put their hands on his
+head, and made much of him. And they brought him to their own hunting
+cabin, and he ate and drank with them, and before long he lost his
+wildness and was the same as themselves. And as to Bran and Sceolan,
+they were never tired playing about him.</p>
+
+<p>And it is what Finn thought, there was some look of Sadbh in his face,
+and that it might be he was her son, and he kept him always beside him.
+And little by little when the boy had learned their talk, he told them
+all he could remember. He used to be with a deer he loved very much, he
+said, and that cared and sheltered him, and it was in a wide place they
+used to be, having hills and valleys and streams and woods in it, but
+that was shut in with high cliffs on every side, that there was no way
+of escape from it. And he used to be eating fruits and roots in the
+summer, and in the winter there was food left for him in the shelter of
+a cave. And a dark-looking man used to be coming to the place, and
+sometimes he would speak to the deer softly and gently, and sometimes
+with a loud angry voice. But whatever way he spoke, she would always
+draw away from him with the appearance of great dread on her, and the
+man would go away in great anger. And the last time he saw the deer, his
+mother, the dark man was speaking to her for a long time, from softness
+to anger. And at the end he struck her with a hazel rod, and with that
+she was forced to follow him, and she looking back all the while at the
+child, and crying after him that any one would pity her. And he tried
+hard to follow after her, and made every attempt, and cried out with
+grief and rage, but he had no power to move, and when he could hear his
+mother no more he fell on the grass and his wits went from him. And when
+he awoke it is on the side of the hill he was, where the hounds found
+him. And he searched a long time for the place where he was brought up,
+but he could not find it.</p>
+
+<p>And the name the Fianna gave him was Oisin, and it is he was their maker
+of poems, and their good fighter afterwards.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L32" id="L32" />CHAPTER V. THE BEST MEN OF THE FIANNA</h2>
+
+
+<p>And while Oisin was in his young youth, Finn had other good men along
+with him, and the best of them were Goll, son of Morna, and Caoilte, son
+of Ronan, and Lugaidh's Son.</p>
+
+<p>As to Goll, that was of Connacht, he was very tall and light-haired, and
+some say he was the strongest of all the Fianna. Finn made a poem in
+praise of him one time when some stranger was asking what sort he was,
+saying how hardy he was and brave in battle, and as strong as a hound or
+as the waves, and with all that so kind and so gentle, and open-handed
+and sweet-voiced, and faithful to his friends.</p>
+
+<p>And the chessboard he had was called the Solustairtech, the Shining
+Thing, and some of the chessmen were made of gold, and some of them of
+silver, and each one of them was as big as the fist of the biggest man
+of the Fianna; and after the death of Goll it was buried in Slieve
+Baune.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Caoilte, that was a grey thin man, he was the best runner of
+them all. And he did a good many great deeds; a big man of the Fomor he
+killed one time, and he killed a five-headed giant in a wheeling door,
+and another time he made an end of an enchanted boar that no one else
+could get near, and he killed a grey stag that had got away from the
+Fianna through twenty-seven years. And another time he brought Finn out
+of Teamhair, where he was kept by force by the High King, because of
+some rebellion the Fianna had stirred up. And when Caoilte heard Finn
+had been brought away to Teamhair, he went out to avenge him. And the
+first he killed was Cuireach, a king of Leinster that had a great name,
+and he brought his head up to the hill that is above Buadhmaic. And
+after that he made a great rout through Ireland, bringing sorrow into
+every house for the sake of Finn, killing a man in every place, and
+killing the calves with the cows.</p>
+
+<p>And every door the red wind from the east blew on, he would throw it
+open, and go in and destroy all before him, setting fire to the fields,
+and giving the wife of one man to another.</p>
+
+<p>And when he came to Teamhair, he came to the palace, and took the
+clothes off the door-keeper, and he left his own sword that was worn
+thin in the king's sheath, and took the king's sword that had great
+power in it. And he went into the palace then in the disguise of a
+servant, to see how he could best free Finn.</p>
+
+<p>And when evening came Caoilte held the candle at the king's feast in the
+great hall, and after a while the king said: "You will wonder at what I
+tell you, Finn, that the two eyes of Caoilte are in my candlestick." "Do
+not say that," said Finn, "and do not put reproach on my people although
+I myself am your prisoner; for as to Caoilte," he said, "that is not the
+way with him, for it is a high mind he has, and he only does high
+deeds, and he would not stand serving with a candle for all the gold of
+the whole world."</p>
+
+<p>After that Caoilte was serving the King of Ireland with drink, and when
+he was standing beside him he gave out a high sorrowful lament. "There
+is the smell of Caoilte's skin on that lament," said the king. And when
+Caoilte saw he knew him he spoke out and he said: "Tell me what way I
+can get freedom for my master." "There is no way to get freedom for him
+but by doing one thing," said the king, "and that is a thing you can
+never do. If you can bring me together a couple of all the wild
+creatures of Ireland," he said, "I will give up your master to you
+then."</p>
+
+<p>When Caoilte heard him say that he made no delay, but he set out from
+Teamhair, and went through the whole of Ireland to do that work for the
+sake of Finn. It is with the flocks of birds he began, though they were
+scattered in every part, and from them he went on to the beasts. And he
+gathered together two of every sort, two ravens from Fiodh da Bheann;
+two wild ducks from Loch na Seillein; two foxes from Slieve Cuilinn; two
+wild oxen from Burren; two swans from blue Dobhran; two owls from the
+wood of Faradhruim; two polecats from the branchy wood on the side of
+Druim da Raoin, the Ridge of the Victories; two gulls from the strand of
+Loch Leith; four woodpeckers from white Brosna; two plovers from
+Carraigh Dhain; two thrushes from Leith Lomard; two wrens from Dun
+Aoibh; two herons from Corrain Cleibh; two eagles from Carraig of the
+stones; two hawks from Fiodh Chonnach; two sows from Loch Meilghe; two
+water-hens from Loch Erne; two moor-hens from Monadh Maith; two
+sparrow-hawks from Dubhloch; two stonechats from Magh Cuillean; two
+tomtits from Magh Tuallainn; two swallows from Sean Abhla; two
+cormorants from Ath Cliath; two wolves from Broit Cliathach; two
+blackbirds from the Strand of the Two Women; two roebucks from Luachair
+Ire; two pigeons from Ceas Chuir; two nightingales from Leiter Ruadh;
+two starlings from green-sided Teamhair; two rabbits from Sith Dubh
+Donn; two wild pigs from Cluaidh Chuir; two cuckoos from Drom Daibh; two
+lapwings from Leanain na Furraich; two woodcocks from Craobh Ruadh; two
+hawks from the Bright Mountain; two grey mice from Luimneach; two otters
+from the Boinn; two larks from the Great Bog; two bats from the Cave of
+the Nuts; two badgers from the province of Ulster; two landrail from the
+banks of the Sionnan; two wagtails from Port Lairrge; two curlews from
+the harbour of Gallimh; two hares from Muirthemne; two deer from Sith
+Buidhe; two peacocks from Magh Mell; two cormorants from Ath Cliath; two
+eels from Duth Dur; two goldfinches from Slieve na-n Eun; two birds of
+slaughter from Magh Bhuilg; two bright swallows from Granard; two
+redbreasts from the Great Wood; two rock-cod from Cala Chairge; two
+sea-pigs from the great sea; two wrens from Mios an Chuil; two salmon
+from Eas Mhic Muirne; two clean deer from Gleann na Smoil; two cows from
+Magh Mor; two cats from the Cave of Cruachan; two sheep from bright
+Sidhe Diobhlain; two pigs of the pigs of the son of Lir; a ram and a
+crimson sheep from Innis.</p>
+
+<p>And along with all these he brought ten hounds of the hounds of the
+Fianna, and a horse and a mare of the beautiful horses of Manannan.</p>
+
+<p>And when Caoilte had gathered all these, he brought them to the one
+place. But when he tried to keep them together, they scattered here and
+there from him; the raven went away southward, and that vexed him
+greatly, but he overtook it again in Gleann da Bheann, beside Loch
+Lurcan. And then his wild duck went away from him, and it was not easy
+to get it again, but he followed it through every stream to grey Accuill
+till he took it by the neck and brought it back, and it no way willing.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed through the length of his life Caoilte remembered well all he
+went through that time with the birds, big and little, travelling over
+hills and ditches and striving to bring them with him, that he might set
+Finn his master free.</p>
+
+<p>And when he came to Teamhair he had more to go through yet, for the king
+would not let him bring them in before morning, but gave him a house
+having nine doors in it to put them up in for the night. And no sooner
+were they put in than they raised a loud screech all together, for a
+little ray of light was coming to them through fifty openings, and they
+were trying to make their escape. And if they were not easy in the
+house, Caoilte was not easy outside it, watching every door till the
+rising of the sun on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>And when he brought out his troop, the name the people gave them was
+"Caoilte's Rabble," and there was no wonder at all in that.</p>
+
+<p>But all the profit the King of Ireland got from them was to see them
+together for that one time. For no sooner did Finn get his freedom than
+the whole of them scattered here and there, and no two of them went by
+the same road out of Teamhair.</p>
+
+<p>And that was one of the best things Caoilte, son of Ronan, ever did. And
+another time he ran from the wave of Cliodna in the south to the wave of
+Rudraige in the north. And Colla his son was a very good runner too, and
+one time he ran a race backwards against the three battalions of the
+Fianna for a chessboard. And he won the race, but if he did, he went
+backward over Beinn Edair into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>And very good hearing Caoilte had. One time he heard the King of the
+Luigne of Connacht at his hunting, and Blathmec that was with him said,
+"What is that hunt, Caoilte?" "A hunt of three packs of hounds," he
+said, "and three sorts of wild creatures before them. The first hunt,"
+he said, "is after stags and large deer and the second hunt is after
+swift small hares, and the third is a furious hunt after heavy boars."
+"And what is the fourth hunt, Caoilte?" said Blathmec. "It is the
+hunting of heavy-sided, low-bellied badgers." And then they heard coming
+after the hunt the shouts of the lads and of the readiest of the men and
+the serving-men that were best at carrying burdens. And Blathmec went
+out to see the hunting, and just as Caoilte had told him, that was the
+way it was.</p>
+
+<p>And he understood the use of herbs, and one time he met with two women
+that were very downhearted because their husbands had gone from them to
+take other wives. And Caoilte gave them Druid herbs, and they put them
+in the water of a bath and washed in it, and the love of their husbands
+came back to them, and they sent away the new wives they had taken.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Lugaidh's Son, that was of Finn's blood, and another of the
+best men of the Fianna, he was put into Finn's arms as a child, and he
+was reared up by Duban's daughter, that had reared eight hundred
+fighting men of the Fianna, till his twelfth year, and then she gave him
+all he wanted of arms and of armour, and he went to Chorraig Conluain
+and the mountains of Slieve Bladhma, where Finn and the Fianna were at
+that time.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn gave him a very gentle welcome, and he struck his hand in
+Finn's hand, and made his agreement of service with him. And he stopped
+through the length of a year with the Fianna; but he was someway
+sluggish through all that time, so that under his leading not more than
+nine of the Fianna got to kill so much as a boar or a deer. And along
+with that, he used to beat both his servants and his hounds.</p>
+
+<p>And at last the three battalions of the Fianna went to where Finn was,
+at the Point of the Fianna on the edge of Loch Lein, and they made their
+complaint against Lugaidh's Son, and it is what they said: "Make your
+choice now, will you have us with you, or will you have Lugaidh's Son by
+himself."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lugaidh's Son came to Finn, and Finn asked him, "What is it has put
+the whole of the Fianna against you?" "By my word," said the lad, "I do
+not know the reason, unless it might be they do not like me to be doing
+my feats and casting my spears among them."</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn gave him an advice, and it is what he said: "If you have a
+mind to be a good champion, be quiet in a great man's house; be surly in
+the narrow pass. Do not beat your hound without a cause; do not bring a
+charge against your wife without having knowledge of her guilt; do not
+hurt a fool in fighting, for he is without his wits. Do not find fault
+with high-up persons; do not stand up to take part in a quarrel; have no
+dealings with a bad man or a foolish man. Let two-thirds of your
+gentleness be showed to women and to little children that are creeping
+on the floor, and to men of learning that make the poems, and do not be
+rough with the common people. Do not give your reverence to all; do not
+be ready to have one bed with your companions. Do not threaten or speak
+big words, for it is a shameful thing to speak stiffly unless you can
+carry it out afterwards. Do not forsake your lord so long as you live;
+do not give up any man that puts himself under your protection for all
+the treasures of the world. Do not speak against others to their lord,
+that is not work for a good man. Do not be a bearer of lying stories, or
+a tale-bearer that is always chattering. Do not be talking too much; do
+not find fault hastily; however brave you may be, do not raise factions
+against you. Do not be going to drinking-houses, or finding fault with
+old men; do not meddle with low people; this is right conduct I am
+telling you. Do not refuse to share your meat; do not have a niggard for
+your friend; do not force yourself on a great man or give him occasion
+to speak against you. Hold fast to your arms till the hard fight is well
+ended. Do not give up your opportunity, but with that follow after
+gentleness."</p>
+
+<p>That was good advice Finn gave, and he was well able to do that; for it
+was said of him that he had all the wisdom of a little child that is
+busy about the house, and the mother herself not understanding what he
+is doing; and that is the time she has most pride in him.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Lugaidh's Son, that advice stayed always with him, and he
+changed his ways, and after a while he got a great name among the poets
+of Ireland and of Alban, and whenever they would praise Finn in their
+poems, they would praise him as well.</p>
+
+<p>And Aoife, daughter of the King of Lochlann, that was married to Mal,
+son of Aiel, King of Alban, heard the great praise the poets were giving
+to Lugaidh's Son, and she set her love on him for the sake of those
+stories.</p>
+
+<p>And one time Mal her husband and his young men went hunting to
+Slieve-mor-Monaidh in the north of Alban. And when he was gone Aoife
+made a plan in her sunny house where she was, to go over to Ireland,
+herself and her nine foster-sisters. And they set out and went over the
+manes of the sea till they came to Beinn Edair, and there they landed.</p>
+
+<p>And it chanced on that day there was a hunting going on, from Slieve
+Bladhma to Beinn Edair. And Finn was in his hunting seat, and his
+fosterling, brown-haired Duibhruinn, beside him. And the little lad was
+looking about him on every side, and he saw a ship coming to the
+strand, and a queen with modest looks in the ship, and nine women along
+with her. They landed then, and they came up to where Finn was, bringing
+every sort of present with them, and Aoife sat down beside him. And Finn
+asked news of her, and she told him the whole story, and how she had
+given her love to Lugaidh's Son, and was come over the sea looking for
+him; and Finn made her welcome.</p>
+
+<p>And when the hunting was over, the chief men of the Fianna came back to
+where Finn was, and every one asked who was the queen that was with him.
+And Finn told them her name, and what it was brought her to Ireland. "We
+welcome her that made that journey," said they all; "for there is not in
+Ireland or in Alban a better man than the man she is come looking for,
+unless Finn himself."</p>
+
+<p>And as to Lugaidh's Son, it was on the far side of Slieve Bladhma he was
+hunting that day, and he was the last to come in. And he went into
+Finn's tent, and when he saw the woman beside him he questioned Finn the
+same as the others had done, and Finn told him the whole story. "And it
+is to you she is come," he said; "and here she is to you out of my hand,
+and all the war and the battles she brings with her; but it will not
+fall heavier on you," he said, "than on the rest of the Fianna."</p>
+
+<p>And she was with Lugaidh's Son a month and a year without being asked
+for. But one day the three battalions of the Fianna were on the Hill of
+the Poet in Leinster, and they saw three armed battalions equal to
+themselves coming, against them, and they asked who was bringing them.
+"It is Mal, son of Aiel, is bringing them," said Finn, "to avenge his
+wife on the Fianna. And it is a good time they are come," he said, "when
+we are gathered together at the one spot."</p>
+
+<p>Then the two armies went towards one another, and Mal, son of Aiel,
+took hold of his arms, and three times he broke through the Fianna, and
+every time a hundred fell by him. And in the middle of the battle he and
+Lugaidh's Son met, and they fought against one another with spear and
+sword. And whether the fight was short or long, it was Mal fell by
+Lugaidh's Son at the last.</p>
+
+<p>And Aoife stood on a hill near by, as long as the battle lasted. And
+from that out she belonged to Lugaidh's Son, and was a mother of
+children to him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L33" id="L33" />BOOK TWO: FINN'S HELPERS</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE LAD OF THE SKINS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Besides all the men Finn had in his household, there were some that
+would come and join him from one place or another. One time a young man
+wearing a dress of skins came to Finn's house at Almhuin, and his wife
+along with him, and he asked to take service with Finn.</p>
+
+<p>And in the morning, as they were going to their hunting, the Lad of the
+Skins said to Finn: "Let me have no one with me but myself, and let me
+go into one part of the country by myself, and you yourself with all
+your men go to another part." "Is it on the dry ridges you will go,"
+said Finn, "or is it in the deep bogs and marshes, where there is danger
+of drowning?" "I will go in the deep boggy places," said he.</p>
+
+<p>So they all went out from Almhuin, Finn and the Fianna to one part, and
+the Lad of the Skins to another part, and they hunted through the day.
+And when they came back at evening, the Lad of the Skins had killed more
+than Finn and all his men together.</p>
+
+<p>When Finn saw that, he was glad to have so good a servant. But Conan
+said to him: "The Lad of the Skins will destroy ourselves and the whole
+of the Fianna of Ireland unless you will find some way to rid yourself
+of him." "I never had a good man with me yet, Conan," said Finn, "but
+you wanted me to put him away; and how could I put away a man like
+that?" he said. "The way to put him away," said Conan, "is to send him
+to the King of the Floods to take from him the great cauldron that is
+never without meat, but that has always enough in it to feed the whole
+world. And let him bring that cauldron back here with him to Almhuin,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>So Finn called to the Lad of the Skins, and he said: "Go from me now to
+the King of the Floods and get the great cauldron that is never empty
+from him, and bring it here to me." "So long as I am in your service I
+must do your work," said the Lad of the Skins. With that he set out,
+leaping over the hills and valleys till he came to the shore of the sea.
+And then he took up two sticks and put one of them across the other, and
+a great ship rose out of the two sticks. The Lad of the Skins went into
+the ship then, and put up the sails and set out over the sea, and he
+heard nothing but the whistling of eels in the sea and the calling of
+gulls in the air till he came to the house of the King of the Floods.
+And at that time there were hundreds of ships waiting near the shore;
+and he left his ship outside them all, and then he stepped from ship to
+ship till he stood on land.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great feast going on at that time in the king's house, and
+the Lad of the Skins went up to the door, but he could get no farther
+because of the crowd. So he stood outside the door for a while, and no
+one looked at him, and he called out at last: "This is a hospitable
+house indeed, and these are mannerly ways, not to ask a stranger if
+there is hunger on him or thirst." "That is true," said the king; "and
+give the cauldron of plenty now to this stranger," he said, "till he
+eats his fill."</p>
+
+<p>So his people did that, and no sooner did the Lad of the Skins get a
+hold of the cauldron than he made away to the ship and put it safe into
+it. But when he had done that he said: "There is no use in taking the
+pot by my swiftness, if I do not take it by my strength." And with that
+he turned and went to land again. And the whole of the men of the army
+of the King of the Floods were ready to fight; but if they were, so was
+the Lad of the Skins, and he went through them and over them all till
+the whole place was quiet.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to his ship then and raised the sails and set out again
+for Ireland, and the ship went rushing back to the place where he made
+it. And when he came there, he gave a touch of his hand to the ship, and
+there was nothing left of it but the two sticks he made it from, and
+they lying on the strand before him, and the cauldron of plenty with
+them. And he took up the cauldron on his back, and brought it to Finn,
+son of Cumhal, at Almhuin. And Finn gave him his thanks for the work he
+had done.</p>
+
+<p>One day, now, Finn was washing himself at the well, and a voice spoke
+out of the water, and it said: "You must give back the cauldron, Finn,
+to the King of the Floods, or you must give him battle in place of it."</p>
+
+<p>Finn told that to the Lad of the Skins, but the answer he got from him
+was that his time was up, and that he could not serve on time that was
+past. "But if you want me to go with you," he said, "let you watch my
+wife, that is Manannan's daughter, through the night; and in the middle
+of the night, when she will be combing her hair, any request you make of
+her, she cannot refuse it. And the request you will make is that she
+will let me go with you to the King of the Floods, to bring the cauldron
+to his house and to bring it back again."</p>
+
+<p>So Finn watched Manannan's daughter through the night, and when he saw
+her combing her hair, he made his request of her. "I have no power to
+refuse you," she said; "but you must promise me one thing, to bring my
+husband back to me, alive or dead. And if he is alive," she said, "put
+up a grey-green flag on the ship coming back; but if he is dead, put up
+a red flag."</p>
+
+<p>So Finn promised to do that, and he himself and the Lad of the Skins set
+out together for the dun of the King of the Floods, bringing the
+cauldron with them.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner did the king see them than he gave word to all his armies to
+make ready. But the Lad of the Skins made for them and overthrew them,
+and he went into the king's dun, and Finn with him, and they overcame
+him and brought away again the cauldron that was never empty.</p>
+
+<p>But as they were going back to Ireland, they saw a great ship coming
+towards them. And when the Lad of the Skins looked at the ship, he said:
+"I think it is an old enemy of my own is in that ship, that is trying to
+bring me to my death, because of my wife that refused him her love." And
+when the ship came alongside, the man that was in it called out: "I know
+you well, and it is not by your dress I know you, son of the King of the
+Hills." And with that he made a leap on to the ship, and the two fought
+a great battle together, and they took every shape; they began young
+like two little boys, and fought till they were two old men; they fought
+from being two young pups until they were two old dogs; from being two
+young horses till they were two old horses. And then they began to fight
+in the shape of birds, and it is in that shape they killed one another
+at the last. And Finn threw the one bird into the water, but the other,
+that was the Lad of the Skins, he brought with him in the ship. And when
+he came in sight of Ireland, he raised a red flag as he had promised the
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>And when he came to the strand, she was there before him, and when she
+saw Finn, she said: "It is dead you have brought him back to me." And
+Finn gave her the bird, and she asked was that what she was to get in
+the place of her husband. And she was crying over the bird, and she
+brought it into a little boat with her, and she bade Finn to push out
+the boat to sea.</p>
+
+<p>And he pushed it out, and it was driven by wind and waves till at last
+she saw two birds flying, having a dead one between them. And the two
+living birds let down the dead one on an island; and it was not long
+till it rose up living, and the three went away together.</p>
+
+<p>And when Manannan's daughter saw that, she said: "There might be some
+cure for my man on the island, the way there was for that dead bird."</p>
+
+<p>And the sea brought the boat to the island, and she went searching
+around, but all she could find was a tree having green leaves. "It might
+be in these leaves the cure is," she said; and she took some of the
+leaves and brought them to where the Lad of the Skins was, and put them
+about him. And on that moment he stood up as well and as sound as ever
+he was.</p>
+
+<p>They went back then to Ireland, and they came to Almhuin at midnight,
+and the Lad of the Skins knocked at the door, and he said: "Put me out
+my wages." "There is no man, living or dead, has wages on me but the Lad
+of the Skins," said Finn; "and I would sooner see him here to-night," he
+said, "than the wages of three men." "If that is so, rise up and you
+will see him," said he.</p>
+
+<p>So Finn rose up and saw him, and gave him a great welcome, and paid him
+his wages.</p>
+
+<p>And after that he went away and his wife with him to wherever his own
+country was; but there were some said he was gone to the country of his
+wife's father, Manannan, Son of the Sea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L34" id="L34" />CHAPTER II. BLACK, BROWN, AND GREY</h2>
+
+
+<p>Finn was hunting one time near Teamhair of the Kings, and he saw three
+strange men coming towards him, and he asked what were their names.
+"Dubh and Dun and Glasan, Black, Brown, and Grey, are our names," they
+said, "and we are come to find Finn, son of Cumhal, Head of the Fianna,
+and to take service with him."</p>
+
+<p>So Finn took them into his service, and when evening came he said: "Let
+each one of you watch through a third part of the night." And there was
+a trunk of a tree there, and he bade them make three equal parts of it,
+and he gave a part to each of the three men, and he said: "When each one
+of you begins his watch, let him set fire to his own log, and as long as
+the wood burns let him watch."</p>
+
+<p>Then they drew lots, and the lot fell to Dubh to go on the first watch.
+So he set fire to his log, and he went out around the place, and Bran
+with him. He went farther and farther till at last he saw a bright
+light, and when he came to the place where it was, he saw a large house.
+He went inside, and there was a great company of very strange-looking
+men in it, and they drinking out of a single cup. One of the men, that
+seemed to be the highest, gave the cup to the man nearest him; and after
+he had drunk his fill he passed it on to the next, and so on to the
+last. And while it was going round, he said: "This is the great cup that
+was taken from Finn, son of Cumhal, a hundred years ago, and however
+many men may be together, every man of them can drink his fill from it,
+of whatever sort of drink he has a mind for."</p>
+
+<p>Dubh was sitting near the door, on the edge of the crowd, and when the
+cup came to him he took a drink from it, and then he slipped away in the
+dark, bringing it with him. And when he came to the place where Finn
+was, his log was burned out.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was the turn of Dun to go out, for the second lot had fallen on
+him, and he put a light to his log, and went out, and Bran with him.</p>
+
+<p>He walked on through the night till he saw a fire that was shining from
+a large house, and when he went in he saw a crowd of men, and they
+fighting. And a very old man that was in a high place above the rest
+called out: "Stop fighting now, for I have a better gift for you than
+the one you lost to-night." And with that he drew a knife out of his
+belt and held it up, and said: "This is the wonderful knife, the small
+knife of division, that was stolen from Finn, son of Cumhal, a hundred
+years ago; and you have but to cut on a bone with that knife and you
+will get your fill of the best meat in the world." Then he gave the
+knife to the man nearest him, and a bare bone with it, and the man began
+to cut, and there came off the bone slices of the best meat in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>The knife and the bone were sent round then from man to man till they
+came to Dun, and as soon as he had the knife in his hand he slipped out
+unknown and hurried back, and he had just got to the well where Finn
+was, when his part of the log burned out.</p>
+
+<p>Then Glasan lighted his log and went out on his watch till he came to
+the house, the same way the others did. And he looked in and he saw the
+floor full of dead bodies, and he thought to himself: "There must be
+some great wonder here. And if I lie down on the floor and put some of
+the bodies over me," he said, "I will be able to see all that happens."</p>
+
+<p>So he lay down and pulled some of the bodies over him, and he was not
+long there till he saw an old hag coming into the house, having one leg
+and one arm and one upper tooth, that was long enough to serve her in
+place of a crutch. And when she came inside the door she took up the
+first dead body she met with, and threw it aside, for it was lean. And
+as she went on, she took two bites out of every fat body she met with,
+and threw away every lean one.</p>
+
+<p>She had her fill of flesh and blood before she came to Glasan, and she
+dropped down on the floor and fell asleep, and Glasan thought that every
+breath she drew would bring down the roof on his head. He rose up then
+and looked at her, and wondered at the bulk of her body. And at last he
+drew his sword and hit her a slash that killed her; but if he did, three
+young men leaped out of her body. And Glasan made a stroke that killed
+the first of them, and Bran killed the second, but the third made his
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>Glasan made his way back then, and just when he got to where Finn was,
+his log of wood was burned out, and the day was beginning to break.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn rose up in the morning he asked news of the three
+watchers, and they gave him the cup and the knife and told him all they
+had seen, and he gave great praise to Dubh and to Dun; but to Glasan he
+said: "It might have been as well for you to have left that old hag
+alone, for I am in dread the third young man may bring trouble on us
+all."</p>
+
+<p>It happened at the end of twenty-one years, Finn and the Fianna were at
+their hunting in the hills, and they saw a Red-Haired Man coming
+towards them, and he spoke to no one, but came and stood before Finn.
+"What is it you are looking for?" said Finn. "I am looking for a master
+for the next twenty-one years," he said. "What wages are you asking?"
+said Finn. "No wages at all, but only if I die before the twenty-one
+years are up, to bury me on Inis Caol, the Narrow Island." "I will do
+that for you," said Finn.</p>
+
+<p>So the Red-Haired Man served Finn well through the length of twenty
+years. But in the twenty-first year he began to waste and to wither
+away, and he died.</p>
+
+<p>And when he was dead, the Fianna were no way inclined to go to Inis Caol
+to bury him. But Finn said he would break his word for no man, and that
+he himself would bring his body there. And he took an old white horse
+that had been turned loose on the hills, and that had got younger and
+not older since it was put out, and he put the body of the Red-Haired
+Man on its back, and let it take its own way, and he himself followed
+it, and twelve men of the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>And when they came to Inis Caol they saw no trace of the horse or of the
+body. And there was an open house on the island, and they went in. And
+there were seats for every man of them inside, and they sat down to rest
+for a while.</p>
+
+<p>But when they tried to rise up it failed them to do it, for there was
+enchantment on them. And they saw the Red-Haired Man standing before
+them in that moment.</p>
+
+<p>"The time is come now," he said, "for me to get satisfaction from you
+for the death of my mother and my two brothers that were killed by
+Glasan in the house of the dead bodies." He began to make an attack on
+them then, and he would have made an end of them all, but Finn took
+hold of the Dord Fiann, and blew a great blast on it.</p>
+
+<p>And before the Red-Haired Man was able to kill more than three of them,
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, that had heard the sound of the Dord
+Fiann, came into the house and made an end of him, and put an end to the
+enchantment. And Finn, with the nine that were left of the Fianna, came
+back again to Almhuin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L35" id="L35" />CHAPTER III. THE HOUND</h2>
+
+
+<p>One day the three battalions of the Fianna came to Magh Femen, and there
+they saw three young men waiting for them, having a hound with them; and
+there was not a colour in the world but was on that hound, and it was
+bigger than any other hound.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you come from, young men?" said Finn. "Out of the greater
+Iruath in the east," said they; "and our names are Dubh, the Dark, and
+Agh, the Battle, and Ilar, the Eagle." "What is it you came for?" "To
+enter into service, and your friendship," said they. "What good will it
+do us, you to be with us?" said Finn. "We are three," said they, "and
+you can make a different use of each one of us." "What uses are those?"
+said Finn. "I will do the watching for all the Fianna of Ireland and of
+Alban," said one of them. "I will take the weight of every fight and
+every battle that will come to them, the way they can keep themselves in
+quiet," said the second. "I will meet every troublesome thing that might
+come to my master," said the third; "and let all the wants of the world
+be told to me and I will satisfy them. And I have a pipe with me," he
+said; "and all the men of the world would sleep at the sound of it, and
+they in their sickness. And as to the hound," he said, "as long as there
+are deer in Ireland he will get provision for the Fianna every second
+night. And I myself," he said, "will get it on the other nights." "What
+will you ask of us to be with us like that?" said Finn. "We will ask
+three things," they said: "no one to come near to the place where we
+have our lodging after the fall of night; nothing to be given out to us,
+but we to provide for ourselves; and the worst places to be given to us
+in the hunting." "Tell me by your oath now," said Finn, "why is it you
+will let no one see you after nightfall?" "We have a reason," said they;
+"but do not ask it of us, whether we are short or long on the one path
+with you. But we will tell you this much," they said, "every third
+night, one of us three is dead and the other two are watching him, and
+we have no mind for any one to be looking at us."</p>
+
+<p>So Finn promised that; but if he did there were some of the Fianna were
+not well pleased because of the ways of those three men, living as they
+did by themselves, and having a wall of fire about them, and they would
+have made an end of them but for Finn protecting them.</p>
+
+<p>About that time there came seven men of poetry belonging to the people
+of Cithruadh, asking the fee for a poem, three times fifty ounces of
+gold and the same of silver to bring back to Cithruadh at Teamhair.
+"Whatever way we get it, we must find some way to get that," said a man
+of the Fianna. Then the three young men from Iruath said: "Well, men of
+learning," they said, "would you sooner get the fee for your poem
+to-night or to-morrow?" "To-morrow will be time enough," said they.</p>
+
+<p>And the three young men went to the place where the hound had his bed a
+little way off from the rath, and the hound threw out of his mouth
+before them the three times fifty ounces of gold and three times fifty
+of silver, and they gave them to the men of poetry, and they went away.</p>
+
+<p>Another time Finn said: "What can the three battalions of the Fianna do
+to-night, having no water?" And one of the men of Iruath said: "How many
+drinking-horns are with you?" "Three hundred and twelve," said Caoilte.
+"Give me the horns into my hand," said the young man, "and whatever you
+will find in them after that, you may drink it." He filled the horns
+then with beer and they drank it, and he did that a second and a third
+time; and with the third time of filling they were talkative and their
+wits confused. "This is a wonderful mending of the feast," said Finn.
+And they gave the place where all that happened the name of the Little
+Rath of Wonders.</p>
+
+<p>And one time after that again there came to Finn three bald red clowns,
+holding three red hounds in their hands, and three deadly spears. And
+there was poison on their clothes and on their hands and their feet, and
+on everything they touched. And Finn asked them who were they. And they
+said they were three sons of Uar, son of Indast of the Tuatha de Danaan;
+and it was by a man of the Fianna, Caoilte son of Ronan, their father
+was killed in the battle of the Tuatha de Danaan on Slieve nan Ean, the
+Mountain of Birds, in the east. "And let Caoilte son of Ronan give us
+the blood-fine for him now," they said. "What are your names?" said
+Finn. "Aincel and Digbail and Espaid; Ill-wishing and Harm and Want are
+our names. And what answer do you give us now, Finn?" they said. "No one
+before me ever gave a blood-fine for a man killed in battle, and I will
+not give it," said Finn. "We will do revenge and robbery on you so,"
+said they. "What revenge is that?" said Finn. "It is what I will do,"
+said Aincel, "if I meet with two or three or four of the Fianna, I will
+take their feet and their hands from them." "It is what I will do,"
+said Digbail, "I will not leave a day without loss of a hound or a
+serving-boy or a fighting man to the Fianna of Ireland." "And I myself
+will be always leaving them in want of people, or of a hand, or of an
+eye," said Espaid. "Without we get some help against them," said
+Caoilte, "there will not be one of us living at the end of a year."
+"Well," said Finn, "we will make a dun and stop here for a while, for I
+will not be going through Ireland and these men following after me, till
+I find who are the strongest, themselves or ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>So the Fianna made little raths for themselves all about Slieve Mis, and
+they stopped there through a month and a quarter and a year. And through
+all that time the three red bald-headed men were doing every sort of
+hurt and harm upon them.</p>
+
+<p>But the three sons of the King of Iruath came to speak with Finn, and it
+is what they said: "It is our wish, Finn, to send the hound that is with
+us to go around you three times in every day, and however many may be
+trying to hurt or to rob you, they will not have power to do it after
+that. But let there be neither fire nor arms nor any other dog in the
+house he goes into," they said. "I will let none of these things go into
+the one house with him," said Finn, "and he will go safe back to you."
+So every day the hound would be sent to Finn, having his chain of ridges
+of red gold around his neck, and he would go three times around Finn,
+and three times he would put his tongue upon him. And to the people that
+were nearest to the hound when he came into the house it would seem like
+as if a vat of mead was being strained, and to others there would come
+the sweet smell of an apple garden.</p>
+
+<p>And every harm and sickness the three sons of Uar would bring on the
+Fianna, the three sons of the King of Iruath would take it off them
+with their herbs and their help and their healing.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while the High King of Ireland came to Slieve Mis with a
+great, troop of his men, to join with Finn and the Fianna. And they told
+the High King the whole story, and how the sons of Uar were destroying
+them, and the three sons of the King of Iruath were helping them against
+them. "Why would not the men that can do all that find some good spell
+that would drive the sons of Uar out of Ireland?" said the High King.</p>
+
+<p>With that Caoilte went looking for the three young men from Iruath and
+brought them to the High King. "These are comely men," said the High
+King, "good in their shape and having a good name. And could you find
+any charm, my sons," he said, "that will drive out these three enemies
+that are destroying the Fianna of Ireland?" "We would do that if we
+could find those men near us," said they; "and it is where they are
+now," they said, "at Daire's Cairn at the end of the raths." "Where are
+Garb-Cronan, the Rough Buzzing One, and Saltran of the Long Heel?" said
+Finn. "Here we are, King of the Fianna," said they. "Go out to those men
+beyond, and tell them I will give according to the judgment of the King
+of Ireland in satisfaction for their father." The messengers went out
+then and brought them in, and they sat down on the bank of the rath.</p>
+
+<p>Then the High King said: "Rise up, Dubh, son of the King of Iruath, and
+command these sons of Uar with a spell to quit Ireland." And Dubh rose
+up, and he said: "Go out through the strength of this spell and this
+charm, you three enemies of the Fianna, one-eyed, lame-thighed,
+left-handed, of the bad race. And go out on the deep bitter sea," he
+said, "and let each one of you strike a blow of his sword on the head
+of his brothers. For it is long enough you are doing harm and
+destruction on the King of the Fianna, Finn, son of Cumhal."</p>
+
+<p>With that the hound sent a blast of wind under them that brought them
+out into the fierce green sea, and each of them struck a blow on the
+head of the others. And that was the last that was seen of the three
+destroying sons of Uar, Aincel and Digbail and Espaid.</p>
+
+<p>But after the time of the Fianna, there came three times in the one
+year, into West Munster, three flocks of birds from the western sea
+having beaks of bone and fiery breath, and the wind from their wings was
+as cold as a wind of spring. And the first time they came was at reaping
+time, and every one of them brought away an ear of corn from the field.
+And the next time they came they did not leave apple on tree, or nut on
+bush, or berry on the rowan; and the third time they spared no live
+thing they could lift from the ground, young bird or fawn or silly
+little child. And the first day they came was the same day of the year
+the three sons of Uar were put out in the sea.</p>
+
+<p>And when Caoilte, that was one of the last of the Fianna, and that was
+living yet, heard of them, he remembered the sons of Uar, and he made a
+spell that drove them out into the sea again, and they perished there by
+one another.</p>
+
+<p>It was about the length of a year the three sons of the King of Iruath
+stopped with Finn. And at the end of that time Donn and Dubhan, two sons
+of the King of Ulster, came out of the north to Munster. And one night
+they kept watch for the Fianna, and three times they made a round of the
+camp. And it is the way the young men from Iruath used to be, in a place
+by themselves apart from the Fianna, and their hound in the middle
+between them; and at the fall of night there used a wall of fire to be
+around them, the way no one could look at them.</p>
+
+<p>And the third time the sons of the King of Ulster made the round of the
+camp, they saw the fiery wall, and Donn said: "It is a wonder the way
+those three young men are through the length of a year now, and their
+hound along with them, and no one getting leave to look at them."</p>
+
+<p>With that he himself and his brother took their arms in their hands, and
+went inside the wall of fire, and they began looking at the three men
+and at the hound. And the great hound they used to see every day at the
+hunting was at this time no bigger than a lap-dog that would be with a
+queen or a high person. And one of the young men was watching over the
+dog, and his sword in his hand, and another of them was holding a vessel
+of white silver to the mouth of the dog; and any drink any one of the
+three would ask for, the dog would put it out of his mouth into the
+vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Then one of the young men said to the hound: "Well, noble one and brave
+one and just one, take notice of the treachery that is done to you by
+Finn." When the dog heard that he turned to the King of Ulster's sons,
+and there rose a dark Druid wind that blew away the shields from their
+shoulders and the swords from their sides into the wall of fire. And
+then the three men came out and made an end of them; and when that was
+done the dog came and breathed on them, and they turned to ashes on the
+moment, and there was never blood or flesh or bone of them found after.</p>
+
+<p>And the three battalions of the Fianna divided themselves into companies
+of nine, and went searching through every part of Ireland for the King
+of Ulster's two sons.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn, he went to Teamhair Luachra, and no one with him but the
+serving-lads and the followers of the army. And the companies of nine
+that were looking for the King of Ulster's sons came back to him there
+in the one night; but they brought no word of them, if they were dead or
+living.</p>
+
+<p>But as to the three sons of the King of Iruath and the hound that was
+with them, they were seen no more by Finn and the Fianna.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L36" id="L36" />CHAPTER IV. RED RIDGE</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was another young man came and served Finn for a while; out of
+Connacht he came, and he was very daring, and the Red Ridge was the name
+they gave him. And he all but went from Finn one time, because of his
+wages that were too long in coming to him. And the three battalions of
+the Fianna came trying to quiet him, but he would not stay for them. And
+at the last Finn himself came, for it is a power he had, if he would
+make but three verses he would quiet any one. And it is what he said:
+"Daring Red Ridge," he said, "good in battle, if you go from me to-day
+with your great name it is a good parting for us. But once at Rath Cro,"
+he said, "I gave you three times fifty ounces in the one day; and at Cam
+Ruidhe I gave you the full of my cup of silver and of yellow gold. And
+do you remember," he said, "the time we were at Rath Ai, when we found
+the two women, and when we ate the nuts, myself and yourself were there
+together."</p>
+
+<p>And after that the young man said no more about going from him.</p>
+
+<p>And another helper came to Finn one time he was fighting at a ford, and
+all his weapons were used or worn with the dint of the fight. And there
+came to him a daughter of Mongan of the Sidhe, bringing him a flat stone
+having a chain of gold to it. And he took the stone and did great deeds
+with it. And after the fight the stone fell into the ford, that got the
+name of Ath Liag Finn.</p>
+
+<p>And that stone will never be found till the Woman of the Waves will find
+it, and will bring it to land on a Sunday morning; and on that day seven
+years the world will come to an end.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L37" id="L37" />BOOK THREE: THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE ENEMIES OF IRELAND</h2>
+
+
+<p>Of all the great battles the Fianna fought to keep the foreigners out of
+Ireland, the greatest was the one that was fought at Finntraigh the
+White Strand, in Munster; and this is the whole story of it, and of the
+way the Fianna came to have so great a name.</p>
+
+<p>One time the enemies of Ireland gathered together under Daire Donn, High
+King of the Great World, thinking to take Ireland and to put it under
+tribute.</p>
+
+<p>The King of Greece was of them, and the King of France, and the King of
+the Eastern World, and Lughman of the Broad Arms, King of the Saxons,
+and Fiacha of the Long Hair, King of the Gairean, and Tor the son of
+Breogan, King of the Great Plain, and Sligech, son of the King of the
+Men of Cepda, and Comur of the Crooked Sword, King of the Men of the
+Dog-Heads, and Caitchenn, King of the Men of the Cat-Heads, and Caisel
+of the Feathers, King of Lochlann, and Madan of the Bent Neck, son of
+the King of the Marshes, and three kings from the rising of the sun in
+the east, and Ogarmach, daughter of the King of Greece, the best
+woman-warrior that ever came into the world, and a great many other
+kings and great lords.</p>
+
+<p>The King of the World asked then: "Who is there can give me knowledge of
+the harbours of Ireland?" "I will do that for you, and I will bring you
+to a good harbour," said Glas, son of Bremen, that had been put out of
+Ireland by Finn for doing some treachery.</p>
+
+<p>Then the armies set out in their ships, and they were not gone far when
+the wind rose and the waves, and they could hear nothing but the wild
+playing of the sea-women, and the screams of frightened birds, and the
+breaking of ropes and of sails. But after a while, when the wind found
+no weakness in the heroes, it rose from them and went up into its own
+high place. And then the sea grew quiet and the waves grew tame and the
+harbours friendly, and they stopped for a while at an island that was
+called the Green Rock. But the King of the World said then: "It is not a
+harbour like this you promised me, Glas, son of Dremen, but a shore of
+white sand where my armies could have their fairs and their gatherings
+the time they would not be fighting." "I know a harbour of that sort in
+the west of Ireland," said Glas, "the Harbour of the White Strand in
+Corca Duibhne." So they went into their ships again, and went on over
+the sea towards Ireland.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L38" id="L38" />CHAPTER II. CAEL AND CREDHE</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now as to Finn, when it was shown to him that the enemies of Ireland
+were coming, he called together the seven battalions of the Fianna. And
+the place where they gathered was on the hill that was called
+Fionntulach, the White Hill, in Munster. They often stopped on that hill
+for a while, and spear-shafts with spells on them were brought to them
+there, and they had every sort of thing for food, beautiful
+blackberries, haws of the hawthorn, nuts of the hazels of Cenntire,
+tender twigs of the bramble bush, sprigs of wholesome gentian,
+watercress at the beginning of summer. And there would be brought to
+their cooking-pots birds out of the oak-woods, and squirrels from
+Berramain, and speckled eggs from the cliffs, and salmon out of
+Luimnech, and eels of the Sionnan, and woodcocks of Fidhrinne, and
+otters from the hidden places of the Doile, and fish from the coasts of
+Buie and Beare, and dulse from the bays of Cleire.</p>
+
+<p>And as they were going to set out southwards, they saw one of their
+young men, Gael, grandson of Nemhnain, coming towards them. "Where are
+you come from, Cael?" Finn asked him. "From Brugh na Boinne," said he.
+"What were you asking there?" said Finn. "I was asking to speak with
+Muirenn, daughter of Derg, that was my own nurse," said he. "For what
+cause?" said Finn. "It was about a high marriage and a woman of the
+Sidhe that was showed to me in a dream; Credhe it was I saw, daughter of
+the King of Ciarraighe Luachra." "Do you know this, Cael," said Finn,
+"that she is the greatest deceiver of all the women of Ireland; and
+there is hardly a precious thing in Ireland but she has coaxed it away
+to her own great dun." "Do you know what she asks of every man that
+comes asking for her?" said Cael. "I know it," said Finn; "she will let
+no one come unless he is able to make a poem setting out the report of
+her bowls and her horns and her cups, her grand vessels and all her
+palaces." "I have all that ready," said Cael; "it was given to me by my
+nurse, Muirenn, daughter of Derg."</p>
+
+<p>They gave up the battle then for that time, and they went on over every
+hilly place and every stony place till they came to Loch Cuire in the
+west; and they came to the door of the hill of the Sidhe and knocked at
+it with the shafts of their long gold-socketted spears. And there came
+young girls having yellow hair to the windows of the sunny houses; and
+Credhe herself, having three times fifty women with her, came out to
+speak with them. "It is to ask you in marriage we are come," said Finn.
+"Who is it is asking for me?" said she. "It is Cael, the hundred-killer,
+grandson of Nemhnain, son of the King of Leinster in the east." "I have
+heard talk of him, but I have never seen him," said Credhe. "And has he
+any poem for me?" she said. "I have that," said Cael, and he rose up
+then and sang his poem:</p>
+
+<p>"A journey I have to make, and it is no easy journey, to the house of
+Credhe against the breast of the mountain, at the Paps of Dana; it is
+there I must be going through hardships for the length of seven days. It
+is pleasant her house is, with men and boys and women, with Druids and
+musicians, with cup-bearer and door-keeper, with horse-boy that does not
+leave his work, with distributer to share food; and Credhe of the Fair
+Hair having command over them all.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be delightful to me in her dun, with coverings and with down,
+if she has but a mind to listen to me.</p>
+
+<p>"A bowl she has with juice of berries in it to make her eyebrows black;
+crystal vats of fermenting grain; beautiful cups and vessels. Her house
+is of the colour of lime; there are rushes for beds, and many silken
+coverings and blue cloaks; red gold is there, and bright drinking-horns.
+Her sunny house is beside Loch Cuire, made of silver and yellow gold;
+its ridge is thatched without any fault, with the crimson wings of
+birds. The doorposts are green, the lintel is of silver taken in battle.
+Credhe's chair on the left is the delight of delights, covered with gold
+of Elga; at the foot of the pleasant bed it is, the bed that was made of
+precious stones by Tuile in the east. Another bed there is on the right,
+of gold and silver, it is made without any fault, curtains it has of the
+colour of the foxglove, hanging on rods of copper.</p>
+
+<p>"The people of her house, it is they have delight, their cloaks are not
+faded white, they are not worn smooth; their hair is fair and curling.
+Wounded men in their blood would sleep hearing the birds of the Sidhe
+singing in the eaves of the sunny house.</p>
+
+<p>"If I have any thanks to give to Credhe, for whom the cuckoo calls, she
+will get better praise than this; if this love-service I have done is
+pleasing to her, let her not delay, let her say, 'Your coming is
+welcome to me.'</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred feet there are in her house, from one corner to another;
+twenty feet fully measured is the width of her great door; her roof has
+its thatch of the wings of blue and yellow birds, the border of her well
+is of crystals and carbuncles.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a vat there of royal bronze; the juice of pleasant malt is
+running from it; over the vat is an apple-tree with its heavy fruit;
+when Credhe's horn is filled from the vat, four apples fall into it
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"She that owns all these things both at low water and at flood, Credhe
+from the Hill of the Three Peaks, she is beyond all the women of Ireland
+by the length of a spear-cast.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is this song for her, it is no sudden bride-gift it is, no hurried
+asking; I bring it to Credhe of the beautiful shape, that my coming may
+be very bright to her."</p>
+
+<p>Then Credhe took him for her husband, and the wedding-feast was made,
+and the whole of the Fianna stopped there through seven days, at
+drinking and pleasure, and having every good thing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L39" id="L39" />CHAPTER III. CONN CRITHER</h2>
+
+
+<p>Finn now, when he had turned from his road to go to Credhe's house, had
+sent out watchmen to every landing-place to give warning when the ships
+of the strangers would be in sight. And the man that was keeping watch
+at the White Strand was Conn Crither, son of Bran, from Teamhair
+Luachra.</p>
+
+<p>And after he had been a long time watching, he was one night west from
+the Round Hill of the Fianna that is called Cruachan Adrann, and there
+he fell asleep. And while he was in his sleep the ships came; and what
+roused him was the noise of the breaking of shields and the clashing of
+swords and of spears, and the cries of women and children and of dogs
+and horses that were under flames, and that the strangers were making an
+attack on.</p>
+
+<p>Conn Crither started up when he heard that, and he said: "It is great
+trouble has come on the people through my sleep; and I will not stay
+living after this," he said, "for Finn and the Fianna of Ireland to see
+me, but I will rush into the middle of the strangers," he said, "and
+they will fall by me till I fall by them."</p>
+
+<p>He put on his suit of battle then and ran down towards the strand. And
+on the way he saw three women dressed in battle clothes before him, and
+fast as he ran he could not overtake them. He took his spear then to
+make a cast of it at the woman was nearest him, but she stopped on the
+moment, and she said: "Hold your hand and do not harm us, for we are not
+come to harm you but to help you." "Who are you yourselves?" said Conn
+Crither. "We are three sisters," she said, "and we are come from Tir nan
+Og, the Country of the Young, and we have all three given you our love,
+and no one of us loves you less than the other, and it is to give you
+our help we are come." "What way will you help me?" said Conn. "We will
+give you good help," she said, "for we will make Druid armies about you
+from stalks of grass and from the tops of the watercress, and they will
+cry out to the strangers and will strike their arms from their hands,
+and take from them their strength and their eyesight. And we will put a
+Druid mist about you now," she said, "that will hide you from the armies
+of the strangers, and they will not see you when you make an attack on
+them. And we have a well of healing at the foot of Slieve Iolair, the
+Eagle's Mountain," she said, "and its waters will cure every wound made
+in battle. And after bathing in that well you will be as whole and as
+sound as the day you were born. And bring whatever man you like best
+with you," she said, "and we will heal him along with you."</p>
+
+<p>Conn Crither gave them his thanks for that, and he hurried on to the
+strand. And it was at that time the armies of the King of the Great
+Plain were taking spoils from Traigh Moduirn in the north to Finntraighe
+in the south. And Conn Crither came on them, and the Druid army with
+him, and he took their spoils from them, and the Druid army took their
+sight and their strength from them, and they were routed, and they made
+away to where the King of the Great Plain was, and Conn Crither
+followed, killing and destroying. "Stop with me, king-hero," said the
+King of the Great Plain, "that I may fight with you on account of my
+people, since there is not one of them that turns to stand against you."</p>
+
+<p>So the two set their banners in the earth and attacked one another, and
+fought a good part of the day until Conn Crither struck off the king's
+head. And he lifted up the head, and he was boasting of what he had
+done. "By my word," he said, "I will not let myself be parted from this
+body till some of the Fianna, few or many, will come to me."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L40" id="L40" />CHAPTER IV. GLAS, SON OF BREMEN</h2>
+
+
+<p>The King of the World heard that, and he said: "It is a big word that
+man is saying," he said; "and rise up now, Glas, son of Dremen, and see
+which of the Fianna of Ireland it is that is saying it."</p>
+
+<p>Glas left the ship then, and he went to where Conn</p>
+
+<p>Crither was, and he asked who was he. "I am Conn Crither, son of Bran,
+from Teamhair Luachra," said he. "If that is so," said Glas, "you are of
+the one blood with myself, for I am Glas, son of Bremen from Teamhair
+Luachra." "It is not right for you to come fighting against me from
+those foreigners, so," said Conn. "It is a pity indeed," said Glas; "and
+but for Finn and the Fianna driving me from them, I would not fight
+against you or against one of themselves for all the treasures of the
+whole world." "Do not say that," said Conn, "for I swear by my hand of
+valour," he said, "if you had killed Finn's own son and the sons of his
+people along with him, you need not be in dread of him if only you came
+under his word and his protection." "I think indeed the day is come for
+me to fight beside you," said Glas, "and I will go back and tell that to
+the King of the World."</p>
+
+<p>He went back then to where the king was, and the king asked him which of
+the men of the Fianna was in it. "It is a kinsman of my own is in it,
+High King," said Glas; "and it is weak my heart is, he to be alone, and
+I have a great desire to go and help him." "If you go," said the King of
+the World, "it is what I ask you, to come and to tell me every day how
+many of the Fianna of Ireland have fallen by me; and if a few of my own
+men should fall," he said, "come and tell me who it was they fell by."
+"It is what I ask you," said Glas, "not to let your armies land till the
+Fianna come to us, but to let one man only come to fight with each of us
+until that time," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So two of the strangers were sent against them that day, and they got
+their death by Glas and by Conn Crither. Then they asked to have two men
+sent against each of them, and that was done; and three times nine fell
+by them before night. And Conn Crither was covered with wounds after
+the day, and he said to Glas: "Three women came to me from the Country
+of the Young, and they promised to put me in a well of healing for my
+wounds. And let you watch the harbour to-night," he said, "and I will go
+look for them." So he went to them, and they bathed him in the well of
+healing, and he was whole of his wounds.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Glas, son of Dremen, he went down to the harbour, and he said:
+"O King of the World," he said, "there is a friend of mine in the ships,
+Madan of the Bent Neck, son of the King of the Marshes; and it is what
+he said in the great world in the east, that he himself would be enough
+to take Ireland for you, and that he would bring it under tribute to you
+by one way or another. And I ask you to let him come alone against me
+to-night, till we see which of us will fight best for Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>So Madan came to the land, and the two attacked one another, and made a
+very hard fight; but as it was not in the prophecy that Glas would find
+his death there, it was the son of the King of the Marshes that got his
+death by him.</p>
+
+<p>And not long after that Conn Crither came back to Glas, and he gave Glas
+great praise for all he had done.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L41" id="L41" />CHAPTER V. THE HELP OF THE MEN OF DEA</h2>
+
+
+<p>Then Taistellach that was one of Finn's messengers came to the White
+Strand asking news; and Conn bade him go back to where Finn was and tell
+him the way things were. But Taistellach would not go until he had
+wetted his sword in the blood of one of the enemies of Ireland, the same
+as the others had done. And he sent a challenge to the ships, and
+Coimhleathan, a champion that was very big and tall, came and fought
+with him on the strand, and took him in his arms to bring him back
+living to the ship of the High King; but Taistellach struck his head off
+in the sea and brought it back to land.</p>
+
+<p>"Victory and blessing be with you!" said Conn Crither. "And go now
+to-night," he said, "to the house of Bran, son of Febal my father at
+Teamhair Luachra, and bid him to gather all the Tuatha de Danaan to help
+us; and go on to-morrow to the Fianna of Ireland." So Taistellach went
+on to Bran's house, and he told him the whole story and gave him the
+message.</p>
+
+<p>Then Bran, son of Febal, went out to gather the Tuatha de Danaan, and he
+went to Dun Sesnain in Ui Conall Gabra, where they were holding a feast
+at that time. And there he found three of the best young men of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, Ilbrec the Many Coloured, son of Manannan, and
+Nemanach the Pearly, son of Angus Og, and Sigmall, grandson of Midhir,
+and they made him welcome and bade him to stop with them. "There is a
+greater thing than this for you to do, Men of Dea," said Bran; and he
+told them the whole story, and the way Conn Crither his son was. "Stop
+with me to-night," said Sesnan, "and my son Dolb will go to Bodb Dearg,
+son of the Dagda, and gather in the Tuatha de Danaan to us."</p>
+
+<p>So he stopped there, and Dolb, son of Sesnan, went to Sidhe Bean Finn
+above Magh Femen, and Bodb Dearg was there at that time, and Dolb gave
+him his message. "Young man," said Bodb Dearg, "we are no way bound to
+help the men of Ireland out of that strait." "Do not say that," said
+Dolb, "for there is not a king's son or a prince or a leader of the
+Fianna of Ireland without having a wife or a mother or a foster-mother
+or a sweetheart of the Tuatha de Danaan; and it is good help they have
+given you every time you were in want of it." "I give my word," said
+Bodb Dearg, "it is right to give a good answer to so good a messenger."
+With that he sent word to the Tuatha de Danaan in every place where they
+were, and they gathered to him. And from that they went on to Dun
+Sesnain, and they stopped there through the night And they rose up in
+the morning and put on their shirts of the dearest silk and their
+embroidered coats of rejoicing, and they took their green shields and
+their swords and their spears. And their leaders at that time besides
+Bodb Dearg were Midhir of Bri Leith, and Lir of Sidhe Finnachaidh, and
+Abarthach, son of Ildathach, and Ilbrec, son of Manannan, and Fionnbhar
+of Magh Suil, and Argat Lamh, the Silver Hand, from the Sionnan, and the
+Man of Sweet Speech from the Boinn.</p>
+
+<p>And the whole army of them came into Ciarraighe Luachra, and to
+red-haired Slieve Mis, and from that to the harbour of the White Strand.
+"O Men of Dea," said Abarthach then, "let a high mind and high courage
+rise within you now in the face of the battle. For the doings of every
+one among you," he said, "will be told till the end of the world; and
+let you fulfil now the big words you have spoken in the
+drinking-houses." "Rise up, Glas, son of Dremen," said Bodb Dearg then,
+"and tell out to the King of the World that I am come to do battle."
+Glas went then to the King of the World. "Are those the Fianna of
+Ireland I see?" said the king. "They are not," said Glas, "but another
+part of the men of Ireland that do not dare to be on the face of the
+earth, but that live in hidden houses under the earth, and it is to give
+warning of battle from them I am come." "Who will answer the Tuatha de
+Danaan for me?" said the King of the World. "We will go against them,"
+said two of the kings that were with him, Comur Cromchenn, King of the
+Men of the Dog-Heads, and Caitchenn, King of the Men of the Cat-Heads.
+And they had five red-armed battalions with them, and they went to the
+shore like great red waves. "Who is there to match with the King of the
+Dog-Heads for me?" said Bodb Dearg. "I will go against him," said Lir of
+Sidhe Finnachaidh, "though I heard there is not in the world a man with
+stronger hands than himself." "Who will be a match for the King of the
+Cat-Heads?" said Bodb Dearg. "I will be a match for him," said
+Abarthach, son of Ildathach.</p>
+
+<p>So Lir and the King of the Dog-Heads attacked one another, and they made
+a hard fight; but after a while Lir was getting the worst of it. "It is
+a pity the way Lir is," said Bodb Dearg; "and let some of you rise up
+and help him," he said. Then Ilbrec, son of Manannan, went to his help;
+but if he did, he got a wound himself and could do nothing. Then Sigmal,
+grandson of Midhir, went to his help, and after him the five sons of
+Finnaistucan, and others of the Men of Dea, but they were all driven off
+by the King of the Dog-Heads. But at that time Abarthach had made an end
+of the King of the Cat-Heads, and he rose on his spear, and made a leap,
+and came down between Lir and his enemy. "Leave off now and look on at
+the fight," he said to Lir, "and leave it to me and the foreigner." With
+that he took his sword in his left hand and made a thrust with his spear
+in through the king's armour. And as the king was raising up his shield,
+he struck at him with the sword that was in his left hand, and cut off
+both his legs at the knees, and the king let fall his shield then, and
+Abarthach struck off his head. And the two kings being dead, their
+people broke away and ran, but the Men of Dea followed them and made an
+end of them all; but if they did, they lost a good many of their own
+men.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L42" id="L42" />CHAPTER VI. THE MARCH OF THE FIANNA</h2>
+
+
+<p>Ana Finn and the Fianna were at the house of Credhe yet, and they saw
+Taistellach coming towards them. It was the custom, now, with Finn when
+he sent any one looking for news, that it was to himself it was to be
+told first, the way that if he got bad news he would let on not to mind
+it; and if it was good news he got, he would have the satisfaction of
+telling it himself. So Taistellach told him how the foreigners were come
+to the harbour of the White Strand.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn turned to his chief men, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland,
+there never came harm or danger to Ireland to be put aside this great
+danger that is come against us now. And you get great tribute and great
+service from the chief men of Ireland," he said, "and if you take that
+from them it is right for you to defend them now."</p>
+
+<p>And the Fianna all said they would not go back one step from the defence
+of Ireland. And as to Credhe, she gave every one of them a battle dress,
+and they were taking leave of her, and Finn said: "Let the woman come
+along with us till we know is it good or bad the end of this journey
+will be." So she came with them, bringing a great herd of cattle; and
+through the whole length of the battle, that lasted a year and a day,
+she had new milk for them, and it was to her house the wounded were
+brought for healing.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Fianna set out, and they went to the borders of Ciarraighe
+Luachra and across by the shores of the Bannlid with their left hand to
+Slieve Mis, and they made shelters for themselves that night, and
+kindled fires.</p>
+
+<p>But Caoilte and Oisin and Lugaidh's Son said to one another they would
+go on to the harbour, the way they would have time to redden their hands
+in the blood of the foreigners before the rest of the Fianna would come.</p>
+
+<p>And at that time the King of the World bade some of his chief men to go
+on shore and to bring him back some spoils. So they went to land and
+they gave out a great shout, and the people of the ships gave out a
+great shout at the same time. "I swear by the oath my people swear by,"
+said Caoilte, "I have gone round the whole world, but I never heard so
+many voices together in the one place." And with that he himself and
+Oisin and Lugaidh's Son made an attack on the strangers, and struck
+great blows at them. And when Conn Crither and Glas, son of Bremen,
+heard the noise of those blows, they knew they were struck by some of
+the Fianna of Ireland, and they came and joined with them, and did great
+destruction on the strangers, till there was not one left of all that
+had come to land.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L43" id="L43" />CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST FIGHTERS</h2>
+
+
+<p>And in the morning they saw Finn and all his people coming to the rath
+that is above the harbour. "My father Finn," said Oisin than, "let us
+fight now with the whole of the foreigners altogether." "That is not my
+advice," said Finn, "for the number of their armies is too great for us,
+and we could not stand against them. But we will send out every day,"
+he said, "some son of a king or of a leader against some king of the
+kings of the world that is equal in blood to ourselves. And let none of
+you redden your arms," he said, "but against a king or a chief man at
+first, for when a king is fallen, his people will be more inclined to
+give way. And who will give out a challenge of battle from me now?" he
+said. "I will do that," said the son of Cuban, leader of the Fianna of
+Munster. "Do not go, my son," said Finn, "for it is not showed to me
+that you will have good luck in the battle, and I never sent out any man
+to fight without I knew he would come back safe to me." "Do not say
+that," said Cuban's son, "for I would not for the treasure of the whole
+world go back from a fight on account of a bad foretelling. And as it is
+my own country they have done their robbery in first," he said, "I will
+defend it for you." "It is sorrowful I am for that," said Finn, "for
+whichever of the kings of the world will meet you to-day, yourself and
+himself will fall together."</p>
+
+<p>Then Glas, son of Dremen, gave out a challenge of fight from Cuban's
+son, and the King of Greece answered it. And the two fought hand to
+hand, and the King of Greece made a great cast of his thick spear at
+Cuban's son, that went through his body and broke his back in two. But
+he did not take that blow as a gift, but he paid for it with a strong
+cast of his own golden spear that went through the ringed armour of the
+King of Greece. And those two fell together, sole to sole, and lip to
+lip. "There is grief on me, Cuban's son to have fallen," said Finn, "for
+no one ever went from his house unsatisfied; and a man that I would not
+keep, or the High King of Ireland would not keep for a week, he would
+keep him in his house through the length of a year. And let Follamain,
+his son, be called to me now," he said, "and I will give him his
+father's name and place."</p>
+
+<p>They stopped there then till the next morning. "Who will go and fight
+to-day?" said Finn then. "I will do that," said Goll Garb, son of the
+King of Alban and of the daughter of Goll, son of Morna.</p>
+
+<p>So he put on his battle dress, and there came against him the three
+kings from the rising of the sun in the east, and their three battalions
+with them. And Goll Garb rushed among their men, and wounded and maimed
+and destroyed them, and blinded their eyes for ever, so that their wits
+went from them, and they called to him to stop his deadly sword for a
+while. So he did that; and it is what they agreed to take their three
+kings and to give them over to Goll Garb that he might stop doing
+destruction with his sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Who will go out and fight to-day?" said Finn, on the morning of the
+morrow. "I will go," said Oisin, "and the chief men of the sons of
+Baiscne with me; for we get the best share of all the pleasant things of
+Ireland, and we should be first to defend her." "I will answer that
+challenge," said the King of France, "for it is against Finn I am come
+to Ireland, on account of my wife that he brought away from me; and
+these men will fall by me now," he said, "and Finn himself at the last;
+for when the branches of a tree are cut off, it is not hard to cut down
+the tree itself."</p>
+
+<p>So the King of France and Oisin met one another at the eastern end of
+the strand, and they struck their banners of soft silk into the green
+hill, and bared their swords and made a quick attack on one another. And
+at one time the king struck such a great blow that he knocked a groan
+out of Oisin. But for all that he was worsted in the end, and great fear
+came on him, like the fear of a hundred horses at the sound of thunder,
+and he ran from Oisin, and he rose like a swallow, that his feet never
+touched the earth at all; and he never stopped till he came to Gleann
+na-n Gealt, the Valley of Wild Men. And ever since that time, people
+that have lost their wits make for that valley; and every mad person in
+Ireland, if he had his way, would go there within twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+<p>And there rose great cries of lamentation from the armies of the World
+when they saw him going from them, and the Fianna of Ireland raised
+great shouts of joy.</p>
+
+<p>And when the night was coming on, it is what Finn said: "It is sad and
+gloomy the King of the World is to-night; and it is likely he will make
+an attack on us. And which of you will keep watch over the harbour
+through the night?" he said. "I will," said Oisin, "with the same number
+that was fighting along with me to-day; for it is not too much for you
+to fight for the Fianna of Ireland through a day and a night," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So they went down to the harbour, and it was just at that time the King
+of the World was saying, "It seems to me, men of the World, that our
+luck of battle was not good to-day. And let a share of you rise up now,"
+he said, "and make an attack on the Fianna of Ireland." Then there rose
+up the nine sons of Garb, King of the Sea of Icht, that were smiths, and
+sixteen hundred of their people along with them, and they all went on
+shore but Dolar Durba that was the eldest of them. And the sons of
+Baiscne were ready for them, and they fought a great battle till the
+early light of the morrow. And not one of them was left alive on either
+side that could hold a weapon but only Oisin and one of the sons of
+Garb. And they made rushes at one another, and threw their swords out of
+their hands, and closed their arms about one another, and wrestled
+together, so that it was worth coming from the east to the west of the
+world to see the fight of those two. Then the foreigner gave a sudden
+great fall to Oisin, to bring him into the sea, for he was a great
+swimmer, and he thought to get the better of him there. And Oisin
+thought it would not be worthy of him to refuse any man his place of
+fighting. So they went into the water together, and they were trying to
+drown one another till they came to the sand and the gravel of the clear
+sea. And it was a torment to the heart of the Fianna, Oisin to be in
+that strait. "Rise up, Fergus of the Sweet Lips," said Finn then, "and
+go praise my son and encourage him." So Fergus went down to the edge of
+the sea, and he said: "It is a good fight you are making, Oisin, and
+there are many to see it, for the armies of the whole world are looking
+at you, and the Fianna of Ireland. And show now," he said, "your ways
+and your greatness, for you never went into any place but some woman of
+high beauty or some king's daughter set her love on you." Then Oisin's
+courage increased, and anger came on him and he linked his hands behind
+the back of the foreigner and put him down on the sand under the sea
+with his face upwards, and did not let him rise till the life was gone
+from him. And he brought the body to shore then, and struck off his head
+and brought it to the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>But there was great grief and anger on Dolar Durba, the eldest of the
+sons of Garb, that had stopped in the ship, and he made a great oath
+that he would have satisfaction for his brothers. And he went to the
+High King, and he said: "I will go alone to the strand, and I will kill
+a hundred men every day till I have made an end of the whole of the
+armies of Ireland; and if any one of your own men comes to interfere
+with me," he said, "I will kill him along with them."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Finn asked who would lead the battle that day. "I
+will," said Dubhan, son of Donn. "Do not," said Finn, "but let some
+other one go."</p>
+
+<p>But Dubhan went to the strand, and a hundred men along with him; and
+there was no one there before him but Dolar Durba, and he said he was
+there to fight with the whole of them. And Dubhan's men gave a great
+shout of laughter when they heard that; but Dolar Durba rushed on them,
+and he made an end of the whole hundred, without a man of them being
+able to put a scratch on him. And then he took a hurling stick and a
+ball, and he threw up the ball and kept it in the air with the hurl from
+the west to the east of the strand without letting it touch the ground
+at all. And then he put the ball on his right foot and kicked it high
+into the air, and when it was coming down he gave it a kick of his left
+foot and kept it in the air like that, and he rushing like a blast of
+March wind from one end of the strand to the other. And when he had done
+that he walked up and down on the strand making great boasts, and
+challenging the men of Ireland to do the like of those feats. And every
+day he killed a hundred of the men that were sent against him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L44" id="L44" />CHAPTER VIII. THE KING OF ULSTER'S SON</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now it chanced at that time that news of the great battle that was going
+on reached to the court of the King of Ulster. And the king's son, that
+was only twelve years of age, and that was the comeliest of all the
+young men of Ireland, said to his father: "Let me go to help Finn, son
+of Cumhal, and his men." "You are not old enough, or strong enough, boy;
+your bones are too soft," said the king. And when the boy went on
+asking, his father shut him up in some close place, and put twelve
+young men, his foster-brothers, in charge of him.</p>
+
+<p>There was great anger on the young lad then, and he said to his
+foster-brothers: "It is through courage and daring my father won a great
+name for himself in his young youth, and why does he keep me from
+winning a name for myself? And let you help me now," he said, "and I
+will be a friend to you for ever." And he went on talking to them and
+persuading them till he got round them all, and they agreed to go with
+him to join Finn and the Fianna. And when the king was asleep, they went
+into the house where the arms were kept, and every lad of them brought
+away with him a shield and a sword and a helmet and two spears and two
+greyhound whelps. And they went across Ess Ruadh in the north, and
+through Connacht of many tribes, and through Caille an Chosanma, the
+Woods of Defence, that were called the choice of every king and the true
+honour of every poet, and into Ciarraighe, and so on to the White
+Strand.</p>
+
+<p>And when they came there Dolar Durba was on the strand, boasting before
+the men of Ireland. And Oisin was rising up to go against him, for he
+said he would sooner die fighting with him than see the destruction he
+was doing every day on his people. And all the wise men and the fighting
+men and the poets and the musicians of the Fianna gave a great cry of
+sorrow when they heard Oisin saying that.</p>
+
+<p>And the King of Ulster's son went to Finn and stood before him and
+saluted him, and Finn asked who was he, and where did he come from. "I
+am the son of the King of Ulster," he said; "and I am come here, myself
+and my twelve foster-brothers, to give you what help we can." "I give
+you a welcome," said Finn.</p>
+
+<p>Just then they heard the voice of Dolar Durba, very loud and boastful.
+"Who is that I hear?" said the king's son. "It is a man of the
+foreigners asking for a hundred of my men to go and meet him," said
+Finn.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when the twelve foster-brothers heard that, they said no word but
+went down to the strand, unknown to the king's son and to Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not a grown man," said Conan; "and neither yourself or your
+comrades are fit to face any fighting man at all." "I never saw the
+Fianna of Ireland till this day," said the young lad; "but I know well
+that you are Conan Maol, that never says a good word of any man. And you
+will see now," he said, "if I am in dread of that man on the strand, or
+of any man in the world, for I will go out against him by myself."</p>
+
+<p>But Finn kept him back and was talking with him; but then Conan began
+again, and he said: "It is many men Dolar Durba has made an end of, and
+there was not a man of all those that could not have killed a hundred of
+the like of you every day."</p>
+
+<p>When the king's son heard that, there was great anger on him, and he
+leaped up, and just then Dolar Durba gave a great shout on the strand.
+"What is he giving, that shout for?" said the king's son. "He is shouting
+for more men to come against him," said Conan, "for he is just after
+killing your twelve comrades." "That is a sorrowful story," said the
+king's son.</p>
+
+<p>And with that he took hold of his arms, and no one could hold him or
+hinder him, and he rushed down to the strand where Dolar Durba was. And
+all the armies of the strangers gave a great shout of laughter, for they
+thought all Finn's men had been made an end of, when he sent a young lad
+like that against their best champion. And when the boy heard that, his
+courage grew the greater, and he fell on Dolar Durba and gave him many
+wounds before he knew he was attacked at all. And they fought a very
+hard fight together, till their shields and their swords were broken in
+pieces. And that did not stop the battle, but they grappled together
+and fought and wrestled that way, till the tide went over them and
+drowned them both. And when the sea went over them the armies on each
+side gave out a great sorrowful cry.</p>
+
+<p>And after the ebb-tide on the morrow, the two bodies were found cold and
+quiet, each one held fast by the other. But Dolar Durba was beneath the
+king's son, so they knew it was the young lad was the best and had got
+the victory. And they buried him, and put a flag-stone over his grave,
+and keened him there.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L45" id="L45" />CHAPTER IX. THE HIGH KING'S SON</h2>
+
+
+<p>Then Finn said he would send a challenge himself to Daire Bonn, the King
+of the Great World. But Caoilte asked leave to do that day's fighting
+himself. And Finn said he would agree to that if he could find enough of
+men to go with him. And he himself gave him a hundred men, and Oisin did
+the same, and so on with the rest. And he gave out his challenge, and it
+was the son of the King of the Great Plain that answered it. And while
+they were in the heat of the fight, a fleet of ships came into the
+harbour, and Finn thought they were come to help the foreigners. But
+Oisin looked at them, and he said: "It is seldom your knowledge fails
+you, Finn, but those are friends of our own: Fiachra, son of the King of
+the Fianna of the Bretons, and Duaban Donn, son of the King of
+Tuathmumain with his own people."</p>
+
+<p>And when those that were in the ships came on shore, they saw Caoilte's
+banner going down before the son of the King of the Great Plain. And
+they all went hurrying on to his help, and between them they made an
+end of the king's son and of all his people.</p>
+
+<p>"Who will keep watch to-night?" said Finn then. "We will," said the nine
+Garbhs of the Fianna, of Slieve Mis, and Slieve Cua, and Slieve Clair,
+and Slieve Crot, and Slieve Muice, and Slieve Fuad, and Slieve Atha
+Moir, and Dun Sobairce and Dundealgan.</p>
+
+<p>And they were not long watching till they saw the King of the Men of
+Dregan coming towards them, and they fought a fierce battle; and at the
+end of the night there were left standing but three of the Garbhs, and
+the King of the Men of Dregan. And they fought till their wits were gone
+from them; and those four fell together, sole against sole, and lip
+against lip.</p>
+
+<p>And the fight went on from day to day, and from week to week, and there
+were great losses on both sides. And when Fergus of the Sweet Lips saw
+that so many of the Fianna were fallen, he asked no leave but went to
+Teamhair of the Kings, where the High King of Ireland was, and he told
+him the way it was with Finn and his people. "That is good," said the
+High King, "Finn to be in that strait; for there is no labouring man
+dares touch a pig or a deer or a salmon if he finds it dead before him
+on account of the Fianna; and there is no man but is in dread to go from
+one place to another without leave from Finn, or to take a wife till he
+knows if she has a sweetheart among the Fianna of Ireland. And it is
+often Finn has given bad judgments against us," he said, "and it would
+be better for us the foreigners to gain the day than himself."</p>
+
+<p>Then Fergus went out to the lawn where the High King's son was playing
+at ball. "It is no good help you are giving to Ireland," said Fergus
+then, "to be playing a game without lasting profit, and strangers taking
+away your country from you." And he was urging him and blaming him, and
+great shame came on the young man, and he threw away the stick and went
+through the people of Teamhair and brought together all the young men, a
+thousand and twenty of them that were in it. And they asked no leave and
+no advice from the High King, but they set out and went on till they
+came to Finntraigh. And Fergus went to where Finn was, and told him the
+son of the High King of Ireland was come with him; and all the Fianna
+rose up before the young man and bade him welcome. And Finn said: "Young
+man," he said, "we would sooner see you coming at a time when there
+would be musicians and singers and poets and high-up women to make
+pleasure for you than at the time we are in the straits of battle the
+way we are now." "It is not for playing I am come," said the young man,
+"but to give you my service in battle." "I never brought a lad new to
+the work into the breast of battle," said Finn, "for it is often a lad
+coming like that finds his death, and I would not wish him to fall
+through me." "I give my word," said the young man, "I will do battle
+with them on my own account if I may not do it on yours." Then Fergus of
+the Fair Lips went out to give a challenge of battle from the son of the
+High King of Ireland to the King of the World.</p>
+
+<p>"Who will answer the King of Ireland's son for me?" said the King of the
+World. "I will go against him," said Sligech, King of the Men of Cepda;
+and he went on shore, and his three red battalions with him. And the
+High King's son went against them, and his comrades were near him, and
+they were saying to him: "Take a good heart now into the fight, for the
+Fianna will be no better pleased if it goes well with you than if it
+goes well with the foreigner." And when the High King's son heard that,
+he made a rush through the army of the foreigners, and began killing and
+overthrowing them, till their chief men were all made an end of. Then
+Sligech their king came to meet him, very angry and destroying, and
+they struck at one another and made a great fight, but at the last the
+King of Ireland's son got the upper hand, and he killed the King of the
+Men of Cepda and struck off his head.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L46" id="L46" />CHAPTER X. THE KING OF LOCHLANN AND HIS SONS</h2>
+
+
+<p>And the fighting went on from day to day, and at last Finn said to
+Fergus of the Sweet Lips: "Go out, Fergus, and see how many of the
+Fianna are left for the fight to-day." And Fergus counted them, and he
+said: "There is one battalion only of the Fianna left in good order; but
+there are some of the men of it," he said, "are able to fight against
+three, and some that are able to fight against nine or thirty or a
+hundred." "If that is so," said Finn, "rise up and go to where the King
+of the World is, and bid him to come out to the great battle."</p>
+
+<p>So Fergus went to the King of the World, and it is the way he was, on
+his bed listening to the music of harps and pipes. "King of the World,"
+said Fergus, "it is long you are in that sleep; and that is no shame for
+you," he said, "for it will be your last sleep. And the whole of the
+Fianna are gone out to their place of battle," he said, "and let you go
+out and answer them." "In my opinion," said the King of the World,
+"there is not a man of them is able to fight against me; and how many
+are there left of the Fianna of Ireland?" "One battalion only that is in
+good order," said Fergus. "And how many of the armies of the World are
+there left?" he said. "Thirty battalions came with me to Ireland; and
+there are twenty of them fallen by the Fianna, and what is left of them
+is ten red battalions in good order. And there are eight good fighters
+of them," he said, "that would put down the men of the whole world if
+they were against me; that is, myself, and Conmail my son, and Ogarmach,
+the daughter of the King of Greece, that is the best hand in battle of
+the whole world after myself, and Finnachta of the Teeth, the chief of
+my household, and the King of Lochlann, Caisel Clumach of the Feathers,
+and his three sons, Tocha, and Forne of the Broad Shoulders, and Mongach
+of the Sea."</p>
+
+<p>"I swear by the oath of my people," said the King of Lochlann then, "if
+any man of the armies goes out against the Fianna before myself and my
+three sons, we will not go at all, for we would not get the satisfaction
+we are used to, unless our swords get their fill of blood." "I will go
+out against them alone," said Forne, the youngest son of the King of
+Lochlann. With that he put on his battle suit, and he went among the
+Fianna of Ireland, and a red-edged sword in each of his hands. And he
+destroyed those of their young men that were sent against him, and he
+made the strand narrow with their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn saw that, and it was torment to his heart, and danger of death
+and loss of wits to him, and he was encouraging the men of Ireland
+against Forne. And Fergus of the True Lips stood up, and it is what he
+said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "it is a pity the way you are under
+hardship and you defending Ireland. And one man is taking her from you
+to-day," he said, "and you are like no other thing but a flock of little
+birds looking for shelter in a bush from a hawk that is after them. And
+it is going into the shelter of Finn and Oisin and Caoilte you are," he
+said; "and not one of you is better than another, and none of you sets
+his face against the foreigner." "By my oath," said Oisin, "all that is
+true, and no one of us tries to do better than another keeping him off."
+"There is not one of you is better than another," said Fergus. Then
+Oisin gave out a great shout against the King of Lochlann's son. "Stop
+here with me, king's son," he said, "until I fight with you for the
+Fianna." "I give my word it is short the delay will be," said Forne.</p>
+
+<p>Then he himself and Oisin made an attack on one another, and it seemed
+for a while that the battle was going against Oisin. "By my word, Man of
+Poetry," said Finn then to Fergus of the True Lips, "it is a pity the
+way you sent my son against the foreigner. And rise up and praise him
+and hearten him now," he said. So Fergus went down to where the fight
+was, and he said: "There is great shame on the Fianna, Oisin, seeing you
+so low in this fight; and there is many a foot messenger and many a
+horsemen from the daughters of the kings and princes of Ireland looking
+at you now," he said. And great courage rose in Oisin then, and he drove
+his spear through the body of Forne, the King of Lochlann's son. And he
+himself came back to the Fianna of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Then the armies of the World gave out a great cry, keening Forne; and
+there was anger and not fear on his brothers, for they thought it no
+right thing he to have fallen by a man of the Fianna. And Tocha, the
+second son of the King of Lochlann, went on shore to avenge his brother.
+And he went straight into the middle of the Fianna, and gave his sword
+good feeding on their bodies, till they broke away before him and made
+no stand till Lugaidh's Son turned round against him. And those two
+fought a great fight, till their swords were bent and their spears
+crumbled away, and they lost their golden shields. And at the last
+Lugaidh's Son made a stroke of his sword that cut through the
+foreigner's sword, and then he made another stroke that cut his heart
+in two halves. And he came back high and proud to the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>Then the third son of the King of Lochlann, Mongach of the Sea, rose up,
+and all the armies rose up along with him. "Stop here, Men of the
+World," he said, "for it is not you but myself that has to go and ask
+satisfaction for the bodies of my brothers." So he went on shore; and it
+is the way he was, with a strong iron flail in his hand having seven
+balls of pure iron on it, and fifty iron chains, and fifty apples on
+every chain, and fifty deadly thorns on every apple. And he made a rush
+through the Fianna to break them up entirely and to tear them into
+strings, and they gave way before him. And great shame came on Fidach,
+son of the King of the Bretons, and he said: "Come here and praise me,
+Fergus of the True Lips, till I go out and fight with the foreigner."
+"It is easy to praise you, son," said Fergus, and he was praising him
+for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>Then the two looked at one another and used fierce, proud words. And
+then Mongach of the Sea raised his iron flail and made a great blow at
+the King of the Bretons' son. But he made a quick leap to one side and
+gave him a blow of his sword that cut off his two hands at the joint;
+and he did not stop at that, but made a blow at his middle that cut him
+into two halves. But as he fell, an apple of the flail with its deadly
+thorns went into Fidach's comely mouth and through his brain, and it was
+foot to foot those two fell, and lip to lip.</p>
+
+<p>And the next that came to fight on the strand was the King of Lochlann
+himself, Caisel of the Feathers. And he came to the battle having his
+shield on his arm; and it is the way the shield was, that was made for
+him by the smith of the Fomor, there were red flames coming from it; and
+if it was put under the sea itself, not one of its flames would stop
+blazing. And when he had that shield on his arm no man could come near
+him.</p>
+
+<p>And there was never such destruction done on the men of Ireland as on
+that day, for the flames of fire that he sent from his shield went
+through the bodies of men till they blazed up like a splinter of oak
+that was after hanging through the length of a year in the smoke of a
+chimney; and any one that would touch the man that was burning would
+catch fire himself. And every other harm that ever came into Ireland
+before was small beside this.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn said: "Lift up your hands, Fianna of Ireland, and give three
+shouts of blessing to whoever will hinder this foreigner." And the
+Fianna gave those three shouts; and the King of Lochlann gave a great
+laugh when he heard them. And Druimderg, grandson of the Head of the
+Fianna of Ulster, was near him, and he had with him a deadly spear, the
+Croderg, the Red-Socketed, that came down from one to another of the
+sons of Rudraighe. And he looked at the King of Lochlann, and he could
+see no part of him without armour but his mouth that was opened wide,
+and he laughing at the Fianna. Then Druimderg made a cast with the
+Croderg that hit him in the open mouth, and he fell, and his shield fell
+along with its master, and its flame went out. And Druimderg struck the
+head from his body, and made great boasts of the things he had done.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L47" id="L47" />CHAPTER XI. LABRAN'S JOURNEY</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is then Fergus of the True Lips set out again and went through the
+length of Ireland till he came to the house of Tadg, son of Nuada, that
+was grandfather to Finn.</p>
+
+<p>And there was great grief on Muirne, Finn's mother, and on Labran of the
+Long Hand her brother, and on all her people, when they knew the great
+danger he was in. And Tadg asked his wife who did she think would escape
+with their lives from the great fighting at the White Strand. "It is a
+pity the way they are there," said she; "for if all the living men of
+the world were on one side, Daire Donn, the King of the World, would put
+them all down; for there are no weapons in the world that will ever be
+reddened on him. And on the night he was born, the smith of the Fomor
+made a shield and a sword, and it is in the prophecy that he will fall
+by no other arms but those. And it is to the King of the Country of the
+Fair Men he gave them to keep, and it is with him they are now." "If
+that is so," said Tadg, "you might be able to get help for Finn, son of
+Cumhal, the only son of your daughter. And bid Labran Lamfada to go and
+ask those weapons of him," he said. "Do not be asking me," said she, "to
+go against Daire Donn that was brought up in my father's house." But
+after they had talked for a while, they went out on the lawn, and they
+sent Labran looking for the weapons in the shape of a great eagle.</p>
+
+<p>And he went on from sea to sea, till at noon on the morrow he came to
+the dun of the King of the Country of the Fair Men; and he went in his
+own shape to the dun and saluted the king, and the king bade him
+welcome, and asked him to stop with him for a while. "There is a thing I
+want more than that," said Labran, "for the wife of a champion of the
+Fianna has given me her love, and I cannot get her without fighting for
+her; and it is the loan of that sword and that shield you have in your
+keeping I am come asking now," he said.</p>
+
+<p>There were seven rooms, now, in the king's house that opened into one
+another, and on the first door was one lock, and on the second two
+locks, and so on to the door of the last room that had seven locks; and
+it was in that the sword and the shield that were made by the smith of
+the Fomor were kept. And they were brought out and were given to Labran,
+and stalks of luck were put with them, and they were bound together with
+shield straps.</p>
+
+<p>Then Labran of the Long Hand went back across the seas again, and he
+reached his father's dun between the crowing of the cock and the full
+light of day; and the weakness of death came on him. "It is a good
+message you are after doing, my son," said Tadg, "and no one ever went
+that far in so short a time as yourself." "It is little profit that is
+to me," said Labran, "for I am not able to bring them to Finn in time
+for the fight to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>But just at that time one of Tadg's people saw Aedh, son of Aebinn, that
+was as quick as the wind over a plain till the middle of every day, and
+after that, there was no man quicker than he was. "You are come at a
+good time," said Tadg. And with that he gave him the sword and the
+shield to bring to Finn for the battle.</p>
+
+<p>So Aedh, son of Aebinn, went with the swiftness of a hare or of a fawn
+or a swallow, till at the rising of the day on the morrow he came to the
+White Strand. And just at that time Fergus of the True Lips was rousing
+up the Fianna for the great fight, and it is what he said: "Fianna of
+Ireland," he said, "if there was the length of seven days in one day,
+you would have work to fill it now; for there never was and there never
+will be done in Ireland a day's work like the work of to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Fianna of Ireland rose up, and they saw Aedh, son of Aebinn,
+coming towards them with his quick running, and Finn asked news from
+him. "It is from the dun of Tadg, son of Nuada, I am come," he said,
+"and it is to yourself I am sent, to ask how it is you did not redden
+your weapons yet upon the King of the World." "I swear by the oath of my
+people," said Finn, "if I do not redden my weapons on him, I will crush
+his body within his armour." "I have here for you, King of the Fianna,"
+said Aedh then, "the deadly weapons that will bring him to his death;
+and it was Labran of the Long Hand got them for you through his Druid
+arts." He put them in Finn's hand then, and Finn took the coverings off
+them, and there rose from them flashes of fire and deadly bubbles; and
+not one of the Fianna could stay looking at them, but it put great
+courage into them to know they were with Finn. "Rise up now," said Finn
+to Fergus of the True Lips, "and go where the King of the World is, and
+bid him to come out to the place of the great fight."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L48" id="L48" />CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT FIGHT</h2>
+
+
+<p>Then the King of the World came to the strand, and all his armies with
+him; and all that were left of the Fianna went out against them, and
+they were like thick woods meeting one another, and they made great
+strokes, and there were swords crashing against bones, and bodies that
+were hacked, and eyes that were blinded, and many a mother was left
+without her son, and many a comely wife without her comrade.</p>
+
+<p>Then the creatures of the high air answered to the battle, foretelling
+the destruction that would be done that day; and the sea chattered of
+the losses, and the waves gave heavy shouts keening them, and the
+water-beasts roared to one another, and the rough hills creaked with the
+danger of the battle, and the woods trembled mourning the heroes, and
+the grey stones cried out at their deeds, and the wind sobbed telling
+them, and the earth shook, foretelling the slaughter; and the cries of
+the grey armies put a blue cloak over the sun, and the clouds were dark;
+and the hounds and the whelps and the crows, and the witches of the
+valley, and the powers of the air, and the wolves of the forests, howled
+from every quarter and on every side of the armies, urging them against
+one another.</p>
+
+<p>It was then Conan, son of Morna, brought to mind that himself and his
+kindred had done great harm to the sons of Baiscne, and he had a wish to
+do some good thing for them on account of that, and he raised up his
+sword and did great deeds.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn was over the battle, encouraging the Fianna; and the King of
+the World was on the other side encouraging the foreigners. "Rise up
+now, Fergus," said Finn, "and praise Conan for me that his courage may
+be the greater, for it is good work he is doing on my enemies." So
+Fergus went where Conan was, and at that time he was heated with the
+dust of the fight, and he was gone outside to let the wind go about him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well you remember the old quarrel between the sons of Morna and
+the sons of Baiscne, Conan," said Fergus; "and you would be ready to go
+to your own death if it would bring harm on the sons of Baiscne," he
+said. "For the love of your good name, Man of Poetry," said Conan, "do
+not be speaking against me without cause, and I will do good work on the
+foreigners when I get to the battle again." "By my word," said Fergus,
+"that would be a good thing for you to do." He sang a verse of praise
+for him then, and Conan went back into the battle, and his deeds were
+not worse this time than they were before. And Fergus went back to where
+Finn was.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn. "Duban, son of Cas, a
+champion of your own people," said Fergus, "for he never gives but the
+one stroke to any man, and no man escapes with his life from that
+stroke, and three times nine and eighty men have fallen by him up to
+this time." And Duban Donn, great-grandson of the King of Tuathmumhain,
+was there listening to him, and it is what he said: "By my oath,
+Fergus," he said, "all you are saying is true, for there is not a son of
+a king or of a lord is better in the battle than Duban, son of Cas; and
+I will go to my own death if I do not go beyond him." With that he went
+rushing through the battle like flames over a high hill that is thick
+with furze. Nine times he made a round of the battle, and he killed nine
+times nine in every round.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn, after a while. "It is Duban
+Donn that is after going from us," said Fergus. "For there has been no
+one ahead of him since he was in his seventh year, and there is no one
+ahead of him now." "Rise up and praise him that his courage may be the
+greater," said Finn. "It is right to praise him," said Fergus, "and the
+foreigners running before him on every side as they would run from a
+heavy drenching of the sea." So Fergus praised him for a while, and he
+went back then to Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn. "It is Osgar is best in it
+now," said Fergus, "and he is fighting alone against two hundred Franks
+and two hundred of the men of Gairian, and the King of the Men of
+Gairian himself. And all these are beating at his shield," he said, "and
+not one of them has given him a wound but he gave him a wound back for
+it." "What way is Caoilte, son of Ronan?" said Finn. "He is in no great
+strait after the red slaughter he has made," said Fergus. "Go to him
+then," said Finn, "and bid him to keep off a share of the foreigners
+from Osgar." So Fergus went to him. "Caoilte," he said, "it is great
+danger your friend Osgar is in under the blows of the foreigners, and
+let you rise up and give him some help," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Caoilte went then to the place where Osgar was, and he gave a straight
+blow of his sword at the man who was nearest him, that made two halves
+of him. Osgar raised his head then and looked at him. "It is likely,
+Caoilte," he said, "you did not dare redden your sword on any one till
+you struck down a man that was before my sword. And it is a shame for
+you," he said, "all the men of the great world and the Fianna of Ireland
+to be in the one battle, and you not able to make out a fight for
+yourself without coming to take a share of my share of the battle. And I
+give my oath," he said, "I would be glad to see you put down in your bed
+of blood on account of that thing." Caoilte's mind changed when he heard
+that, and he turned again to the army of the foreigners with the redness
+of anger on his white face; and eighty fighting men fell in that rout.</p>
+
+<p>"What way is the battle now?" said Finn. "It is a pity," said Fergus,
+"there never came and there never will come any one that can tell the
+way it is now. For by my word," he said, "the tree-tops of the thickest
+forest in the whole of the western world are not closer together than
+the armies are now. For the bosses of their shields are in one another's
+hands. And there is fire coming from the edges of their swords," he
+said, "and blood is raining down like a shower on a day of harvest; and
+there were never so many leaves torn by the wind from a great forest as
+there are locks of long golden hair, and of black curled hair, cut off
+by sharp weapons, blowing into the clouds at this time. And there is no
+person could tell one man from another, now," he said, "unless it might
+be by their voices." With that he went into the very middle of the fight
+to praise and to hearten the men of the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is first in the battle now, Fergus?" said Finn, when he came back
+to him. "By my oath, it is no friend of your own is first in it," said
+Fergus, "for it is Daire Donn, the King of the World; and it is for you
+he is searching through the battle," he said, "and three times fifty of
+his own people were with him. But two of the men of your Fianna fell on
+them," he said, "Cairell the Battle Striker, and Aelchinn of Cruachan,
+and made an end of them. But they were not able to wound the King of the
+World," he said, "but the two of them fell together by him."</p>
+
+<p>Then the King of the World came towards Finn, and there was no one near
+him but Arcallach of the Black Axe, the first that ever brought a wide
+axe into Ireland. "I give my word," said Arcallach, "I would never let
+Finn go before me into any battle." He rose up then and made a terrible
+great blow of his axe at the king, that went through his royal crown to
+the hair of his head, but that did not take a drop of blood out of him,
+for the edge of the axe turned and there went balls of fire over the
+plain from that blow. And the King of the World struck back at
+Arcallach, and made two halves of him.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn and the King of the World turned on one another. And when the
+king saw the sword and the shield in Finn's hand, he knew those were the
+weapons that were to bring him to his death, and great dread came on
+him, and his comeliness left him, and his fingers were shaking, and his
+feet were unsteady, and the sight of his eyes was weakened.</p>
+
+<p>And then the two fought a great fight, striking at one another like two
+days of judgment for the possession of the world.</p>
+
+<p>But the king, that had never met with a wound before, began to be
+greatly weakened in the fight. And Finn gave great strokes that broke
+his shield and his sword, and that cut off his left foot, and at the
+last he struck off his head. But if he did, he himself fell into a faint
+of weakness with the dint of the wounds he had got.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finnachta of the Teeth, the first man of the household of the King
+of the World, took hold of the royal crown of the king, and brought it
+where Conmail his son was, and put it on his head.</p>
+
+<p>"That this may bring you success in many battles, my son," he said. And
+he gave him his father's weapons along with it; and the young man went
+through the battle looking for Finn, and three fifties of the men of the
+Fianna fell by him. Then Goll Garbh the Rough, son of the King of Alban,
+saw him and attacked him, and they fought a hard fight. But the King of
+Albain's son gave him a blow under the shelter of the shield, in his
+left side, that made an end of him.</p>
+
+<p>Finnachta of the Teeth saw that, and he made another rush at the royal
+crown, and brought it to where Ogarmach was, the daughter of the King of
+Greece. "Put on that crown, Ogarmach," he said, "as it is in the
+prophecy the world will be owned by a woman; and it will never be owned
+by any woman higher than yourself," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She went then to look for Finn in the battle, and Fergus of the True
+Lips saw her, and he went where Finn was. "O King of the Fianna," he
+said then, "bring to mind the good fight you made against the King of
+the World and all your victories before that; for it is a great danger
+is coming to you now," he said, "and that is Ogarmach, daughter of the
+King of Greece."</p>
+
+<p>With that the woman-fighter came towards him. "O Finn," she said, "it is
+little satisfaction you are to me for all the kings and lords that have
+fallen by you and by your people; but for all that," she said, "there is
+nothing better for me to get than your own self and whatever is left of
+your people." "You will not get that," said Finn, "for I will lay your
+head in its bed of blood the same as I did to every other one." Then
+those two attacked one another like as if there had risen to smother
+one another the flooded wave of Cliodna, and the seeking wave of Tuaigh,
+and the big brave wave of Rudraighe. And though the woman-warrior fought
+for a long time, a blow from Finn reached to her at last and cut through
+the royal crown, and with a second blow he struck her head off. And then
+he fell himself in his bed of blood, and was the same as dead, but that
+he rose again.</p>
+
+<p>And the armies of the World and the Fianna of Ireland were fallen side
+by side there, and there were none left fit to stand but Cael, son of
+Crimthan of the Harbours, and the chief man of the household of the King
+of the World, Finnachta of the Teeth. And Finnachta went among the dead
+bodies and lifted up the body of the King of the World and brought it
+with him to his ship, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said,
+"although it is bad this battle was for the armies of the World, it was
+worse for yourselves; and I am going back to tell that in the East of
+the World," he said. Finn heard him saying that, and he lying on the
+ground in his blood, and the best men of the sons of Baiscne about him,
+and he said: "It is a pity I not to have found death before I heard the
+foreigner saying those words. And nothing I myself have done, or the
+Fianna of Ireland, is worth anything since there is left a man of the
+foreigners alive to go back into the great world again to tell that
+story. And is there any one left living near me?" he said. "I am," said
+Fergus of the True Lips. "What way is the battle now?" said Finn. "It is
+a pity the way it is," said Fergus, "for, by my word," he said, "since
+the armies met together to-day, no man of the foreigners or of the men
+of Ireland took a step backward from one another till they all fell foot
+to foot, and sole to sole. And there is not so much as a blade of grass
+or a grain of sand to be seen," he said, "with the bodies of fighting
+men that are stretched on them; and there is no man of the two armies
+that is not stretched in that bed of blood, but only the chief man of
+the household of the King of the World, and your own foster-son, Cael,
+son of Crimthan of the Harbours." "Rise up and go to him," said Finn. So
+Fergus went where Cael was, and asked what way was he. "It is a pity the
+way I am," said Cael, "for I swear by my word that if my helmet and my
+armour were taken from me, there is no part of my body but would fall
+from the other; and by my oath," he said, "it is worse to me to see that
+man beyond going away alive than I myself to be the way I am. And I
+leave my blessing to you, Fergus," he said; "and take me on your back to
+the sea till I swim after the foreigner, and it is glad I would be the
+foreigner to fall by me before the life goes out from my body." Fergus
+lifted him up then and brought him to the sea, and put him swimming
+after the foreigner. And Finnachta waited for him to reach the ship, for
+he thought he was one of his own people. And Cael raised himself up when
+he came beside the ship, and Finnachta stretched out his hand to him.
+And Cael took hold of it at the wrist, and clasped his fingers round it,
+and gave a very strong pull at him, that brought him over the side. Then
+their hands shut across one another's bodies, and they went down to the
+sand and the gravel of the clear sea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L49" id="L49" />CHAPTER XIII. CREDHE'S LAMENT</h2>
+
+
+<p>Then there came the women and the musicians and the singers and the
+physicians of the Fianna of Ireland to search out the kings and the
+princes of the Fianna, and to bury them; and every one that might be
+healed was brought to a place of healing.</p>
+
+<p>And Credhe, wife of Cael, came with the others, and went looking
+through the bodies for her comely comrade, and crying as she went. And
+as she was searching, she saw a crane of the meadows and her two
+nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watching the nestlings; and
+when the crane covered one of the birds to save it, he would make a rush
+at the other bird, the way she had to stretch herself out over the
+birds; and she would sooner have got her own death by the fox than her
+nestlings to be killed by him. And Credhe was looking at that, and she
+said: "It is no wonder I to have such love for my comely sweetheart, and
+the bird in that distress about her nestlings."</p>
+
+<p>Then she heard a stag in Druim Ruighlenn above the harbour, that was
+making great lamentations for his hind from place to place, for they had
+been nine years together, and had lived in the wood at the foot of the
+harbour, Fidh Leis, and Finn had killed the hind, and the stag was
+nineteen days without tasting grass or water, lamenting after the hind.
+"It is no shame for me," said Credhe, "I to die for grief after Cael,
+since the stag is shortening his life sorrowing after the hind."</p>
+
+<p>Then she met with Fergus of the True Lips. "Have you news of Cael for
+me, Fergus?" she said. "I have news," said Fergus, "for he and the last
+man that was left of the foreigners, Finnachta Fiaclach, are after
+drowning one another in the sea."</p>
+
+<p>And at that time the waves had put Cael back on the strand, and the
+women and the men of the Fianna that were looking for him raised him up,
+and brought him to the south of the White Strand.</p>
+
+<p>And Credhe came to where he was, and she keened him and cried over him,
+and she made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The harbour roars, O the harbour roars, over the rushing race of the
+Headland of the Two Storms, the drowning of the hero of the Lake of the
+Two Dogs, that is what the waves are keening on the strand.</p>
+
+<p>"Sweet-voiced is the crane, O sweet-voiced is the crane in the marshes
+of the Ridge of the Two Strong Men; it is she cannot save her nestlings,
+the wild dog of two colours is taking her little ones.</p>
+
+<p>"Pitiful the cry, pitiful the cry the thrush is making in the Pleasant
+Ridge, sorrowful is the cry of the blackbird in Leiter Laeig.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorrowful the call, O sorrowful the call of the deer in the Ridge of
+Two Lights; the doe is lying dead in Druim Silenn, the mighty stag cries
+after her.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorrowful to me, O sorrowful to me the death of the hero that lay
+beside me; the son of the woman of the Wood of the Two Thickets, to be
+with a bunch of grass under his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Sore to me, O sore to me Cael to be a dead man beside me, the waves to
+have gone over his white body; it is his pleasantness that has put my
+wits astray.</p>
+
+<p>"A woeful shout, O a woeful shout the waves are making on the strand;
+they that took hold of comely Cael, a pity it is he went to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>"A woeful crash, O a woeful crash the waves are making on the strand to
+the north, breaking against the smooth rock, crying after Cael now he is
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>"A sorrowful fight, O a sorrowful fight, the sea is making with the
+strand to the north; my beauty is lessened; the end of my life is
+measured.</p>
+
+<p>"A song of grief, O a song of grief is made by the waves of Tulcha Leis;
+all I had is gone since this story came to me. Since the son of
+Crimthann is drowned I will love no one after him for ever; many a king
+fell by his hand; his shield never cried out in the battle."</p>
+
+<p>After she had made that complaint, Credhe laid herself down beside Cael
+and died for grief after him. And they were put in the one grave, and
+it was Caoilte raised the stone over them.</p>
+
+<p>And after that great battle of the White Strand, that lasted a year and
+a day, there was many a sword and shield left broken, and many a dead
+body lying on the ground, and many a fighting man left with a foolish
+smile on his face.</p>
+
+<p>And the great name that was on the armies of the World went from them to
+the Fianna of Ireland; and they took the ships and the gold and the
+silver and all the spoils of the armies of the World. And from that time
+the Fianna had charge of the whole of Ireland, to keep it from the Fomor
+and from any that might come against it.</p>
+
+<p>And they never lost power from that time until the time of their last
+battle, the sorrowful battle of Gabhra.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L50" id="L50" />BOOK FOUR: HUNTINGS AND ENCHANTMENTS.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE KING OF BRITAIN'S SON</h2>
+
+
+<p>Arthur, son of the King of Britain, came one time to take service with
+Finn, and three times nine men along with him. And they went hunting one
+day on Beinn Edair, and Finn took his place on the Cairn of the Fianna
+between the hill and the sea, and Arthur took his stand between the hunt
+and the sea, the way the deer would not escape by swimming.</p>
+
+<p>And while Arthur was there he took notice of three of Finn's hounds,
+Bran, and Sceolan and Adhnuall, and he made a plan in his mind to go
+away across the sea, himself and his three nines, bringing those three
+hounds along with him. So he did that, and he himself and his men
+brought away the hounds and crossed the sea, and the place where they
+landed was Inver Mara Gamiach on the coast of Britain. And after they
+landed, they went to the mountain of Lodan, son of Lir, to hunt on it.</p>
+
+<p>And as to the Fianna, after their hunting was done they gathered
+together on the hill; and as the custom was, all Finn's hounds were
+counted. Three hundred full-grown hounds he had, and two hundred whelps;
+and it is what the poets used to say, that to be counting them was like
+counting the branches on a tree.</p>
+
+<p>Now on this day when they were counted, Bran and Sceolan and Adhnuall
+were missing; and that was told to Finn. He bade his people to search
+again through the three battalions of the Fianna, but search as they
+would, the hounds were not to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn sent for a long-shaped basin of pale gold, and water in it,
+and he put his face in the water, and his hand over his face, and it was
+showed him what had happened, and he said: "The King of Britain's son
+has brought away the hound. And let nine men be chosen out to follow
+after them," he said. So nine men were chosen out, Diarmuid, grandson of
+Duibhne; Goll, son of Morna; Oisin, son of Finn; Faolan, the friend of
+the hounds, son of a woman that had come over the sea to give her love
+to Finn; Ferdoman, son of Bodb Dearg; two sons of Finn, Raighne Wide Eye
+and Cainche the Crimson-Red; Glas, son of Enchered Bera, with Caoilte
+and Lugaidh's Son. And their nine put their helmets on their heads, and
+took their long spears in their hands, and they felt sure they were a
+match for any four hundred men from the east to the west of the world.</p>
+
+<p>They set out then, till they came to the mountain of Lodan, son of Lir;
+and they were not long there till they heard talk of men that were
+hunting in that place.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur of Britain and his people were sitting on a hunting mound just at
+that time, and the nine men of the Fianna made an attack on them and
+killed all of them but Arthur, that Goll, son of Morna, put his two arms
+about and saved from death. Then they turned to go back to Ireland,
+bringing Arthur with them, and the three hounds. And as they were going,
+Goll chanced to look around him and he saw a dark-grey horse, having a
+bridle with fittings of worked gold. And then he looked to the left and
+saw a bay mare that was not easy to get hold of, and it having a bridle
+of silver rings and a golden bit. And Goll took hold of the two, and he
+gave them into Oisin's hand, and he gave them on to Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>They went back to Finn then, bringing his three hounds with them, and
+the King of Britain's son as a prisoner; and Arthur made bonds with
+Finn, and was his follower till he died.</p>
+
+<p>And as to the horse and the mare, they gave them to Finn; and the mare
+bred eight times, at every birth eight foals, and it is of that seed
+came all the horses of the fair Fianna of the Gael, for they had used
+no horses up to that time.</p>
+
+<p>And that was not the only time Finn was robbed of some of his hounds.
+For there was a daughter of Roman was woman-Druid to the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and she set her love on Finn. But Finn said, so long as there
+was another woman to be found in the world, he would not marry a witch.
+And one time, three times fifty of Finn's hounds passed by the hill
+where she was; and she breathed on the hounds and shut them up in the
+hill, and they never came out again. It was to spite Finn she did that,
+and the place got the name of Duma na Conn, the Mound of the Hounds.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Adhnuall, one of the hounds Finn thought most of, and that was
+brought back from the King of Britain's son, this is the way he came to
+his death afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great fight one time between the Fianna and Macoon, son of
+Macnia, at some place in the province of Leinster, and a great many of
+the Fianna were killed. And the hound Adhnuall went wandering northward
+from the battle and went astray; and three times he went round the whole
+of Ireland, and then he came back to the place of the battle, and to a
+hill where three young men of the Fianna that had fallen there were
+buried after their death, and three daughters of a King of Alban that
+had died for love of them. And when Adhnuall came to that hill, he gave
+three loud howls and he stretched himself out and died.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L51" id="L51" />CHAPTER II. THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN</h2>
+
+
+<p>Finn called for a great hunt one time on the plains of Magh Chonaill and
+in the forest parts of Cairbre of the Nuts. And he himself went up to
+the top of Ceiscoran, and his two dogs Bran and Sceolan with him.</p>
+
+<p>And the Fianna were shouting through the whole country where they were
+hunting, the way the deer were roused in their wild places and the
+badgers in their holes, and foxes in their wanderings, and birds on the
+wing.</p>
+
+<p>And Conaran, son of Imidd, of the Tuatha de Danaan, had the sway in
+Ceiscoran at that time, and when he heard the shouting and the cry of
+the hounds all around, he bade his three daughters that had a great
+share of enchantments, to do vengeance on Finn for his hunting.</p>
+
+<p>The three women went then to the opening of a cave that was in the
+hills, and there they sat down together, and they put three strong
+enchanted hanks of yarn on crooked holly-sticks, and began to reel them
+off outside the cave.</p>
+
+<p>They were not long there till Finn and Conan came towards them, and saw
+the three ugly old hags at their work, their coarse hair tossed, their
+eyes red and bleary, their teeth sharp and crooked, their arms very
+long, their nails like the tips of cows' horns, and the three spindles
+in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>Finn and Conan passed through the hanks of yarn to get a better look at
+the hags. And no sooner had they done that, than a deadly trembling came
+on them and a weakness, and the bold hags took hold of them and put them
+in tight bonds.</p>
+
+<p>Two other men of the Fianna came up then, and the sons of Menhann along
+with them, and they went through the spindles to where Finn and Conan
+were, and their strength went from them in the same way, and the hags
+tied them fast and carried them into the cave.</p>
+
+<p>They were not long there till Caoilte and Lugaidh's Son came to the
+place, and along with them the best men of the sons of Baiscne. The sons
+of Morna came as well, and no sooner did they see the hanks than their
+strength and their bravery went out of them the same as it went from the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>And in the end the whole number of them, gentle and simple, were put in
+bonds by the hags, and brought into the cave. And there began at the
+mouth of the cave a great outcry of hounds calling for their masters
+that had left them there. And there was lying on the hillside a great
+heap of deer, and wild pigs, and hares, and badgers, dead and torn, that
+were brought as far as that by the hunters that were tied up now in the
+cave.</p>
+
+<p>Then the three women came in, having swords in their hands, to the place
+where they were lying, to make an end of them. But first they looked out
+to see was there ever another man of the Fianna to bring in and to make
+an end of with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>And they saw coming towards them a very tall man that was Goll, son of
+Morna, the Flame of Battle. And when the three hags saw him they went to
+meet him, and they fought a hard battle with him. And great anger came
+on Goll, and he made great strokes at the witches, and at the last he
+raised up his sword, and with one blow he cut the two that were nearest
+him through and through.</p>
+
+<p>And then the oldest of the three women wound her arms about Goll, and he
+beheading the two others, and he turned to face her and they wrestled
+together, till at last Goll gave her a great twist and threw her on the
+ground. He tied her fast then with the straps of a shield, and took his
+sword to make an end of her. But the hag said: "O champion that was
+never worsted, strong man that never went back in battle, I put my body
+and my life under the protection of your bravery. And it is better for
+you," she said, "to get Finn and the Fianna safe and whole than to have
+my blood; and I swear by the gods my people swear by," she said, "I will
+give them back to you again."</p>
+
+<p>With that Goll set her free, and they went together into the hill where
+the Fianna were lying. And Goll said: "Loose off the fastenings first
+from Fergus of the True Lips and from the other learned men of the
+Fianna; and after that from Finn, and Oisin, and the twenty-nine sons of
+Morna, and from all the rest."</p>
+
+<p>She took off the fastenings then, and the Fianna made no delay, but rose
+up and went out and sat down on the side of the hill. And Fergus of the
+Sweet Lips looked at Goll, son of Morna, and made great praises of him,
+and of all that he had done.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L52" id="L52" />CHAPTER III. DONN SON OF MIDHIR</h2>
+
+
+<p>One time the Fianna were at their hunting at the island of Toraig to the
+north of Ireland, and they roused a fawn that was very wild and
+beautiful, and it made for the coast, and Finn and six of his men
+followed after it through the whole country, till they came to
+Slieve-nam-Ban. And there the fawn put down its head and vanished into
+the earth, and none of them knew where was it gone to.</p>
+
+<p>A heavy snow began to fall then that bent down the tops of the trees
+like a willow-gad, and the courage and the strength went from the Fianna
+with the dint of the bad weather, and Finn said to Caoilte: "Is there
+any place we can find shelter to-night?" Caoilte made himself supple
+then, and went over the elbow of the hill southward.</p>
+
+<p>And when he looked around him he saw a house full of light, with cups
+and horns and bowls of different sorts in it. He stood a good while
+before the door of the house, that he knew to be a house of the Sidhe,
+thinking would it be best go in and get news of it, or to go back to
+Finn and the few men that were with him. And he made up his mind to go
+into the house, and there he sat down on a shining chair in the middle
+of the floor; and he looked around him, and he saw, on the one side,
+eight-and-twenty armed men, each of them having a well-shaped woman
+beside him. And on the other side he saw six nice young girls,
+yellow-haired, having shaggy gowns from their shoulders. And in the
+middle there was another young girl sitting in a chair, and a harp in
+her hand, and she playing on it and singing. And every time she stopped,
+a man of them would give her a horn to drink from, and she would give it
+back to him again, and they were all making mirth around her.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke to Caoilte then. "Caoilte, my life," she said, "give us leave
+to attend on you now." "Do not," said Caoilte, "for there is a better
+man than myself outside, Finn, son of Cumhal, and he has a mind to eat
+in this house to-night." "Rise up, Caoilte, and go for Finn," said a man
+of the house then; "for he never refused any man in his own house, and
+he will get no refusal from us."</p>
+
+<p>Caoilte went back then to Finn, and when Finn saw him he said: "It is
+long you are away from us, Caoilte, for from the time I took arms in my
+hands I never had a night that put so much hardship on me as this one."</p>
+
+<p>The six of them went then into the lighted house and their shields and
+their arms with them. And they sat down on the edge of a seat, and a
+girl having yellow hair came and brought them to a shining seat in the
+middle of the house, and the newest of every food, and the oldest of
+every drink was put before them. And when the sharpness of their hunger
+and their thirst was lessened, Finn said: "Which of you can I question?"
+"Question whoever you have a mind to," said the tallest of the men that
+was near him. "Who are you yourself then?" said Finn, "for I did not
+think there were so many champions in Ireland, and I not knowing them."</p>
+
+<p>"Those eight-and-twenty armed men you see beyond," said the tall man,
+"had the one father and mother with myself; and we are the sons of
+Midhir of the Yellow Hair, and our mother is Fionnchaem, the fair,
+beautiful daughter of the King of the Sidhe of Monaid in the east. And
+at one time the Tuatha de Danaan had a gathering, and gave the kingship
+to Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, at his bright hospitable place, and he
+began to ask hostages of myself and of my brothers; but we said that
+till all the rest of the Men of Dea had given them, we would not give
+them. Bodb Dearg said then to our father: 'Unless you will put away your
+sons, we will wall up your dwelling-place on you.' So the
+eight-and-twenty brothers of us came out to look for a place for
+ourselves; and we searched all Ireland till we found this secret hidden
+place, and we are here ever since. And my own name," he said, "is Donn,
+son of Midhir. And we had every one of us ten hundred armed men
+belonging to himself, but they are all worn away now, and only the
+eight-and-twenty of us left." "What is it is wearing you away?" said
+Finn. "The Men of Dea," said Donn, "that come three times in every year
+to give battle to us on the green outside." "What is the long new grave
+we saw on the green outside?" said Finn. "It is the grave of Diangalach,
+a man of enchantments of the Men of Dea; and that is the greatest loss
+came on them yet," said Donn; "and it was I myself killed him," he
+said. "What loss came next to that?" said Finn. "All the Tuatha de
+Danaan had of jewels and riches and treasures, horns and vessels and
+cups of pale gold, we took from them at the one time." "What was the
+third greatest loss they had?" said Finn. "It was Fethnaid, daughter of
+Feclach, the woman-harper of the Tuatha de Danaan, their music and the
+delight of their minds," said Donn.</p>
+
+<p>"And to-morrow," he said, "they will be coming to make an attack on us,
+and there is no one but myself and my brothers left; and we knew we
+would be in danger, and that we could make no stand against them. And we
+sent that bare-headed girl beyond to Toraig in the North in the shape of
+a foolish fawn, and you followed her here. It is that girl washing
+herself, and having a green cloak about her, went looking for you.</p>
+
+<p>"And the empty side of the house," he said, "belonged to our people that
+the Men of Dea have killed."</p>
+
+<p>They spent that night in drinking and in pleasure. And when they rose up
+in the morning of the morrow, Donn, son of Midhir, said to Finn, "Come
+out with me now on the lawn till you see the place where we fight the
+battles every year." They went out then and they looked at the graves
+and the flag-stones, and Donn said: "It is as far as this the Men of Dea
+come to meet us." "Which of them come here?" said Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"Bodb Dearg with his seven sons," said Donn; "and Angus Og, son of the
+Dagda, with his seven sons; and Finnbharr of Cnoc Medha with his
+seventeen sons; Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh with his twenty-seven sons and
+their sons; Tadg, son of Nuada, out of the beautiful hill of Almhuin;
+Donn of the Island and Donn of the Vat; the two called Glas from the
+district of Osraige; Dobhran Dubthaire from the hill of Liamhain of the
+Smooth Shirt; Aedh of the Island of Rachrainn in the north; Ferai and
+Aillinn and Lir and Fainnle, sons of Eogobal, from Cnoc Aine in Munster;
+Cian and Coban and Conn, three sons of the King of Sidhe Monaid in
+Alban; Aedh Minbhreac of Ess Ruadh with his seven sons; the children of
+the Morrigu, the Great Queen, her six-and-twenty women warriors, the two
+Luaths from Magh Life; Derg and Drecan out of the hill of Beinn Edair in
+the east; Bodb Dearg himself with his great household, ten hundred ten
+score and ten. Those are the chief leaders of the Tuatha de Danaan that
+come to destroy our hill every year."</p>
+
+<p>Finn went back into the hill then, and told all that to his people.</p>
+
+<p>"My people," he said, "it is in great need and under great oppression
+the sons of Midhir are, and it is into great danger we are come
+ourselves. And unless we make a good fight now," he said, "it is likely
+we will never see the Fianna again."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Finn," every one of them said then, "did you ever see any
+drawing-back in any of us that you give us that warning?" "I give my
+word," said Finn, "if I would go through the whole world having only
+this many of the Fianna of Ireland along with me, I would not know fear
+nor fright. And good Donn," he said, "is it by day or by night the Men
+of Dea come against you?" "It is at the fall of night they come," said
+Donn, "the way they can do us the most harm."</p>
+
+<p>So they waited till night came on, and then Finn said: "Let one of you
+go out now on the green to keep watch for us, the way the Men of Dea
+will not come on us without word or warning."</p>
+
+<p>And the man they set to watch was not gone far when he saw five strong
+battalions of the Men of Dea coming towards him. He went back then to
+the hill and he said: "It is what I think, that the troops that are come
+against us this time and are standing now around the grave of the Man
+of Enchantments are a match for any other fighting men."</p>
+
+<p>Finn called to his people then, and he said: "These are good fighters
+are come against you, having strong red spears. And let you all do well
+now in the battle. And it is what you have to do," he said, "to keep the
+little troop of brothers, the sons of Midhir, safe in the fight; for it
+would be a treachery to friendship any harm to come on them, and we
+after joining them; and myself and Caoilte are the oldest among you, and
+leave the rest of the battle to us."</p>
+
+<p>Then from the covering time of evening to the edge of the morning they
+fought the battle. And the loss of the Tuatha de Danaan was no less a
+number than ten hundred ten score and ten men. Then Bodb Dearg and
+Midhir and Fionnbhar said to one another: "What are we to do with all
+these? And let Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh give us an advice," they said,
+"since he is the oldest of us." And Lir said: "It is what I advise, let
+every one carry away his friends and his fosterlings, his sons and his
+brothers, to his own place. And as for us that stop here," he said, "let
+a wall of fire be made about us on the one side, and a wall of water on
+the other side." Then the Men of Dea put up a great heap of stones, and
+brought away their dead; and of all the great slaughter that Finn and
+his men and the sons of Midhir had made, there was not left enough for a
+crow to perch upon.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn and his men, they went back into the hill, hurt and
+wounded and worn-out.</p>
+
+<p>And they stopped in the hill with the sons of Midhir through the whole
+length of a year, and three times in the year the Men of Dea made an
+attack on the hill, and a battle was fought.</p>
+
+<p>And Conn, son of Midhir, was killed in one of the battles; and as to the
+Fianna, there were so many wounds on them that the clothing was held
+off from their bodies with bent hazel sticks, and they lying in their
+beds, and two of them were like to die. And Finn and Caoilte and
+Lugaidh's Son went out on the green, and Caoilte said: "It was a bad
+journey we made coming to this hill, to leave two of our comrades after
+us." "It is a pity for whoever will face the Fianna of Ireland," said
+Lugaidh's Son, "and he after leaving his comrades after him." "Whoever
+will go back and leave them, it will not be myself," said Finn. Then
+Bonn, son of Midhir, came to them. "Good Donn," said Finn, "have you
+knowledge of any physician that can cure our men?" "I only know one
+physician could do that," said Donn; "a physician the Tuatha de Danaan
+have with them. And unless a wounded man has the marrow of his back cut
+through, he will get relief from that physician, the way he will be
+sound at the end of nine days." "How can we bring that man here," said
+Finn, "for those he is with are no good friends to us?" "He goes out
+every morning at break of day," said Donn, "to gather healing herbs
+while the dew is on them." "Find some one, Donn," said Caoilte, "that
+will show me that physician, and, living or dead, I will bring him with
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Then Aedh and Flann, two of the sons of Midhir, rose up. "Come with us,
+Caoilte," they said, and they went on before him to a green lawn with
+the dew on it; and when they came to it they saw a strong young man
+armed and having a cloak of the wool of the seven sheep of the Land of
+Promise, and it full of herbs of healing he was after gathering for the
+Men of Dea that were wounded in the battle. "Who is that man?" said
+Caoilte. "That is the man we came looking for," said Aedh. "And mind him
+well now," he said, "that he will not make his escape from us back to
+his own people."</p>
+
+<p>They ran at him together then, and Caoilte took him by the shoulders
+and they brought him away with them to the ford of the Slaine in the
+great plain of Leinster, where the most of the Fianna were at that time;
+and a Druid mist rose up about them that they could not be seen.</p>
+
+<p>And they went up on a little hill over the ford, and they saw before
+them four young men having crimson fringed cloaks and swords with gold
+hilts, and four good hunting hounds along with them. And the young man
+could not see them because of the mist, but Caoilte saw they were his
+own two sons, Colla and Faolan, and two other young men of the Fianna,
+and he could hear them talking together, and saying it was a year now
+that Finn, son of Cumhal, was gone from them. "And what will the Fianna
+of Ireland do from this out," said one of them, "without their lord and
+their leader?" "There is nothing for them to do," said another, "but to
+go to Teamhair and to break up there, or to find another leader for
+themselves." And there was heavy sorrow on them for the loss of their
+lord; and it was grief to Caoilte to be looking at them.</p>
+
+<p>And he and the two sons of Midhir went back then by the Lake of the Two
+Birds to Slieve-nam Ban, and they went into the hill.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn and Donn gave a great welcome to Luibra, the physician, and
+they showed him their two comrades that were lying in their wounds.
+"Those men are brothers to me," said Donn, "and tell me how can they be
+cured?" Luibra looked then at their wounds, and he said: "They can be
+cured if I get a good reward." "You will get that indeed," said Caoilte;
+"and tell me now," he said, "how long will it take to cure them?" "It
+will take nine days," said Luibra. "It is a good reward you will get,"
+said Caoilte, "and this is what it is, your own life to be left to you.
+But if these young men are not healed," he said, "it is my own hand will
+strike off your head."</p>
+
+<p>And within nine days the physician had done a cure on them, and they
+were as well and as sound as before.</p>
+
+<p>And it was after that time the High King sent a messenger to bring the
+Fianna to the Feast of Teamhair. And they all gathered to it, men and
+women, boys and heroes and musicians. And Goll, son of Morna, was
+sitting at the feast beside the king. "It is a great loss you have had,
+Fianna of Ireland," said the king, "losing your lord and your leader,
+Finn, son of Cumhal." "It is a great loss indeed," said Goll.</p>
+
+<p>"There has no greater loss fallen on Ireland since the loss of Lugh, son
+of Ethne," said the king. "What orders will you give to the Fianna now,
+king?" said Goll. "To yourself, Goll," said the king, "I will give the
+right of hunting over all Ireland till we know if the loss of Finn is
+lasting." "I will not take Finn's place," said Goll, "till he has been
+wanting to us through the length of three years, and till no person in
+Ireland has any hope of seeing him again."</p>
+
+<p>Then Ailbe of the Freckled Face said to the king: "What should these
+seventeen queens belonging to Finn's household do?" "Let a safe, secret
+sunny house be given to every one of them," said the king; "and let her
+stop there and her women with her, and let provision be given to her for
+a month and a quarter and a year till we have knowledge if Finn is alive
+or dead."</p>
+
+<p>Then the king stood up, and a smooth drinking-horn in his hand, and he
+said: "It would be a good thing, men of Ireland, if any one among you
+could get us news of Finn in hills or in secret places, or in rivers or
+invers, or in any house of the Sidhe in Ireland or in Alban."</p>
+
+<p>With that Berngal, the cow-owner from the borders of Slieve Fuad, that
+was divider to the King of Ireland, said: "The day Finn came out from
+the north, following after a deer of the Sidhe, and his five comrades
+with him, he put a sharp spear having a shining head in my hand, and a
+hound's collar along with it, and he bade me to keep them till he would
+meet me again in the same place." Berngal showed the spear and the
+collar then to the king and to Goll, and they looked at them and the
+king said: "It is a great loss to the men of Ireland the man is that
+owned this collar and this spear. And were his hounds along with him?"
+he said. "They were," said Berngal; "Bran and Sceolan were with Finn,
+and Breac and Lainbhui with Caoilte, and Conuall and Comrith with
+Lugaidh's Son."</p>
+
+<p>The High King called then for Fergus of the True Lips, and he said: "Do
+you know how long is Finn away from us?" "I know that well," said
+Fergus; "it is a month and a quarter and a year since we lost him. And
+indeed it is a great loss he is to the Fianna of Ireland," he
+said, "himself and the men that were with him." "It is a great loss
+indeed," said the king, "and I have no hope at all of finding those six
+that were the best men of Ireland or of Alban."</p>
+
+<p>And then he called to Cithruadh, the Druid, and he said: "It is much
+riches and many treasures Finn gave you, and tell us now is he living or
+is he dead?" "He is living," said Cithruadh then. "But as to where he
+is, I will give no news of that," he said, "for he himself would not
+like me to give news of it." There was great joy among them when they
+heard that, for everything Cithruadh had ever foretold had come true.
+"Tell us when will he come back?" said the king. "Before the Feast of
+Teamhair is over," said the Druid, "you will see the Leader of the
+Fianna drinking at it."</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn and his men, they stopped in the House of the Two Birds
+till they had taken hostages for Donn, son of Midhir, from the Tuatha de
+Danaan. And on the last day of the Feast of Teamhair they came back to
+their people again.</p>
+
+<p>And from that time out the Fianna of Ireland had not more dealings with
+the people living in houses than they had with the People of the Gods of
+Dana.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L53" id="L53" />CHAPTER IV. THE HOSPITALITY OF CUANNA'S HOUSE</h2>
+
+
+<p>It happened one day Finn and Oisin and Caoilte and Diarmuid and
+Lugaidh's Son went up on the top of Cairn Feargall, and their five
+hounds with them, Bran and Sceolan, Sear Dubh, Luath Luachar and
+Adhnuall. And they were not long there till they saw a giant coming
+towards them, very tall and rough and having an iron fork on his back
+and a squealing pig between the prongs of the fork. And there was a
+beautiful eager young girl behind the giant, shoving him on before her.
+"Let some one go speak with those people," said Finn. So Diarmuid went
+towards them, but they turned away before he came to them. Then Finn and
+the rest rose up and went after them, but before they came to the giant
+and the girl, a dark Druid mist rose up that hid the road. And when the
+mist cleared away, Finn and the rest looked about them, and they saw a
+good light-roofed house at the edge of a ford near at hand. They went on
+to the house, and there was a green lawn before it, and in the lawn two
+wells, and on the edge of one well there was a rough iron vessel, and on
+the edge of the other a copper vessel. They went into the house then,
+and they found there a very old white-haired man, standing to the right
+hand of the door, and the beautiful young girl they saw before, sitting
+near him, and the great rough giant beside the fire, and he boiling a
+pig. And on the other side of the fire there was an old countryman,
+having dark-grey hair and twelve eyes in his head, and his twelve eyes
+were twelve sons of battle. And there was a ram in the house having a
+white belly and a very black head, and dark-blue horns and green feet.
+And there was a hag in the end of the house and a worn grey gown on her,
+and there was no one in the house but those.</p>
+
+<p>And the man at the door gave them a welcome, and then the five of them
+sat down on the floor of the house, and their hounds along with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Let great respect be shown to Finn, son of Cumhal, and to his people,"
+said the man at the door. "It is the way I am," said the giant, "to be
+asking always and getting nothing." But for all that he rose up and
+showed respect to Finn.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there came a great thirst on Finn, and no one took notice of
+it but Caoilte, and he began complaining greatly. "Why are you
+complaining, Caoilte?" said the man at the door; "you have but to go out
+and get a drink for Finn at whichever of the wells you will choose."
+Caoilte went out then, and he brought the full of the copper vessel to
+Finn, and Finn took a drink from it, and there was the taste of honey on
+it while he was drinking, and the taste of gall on it after, so that
+fierce windy pains and signs of death came on him, and his appearance
+changed, that he would hardly be known. And Caoilte made greater
+complaints than he did before on account of the way he was, till the man
+at the door bade him to go out and to bring him a drink from the other
+well. So Caoilte did that, and brought in the full of the iron vessel.
+And Finn never went through such great hardship in any battle as he did
+drinking that draught, from the bitterness of it; but no sooner did he
+drink it than his own colour and appearance came back to him and he was
+as well as before, and his people were very glad when they saw that.</p>
+
+<p>Then the man of the house asked was the pig ready that was in the
+cauldron. "It is ready," said the giant; "and leave the dividing of it
+to me," he said. "What way will you divide it?" said the man of the
+house. "I will give one hind quarter to Finn and his dogs," said the
+giant, "and the other hind quarter to Finn's four comrades; and the fore
+quarter to myself, and the chine and the rump to the old man there by
+the fire and the hag in the corner; and the entrails to yourself and to
+the young girl that is beside you." "I give my word," said the man of
+the house, "you have shared it well." "I give my word," said the ram,
+"it is a bad division to me, for you have forgotten my share in it."
+With that he took hold of the quarter that was before the Fianna, and
+brought it into a corner and began to eat it. On that the four of them
+attacked him with their swords, but with all the hard strokes they gave
+they could not harm him at all, for the swords slipped from his back the
+same as they would from a rock. "On my word it is a pity for any one
+that has the like of you for comrades," said the man with the twelve
+eyes, "and you letting a sheep bring away your food from you." With that
+he went up to the ram and took him by the feet and threw him out from
+the door that he fell on his back, and they saw him no more.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after that, the hag rose up and threw her pale grey gown
+over Finn's four comrades, and they turned to four old men, weak and
+withered, their heads hanging. When Finn saw that there came great dread
+on him, and the man at the door saw it, and he bade him to come over to
+him, and to put his head in his breast and to sleep. Finn did that, and
+the hag took her covering off the four men, the way that when Finn awoke
+they were in their own shape again, and it is well pleased he was to see
+that.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there wonder on you, Finn?" said the man at the door, "at the ways
+of this house?" "I never wondered more at anything I ever saw," said
+Finn. "I will tell you the meaning of them, so," said the man. "As to
+the giant you saw first," he said, "having the squealing pig in the
+prongs of his fork, Sluggishness is his name; and the girl here beside
+me that was shoving him along is Liveliness, for liveliness pushes on
+sluggishness, and liveliness goes farther in the winking of an eye than
+the foot can travel in a year. The old man there beyond with the twelve
+bright eyes betokens the World, and he is stronger than any other, and
+he showed that when he made nothing of the ram. The ram you saw betokens
+the Desires of Men. The hag is Old Age, and her gown withered up your
+four comrades. And the two wells you drank the two draughts out of," he
+said, "betoken Lying and Truth; for it is sweet to people to be telling
+a lie, but it is bitter in the end. And as to myself," he said, "Cuanna
+from Innistuil is my name, and it is not here I am used to be, but I
+took a very great love for you, Finn, because of your wisdom and your
+great name, and so I put these things in your way that I might see you.
+And the hospitality of Cuanna's house to Finn will be the name of this
+story to the end of the world. And let you and your men come together
+now," he said, "and sleep till morning."</p>
+
+<p>So they did that, and when they awoke in the morning, it is where they
+were, on the top of Cairn Feargall, and their dogs and their arms beside
+them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L54" id="L54" />CHAPTER V. CAT-HEADS AND DOG-HEADS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Nine of the Fianna set out one time, looking for a pup they wanted, and
+they searched through many places before they found it. All through Magh
+Leine they searched, and through the Valley of the Swords, and through
+the storm of Druim Cleibh, and it is pleasant the Plain of the Life
+looked after it; but not a pup could they find. Then they went searching
+through Durlass of the generous men, and great Teamhair and Dun Dobhran
+and Ceanntsaile, men and dogs searching the whole of Ireland, but not a
+pup could they find.</p>
+
+<p>And while they were going from place to place, and their people with
+them, they saw the three armies of the sons of the King of Ruadhleath
+coming towards them. Cat-headed one army was, and the one alongside of
+it was Dog-headed, and the men of the third army were White-backed.</p>
+
+<p>And when the Fianna saw them coming, Finn held up his shining spear, and
+light-hearted Caoilte gave out a great shout that was heard in Almhuin,
+and in Magh Leine, and in Teamhair, and in Dun Reithlein. And that shout
+was answered by Goll, son of Morna, and by Faolan, Finn's son that was
+with him, and by the Stutterers from Burren, and by the two sons of
+Maith Breac, and by Iolunn of the Sharp Edge, and by Cael of the Sharp
+Sword, that never gave his ear to tale-bearers.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasant the sound was then of the spears and the armies and of
+the silken banners that were raised up in the gusty wind of the morning.
+And as to the banners, Finn's banner, the Dealb-Greine, the Sun-Shape,
+had the likeness of the sun on it; and Coil's banner was the Fulang
+Duaraidh, that was the first and last to move in a battle; and Faolan's
+banner was the Coinneal Catha, the Candle of Battle; and Oisin's banner
+was the Donn Nimhe, the Dark Deadly One; and Caoilte's was the Lamh
+Dearg, the Red Hand; and Osgar's was the Sguab Gabhaidh that had a Broom
+of rowan branches on it, and the only thing asked when the fight was at
+the hottest was where that Broom was; and merry Diarmuid's banner was
+the Liath Loinneach, the Shining Grey; and the Craobh Fuileach, the
+Bloody Branch, was the banner of Lugaidh's Son. And as to Conan, it is a
+briar he had on his banner, because he was always for quarrels and for
+trouble. And it used to be said of him he never saw a man frown without
+striking him, or a door left open without going in through it.</p>
+
+<p>And when the Fianna had raised their banners they attacked the three
+armies; and first of all they killed the whole of the Cat-Heads, and
+then they took the Dog-Heads in hand and made an end of them, and of the
+White-Backs along with them.</p>
+
+<p>And after that they went to a little hill to the south, having a double
+dun on it, and it is there they found a hound they were able to get a
+pup from.</p>
+
+<p>And by that time they had searched through the whole of Ireland, and
+they did not find in the whole of it a hundred men that could match
+their nine.</p>
+
+<p>And as well as their banners, some of the Fianna had swords that had
+names to them, Mac an Luin, Son of the Waves, that belonged to Finn; and
+Ceard-nan Gallan, the Smith of the Branches, that was Oisin's; and
+Caoilte's Cruadh-Chosgarach, the Hard Destroying One; and Diarmuid's
+Liomhadoir, the Burnisher; and Osgar's Cosgarach Mhor, the Great
+Triumphant One.</p>
+
+<p>And it is the way they got those swords: there came one time to where
+Finn and Caoilte and some others of the Fianna were, a young man, very
+big and ugly, having but one foot and one eye; a cloak of black skins he
+had over his shoulders, and in his hand a blunt ploughshare that was
+turning to red. And he told them he was Lon, son of Liobhan, one of the
+three smiths of the King of Lochlann. And whether he thought to go away
+from the Fianna, or to bring them to his smithy, he started running, and
+they followed after him all through Ireland, to Slieve-na-Righ, and to
+Luimnech, and to Ath Luain, and by the right side of Cruachan of
+Connacht, and to Ess Ruadh and to Beinn Edair, and so to the sea.</p>
+
+<p>And wherever it was they found the smithy, they went into it, and there
+they found four smiths working, and every one of them having seven
+hands. And Finn and Caoilte and the rest stopped there watching them
+till the swords were made, and they brought them away with them then,
+and it is good use they made of them afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>And besides his sword, Mac an Luin, Finn had a shield was called Sgiath
+Gailbhinn, the Storm Shield; and when it called out it could be heard
+all through Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And whether or not it was the Storm Shield, Finn had a wonderful shield
+that he did great deeds with, and the story of it is this:</p>
+
+<p>At the time of the battle of the Great Battle of Magh Tuireadh, Lugh,
+after he had struck the head off Balor of the Evil Eye, hung it in the
+fork of a hazel-tree. And the tree split, and the leaves fell from it
+with the dint of the poison that dropped from the head. And through the
+length of fifty years that tree was a dwelling-place of crows and of
+ravens. And at the end of that time Manannan, son of Lir, was passing
+by, and he took notice of the tree that it was split and withered, and
+he bade his men to dig it up. And when they began to dig, a mist of
+poison rose up from the roots, and nine of the men got their death from
+it, and another nine after them, and the third nine were blinded. And
+Luchtaine the Carpenter made a shield of the wood of that hazel for
+Manannan. And after a while Manannan gave it, and a set of chessmen
+along with it, to Tadg, son of Nuada; and from him it came to his
+grandson, Finn, son of Muirne and of Cumhal.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L55" id="L55" />CHAPTER VI. LOMNA'S HEAD</h2>
+
+<p>FINN took a wife one time of the Luigne of Midhe. And at the same time
+there was in his household one Lomna, a fool.</p>
+
+<p>Finn now went into Tethra, hunting with the Fianna, but Lomna stopped at
+the house. And after a while he saw Coirpre, a man of the Luigne, go in
+secretly to where Finn's wife was.</p>
+
+<p>And when the woman knew he had seen that, she begged and prayed of Lomna
+to hide it from Finn. And Lomna agreed to that, but it preyed on him to
+have a hand in doing treachery on Finn. And after a while he took a
+four-square rod and wrote an Ogham on it, and these were the words he
+wrote:&mdash;"An alder stake in a paling of silver; deadly night-shade in a
+bunch of cresses; a husband of a lewd woman; a fool among the
+well-taught Fianna; heather on bare Ualann of Luigne."</p>
+
+<p>Finn saw the message, and there was anger on him against the woman; and
+she knew well it was from Lomna he had heard the story, and she sent a
+message to Coirpre bidding him to come and kill the fool.</p>
+
+<p>So Coirpre came and struck his head off, and brought it away with him.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn came back in the evening he saw the body, and it without a
+head. "Let us know whose body is this," said the Fianna. And then Finn
+did the divination of rhymes, and it is what he said: "It is the body of
+Lomna; it is not by a wild boar he was killed; it is not by a fall he
+was killed; it is not in his bed he died; it is by his enemies he died;
+it is not a secret to the Luigne the way he died. And let out the hounds
+now on their track," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So they let out the hounds, and put them on the track of Coirpre, and
+Finn followed them, and they came to a house, and Coirpre in it, and
+three times nine of his men and he cooking fish on a spit; and Lomna's
+head was on a spike beside the fire.</p>
+
+<p>And the first of the fish that was cooked Coirpre divided between his
+men, but he put no bit into the mouth of the head. And then he made a
+second division in the same way. Now that was against the law of the
+Fianna, and the head spoke, and it said: "A speckled white-bellied
+salmon that grows from a small fish under the sea; you have shared a
+share that is not right; the Fianna will avenge it upon you, Coirpre."
+"Put the head outside," said Coirpre, "for that is an evil word for us."
+Then the head said from outside: "It is in many pieces you will be; it
+is great fires will be lighted by Finn in Luigne."</p>
+
+<p>And as it said that, Finn came in, and he made an end of Coirpre, and of
+his men.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L56" id="L56" />CHAPTER VII. ILBREC OF ESS RUADH</h2>
+
+<p>One time Caoilte was hunting on Beinn Gulbain, and he went on to Ess
+Ruadh. And when he came near the hill of the Sidhe that is there, he saw
+a young man waiting for him, having a crimson fringed cloak about him,
+and on his breast a silver brooch, and a white shield, ornamented with
+linked beasts of red gold, and his hair rolled in a ball at the back,
+and covered with a golden cup. And he had heavy green weapons, and he
+was holding two hounds in a silver chain.</p>
+
+<p>And when Caoilte came up to him he gave him three loving kisses, and sat
+down beside him on the grass. "Who are you, young champion?" said
+Caoilte. "I am Derg, son of Eoghan of the people of Usnach," he said,
+"and foster-brother of your own." Caoilte knew him then, and he said:
+"And what is your life with your mother's people, the Tuatha de Danaan
+in Sidhe Aedha?" "There is nothing wanting to us there of food or of
+clothing," said the young man. "But for all that," he said, "I would
+sooner live the life of the worst treated of the serving-boys of the
+Fianna than the life I am living in the hill of the Sidhe." "Lonely as
+you are at your hunting to-day," said Caoilte, "it is often I saw you
+coming to the Valley of the Three Waters in the south, where the Siuir
+and the Beoir and the Berba come together, with a great company about
+you; fifteen hundred young men, fifteen hundred serving-boys, and
+fifteen hundred women." "That was so," said Derg; "and although myself
+and my gentle hound are living in the hill of the Sidhe, my mind is
+always on the Fianna. And I remember well the time," he said, "when you
+yourself won the race against Finn's lasting black horse. And come now
+into the hill," he said, "for the darkness of the night is coming on."</p>
+
+<p>So he brought Caoilte into the hill with him, and they were set down in
+their right places.</p>
+
+<p>It was at that time, now, there was great war between Lir of Sidhe
+Fionnachaidh and Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh. There used a bird with an iron
+beak and a tail of fire to come every evening to a golden window of
+Ilbrec's house, and there he would shake himself till he would not leave
+sword on pillow, or shield on peg, or spear in rack, but they would come
+down on the heads of the people of the house; and whatever they would
+throw at the bird, it is on the heads of some of themselves it would
+fall. And the night Caoilte came in, the hall was made ready for a
+feast, and the bird came in again, and did the same destruction as
+before, and nothing they threw at him would touch him at all. "Is it
+long the bird has been doing this?" said Caoilte. "Through the length of
+a year now," said Derg, "since we went to war with Sidhe Fionnachaidh."</p>
+
+<p>Then Caoilte put his hand within the rim of his shield, and he took out
+of it a copper rod he had, and he made a cast of it at the bird, that
+brought it down on the floor of the hall. "Did any one ever make a
+better cast than that?" said Ilbrec. "By my word," said Caoilte, "there
+is no one of us in the Fianna has any right to boast against another."
+Then Ilbrec took down a sharp spear, having thirty rivets of gold in it,
+from its place, and he said: "That is the Spear of Fiacha, son of
+Congha, and it is with that Finn made an end of Aillen, son of Midhna,
+that used to burn Teamhair. And keep it beside you now, Caoilte," he
+said, "till we see will Lir come to avenge his bird on us."</p>
+
+<p>Then they took up their horns and their cups, and they were at drinking
+and pleasure, and Ilbrec said: "Well, Caoilte," he said, "if Lir comes
+to avenge his bird on us, who will you put in command of the battle?" "I
+will give the command to Derg there beyond," said he. "Will you take it
+in hand, Derg?" said the people of the hill. "I will take it," said
+Derg, "with its loss and its gain."</p>
+
+<p>So that is how they spent the night, and it was not long in the morning
+till they heard blowing of horns, and rattling of chariots, and clashing
+of shields, and the uproar of a great army that came all about the hill.
+They sent some of their people out then to see were there many in it,
+and they saw three brave armies of the one size. "It would be a great
+vexation to me," said Aedh Nimbrec, the Speckled, then, "we to get our
+death and Lir's people to take the hill." "Did you never hear, Aedh,"
+said Caoilte, "that the wild boar escapes sometimes from both hounds and
+from wolves, and the stag in the same way goes away from the hounds with
+a sudden start; and what man is it you are most in dread of in the
+battle?" he said. "The man that is the best fighter of all the Men of
+Dea," said they all, "and that is Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh." "The
+thing I have done in every battle I will not give up to-day," said
+Caoilte, "to meet the best man that is in it hand to hand." "The two
+that are next to him in fighting," they said then, "are Donn and Dubh."
+"I will put down those two," said Derg.</p>
+
+<p>Then the host of the Sidhe went out to the battle, and the armies
+attacked one another with wide green spears and with little casting
+spears, and with great stones; and the fight went on from the rising of
+the day till midday. And then Caoilte and Lir met with one another, and
+they made a very fierce fight, and at the last Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh
+fell by the hand of Caoilte.</p>
+
+<p>Then the two good champions Dubh and Donn, sons of Eirrge, determined to
+go on with the battle, and it is how they fought, Dubh in the front of
+the whole army, and Donn behind all, guarding the rear. But Derg saw
+that, and he put his finger into the thong of his spear and made a cast
+at the one that was nearest him, and it broke his back and went on into
+the body of the other, so that the one cast made an end of the two. And
+that ended the battle, and all that was left of the great army of Lir
+went wearing away to the north. And there was great rejoicing in the
+hill at Ess Ruadh, and Ilbrec took the spoils of the beaten army for his
+people, and to Caoilte he gave the enchanted spear of Fiacha, together
+with nine rich cloaks and nine long swords with hilts and guards of
+gold, and nine hounds for hunting. And they said farewell to one
+another, and Caoilte left his blessing to the people of the hill, and he
+brought their thanks with him. And as hard as the battle had been, it
+was harder again for Derg to part from his comrade, and the day he was
+parted from Finn and from all the Fianna was no sadder to him than this
+day.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long time after that Caoilte went again to the hill of Ilbrec
+at Ess Ruadh, and this is the way it happened.</p>
+
+<p>It was in a battle at Beinn Edair in the east that Mane, son of the King
+of Lochlann, made a cast at him in the middle of the battle with a
+deadly spear. And he heard the whistling of the spear, and it rushing to
+him; and he lifted his shield to protect his head and his body, but that
+did not save him, for it struck into his thigh, and left its poison in
+it, so that he had to go in search of healing. And it is where he went,
+to the hill of the Sidhe at Ess Ruadh, to ask help of Bebind, daughter
+of Elcmar of Brugh na Boinne, that had the drink of healing of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, and all that was left of the ale of Goibniu that she
+used to be giving out to them.</p>
+
+<p>And Caoilte called to Cascorach the Musician, son of Caincenn, and bade
+him bring his harp and come along with him. And they stopped for a night
+in the hill of the Sidhe of Druim Nemed in Luigne of Connacht, and from
+that they went forward by Ess Dara, the Fall of the Oaks, and Druim
+Dearg na Feinne, the Red Ridge of the Fianna, and Ath Daim Glas, the
+Ford of the Grey Stag, and to Beinn Gulbain, and northward into the
+plain of Ceitne, where the Men of Dea used to pay their tribute to the
+Fomor; and up to the Footstep of Ess Ruadh, and the High Place of the
+Boys, where the boys of the Tuatha de Danaan used to be playing their
+hurling. And Aedh of Ess Ruadh and Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh were at the door
+of the hill, and they gave Caoilte a true welcome. "I am glad of that
+welcome," said Caoilte. And then Bebind, daughter of Elcmar of Brugh na
+Boinne, came out, and three times fifty comely women about her, and she
+sat down on the green grass and gave three loving kisses to the three,
+to Caoilte and to Cascorach and to Fermaise, that had come with them out
+of the hill of the Sidhe in Luigne of Connacht. And all the people of
+the hill welcomed them, and they said: "It is little your friendship
+would be worth if you would not come to help us and we in need of help."
+"It was not for bravery I was bade come," said Cascorach; "but when the
+right time comes I will make music for you if you have a mind to hear
+it." "It is not for deeds of bravery we are come," said Fermaise, "but
+we will give you our help if you are in need of it." Then Caoilte told
+them the cause of his journey. "We will heal you well," said they. And
+then they all went into the hill and stayed there three days and three
+nights at drinking and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed it was good help Caoilte and Cascorach gave them after that.
+For there was a woman-warrior used to come every year with the ships of
+the men of Lochlann to make an attack on the Tuatha de Danaan. And she
+had been reared by a woman that knew all enchantments, and there was no
+precious thing in all the hills of the Sidhe but she had knowledge of
+it, and would bring it away. And just at this time there came a
+messenger to the door of the hill with news that the harbour was full of
+ships, and that a great army had landed, and the woman-warrior along
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>And it was Cascorach the Musician went out against her, having a shield
+he got the loan of from Donn, son of Midhir; and she used high words
+when she saw so young a man coming to fight with her, and he alone. But
+he made an end of her for all her high talk, and left her lying on the
+strand with the sea foam washing up to her.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Caoilte, he went out in a chariot belonging to Midhir of the
+Yellow Hair, son of the Dagda, and a spear was given him that was called
+Ben-badb, the War-Woman, and he made a cast of the spear that struck the
+King of Lochlann, that he fell in the middle of his army, and the life
+went from him. And Fermaise went looking for the king's brother, Eolus,
+that was the comeliest of all the men of the world; and he knew him by
+the band of gold around his head, and his green armour, and his red
+shield, and he killed him with a cast of a five-pronged spear. And when
+the men of Lochlann saw their three leaders were gone, they went into
+their ships and back to their own country. And there was great joy
+through the whole country, both among the men of Ireland and the Tuatha
+de Danaan, the men of Lochlann to have been driven away by the deeds of
+Caoilte and Fermaise and Cascorach.</p>
+
+<p>And that was not all they did, for it was at that time there came three
+flocks of beautiful red birds from Slieve Fuad in the north, and began
+eating the green grass before the hill of the Sidhe. "What birds are
+those?" said Caoilte. "Three flocks they are that come and destroy the
+green every year, eating it down to the bare flag-stones, till they
+leave us no place for our races," said Ilbrec. Then Caoilte and his
+comrades took up three stones and threw them at the flocks and drove
+them away. "Power and blessings to you," said the people of the Sidhe
+then, "that is a good work you have done. And there is another thing you
+can do for us," they said, "for there are three ravens come to us every
+year out of the north, and the time the young lads of the hill are
+playing their hurling, each one of the ravens carries off a boy of them.
+And it is to-morrow the hurling will be," they said.</p>
+
+<p>So when the full light of day was come on the morrow, the whole of the
+Tuatha de Danaan went out to look at the hurling; and to every six men
+of them was given a chess-board, and a board for some other game to
+every five, and to every ten men a little harp, and a harp to every
+hundred men, and pipes that were sharp and powerful to every nine.</p>
+
+<p>Then they saw the three ravens from the north coming over the sea, and
+they pitched on the great tree of power that was on the green, and they
+gave three gloomy screeches, that if such a thing could be, would have
+brought the dead out of the earth or the hair off the head of the
+listeners; and as it was, they took the courage out of the whole
+gathering.</p>
+
+<p>Then Cascorach, son of Caincenn, took a man of the chessmen and made a
+cast at one of the ravens that struck his beak and his throat, and made
+an end of him; and Fermaise killed the second of them, and Caoilte the
+third of them in the same way.</p>
+
+<p>"Let my cure be done now," said Caoilte, "for I have paid my fee for it,
+and it is time." "You have paid it indeed," said Ilbrec. "And where is
+Bebind, daughter of Elcmar?" he said. "I am here," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring Caoilte, son of Ronan, with you into some hidden place," he said,
+"and do his cure, and let him be well served, for he has driven every
+danger from the Men of Dea and from the Sons of the Gael. And let
+Cascorach make music for him, and let Fermaise, son of Eogabil, be
+watching him and guarding him and attending him."</p>
+
+<p>So Elcmar's daughter went to the House of Arms, and her two sons with
+her, and a bed of healing was made ready for Caoilte, and a bowl of pale
+gold was brought to her, and it full of water. And she took a crystal
+vessel and put herbs into it, and she bruised them and put them in the
+water, and gave the bowl to Caoilte, and he drank a great drink out of
+it, that made him cast up the poison of the spear that was in him. Five
+drinks of it he took, and after that she gave him new milk to drink; but
+with the dint of the reaching he was left without strength through the
+length of three days and three nights.</p>
+
+<p>"Caoilte, my life," she said then, "in my opinion you have got relief."
+"I have got it indeed," he said, "but that the weakness of my head is
+troubling me." "The washing of Flann, daughter of Flidais, will be done
+for you now," she said, "and the head that washing is done for will
+never be troubled with pain, or baldness, or weakness of sight." So that
+cure was done to him for a while; and the people of the hill divided
+themselves into three parts; the one part of their best men and great
+nobles, and another of their young men, and another of their women and
+poets, to be visiting him and making mirth with him as long as he would
+be on his bed of healing. And everything that was best from their
+hunting, it was to him they would bring it.</p>
+
+<p>And one day, when Elcmar's daughter and her two sons and Cascorach and
+Fermaise were with Caoilte, there was heard a sound of music coming
+towards them from the waters of Ess Ruadh, and any one would leave the
+music of the whole world for that music. And they put their harps on the
+corners of the pillars and went out, and there was wonder on Caoilte
+that they left him. And he took notice that his strength and the
+strength of his hands was not come to him yet, and he said: "It is many
+a rough battle and many a hard fight I went into, and now there is not
+enough strength in me so much as to go out along with the rest," and he
+cried tears down.</p>
+
+<p>And the others came back to him then, and he asked news of them. "What
+was that sound of music we heard?" he said. "It was Uaine out of the
+hill of the Sidhe, at the Wave of Cliodna in the south," said they; "and
+with her the birds of the Land of Promise; and she is musician to the
+whole of that country. And every year she goes to visit one of the hills
+of the Sidhe, and it is our turn this time." Then the woman from the
+Land of Promise came into the house, and the birds came in along with
+her, and they pitched on the pillars and the beams, and thirty of them
+came in where Caoilte was, began singing together. And Cascorach took
+his harp, and whatever he would play, the birds would sing to it. "It is
+much music I have heard," said Caoilte, "but music so good as that I
+never heard before."</p>
+
+<p>And after that Caoilte asked to have the healing of his thigh done, and
+the daughter of Elcmar gave herself to that, and all that was bad was
+sucked from the wound by her serving people till it was healed. And
+Caoilte stopped on where he was for three nights after that.</p>
+
+<p>And then the people of the hill rose up and went into the stream to
+swim. And Caoilte said: "What ails me now not to go swim, since my
+health has come back to me?" And with that he went into the water. And
+afterwards they went back into the hill, and there was a great feast
+made that night.</p>
+
+<p>And Caoilte bade them farewell after that, and Cascorach, but Fermaise
+stopped with them for a while. And the people of the hill gave good
+gifts to Caoilte; a fringed crimson cloak of wool from the seven sheep
+of the Land of Promise; and a fish-hook that was called Aicil mac Mogha,
+and that could not be set in any river or inver but it would take fish;
+and along with that they gave him a drink of remembrance, and after that
+drink there would be no place he ever saw, or no battle or fight he ever
+was in, but it would stay in his memory. "That is a good help from
+kinsmen and from friends," said Caoilte.</p>
+
+<p>Then Caoilte and Cascorach went out from the hill, and the people of it
+made a great lamentation after them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L57" id="L57" />CHAPTER VIII. THE CAVE OF CRUACHAN</h2>
+
+
+<p>CAOLITE was one time at Cruachan of Connacht, and Cascorach was with
+him, and there he saw sitting on a heap of stones a man with very rough
+grey hair, having a dark brown cloak fastened with a pin of bronze, and
+a long stick of white hazel in his hand; and there was a herd of cattle
+before him in a fenced field.</p>
+
+<p>Caoilte asked news of him. "I am steward to the King of Ireland," said
+the old man, "and it is from him I hold this land. And we have great
+troubles on us in this district," he said. "What troubles are those?"
+said Caoilte. "I have many herds of cattle," he said, "and every year at
+Samhain time, a woman comes out of the hill of the Sidhe of Cruachan and
+brings away nine of the best out of every herd. And as to my name, I am
+Bairnech, son of Carbh of Collamair of Bregia."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was the best man that ever came out of Collamair?" said Caoilte. "I
+know, and the men of Ireland and of Alban know," said he, "it was
+Caoilte, son of Ronan. And do you know where is that man now?" he said.
+"I myself am that man and your own kinsman," said Caoilte.</p>
+
+<p>When Bairnech heard that, he gave him a great welcome, and Caoilte gave
+him three kisses. "It seems to me that to-night is Samhain night," said
+Caoilte. "If that is so, it is to-night the woman will come to rob us,"
+said Bernech. "Let me go to-night to the door of the hill of the Sidhe,"
+said Cascorach. "You may do that, and bring your arms with you," said
+Caoilte.</p>
+
+<p>So Cascorach went then, and it was not long till he saw the girl going
+past him out of the hill of Cruachan, having a beautiful cloak of one
+colour about her; a gown of yellow silk tied up with a knot between her
+thighs, two spears in her hands, and she not in dread of anything before
+her or after her.</p>
+
+<p>Then Cascorach blew a blast against her, and put his finger into the
+thong of his spear, and made a cast at the girl that went through her,
+and that is the way she was made an end of by Cascorach of the Music.</p>
+
+<p>And then Bernech said to Caoilte: "Caoilte," he said, "do you know the
+other oppression that is on me in this place?" "What oppression is
+that?" said Caoilte. "Three she-wolves that come out of the Cave of
+Cruachan every year and destroy our sheep and our wethers, and we can do
+nothing against them, and they go back into the cave again. And it will
+be a good friend that will rid us of them," he said. "Well, Cascorach,"
+said Caoilte, "do you know what are the three wolves that are robbing
+this man?" "I know well," said Cascorach, "they are the three daughters
+of Airetach, of the last of the people of oppression of the Cave of
+Cruachan, and it is easier for them to do their robbery as wolves than
+as women." "And will they come near to any one?" said Caoilte. "They
+will only come near to one sort," said Cascorach; "if they see the
+world's men having harps for music, they will come near to them." "And
+how would it be for me," he said, "to go to-morrow to the cairn beyond,
+and to bring my harp with me?"</p>
+
+<p>So in the morning he rose up and went to the cairn and stopped on it,
+playing his harp till the coming of the mists of the evening. And while
+he was there he saw the three wolves coming towards him, and they lay
+down before him, listening to the music. But Cascerach found no way to
+make an attack on them, and they went back into the cave at the end of
+the day.</p>
+
+<p>Cascorach went back then to Caoilte and told him what had happened. "Go
+up to-morrow to the same place," said Caoilte, "and say to them it would
+be better for them to be in the shape of women for listening to music
+than in the shape of wolves."</p>
+
+<p>So on the morrow Cascorach went out to the same cairn, and set his
+people about it, and the wolves came there and stretched themselves to
+listen to the music. And Cascorach was saying to them: "If you were ever
+women," he said, "it would be better for you to be listening to the
+music as women than as wolves." And they heard that, and they threw off
+the dark trailing coverings that were about them, for they liked well
+the sweet music of the Sidhe.</p>
+
+<p>And when Caoilte saw them there side by side, and elbow by elbow, he
+made a cast of his spear, and it went through the three women, that they
+were like a skein of thread drawn together on the spear. And that is the
+way he made an end of the strange, unknown three. And that place got the
+name of the Valley of the Shapes of the Wolves.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L58" id="L58" />CHAPTER IX. THE WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE</h2>
+
+<p>Finn and the Fianna made a great hunting one time on the hill of Torc
+that is over Loch Lein and Feara Mor. And they went on with their
+hunting till they came to pleasant green Slieve Echtge, and from that it
+spread over other green-topped hills, and through thick tangled woods,
+and rough red-headed hills, and over the wide plains of the country. And
+every chief man among them chose the place that was to his liking, and
+the gap of danger he was used to before. And the shouts they gave in the
+turns of the hunt were heard in the woods all around, so that they
+started the deer in the wood, and sent the foxes wandering, and the
+little red beasts climbing rocks, and badgers from their holes, and
+birds flying, and fawns running their best. Then they let out their
+angry small-headed hounds and set them hunting. And it is red the hands
+of the Fianna were that day, and it is proud they were of their hounds
+that were torn and wounded before evening.</p>
+
+<p>It happened that day no one stopped with Finn but only Diorraing, son of
+Domhar. "Well, Diorraing," said Finn, "let you watch for me while I go
+asleep, for it is early I rose to-day, and it is an early rising a man
+makes when he cannot see the shadow of his five fingers between himself
+and the light of day, or know the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of
+the oak." With that he fell into a quiet sleep that lasted till the
+yellow light of the evening. And the rest of the Fianna, not knowing
+where he was gone, gave over the hunt.</p>
+
+<p>And the time was long to Diorraing while Finn was asleep, and he roused
+him and told him the Fianna must have given up the hunt, for he could
+not hear a cry or a whistle from them. "The end of day is come," said
+Finn then, "and we will not follow them to-night. And go now to the
+wood," he said, "and bring timber and dead branches for a shelter, and I
+will go looking for food for the night." So Diorraing went to the wood,
+but he was not gone far till he saw a fine well-lighted house of the
+Sidhe before him on the edge of the wood near at hand, and he went back
+to Finn with the news. "Let us go to it," said Finn, "for we ought not
+to be working in this place, and people living so near at hand." They
+went then to the door of the house and knocked at it, and the
+door-keeper came to it. "Whose house is this?" said Diorraing. "It
+belongs to Conan of Ceann Slieve," said the door-keeper. "Tell him,"
+said Diorraing, "there are two of the Fianna of the Gael at the door."</p>
+
+<p>The door-keeper went in then and told Conan there were two men of the
+Fianna at the door. "The one of them," he said, "is young and strong,
+and quiet and fair-haired, and more beautiful than the rest of the men
+of the world, and he has in his hand a small-headed, white-breasted
+hound, having a collar of rubbed gold and a chain of old silver. And the
+other of them," he said, "is brown and ruddy and white-toothed, and he
+is leading a yellow-spotted hound by a chain of bright bronze." "It is
+well you have made your report of them," said Conan, "and I know them by
+it; for the man you spoke of first is Finn, son of Cumhal, Head of the
+Fianna of Ireland, and Bran in his hand; and the other is Diorraing, and
+Sceolan in his hand. And go now quickly and let them in," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Finn and Diorraing were brought in then, and they got good attendance,
+and their arms were taken from them, and a grand feast was made ready
+that pleased them well. And the wife of Conan was at the one side of
+Finn, and his daughter, Finndealbh, of the Fair Shape, was at his other
+side. And they had a great deal of talk together, and at last, seeing
+her so beautiful, the colour of gold on her curled hair, and her eyes as
+blue as flowers, and a soft four-cornered cloak fastened at her breast
+with a silver pin, he asked her of Conan for his wife. "Leave asking
+that, Finn," said Conan, "for your own courage is not greater than the
+courage of the man she is promised to." "Who is that?" said Finn. "He is
+Fatha, son of the King of Ess Ruadh," said Conan. "Your wounds and your
+danger on yourself," said Diorraing; "and it would be right," he said,
+"that stammering tongue that gave out those words to be tied and to be
+shortened for ever, and a drink of death to be given to you; for if the
+whole of the Men of Dea," he said, "could be put into the one body, Finn
+would be better than them all." "Leave off, Diorraing," said Finn, "for
+it is not fighting I am here, but asking a wife, and I will get her
+whether the Men of Dea think good or bad of it." "I will not be making a
+quarrel with you," said Conan, "but I put you under bonds as a true
+hero to answer me everything I am going to ask you." "I will do that,"
+said Finn.</p>
+
+<p>With that Conan put questions to Finn as to his birth and his rearing,
+and the deeds he had done since he came to the Fianna, and Finn gave
+full answers to them all. And at last he said: "Let us go on with this
+no longer, but if you have musicians with you, let them be brought to us
+now; for it is not my custom," he said, "to be for a single night
+without music." "Tell me this first," said Conan, "who was it made the
+Dord Fiann, the Mutterer of the Fianna, and when was it made?" "I will
+tell you the truth of that," said Finn; "it was made in Ireland by the
+three sons of Cearmait Honey-Mouth; and nine men used to be sounding it,
+and since it came to me I have fifty men sounding it." "And tell me
+this," said Conan, "what is the music pleased you best of all you ever
+heard?" "I will tell you that," said Finn; "the time the seven
+battalions of the Fianna are gathered in the one place and raise their
+spear-shafts over their heads, and the sharp whining of the clear, cold
+wind goes through them, that is very sweet to me. And when the
+drinking-hall is set out in Almhuin, and the cup-bearers give out the
+bright cups to the chief men of the Fianna, that is very sweet to me;
+and it is sweet to me to be listening to the voice of the sea-gull and
+the heron, and the noise of the waves of Traig Liath, the song of the
+three sons of Meardha, the whistle of Lugaidh's Son, and the voice of
+the cuckoo in the beginning of summer, and the grunting of the pigs on
+the Plain of Eithne, and the shouting of laughter in Doire." And it is
+what he said: "The Dord in the green-topped woods, the lasting wash of
+the waves against the shore, the noise of the waves at Traig Liath
+meeting with the river of the White Trout; the three men that came to
+the Fianna, a man of them gentle and a man of them rough, another man of
+them ploughing the clouds, they were sweeter than any other thing.</p>
+
+<p>"The grey mane of the sea, the time a man cannot follow its track; the
+swell that brings the fish to the land, it is sleep-music, its sound is
+sweet.</p>
+
+<p>"Feargall, son of Fionn, a man that was ready-handed, it is long his
+leap was, it is well marked his track is; he never gave a story that did
+not do away with secrets; it is his voice was music of sleep to me."</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn had answered all the questions so well, Conan said he
+would give him his daughter, and that he would have a wedding-feast
+ready at the end of a month.</p>
+
+<p>They spent the rest of the night then in sleep; but Finn saw a dreadful
+vision through his sleep that made him start three times from his bed.
+"What makes you start from your bed, Finn?" said Diorraing. "It was the
+Tuatha de Danaan I saw," said he, "taking up a quarrel against me, and
+making a great slaughter of the Fianna."</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the Fianna, they rested at Fotharladh of Moghna that night,
+and they were downhearted, having no tidings of Finn. And early on the
+morrow two of them, Bran Beag and Bran Mor, rose up and went to
+Mac-an-Reith, son of the Ram, that had the gift of true knowledge, and
+they asked him where did Finn spend the night. And Mac-an-Reith was
+someway unwilling to tell them, but at the last he said it was at the
+house of Conan of Ceann Slieve.</p>
+
+<p>The two Brans went on then to Conan's house, and Finn made them welcome;
+but they blamed him when they heard he was taking a wife, and none of
+his people with him. "Bid all the Fianna to come to the feast at the end
+of a month," said Conan then. So Finn and Diorraing and the two Brans
+went back to where the Fianna were and told them all that had happened,
+and they went on to Almhuin.</p>
+
+<p>And when they were in the drinking-hall at Almhuin that night, they saw
+the son of the King of Ireland coming to where they were. "It is a pity
+the king's son to have come," said Finn; "for he will not be satisfied
+without ordering everything in the hall in his own way." "We will not
+take his orders," said Oisin, "but we will leave the half of the hall to
+him, and keep the other half ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>So they did that; but it happened that in the half of the house that was
+given up to the King of Ireland's son, there were sitting two of the Men
+of Dea, Failbhe Mor and Failbhe Beag; and it is what they said, that it
+is because they were in that side of the hall it was given up. "It is a
+pity," said Failbhe Beag, "this shame and this great insult to have been
+put on us to-night; and it is likely Finn has a mind to do more than
+that again to us," he said, "for he is going to bring away the woman
+that is promised to the third best man of the Tuatha de Danaan, and
+against the will of her father and mother." And these two went away
+early in the morning to Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail, and told him of the
+insults Finn and the Fianna of Ireland had a mind to put on the Tuatha
+de Danaan.</p>
+
+<p>And when Fionnbhar that was king over the Tuatha de Danaan heard that,
+he sent out messengers through the length of Ireland to gather them all
+to him. And there came six good battalions to him on the edge of Loch
+Derg Dheirc at the end of a month; and it was the same day Conan had the
+wedding-feast made ready for Finn and his people.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn was at Teamhair Luachra at that time, and when he heard the
+feast was ready, he set out to go to it. And it chanced that the most of
+the men he had with him at that time were of the sons of Morna. And when
+they were on their way, Finn said to Goll, "O Goll," he said, "I never
+felt any fear till now going to a feast. And there are but few of my
+people with me," he said; "and I know there is no good thing before me,
+but the Men of Dea are going to raise a quarrel against me and to kill
+my people." "I will defend you against anything they may do," said Goll.</p>
+
+<p>They went on then to Conan's house, and there was a welcome before them,
+and they were brought into the drinking-hall, and Finn was put in the
+place beside the door, and Goll on his right and Finndeilb, of the Fair
+Shape, on his left, and all the rest in the places they were used to.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail and the Tuatha de Danaan, they put
+a Druid mist about themselves and went on, hidden and armed, in sixteen
+battalions, to the lawn before Conan's house. "It is little profit we
+have being here," they said then, "and Goll being with Finn against us."
+"Goll will not protect him this time," said Ethne, the woman-Druid, "for
+I will entice Finn out of the house, however well he is watched."</p>
+
+<p>She went on to the house then, and took her stand before Finn outside.
+"Who is that before me?" she said then. "It is I myself," said Finn. "I
+put you under the bonds a true hero never broke," she said, "to come out
+to me here." When Finn heard that, he made no delay and went out to her;
+and for all there were so many in the house, not one of them took notice
+of him going, only Caoilte, and he followed him out. And at the same
+time the Tuatha de Danaan let out a flock of blackbirds having fiery
+beaks, that pitched on the breasts of all the people in the house, and
+burned them and destroyed them, till the young lads and the women and
+children of the place ran out on all sides, and the woman of the house,
+Conan's wife, was drowned in the river outside the dun.</p>
+
+<p>But as to Ethne, the woman-Druid, she asked Finn would he run against
+her. "For it is to run a race against you I called you out," she said.
+"What length of a race?" said Finn. "From Doire da Torc, the Wood of the
+Two Boars, to Ath Mor, the Great Ford," she said. So they set out, but
+Finn got first over the ford. And Caoilte was following after them, and
+Finn was urging him, and he said: "It is ashamed of your running you
+should be, Caoilte, a woman to be going past you." On that Caoilte made
+a leap forward, and when he was in front of the witch he turned about
+and gave a blow of his sword that made two equal halves of her.</p>
+
+<p>"Power and good luck to you, Caoilte!" said Finn; "for though it is many
+a good blow you have struck, you never struck a better one than this."</p>
+
+<p>They went back then to the lawn before Conan's dun, and there they found
+the whole company of the Tuatha de Danaan, that had put the Druid mist
+off them. "It seems to me, Caoilte," said Finn, "that we are come into
+the middle of our enemies."</p>
+
+<p>With that they turned their backs to one another, and they were attacked
+on all sides till groans of weakness from the unequal fight were forced
+from Finn. And when Goll, that was in the house, heard that, he said:
+"It is a pity the Tuatha de Danaan to have enticed Finn and Caoilte away
+from us; and let us go to their help and make no delay," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then he rushed out, and all that were there of the Fianna with him, and
+Conan of Ceann Slieve and his sons. And great anger came on Goll, that
+he looked like a tall mountain under his grey shield in the battle. And
+he broke through the Tuatha de Danaan till he reached to Fionnbhar their
+leader, and they attacked one another, cutting and wounding, till at the
+last Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail fell by the strokes of Goll. And a great
+many others fell in that battle, and there never was a harder battle
+fought in Ireland, for there was no man on one side or the other had a
+mind to go back one step before whoever he was fighting against. For
+they were the two hardest fighting troops to be found in the four parts
+of the world, the strong, hardy Fianna of the Gael, and the beautiful
+Men of Dea; and they went near to being all destroyed in that battle.</p>
+
+<p>But after a while they saw the rest of the Fianna that were not in the
+battle coming from all parts of Ireland. And when the Tuatha de Danaan
+saw them coming, they put the Druid mist about themselves again and made
+away. And clouds of weakness came on Finn himself, and on them that were
+with him, with the dint of the fight. And there were many men of the
+Fianna lost in that battle; and as to the rest, it is a long time they
+stopped in Almhuin of Leinster, till their wounds were entirely healed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L59" id="L59" />CHAPTER X. THE SHADOWY ONE</h2>
+
+
+<p>And indeed Finn had no great luck in going to look for a wife that time;
+and he had no better luck another time he asked a wife from among the
+Sidhe. And this is the way that happened.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the mountain of Bearnas Mor he was hunting, and a great wild
+pig turned on the hounds of the Fianna and killed the most of them, but
+Bran made an attack on it then and got the best of it. And the pig began
+to scream, and with that a very tall man came out of the hill and he
+asked Finn to let the pig go free. And when he agreed to that, the man
+brought them into the hill of the Sidhe at Glandeirgdeis; and when they
+came to the door of the house he struck the pig with his Druid rod, and
+on the moment it changed into a beautiful young woman, and the name he
+called her by was Scathach, the Shadowy One.</p>
+
+<p>And he made a great feast for the Fianna, and Finn asked the young girl
+in marriage, and the tall man, her father, said he would give her to him
+on that very night.</p>
+
+<p>But when night came on, Scathach asked the loan of a harp, and it was
+brought to her. One string it had of iron, and one of bronze, and one of
+silver. And when the iron string would be played, it would set all the
+hosts of the world crying and ever crying; and when the bright bronze
+string would be played, it would set them all laughing from the one day
+to the same hour on the morrow; and when the silver string would be
+played, all the men of the whole world would fall into a long sleep.</p>
+
+<p>And it is the sleepy silver string the Shadowy One played upon, till
+Finn and Bran and all his people were in their heavy sleep.</p>
+
+<p>And when they awoke at the rising of the sun on the morrow, it is
+outside on the mountain of Bearnas they were, where they first saw the
+wild pig.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>CHAPTER XI. FINN'S MADNESS</p>
+
+
+<p>One time Finn and the Fianna were come to a ford of the Slaine, and they
+sat down for a while. And as they were sitting there they saw on the
+round rock up over the ford a young woman, having a dress of silk and a
+green cloak about her, and a golden brooch in the cloak, and the golden
+crown that is the sign of a queen on her head. "Fianna of Ireland," she
+said, "let one of you come now and speak with me."</p>
+
+<p>Then Sciathbreac, of the Speckled Shield, went towards her. "Who is it
+you are wanting?" he said, "Finn, son of Cumhal," said she. Finn went
+over then to talk with her. "Who are you?" he said, "and what is it you
+are wanting?" "I am Daireann, daughter of Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda,"
+she said; "and I am come to be your wife if you will give me the
+bride-gift I ask." "What bride-gift is that?" said Finn. "It is your
+promise," said she, "I to be your only wife through the length of a
+year, and to have the half of your time after that." "I will not give
+that promise," said Finn, "to any woman of the world, and I will not
+give it to you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>On that the young woman took a cup of white silver from under a
+covering, and filled it with strong drink, and she gave it to Finn.
+"What is this?" said Finn. "It is very strong mead," said she. Now there
+were bonds on Finn not to refuse anything belonging to a feast, so he
+took the cup and drank what was in it, and on the moment he was like one
+gone mad. And he turned his face towards the Fianna, and every harm and
+every fault and every misfortune in battle that he knew against any one
+of them, he sprang it on them, through the mad drunkenness the young
+woman had put on him.</p>
+
+<p>Then the chief men of the Fianna of Ireland rose up and left the place
+to him, every one of them setting out for his own country, till there
+was no one left upon the hill but Finn and Caoilte. And Caoilte rose up
+and followed after them, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "do
+not leave your lord and your leader through the arts and the tricks of a
+woman of the Sidhe." Thirteen times he went after them, bringing them
+back to the hill in that way. And with the end of the day and the fall
+of night the bitterness went from Finn's tongue; and by the time Caoilte
+had brought back the whole of the Fianna, his sense and his memory were
+come back to him, and he would sooner have fallen on his sword and got
+his death, than have stayed living.</p>
+
+<p>And that was the hardest day's work Caoilte ever did, unless the day he
+brought the flock of beasts and birds to Teamhair, to ransom Finn from
+the High King of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Another time Maer, wife of Bersa of Berramain, fell in love with Finn,
+and she made nine nuts of Segair with love charms, and sent them to
+Finn, and bade him eat them. "I will not," said Finn; "for they are not
+nuts of knowledge, but nuts of ignorance; and it is not known what they
+are, unless they might be an enchantment for drinking love." So he
+buried them a foot deep in the earth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L60" id="L60" />CHAPTER XII. THE RED WOMAN</h2>
+
+
+<p>One time the Fianna were in Almhuin with no great work to do, and there
+came a very misty morning, and Finn was in dread that sluggishness would
+come on his men, and he rose up, and he said: "Make yourselves ready,
+and we will go hunting to Gleann-na-Smol."</p>
+
+<p>They all said the day was too misty to go hunting; but there was no use
+in talking: they had to do as Finn bade them. So they made themselves
+ready and went on towards Gleann-na-Smol; and they were not gone far
+when the mist lifted and the sun came shining out.</p>
+
+<p>And when they were on the edge of a little wood, they saw a strange
+beast coming towards them with the quickness of the wind, and a Red
+Woman on its track. Narrow feet the beast had, and a head like the head
+of a boar, and long horns on it; but the rest of it was like a deer, and
+there was a shining moon on each of its sides.</p>
+
+<p>Finn stopped, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "did you ever
+see a beast like that one until now?" "We never did indeed," said they;
+"and it would be right for us to let out the hounds after it." "Wait a
+while," said Finn, "till I speak with the Red Woman; but do not let the
+beast go past you," he said. They thought to keep back the beast then,
+going before it; but they were hardly able to hinder it at all, and it
+went away through them.</p>
+
+<p>And when the Red Woman was come up to them, Finn asked her what was the
+name of the beast she was following. "I do not know that," she said,
+"though I am on its track since I left the borders of Loch Dearg a month
+ago, and I never lost sight of it since then; and the two moons that are
+on its two sides shine through the country all around in the night time.
+And I must follow it till it falls," she said, "or I will lose my own
+life and the lives of my three sons that are the best fighting men in
+the whole world." "We will take the beast for you if you have a mind,"
+said Finn. "Do not try to do that," she said, "for I myself am swifter
+than you are, and I cannot come up with it." "We will not let it go till
+we know what sort of a beast is it," said Finn. "If you yourself or your
+share of men go after it, I will bind you hand and foot," said she. "It
+is too stiff your talk is," said Finn. "And do you not know," he said,
+"I am Finn, son of Cumhal; and there are fourscore fighting men along
+with me that were never beaten yet." "It is little heed I give to
+yourself or your share of men," said the Red Woman; "and if my three
+sons were here, they would stand up against you." "Indeed it will be a
+bad day," said Finn, "when the threat of a woman will put fear on myself
+or on the Fianna of Ireland." With that he sounded his horn, and he
+said: "Let us all follow now, men and dogs, after that beast that we
+saw."</p>
+
+<p>He had no sooner said that word than the woman made a great water-worm
+of herself, and made an attack on Finn, and she would have killed him
+then and there but for Bran being with him. Bran took a grip of the worm
+and shook it, and then it wound itself round Bran's body, and would
+have crushed the life out of her, but Finn thrust his sharp sword into
+its throat. "Keep back your hand," said the worm then, "and you will not
+have the curse of a lonely woman upon you." "It is what I think," said
+Finn, "that you would not leave me my life if you could take it from me;
+but go out of my sight now," he said, "and that I may never see you
+again."</p>
+
+<p>Then she made herself into a Red Woman again, and went away into the
+wood.</p>
+
+<p>All the Fianna were gone on the track of the beast while Finn was
+talking and fighting with the Red Woman; and he did not know in what
+place they were, but he went following after them, himself and Bran. It
+was late in the evening when he came up with a share of them, and they
+still on the track of the beast. The darkness of the night was coming
+on, but the two moons in the sides of the beast gave a bright light, and
+they never lost it from sight. They followed it on always; and about
+midnight they were pressing on it, and it began to scatter blood after
+it, and it was not long till Finn and his men were red from head to
+foot. But that did not hinder them, and they followed him on till they
+saw him going in at the foot of Cnoc-na-righ at the breaking of day.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the foot of the hill the Red Woman was standing there
+before them. "You did not take the beast," she said. "We did not take
+it, but we know where it is," said Finn.</p>
+
+<p>She took a Druid rod then, and she struck a blow on the side of the
+hill, and on the moment a great door opened, and they heard sweet music
+coming from within. "Come in now," said the Red Woman, "till you see the
+wonderful beast." "Our clothing is not clean," said Finn, "and we would
+not like to go in among a company the way we are," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She put a horn to her mouth and blew it, and on the moment there came
+ten young men to her. "Bring water for washing," she said, "and four
+times twenty suits of clothes, and a beautiful suit and a crown of
+shining stones for Finn, son of Cumhal." The young men went away then,
+and they came back at the end of a minute with water and with clothing.</p>
+
+<p>When the Fianna were washed and dressed, the Red Woman brought them into
+a great hall, where there was the brightness of the sun and of the moon
+on every side. From that she brought them into another great room; and
+although Finn and his men had seen many grand things up to that time,
+they had never seen any sight so grand as what they saw in this place.
+There was a king sitting in a golden chair, having clothes of gold and
+of green, and his chief people were sitting around him, and his
+musicians were playing. And no one could know what colour were the
+dresses of the musicians, for every colour of the rainbow was in them.
+And there was a great table in the middle of the room, having every sort
+of thing on it, one better than another.</p>
+
+<p>The king rose up and gave a welcome to Finn and to his men, and he bade
+them to sit down at the table; and they ate and drank their fill, and
+that was wanting to them after the hunt they had made. And then the Red
+Woman rose up, and she said: "King of the Hill, if it is your will, Finn
+and his men have a mind to see the wonderful beast, for they spent a
+long time following after it, and that is what brought them here."</p>
+
+<p>The king struck a blow then on his golden chair, and a door opened
+behind him, and the beast came through it and stood before the king. And
+it stooped down before him, and it said: "I am going on towards my own
+country now; and there is not in the world a runner so good as myself,
+and the sea is the same to me as the land. And let whoever can come up
+with me come now," it said, "for I am going."</p>
+
+<p>With that the beast went out from the hill as quick as a blast of wind,
+and all the people that were in it went following after it. It was not
+long till Finn and his men were before the rest, in the front of the
+hunt, gaining on the beast.</p>
+
+<p>And about midday Bran made the beast turn, and then she forced it to
+turn a second time, and it began to put out cries, and it was not long
+until its strength began to flag; and at last, just at the setting of
+the sun, it fell dead, and Bran was at its side when it fell.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn and his men came up, but in place of a beast it was a tall man
+they saw lying dead before them. And the Red Woman came up at the same
+time, and she said: "High King of the Fianna, that is the King of the
+Firbolgs you have killed; and his people will put great troubles on this
+country in the time to come, when you yourself, Finn, and your people
+will be under the sod. And I myself am going now to the Country of the
+Young," she said, "and I will bring you with me if you have a mind to
+come." "We give you our thanks for that," said Finn, "but we would not
+give up our own country if we were to get the whole world as an estate,
+and the Country of the Young along with it." "That is well," said the
+Red Woman; "but you are going home empty after your hunt." "It is likely
+we will find a deer in Gleann-na-Smol," said Finn. "There is a fine deer
+at the foot of that tree beyond," said the Red Woman, "and I will rouse
+it for you." With that she gave a cry, and the deer started out and
+away, and Finn and his men after it, and it never stopped till it came
+to Gleann-na-Smol, but they could not come up with it. Then the Red
+Woman came to them, and she said: "I think you are tired now with
+following after the deer; and call your hounds off now," she said, "and
+I will let out my own little dog after it." So Finn sounded a little
+horn he had at his side, and on the moment the hounds came back to him.
+And then the Red Woman brought out a little hound as white as the snow
+of the mountains, and put it after the deer; and it was not long till it
+had come up with the deer and killed it, and then it came back and made
+a leap in under the cloak of the Red Woman. There was great wonder on
+Finn; but before he could ask a question of the Red Woman, she was gone
+out of sight. And as to the deer, Finn knew there was enchantment on it,
+and so he left it there after him. And it is tired and empty the Fianna
+were, going back to Almhuin that night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L61" id="L61" />CHAPTER XIII. FINN AND THE PHANTOMS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Finn went to a gathering one time at Aonach Clochair, and a great many
+of the men of Munster crowded to it. And the horses of the Fianna were
+brought there, and the horses of the men of Munster, and they ran races
+against one another.</p>
+
+<p>And Fiachu, son of Eoghan, was in it; and when the games were over he
+gave good presents to Finn, a lasting black horse that won the three
+prizes of the gathering, and a chariot, and a horse for the
+chariot-driver, and a spear, having a deadly spell, and weapons of
+silver, and three comely hounds, Feirne and Derchaem and Dialath, having
+collars of yellow gold and chains of white bronze.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn rose up and gave his thanks to Fiachu, son of Eoghan, and he
+and his people set out to the house of Cacher at Cluain-da-loch. And
+they stopped three days feasting in Cacher's house, and then Finn gave
+him the price of his feast and of his ale, fifty rings, and fifty horses
+and fifty cows.</p>
+
+<p>And he himself and the Fianna went on from that over Luachair to the
+strand at Berramain. And Finn went trying his black horse on the strand,
+and Caoilte and Oisin went racing against him; but it was only folly for
+them to do that, for he gave a blow to his horse, and away with him to
+Traigh Liath and over the Plain of Health to the Old Yew of the Old
+Valley, and to the inver of the Flesc and the inver of the Lemain to
+Loch Lein, till he came to the hill of Bairnech, and Caoilte and Oisin
+after him.</p>
+
+<p>"Night is coming on us," said Finn then; "and go look for some place
+where we can sleep," he said. He looked round then at the rocks on his
+left hand and he saw a house, and a fire shining out from it in the
+valley below. "I never knew of a house in this valley," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is best for us to go see it," said Caoilte, "for there are many
+things we have no knowledge of."</p>
+
+<p>The three went on then to the house, and they heard screams and crying
+from it; and when they came to the house, the people of it were very
+fierce and rough; and a big grey man took hold of their horses and
+brought them in and shut the door of the house with iron hooks. "My
+welcome to you, Finn of the great name," he said then; "it is a long
+time you were in coming here."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down then on the hard boards of a bed, and the grey man kindled
+a fire, and he threw logs of elder-wood on it, till they went near being
+smothered with the smoke. They saw a hag in the house then having three
+heads on her lean neck; and there was on the other side a man without a
+head, having one eye, and it in his breast. "Rise up, you that are in
+the house, and make music for the King of the Fianna," said the grey man
+then.</p>
+
+<p>With that nine bodies rose up out of the corner nearest the Fianna, and
+nine heads rose up on the other side of the bed, and they raised nine
+harsh screeches together, that no one would like to be listening to. And
+then the hag answered to them, and the headless man answered; and if all
+of that music was harsh, there was none of it that you would not wish to
+hear sooner than the music of the one-eyed man. And the music that was
+sung went near to breaking the bones of their heads; and indeed it is no
+sweet music that was.</p>
+
+<p>Then the big grey man rose up and took the axe that was for cutting
+logs, and he began striking at the horses, flaying and destroying them.
+Then there were brought fifty pointed spits of the rowan-tree, and he
+put a piece of the horse's flesh on each one of the spits, and settled
+them on the hearth. But when he took the spits from the fire and put
+them before Finn, it is raw the flesh was on them yet. "Take your food
+away," said Finn then, "for I have never eaten meat that was raw, and I
+never will eat it because of being without food for one day." "If you
+are come into our house to refuse our food," said the grey man, "we will
+surely go against yourselves, Finn and Caoilte and Oisin."</p>
+
+<p>With that all in the house made an attack on the three; and they were
+driven back into the corner, and the fire was quenched, and the fight
+went on through the whole night in the darkness, and but for Finn and
+the way he fought, they would have been put down.</p>
+
+<p>And when the sun rose and lighted up the house on the morrow, a mist
+came into the head of each of the three, so that they fell as if dead on
+the floor.</p>
+
+<p>But after awhile they rose up again, and there was nothing to be seen of
+the house or of the people of the house, but they had all vanished. And
+their horses were there, and they took them and went on, very weak and
+tired, for a long way, till they came to the strand of Berramain.</p>
+
+<p>And those three that fought against them were the three Shapes out of
+the Valley of the Yew Tree that came to avenge their sister, Cuillen of
+the Wide Mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to Cuillen, she was a daughter of the King of Munster, and her
+husband was the King of Ulster's son. And they had a son that was called
+Fear Og, the Young Man; and there was hardly in Ireland a man so good as
+himself in shape and in courage and in casting a spear. And one time he
+joined in a game with the Fianna, and he did better than them all, and
+Finn gave him a great reward. And after that he went out to a hunt they
+made, and it was by him and by none of the Fianna the first blood was
+got of pig or of deer. And when they came back, a heavy sickness fell on
+the young man through the eyes and the envy of the Fianna, and it left
+him without life at the end of nine days. And he was buried under a
+green hill, and the shining stone he used to hold in his hand, and he
+doing his feats, was put over his head.</p>
+
+<p>And his mother, Cuillen, came to his grave keening him every day through
+the length of a year. And one day she died there for grief after her
+son, and they put her into the same green hill.</p>
+
+<p>But as to Finn, he was afraid of no earthly thing, and he killed many
+great serpents in Loch Cuilinn and Loch Neathach, and at Beinn Edair;
+and Shadow-Shapes at Loch Lein and Drom Cleib and Loch Liath, and a
+serpent and a cat in Ath Cliath.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L62" id="L62" />CHAPTER XIV. THE PIGS OF ANGUS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Angus Og, son of the Dagda, made a feast one time at Brugh na Boinne for
+Finn and the Fianna of the Gael. Ten hundred of them were in it, and
+they wearing green clothing and crimson cloaks; and as to the people of
+Angus' house, it is clothing of red silk they had.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn was sitting beside Angus in the beautiful house, and it is
+long since the like of those two were seen in Ireland. And any stranger
+would wonder to see the way the golden cups were going from hand to
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>And Angus said out in a loud voice that every one could hear: "It is a
+better life this is than to be hunting." There was anger on Finn then,
+and he said: "It is a worse life than hunting to be here, without
+hounds, without horses, without battalions, without the shouting of
+armies." "Why are you talking like that, Finn?" said Angus, "for as to
+the hounds you have," he said, "they would not kill so much as one pig."
+"You have not yourself," said Finn, "and the whole host of the Tuatha de
+Danaan have not a pig that ever went on dry land that Bran and Sceolan
+would not kill." "I will send you a pig," said Angus, "that will go from
+you and your hounds, and that will kill them in the end."</p>
+
+<p>The steward of the house called out then in a loud voice: "Let every one
+go now to his bed, before the lightness of drunkenness comes on you."
+But Finn said to his people: "Let us make ready and leave this; for we
+are but a few," he said, "among the Men of Dea." So they set out and
+went westward till they came to Slieve Fuad where the Fianna were at
+that time.</p>
+
+<p>And through the whole length of a year after that, the Tuatha de Danaan
+were boasting how they would get the better of the Fianna, and the
+Fianna were thinking how they could do best in the hunt. And at the end
+of that time Angus sent messengers to Finn, asking him with great
+respect if he was ready to keep his word. And Finn said he was, and the
+hounds were brought out, and he himself was holding Bran and Sceolan,
+one in each hand, and Caoilte had Adhnuall, and Oisin had Ablach, and
+merry Bran Beag had Lonn, and Diarmuid was holding Eachtach, and Osgar
+was holding Mac an Truim, and Garraidh was held by Faolan, and Rith
+Fada, of the Long Run, by hungry Conan.</p>
+
+<p>And they were not long there with their hounds till they saw on the
+plain to the east a terrible herd of great pigs, every one of them the
+height of a deer. And there was one pig out in front of the rest was
+blacker than a smith's coal, and the bristles on its head were like a
+thicket of thorn-trees.</p>
+
+<p>Then Caoilte let out Adhnuall, and she was the first to kill a pig of
+the herd. And then Bran made away from the leash that Finn was holding,
+and the pigs ran their best, but she came up with them, and took hold of
+a pig of them. And at that Angus said: "O Bran, fosterling of
+fair-haired Fergus, it is not a right thing you are doing, to kill my
+own son." But when Bran heard that, her ways changed and it was like an
+enemy she took hold of the pig, and did not let it go, and held her
+breath back and kept it for the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>And it was over Slieve Cua the hunt went, and Slieve Crot, and from Magh
+Cobha to Cruachan, and to Fionnabraic and to Finnias. And at evening
+when the hunt was over, there was not one pig of the whole herd without
+a hurt, and there were but a hundred and ten pigs left living. But if
+the hunt brought destruction on Angus, it brought losses on the Fianna
+as well, for there were ten hundred of their men missing besides
+serving-lads and dogs.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go to Brugh na Boinne and get satisfaction for our people," said
+Oisin then. "That is the advice of a man without sense," said Finn; "for
+if we leave these pigs the way they are, they will come to life again.
+And let us burn them," he said, "and throw their ashes in the sea."</p>
+
+<p>Then the seven battalions of the Fianna made seven fires to every
+battalion; but for all they could do, they could not set fire to one
+pig. Then Bran, that had great sense and knowledge, went away, and she
+came back bringing three logs along with her, but no one knows what wood
+it was they came from. And when the logs were put on the fire they lit
+up like a candle, and it is with them the pigs were burned; and after
+that their ashes were thrown into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Then Oisin said again: "Let us go now to Brugh na Boinne and avenge the
+death of our people." So the whole of the Fianna set out for Brugh na
+Boinne, and every step they made could surely be heard through the whole
+of the skies.</p>
+
+<p>And Angus sent out messengers to where Finn was, offering any one thing
+to him if he would spare his people. "I will take no gift at all from
+you, Angus of the slender body," said Finn, "so long as there is a room
+left in your house, north or east, without being burned." But Angus
+said: "Although you think bad of the loss of your fine people that you
+have the sway over, yet, O Finn, father of Oisin, it is sorrowful to me
+the loss of my own good son is. For as to the black pig that came before
+you on the plain," he said, "it was no common pig was in it, but my own
+son. And there fell along with him," he said, "the son of the King of
+the Narrow Sea, and the son of the King of the Sea of Gulls, and the son
+of Ilbhrec, son of Manannan, and seven score of the comely sons of kings
+and queens. And it is what destroyed my strength and my respect
+entirely, they to have been burned away from me in a far place. And it
+is a pity for you, sweet daring Bran," he said, "fosterling of Fergus of
+the thirty woods and plains, that you did not do something worth praise
+before killing your own foster-brother. And I will put a curse on you,
+Bran," he said, "beyond every hound in Ireland, that you will never see
+with your eyes any deer you may ever kill."</p>
+
+<p>There was anger on Finn when he heard that, and he said: "If you put a
+curse on Bran, Angus, there will not be a room left, east or west, in
+the whole of your great house without being burned." "If you do that,"
+said Angus, "I will put trees and stones in front of you in every
+battle; and I will know what number of men you have in your armies," he
+said, "looking at them through my ring."</p>
+
+<p>Then Oisin, that was wise, said: "It is best for you to agree between
+yourselves now; and let us be helpful to one another," he said, "and pay
+whatever fines are due."</p>
+
+<p>So they agreed to that, and they made peace, and gave children to be
+fostered by one another: a son of Finn's to Angus, and son of Angus Og
+to the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>But for all that, it is not very friendly to Finn Angus was afterwards,
+at the time he was following after Diarmuid and Grania through the whole
+length of Ireland.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L63" id="L63" />CHAPTER XV. THE HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN</h2>
+
+
+<p>Finn was one time out on the green of Almhuin, and he saw what had the
+appearance of a grey fawn running across the plain. He called and
+whistled to his hounds then, but neither hound nor man heard him or came
+to him, but only Bran and Sceolan. He set them after the fawn, and near
+as they kept to her, he himself kept nearer to them, till at last they
+reached to Slieve Cuilinn in the province of Ulster.</p>
+
+<p>But they were no sooner at the hill than the fawn vanished from them,
+and they did not know where was she gone, and Finn went looking for her
+eastward, and the two hounds went towards the west.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long till Finn came to a lake, and there was sitting on the
+brink of it a young girl, the most beautiful he had ever seen, having
+hair of the colour of gold, and a skin as white as lime, and eyes like
+the stars in time of frost; but she seemed to be some way sorrowful and
+downhearted. Finn asked her did she see his hounds pass that way. "I did
+not see them," she said; "and it is little I am thinking of your hounds
+or your hunting, but of the cause of my own trouble." "What is it ails
+you, woman of the white hands?" said Finn; "and is there any help I can
+give you?" he said. "It is what I am fretting after," said she, "a ring
+of red gold I lost off my finger in the lake. And I put you under bonds,
+Finn of the Fianna," she said, "to bring it back to me out of the lake."</p>
+
+<p>With that Finn stripped off his clothes and went into the lake at the
+bidding of the woman, and he went three times round the whole lake and
+did not leave any part of it without searching, till he brought back the
+ring. He handed it up to her then out of the water, and no sooner had he
+done that than she gave a leap into the water and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn came up on the bank of the lake, he could not so much as
+reach to where his clothes were; for on the moment he, the head and the
+leader of the Fianna of Ireland, was but a grey old man, weak and
+withered.</p>
+
+<p>Bran and Sceolan came up to him then, but they did not know him, and
+they went on round the lake, searching after their master.</p>
+
+
+<p>In Almhuin, now, when he was missed, Caoilte began asking after him.
+"Where is Finn," he said, "of the gentle rule and of the spears?" But no
+one knew where was he gone, and there was grief on the Fianna when they
+could not find him. But it is what Conan said: "I never heard music
+pleased me better than to hear the son of Cumhal is missing. And that he
+may be so through the whole year," he said, "and I myself will be king
+over you all." And downhearted as they were, it is hardly they could
+keep from laughing when they heard Conan saying that.</p>
+
+<p>Caoilte and the rest of the chief men of the Fianna set out then looking
+for Finn, and they got word of him; and at last they came to Slieve
+Cuilinn, and there they saw a withered old man sitting beside the lake,
+and they thought him to be a fisherman. "Tell us, old man," said
+Caoilte, "did you see a fawn go by, and two hounds after her, and a tall
+fair-faced man along with them?" "I did see them," he said, "and it is
+not long since they left me." "Tell us where are they now?" said
+Caoilte. But Finn made no answer, for he had not the courage to say to
+them that he himself was Finn their leader, being as he was an ailing,
+downhearted old man, without leaping, without running, without walk,
+grey and sorrowful.</p>
+
+<p>Caoilte took out his sword from the sheath then, and he said: "It is
+short till you will have knowledge of death unless you will tell us what
+happened those three."</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn told them the whole story; and when the seven battalions of
+the Fianna heard him, and knew it was Finn that was in it, they gave
+three loud sorrowful cries. And to the lake they gave the name of Loch
+Doghra, the Lake of Sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>But Conan of the sharp tongue began abusing Finn and all the Fianna by
+turns. "You never gave me right praise for my deeds, Finn, son of
+Cumhal," he said, "and you were always the enemy of the sons of Morna;
+but we are living in spite of you," he said, "and I have but the one
+fault to find with your shape, and that is, that it was not put on the
+whole of the Fianna the same as on yourself." Caoilte made at him then;
+"Bald, senseless Conan," he said, "I will break your mouth to the bone."
+But Conan ran in then among the rest of the Fianna and asked protection
+from them, and peace was made again.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn, they asked him was there any cure to be found for him.
+"There is," he said; "for I know well the enchantment was put on me by a
+woman of the Sidhe, Miluchradh, daughter of Cuilinn, through jealousy of
+her sister Aine. And bring me to the hill that belongs to Cuilinn of
+Cuailgne," he said, "for he is the only one can give me my shape again."</p>
+
+<p>They came around him then, and raised him up gently on their shields,
+and brought him on their shoulders to the hill of the Sidhe in Cuailgne,
+but no one came out to meet them. Then the seven battalions began
+digging and rooting up the whole hill, and they went on digging through
+the length of three nights and three days. And at the end of that time
+Cuilinn of Cuailgne, that some say was Manannan, son of Lir, came out of
+the hill, holding in his hand a vessel of red gold, and he gave the
+vessel into Finn's hand. And no sooner did Finn drink what was in the
+vessel than his own shape and his appearance came back to him. But only
+his hair, that used to be so fair and so beautiful, like the hair of a
+woman, never got its own colour again, for the lake that Cuilinn's
+daughter had made for Finn would have turned all the men of the whole
+world grey if they had gone into it.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn had drunk all that was in the vessel it slipped from his
+hand into the earth, that was loosened with the digging, and he saw it
+no more. But in the place where it went into the earth, a tree grew up,
+and any one that would look at the branches of that tree in the morning,
+fasting, would have knowledge of all that was to happen on that day.</p>
+
+<p>That, now, is the way Finn came by his grey hair, through the jealousy
+of Miluchradh of the Sidhe, because he had not given his love to her,
+but to her sister Aine.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L64" id="L64" />BOOK FIVE: OISIN'S CHILDREN</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now as to Oisin, that was so brave and so comely, and that could
+overtake a deer at its greatest speed, and see a thistle thorn on the
+darkest night, the wife he took was Eibhir of the plaited yellow hair,
+that was the foreign sweetheart of the High King of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>It is beyond the sea she lived, in a very sunny place; and her father's
+name was lunsa, and her sunny house was thatched with the feathers of
+birds, and the doorposts were of gold, and the doors of ribbed grass.
+And Oisin went there looking for her, and he fought for her against the
+High King and against an army of the Firbolgs he had helping him; and he
+got the better of them all, and brought away Eibhir of the yellow hair
+to Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And he had a daughter that married the son of Oiliol, son of Eoghan, and
+of Beara, daughter of the King of Spain. It was that Eoghan was driven
+out of Ireland one time, and it is to Spain he went for safety. And
+Beara, that was daughter of the King of Spain, was very shining and
+beautiful, and her father had a mind to know who would be her husband,
+and he sent for his Druid and asked the question of him. "I can tell you
+that," said the Druid, "for the man that is to be her husband will come
+to land in Spain this very night. And let your daughter go eastward to
+the river Eibhear," he said, "and she will find a crimson-spotted salmon
+in that river, having shining clothing on him from head to tail. And let
+her strip that clothing off him," he said, "and make with it a shining
+shirt for her husband."</p>
+
+<p>So Beara went to the river Eibhear, and found the golden salmon as the
+Druid had said, and she stripped him of his crimson clothing and made a
+shining shirt of it.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Eoghan, the waves of the shore put a welcome before him, and
+he came the same night to the king's house. And the king gave him a
+friendly welcome; and it is what all the people said, that there was
+never seen a comelier man than Eoghan, or a woman more beautiful than
+Beara, and that it was fitting for them to come together. And Eoghan's
+own people said they would not be sorry for being sent away out of
+Ireland, if only Eoghan could get her for his wife.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while the king sent his Druid to ask Eoghan why he did not
+ask for Beara. "I will tell you that," said Eoghan; "it would not be
+fitting for me to be refused a wife, and I am but an exile in this
+country, and I have brought no treasures or goods with me out of Ireland
+for giving to learned men and to poets. But for all that," he said, "the
+king's daughter is dear to me, and I think I have the friendship of the
+king."</p>
+
+<p>The Druid went back with that message. "That is the answer of a king,"
+said the King of Spain; "and bid my daughter to sit at Eoghan's right
+hand," he said, "and I will give her to him this very night." And when
+Beara, the king's daughter, heard that, she sent out her serving-maid to
+bring the shirt she had made for Eoghan, and he put it on him over his
+armour, and its shining was seen in every place; and it was from wearing
+that shirt he got the name of Eoghan the Bright.</p>
+
+<p>And Oiliol was the first son they had; it was he that had his ear bitten
+off by Aine of the Sidhe in revenge for her brother, and it was his son
+married Oisin's daughter afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Osgar, that was Oisin's son, of all the young men of the
+Fianna he was the best in battle. And when he was but a young child he
+was made much of by the whole of the Fianna, and it is for him they used
+to keep the marrow bones, and they did not like to put any hardship on
+him. And he grew up tall and idle, and no one thought he would turn out
+so strong as he did. And one day there was an attack made on a troop of
+the Fianna, and all that were in it went out to fight, but they left
+Osgar after them. And when he knew the fight was going on, he took a log
+of wood that was the first thing he could find, and attacked the enemy
+and made a great slaughter, and they gave way and ran before him. And
+from that out there was no battle he did not go into; and he was said to
+be the strongest of all the Fianna, though the people of Connacht said
+that Goll was the strongest. And he and Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne,
+were comrades and dear friends; and it was Diarmuid taught him feats of
+arms and of skill, and chess-playing. And Oisin his father took great
+pride in him, and his grandfather Finn. And one time Finn was holding a
+feast at Almhuin, and he asked the chief men of the Fianna that were
+there what was the music they thought the best. "To be playing at
+games," said Conan, "that is the best music I ever heard;" for though
+Conan was a good hand against an enemy, there never was a man had less
+sense. "The music I like the best is to be talking with a woman," said
+Diarmuid. "My music is the outcry of my hounds, and they putting a deer
+to its last stand," said Lugaidh's Son. "The music of the woods is best
+to me," said Oisin; "the sound of the wind and of the cuckoo and the
+blackbird, and the sweet silence of the crane."</p>
+
+<p>And then Osgar was asked, and he said: "The best music is the striking
+of swords in a battle." And it is likely he took after Finn in that, for
+in spite of all the sweet sounds he gave an account of the time he was
+at Conan's house, at Ceann Slieve, it used to be said by the Fianna that
+the music that was best with Finn was what happened.</p>
+
+<p>This now is the way Osgar met with his wife.</p>
+
+<p>One time Finn and his men came to Slieve Crot, and they saw a woman
+waiting there before them, having a crimson fringed cloak, and a gold
+brooch in it, and a band of yellow gold on her forehead. Finn asked her
+name, and where she came from. "Etain of the Fair Hair is my name," she
+said, "daughter of Aedh of the White Breast, of the hill of the Sidhe at
+Beinn Edair, son of Angus Og." "What is it brought you here, girl?" said
+Finn. "To ask a man of the Fianna of Ireland to run a race with me."
+"What sort of a runner are you?" said Diarmuid. "I am a good runner,"
+said the girl; "for it is the same to me if the ground is long or short
+under my feet."</p>
+
+<p>All of the Fianna that were there then set out to run with her, and they
+ran to the height over Badhamair and on to Ath Cliath, and from that on
+to the hill of the Sidhe at Beinn Edair.</p>
+
+<p>And there was a good welcome before them, and they were brought meat and
+wine for drinking, and water for washing their feet. And after a while
+they saw a nice fair-haired girl in front of the vats, and a cup of
+white silver in her hand, and she giving out drink to every one. "It
+seems to me that is the girl came asking the Fianna to race against her
+at Slieve Crot," said Finn. "It is not," said Aedh of the White Breast,
+"for that is the slowest woman there is among us." "Who was it so?" said
+Finn. "It was Be-mannair, daughter of Ainceol, woman-messenger of the
+Tuatha de Danaan. And it is she that changes herself into all shapes;
+and she will take the shape of a fly, and of a true lover, and every one
+leaves their secret with her. And it was she outran you coming from the
+east," he said, "and not this other girl that was drinking and making
+merry here in the hall." "What is her name?" said Finn. "Etain of the
+Fair Hair," he said; "a daughter of my own, and a darling of the Tuatha
+de Danaan. And it is the way with her, she has a lover of the men of the
+Fianna." "That is well," said Finn; "and who is that lover?" "It is
+Osgar, son of Oisin," said Aedh; "and it is she herself sent her
+messenger for you," he said, "in her own shape, to Slieve Crot in the
+south. And the son of the High King of Ireland has offered a great
+bride-price to the Men of Dea for her," he said, "three hundreds of the
+land nearest to Bregia and to Midhe, and to put himself and his weight
+of gold into a balance, and to give it all to her. But we did not take
+it," he said, "since she had no mind or wish for it herself, and so we
+made no dealing or agreement about her." "Well," said Finn, "and what
+conditions will you ask of Osgar?" "Never to leave me for anything at
+all but my own fault," said the girl. "I will make that agreement with
+you indeed," said Osgar. "Give me sureties for it," said she; "give me
+the sureties of Goll for the sons of Morna, and of Finn, son of Cumhal,
+for the Fianna of Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>So they gave those sureties, and the wedding-feast was made, and they
+stopped there for twenty nights. And at the end of that time Osgar asked
+Finn where would he bring his wife. "Bring her to wide Almhuin for the
+first seven years," said Finn.</p>
+
+<p>But a while after that, in a great battle at Beinn Edair, Osgar got so
+heavy a wound that Finn and the Fianna were as if they had lost their
+wits. And when Etain of the Fair Hair came to the bed where Osgar was
+lying, and saw the way he was, and that the great kinglike shape he had
+was gone from him, greyness and darkness came on her, and she raised
+pitiful cries, and she went to her bed and her heart broke in her like a
+nut; and she died of grief for her husband and her first love.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not at that time Osgar got his death, but afterwards in the
+battle of Gabhra.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L65" id="L65" />BOOK SIX: DIARMUID.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. BIRTH OF DIARMUID</h2>
+
+
+<p>Diarmuid, now, was son of Bonn, son of Duibhne of the Fianna, and his
+mother was Crochnuit, that was near in blood to Finn. And at the time he
+was born, Bonn was banished from the Fianna because of some quarrel they
+had with him, and Angus Og took the child from him to rear him up at
+Brugh na Boinne.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while Crochnuit bore another son to Roc Diocain, that was
+Head Steward to Angus. Roc Diocain went then to Donn, and asked would he
+rear up his son for him, the way Angus was rearing Donn's son. But Donn
+said he would not take the son of a common man into his house, and it
+would be best for Angus to take him. So Angus took the child into Brugh
+na Boinne, and he and Diarmuid were reared up together.</p>
+
+<p>And one day Finn was on the great Hill at Almhuin of Leinster, and no
+one with him but Donn and a few of the poets and learned men of the
+Fianna, and their hounds and dogs, and Bran Beag came in and asked did
+he remember there were bonds on him, not to stop in Almhuin for ten
+nights together. Finn asked the people about him then where would he go
+and be entertained for that night, and Donn said: "I will bring you to
+the house of Angus, son of the Dagda, where my young son is being
+reared."</p>
+
+
+<p>So they went together to the house of Angus at Brugh na Boinne, and the
+child Diarmuid was there, and it is great love Angus had for him. And
+the Steward's son was with him that night, and the people of the
+household made as much of him as Angus made of Diarmuid; and there was
+great vexation on Donn when he saw that. It chanced after a while a
+great fight rose between two of Finn's hounds about some broken meat
+that was thrown to them; and the women and the common people of the
+place ran from them, and the others rose up to part them from one
+another. And in running away, the Steward's child ran between the knees
+of Donn, and Donn gave the child a strong squeeze between his two knees
+that killed him on the moment, and he threw him under the feet of the
+hounds. And when the Steward came after that and found his son dead, he
+gave a long very pitiful cry, and he said to Finn: "There is not a man
+in the house to-night has suffered more than myself from this uproar,
+for I had but one son only, and he has been killed; and what
+satisfaction will I get from you for that, Finn?" he said. "Try can you
+find the mark of a tooth or of a nail of one of the hounds on him," said
+Finn, "and if you can, I will give you satisfaction for him."</p>
+
+<p>So they looked at the child, and there was no scratch or mark of a tooth
+on him at all. Then the Steward put Finn under the destroying bonds of
+the Druid cave of Cruachan, to give him knowledge of who it was killed
+his son. And Finn asked for a chess-board, and for water to be brought
+to him, in a basin of pale gold, and he searched, and it was shown to
+him truly that it was Donn had killed the Steward's son between his two
+knees. When Finn knew that, he said he would take the fine on himself;
+but the Steward would not consent to that, but forced him to tell who
+was it had done him the wrong. And when he knew it was Donn had killed
+the child, he said: "There is no man in the house it is easier to get
+satisfaction from than from him, for his own son is here, and I have but
+to put him between my two knees, and if I let him go from me safe, I
+will forgive the death of my son." Angus was vexed at what the Steward
+said, and as to Donn, he thought to strike his head off till Finn put
+him back from him. Then the Steward came again, having a Druid rod with
+him, and he struck his own son with the rod, and he made of him a wild
+boar, without bristle or ear or tail, and he said: "I put you under
+bonds to bring Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to his death; and your
+own life will be no longer than his life," he said. With that the wild
+boar rose up and ran out of the open door; and he was called afterwards
+the Boar of Slieve Guillion, and it was by him Diarmuid came to his
+death at the last.</p>
+
+<p>And when Diarmuid came to his full strength he was given a place among
+the Fianna of Ireland; and all women loved him, and he did many great
+deeds, fighting with the enemies of the Fianna and of Ireland; and one
+time he fought a wild ox through the length of seven days and seven
+nights on the top of the Mountain of Happiness.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L66" id="L66" />CHAPTER II. HOW DIARMUID GOT HIS LOVE-SPOT</h2>
+
+
+<p>Diarmuid and Conan and Goll and Osgar went one day hunting, and they
+went so far they could not get home in the evening, and they spent the
+first part of the night walking through the woods and pulling berries
+and eating them. And when it was about midnight they saw a light, and
+they went towards it, and they found a little house before them, and the
+light shining from it. They went in then, and they saw an old man there,
+and he bade them welcome, and he called them all by their names. And
+they saw no one in the house but the old man and a young girl and a cat.
+And the old man bade the girl to make food ready for the Fianna of
+Ireland, for there was great hunger on them.</p>
+
+<p>And when the food was ready and put on the table, there came a great
+wether that was fastened up in the back of the house, and he rose up on
+the table where they were eating, and when they saw that, they looked at
+one another. "Rise up, Conan," said Goll, "and fasten that wether in
+the place it was before." Conan rose up and took hold of it, but the
+wether gave itself a shake that threw Conan under one of its feet. The
+rest were looking at that, and Goll said: "Let you rise up, Diarmuid,
+and fasten up the wether." So Diarmuid rose up and took hold of it, but
+it gave itself a shake the same way as before; and when Diarmuid was
+down it put one of its feet on him. Goll and Osgar looked at one another
+then, and shame came on them, a wether to have done so much as that. And
+Osgar got up, but the wether put him down under one of his feet, so that
+it had now the three men under him. Then Goll rose up and took hold of
+it and threw it down; but if he did, it rose up again in spite of him,
+and put Goll under his fourth foot.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great shame," said the old man then, "the like of that to be
+done to the Fianna of Ireland. And rise up now, cat," he said, "and tie
+the wether in the place where he was." The cat rose up then and took
+hold of the wether, and brought it over and tied it in its place at the
+end of the house.</p>
+
+<p>The men rose up then, but they had no mind to go on eating, for there
+was shame on them at what the wether had done to them. "You may go on
+eating," said the old man; "and when you are done I will show you that
+now you are the bravest men of the world." So they ate their fill then,
+and the old man spoke to them, and it is what he said: "Goll," he said,
+"you are the bravest of all the men of the world, for you have wrestled
+with the world and you threw it down. The strength of the world is in
+the wether, but death will come to the world itself; and that is death,"
+he said, showing them the cat.</p>
+
+<p>They were talking together then, and they had their food eaten, and the
+old man said their beds were ready for them that they could go to sleep.
+The four of them went then into the one room, and when they were in
+their beds the young girl came to sleep in the same room with them, and
+the light of her beauty was shining on the walls like as if it was the
+light of a candle.</p>
+
+<p>And when Conan saw her he went over to the side of the bed where she
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was Youth the young girl was, and when she saw Conan coming to
+her: "Go back to your bed, Conan," she said; "I belonged to you once,
+and I will never belong to you again." Conan went back to his bed then,
+and Osgar had a mind to go over where she was. Then she said to him:
+"Where are you going?" "I am going over to yourself for a while," said
+he.</p>
+
+<p>"Go back again, Osgar," she said; "I belonged to you once, and I will
+never belong to you again."</p>
+
+<p>Then Diarmuid rose up to go to her: "Where are you going, Diarmuid?" she
+said. "I am going over to yourself for a while," said he. "O Diarmuid,"
+she said, "that cannot be; I belonged to you once, and I can never
+belong to you again; but come over here to me, Diarmuid," she said, "and
+I will put a love-spot on you, that no woman will ever see without
+giving you her love." So Diarmuid went over to her, and she put her hand
+on his forehead, and she left the love-spot there, and no woman that
+ever saw him after that was able to refuse him her love.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L67" id="L67" />CHAPTER III. THE DAUGHTER OF KING UNDER-WAVE</h2>
+
+
+<p>One snowy night of winter the Fianna were come into the house after
+their hunting. And about midnight they heard a knocking at the door, and
+there came in a woman very wild and ugly, and her hair hanging to her
+heels. She went to the place Finn was lying, and she asked him to let
+her in under the border of his covering. But when he saw her so strange
+and so ugly and so wild-looking he would not let her in. She gave a
+great cry then, and she went to where Oisin was, and asked him to let
+her shelter under the border of his covering. But Oisin refused her the
+same way. Then she gave another great scream, and she went over where
+Diarmuid was. "Let me in," she said, "under the border of your
+covering." Diarmuid looked at her, and he said: "You are strange-looking
+and wild and ugly, and your hair is down to your heels. But come in for
+all that," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So she came in under the border of his covering.</p>
+
+<p>"O Diarmuid," she said then, "I have been travelling over sea and ocean
+through the length of seven years, and in all that time I never got
+shelter any night till this night. And let me to the warmth of the fire
+now," she said. So Diarmuid brought her over to the fire, and all the
+Fianna that were sitting there went away from it seeing her so ugly and
+so dreadful to look at. And she was not long at the fire when she said:
+"Let me go under the warmth of the covering with you now." "It is asking
+too much you are," said Diarmuid; "first it was to come under the border
+you asked, and then to come to the fire, and now it is under the
+bed-covering with me you want to be. But for all that you may come," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>So she came in under the covering, and he turned a fold of it between
+them. But it was not long till he looked at her, and what he saw was a
+beautiful young woman beside him, and she asleep. He called to the
+others then to come over, and he said: "Is not this the most beautiful
+woman that ever was seen?" "She is that," they said, and they covered
+her up and did not awaken her.</p>
+
+<p>But after a while she stirred, and she said: "Are you awake, Diarmuid?"
+"I am awake," he said. "Where would you like to see the best house
+built that ever was built?" she said. "Up there on the hillside, if I
+had my choice," said he, and with that he fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>And in the morning two men of the Fianna came in, and they said they
+were after seeing a great house up on the hill, where there was not a
+house before. "Rise up, Diarmuid," said the strange woman then; "do not
+be lying there any longer, but go up to your house, and look out now and
+see it," she said. So he looked out and he saw the great house that was
+ready, and he said: "I will go to it, if you will come along with me."
+"I will do that," she said, "if you will make me a promise not to say to
+me three times what way I was when I came to you." "I will never say it
+to you for ever," said Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>They went up then to the house, and it was ready for them, with food and
+servants; and everything they could wish for they had it. They stopped
+there for three days, and when the three days were ended, she said: "You
+are getting to be sorrowful because you are away from your comrades of
+the Fianna." "I am not sorrowful indeed," said Diarmuid. "It will be
+best for you to go to them; and your food and your drink will be no
+worse when you come back than they are now," said she. "Who will take
+care of my greyhound bitch and her three pups if I go?" said Diarmuid.
+"There is no fear for them," said she.</p>
+
+<p>So when he heard that, he took leave of her and went back to the Fianna,
+and there was a great welcome before him. But for all that they were not
+well pleased but were someway envious, Diarmuid to have got that grand
+house and her love from the woman they themselves had turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the woman, she was outside the house for a while after
+Diarmuid going away, and she saw Finn, son of Cumhal, coming towards
+her, and she bade him welcome. "You are vexed with me, Queen?" he said.
+"I am not indeed," she said; "and come in now and take a drink of wine
+from me." "I will go in if I get my request," said Finn. "What request
+is there that you would not get?" said she. "It is what I am asking, one
+of the pups of Diarmuid's greyhound bitch." "That is no great thing to
+ask," she said; "and whichever one you choose of them you may bring it
+away."</p>
+
+<p>So he got the pup, and he brought it away with him.</p>
+
+<p>At the fall of night Diarmuid came back to the house, and the greyhound
+met him at the door and gave a yell when she saw him, and he looked for
+the pups, and one of them was gone. There was anger on him then, and he
+said to the woman: "If you had brought to mind the way you were when I
+let you in, and your hair hanging, you would not have let the pup be
+brought away from me." "You ought not to say that, Diarmuid," said she.
+"I ask your pardon for saying it," said Diarmuid. And they forgave one
+another, and he spent the night in the house.</p>
+
+<p>On the morrow Diarmuid went back again to his comrades, and the woman
+stopped at the house, and after a while she saw Oisin coming towards
+her. She gave him a welcome, and asked him into the house, and he said
+he would come if he would get his request. And what he asked was another
+of the pups of the greyhound.</p>
+
+<p>So she gave him that, and he went away bringing the pup with him. And
+when Diarmuid came back that night the greyhound met him, and she cried
+out twice. And he knew that another of the pups was gone, and he said to
+the greyhound, and the woman standing there: "If she had remembered the
+way she was when she came to me, she would not have let the pup be
+brought away."</p>
+
+<p>The next day he went back again to the Fianna, and when he was gone, the
+woman saw Caoilte coming towards her, and he would not come in to take a
+drink from her till he had got the promise of one of the pups the same
+as the others.</p>
+
+<p>And when Diarmuid came back that night the greyhound met him and gave
+three yells, the most terrible that ever were heard. There was great
+anger on him then, when he saw all the pups gone, and he said the third
+time: "If this woman remembered the way she was when I found her, and
+her hair down to her heels, she would not have let the pup go." "O
+Diarmuid, what is it you are after saying?" she said. He asked
+forgiveness of her then, and he thought to go into the house, but it was
+gone and the woman was gone on the moment, and it was on the bare ground
+he awoke on the morrow. There was great sorrow on him then, and he said
+he would search in every place till he would find her again.</p>
+
+<p>So he set out through the lonely valleys, and the first thing he saw was
+the greyhound lying dead, and he put her on his shoulder and would not
+leave her because of the love he had for her. And after a while he met
+with a cowherd, and he asked him did he see a woman going the way. "I
+saw a woman early in the morning of yesterday, and she walking hard,"
+said the cowherd. "What way was she going?" said Diarmuid. "Down that
+path below to the strand, and I saw her no more after that," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So he followed the path she took down to the strand till he could go no
+farther, and then he saw a ship, and he leaned on the handle of his
+spear and made a light leap on to the ship, and it went on till it came
+to land, and then he got out and lay down on the side of a hill and fell
+asleep, and when he awoke there was no ship to be seen. "It is a pity
+for me to be here," he said, "for I see no way of getting from it
+again."</p>
+
+<p>But after a while he saw a boat coming, and a man in the boat rowing it,
+and he went down and got into the boat, and brought the greyhound with
+him. And the boat went out over the sea, and then down below it; and
+Diarmuid, when he went down, found himself on a plain. And he went
+walking along it, and it was not long before he met with a drop of
+blood. He took it up and put it in a napkin. "It is the greyhound lost
+this," he said. And after a while he met with another drop of blood, and
+then with a third, and he put them in the napkin. And after that again
+he saw a woman, and she gathering rushes as if she had lost her wits.</p>
+
+<p>He went towards her and asked her what news had she. "I cannot tell it
+till I gather the rushes," she said. "Be telling it while you are
+gathering them," said Diarmuid. "There is great haste on me," she said.
+"What is this place where we are?" said Diarmuid. "It is
+Land-under-Wave," said she. "And what use have you for the rushes when
+they are gathered?" "The daughter of King Under-Wave is come home," she
+said, "and she was for seven years under enchantment, and there is
+sickness on her now, and all the physicians are gathered together and
+none of them can do her any good, and a bed of rushes is what she finds
+the wholesomest." "Will you show me where the king's daughter is?" said
+Diarmuid. "I will do that," said the woman; "I will put you in the sheaf
+of rushes, and I will put the rushes under you and over you, and I will
+carry you to her on my back." "That is a thing you cannot do," said
+Diarmuid. But she put the rushes about him, and lifted him on her back,
+and when she got to the room she let down the bundle. "O come here to
+me," said the daughter of King Under-Wave, and Diarmuid went over to
+her, and they took one another's hands, and were very joyful at that
+meeting. "Three parts of my sickness is gone from me now," she said
+then; "but I am not well yet, and I never will be, for every time I
+thought of you, Diarmuid, on my journey, I lost a drop of the blood of
+my heart." "I have got those three drops here in this napkin," said
+Diarmuid, "and take them now in a drink and you will be healed of your
+sickness." "They would do nothing for me," she said, "since I have not
+the one thing in the world that I want, and that is the thing I will
+never get," she said. "What thing is that?" said Diarmuid. "It is the
+thing you will never get, nor any man in the world," she said, "for it
+is a long time they have failed to get it." "If it is in any place on
+the whole ridge of the world I will get it," said Diarmuid. "It is three
+draughts from the cup of the King of Magh an Ionganaidh, the Plain of
+Wonder," she said, "and no man ever got it or ever will get it." "Tell
+me where that cup is to be found," said Diarmuid, "for there are not as
+many men as will keep it from me on the whole ridge of the world." "That
+country is not far from the boundary of my father's country," she said;
+"but there is a little river between, and you would be sailing on that
+river in a ship, having the wind behind it, for a year and a day before
+you would reach to the Plain of Wonder."</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid set out then, and he came to the little river, and he was a
+good while walking beside it, and he saw no way to cross it. But at last
+he saw a low-sized, reddish man that was standing in the middle of the
+river. "You are in straits, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," he said;
+"and come here and put your foot in the palm of my hand and I will bring
+you through." Diarmuid did as he bade him, and put his foot in the red
+man's palm, and he brought him across the river. "It is going to the
+King of the Plain of Wonder you are," he said, "to bring away his cup
+from him; and I myself will go with you."</p>
+
+<p>They went on then till they came to the king's dun, and Diarmuid called
+out that the cup should be sent out to him, or else champions to fight
+with him should be sent out. It was not the cup was sent out, but twice
+eight hundred fighting men; and in three hours there was not one of them
+left to stand against him. Then twice nine hundred better fighters
+again were sent out against him, and within four hours there was not one
+of them left to stand against him. Then the king himself came out, and
+he stood in the great door, and he said: "Where did the man come from
+that has brought destruction on the whole of my kingdom?" "I will tell
+you that," said he; "I am Diarmuid, a man of the Fianna of Ireland." "It
+is a pity you not to have sent a messenger telling me that," said the
+king, "and I would not have spent my men upon you; for seven years
+before you were born it was put in the prophecy that you would come to
+destroy them. And what is it you are asking now?" he said. "It is the
+cup of healing from your own hand I am asking," said Diarmuid. "No man
+ever got that cup from me but yourself," said the king, "but it is easy
+for me to give it to you, whether or not there is healing in it."</p>
+
+<p>Then the King of the Plain of Wonder gave Diarmuid the cup, and they
+parted from one another; and Diarmuid went on till he came to the river,
+and it was then he thought of the red man, that he had given no thought
+to while he was at the king's house. But he was there before him, and
+took his foot in the palm of his hand and brought him over the river. "I
+know where it is you are going, Diarmuid," he said then; "it is to heal
+the daughter of King Under-Wave that you have given your love to. And it
+is to a well I will give you the signs of you should go," he said, "and
+bring a share of the water of that well with you. And when you come
+where the woman is, it is what you have to do, to put that water in the
+cup, and one of the drops of blood in it, and she will drink it, and the
+same with the second drop and the third, and her sickness will be gone
+from her from that time. But there is another thing will be gone along
+with it," he said, "and that is the love you have for her."</p>
+
+<p>"That will not go from me," said Diarmuid. "It will go from you," said
+the man; "and it will be best for you make no secret of it, for she will
+know, and the king will know, that you think no more of her then than of
+any other woman. And King Under-Wave will come to you," he said, "and
+will offer you great riches for healing his daughter. But take nothing
+from him," he said, "but ask only a ship to bring you home again to
+Ireland. And do you know who am I myself?" he said. "I do not know,"
+said Diarmuid. "I am the messenger from beyond the world," he said; "and
+I came to your help because your own heart is hot to come to the help of
+another."</p>
+
+<p>So Diarmuid did as he bade him, and he brought the water and the cup and
+the drops of blood to the woman, and she drank them, and at the third
+draught she was healed. And no sooner was she healed than the love he
+had for her was gone, and he turned away from her. "O Diarmuid," she
+said, "your love is gone from me." "O, it is gone indeed," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was music made in the whole place, and the lamenting was
+stopped, because of the healing of the king's daughter. And as to
+Diarmuid, he would take no reward and he would not stop there, but he
+asked for a ship to bring him home to Ireland, to Finn and the Fianna.
+And when he came where they were, there was a joyful welcome before him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L68" id="L68" />CHAPTER IV. THE HARD SERVANT</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Fianna went hunting one time in the two proud provinces of Munster.
+They went out from Almhuin by the nearest paths till they came to the
+Brosna river in Slieve Bladhma, and from there to the twelve mountains
+of Eiblinne, and on to Aine Cliach, the harp of Aine.</p>
+
+<p>They scattered themselves then and hunted through the borders of the
+forest that is called Magh Breogain, through blind trackless places and
+through broken lands, over beautiful level plains and the high hills of
+Desmumum, under pleasant Slieve Crot and smooth Slieve na Muc, along the
+level banks of the blue Siuir and over the green plain of Feman and the
+rough plain of Eithne, and the dark woods of Belach Gabrain.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn was at the side of a hill, and the chief men of the Fianna
+along with him, to watch the hunting; for they liked to be listening to
+the outcry of the hounds and the hurried cries of the boys, and the
+noise and the whistling and the shouts of the strong men.</p>
+
+<p>Finn asked then which of the men that were with him would go and keep
+watch on the side of the hill where they were. And Finnbane, son of
+Bresel, said he would go. And he went on to the top of the hill, where
+he could see about him on all sides. And he was not long there till he
+saw coming from the east a very big man, ugly and gloomy and deformed;
+and it is how he was, a dark-coloured shield on his back, a wide sword
+on his crooked left thigh, two spears on his shoulder, a torn loose
+cloak over his limbs, that were as black as a quenched coal. A sulky
+horse he had with him that had no good appearance, bony and thin as to
+body, and weak in the legs, and he leading it with a rough iron halter;
+and it was a great wonder the head was not pulled from the horse's body,
+or the arms pulled out of his owner, with the sudden stands and stops
+and the jerks it made. And the big man was striking blows on the horse
+with an iron cudgel to try and knock some going out of him, and the
+sound of the blows was like the breaking of strong waves.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finnbane saw all that, he thought to himself it would not be
+right to let the like of that stranger go up unknown to Finn and the
+Fianna, and he ran back in haste to where they were and told them all he
+had seen.</p>
+
+<p>And when he had told his story, they saw the big man coming towards
+them; but as short as he was from them he was long in coming, from the
+badness of his walk and his going.</p>
+
+<p>And when he came into Finn's presence he saluted him, and bowed his head
+and bent his knee, making signs of humility.</p>
+
+<p>Finn raised his hand over his head then, and asked news of him, and if
+he was of the noble or of the mean blood of the great world. He answered
+that he had no knowledge who he came from, but only that he was a man of
+the Fomor, travelling in search of wages to the kings of the earth, "and
+I heard," he said, "that Finn never refused wages to any man." "I never
+did indeed," said Finn, "and I will not refuse you. But why is it," he
+said, "you are without a boy to mind your horse?" "I have a good reason
+for that," said the big man; "there is nothing in the world is worse to
+me than a boy to be with me; for it is a hundred men's share of food,"
+he said, "that serves me for one day, and it is little enough I think
+it, and I would begrudge a boy to be sharing it with me." "What is the
+name you have?" said Finn. "The name I have is the Gilla Decair, the
+Hard Servant," said he. "Why did you get that name?" said Finn. "There
+is a good reason for that," said the big man, "for there is nothing in
+the world is harder to me than to do anything at all for my master, or
+whatever person I am with. And tell me this, Conan, son of Morna," he
+said, "who gets the best wages, a horseman or a man afoot?" "A horseman
+gets twice as much," said Conan. "Then I call you to witness, Conan," he
+said, "that I am a horseman, and that it was as a horseman I came to the
+Fianna. And give me your guarantee now, Finn, son of Cumhal, and the
+guarantee of the Fianna, and I will turn out my horse with your horses."
+"Let him out then," said Finn.</p>
+
+<p>The big man pulled off the iron halter then from his horse, and it made
+off as hard as it could go, till it came where the horses of the Fianna
+were; and it began to tear and to kick and to bite at them, killing and
+maiming. "Take your horse out of that, big man," said Conan; "and by the
+earth and the sky," he said, "only it was on the guarantee of Finn and
+the Fianna you took the halter off him, I would let out his brains
+through the windows of his head; and many as is the bad prize Finn has
+found in Ireland," he said, "he never got one as bad as yourself." "And
+I swear by earth and sky as well as yourself," said the big man, "I will
+never bring him out of that; for I have no serving-boy to do it for me,
+and it is not work for me to be leading my horse by the hand."</p>
+
+<p>Conan, son of Morna, rose up then and took the halter and put it on the
+horse, and led it back to where Finn was, and held it with his hand.
+"You would never have done a horse-boy's service, Conan," said Finn, "to
+any one of the Fianna, however far he might be beyond this Fomor. And if
+you will do what I advise," he said, "you will get up on the horse now,
+and search out with him all the hills and hollows and flowery plains of
+Ireland, till his heart is broken in his body in payment for the way he
+destroyed the horses of the Fianna."</p>
+
+<p>Conan made a leap then on to the horse, and struck his heels hard into
+him, but with all that the horse would not stir. "I know what ails him,"
+said Finn, "he will not stir till he has the same weight of horsemen on
+him as the weight of the big man."</p>
+
+<p>On that thirteen men of the Fianna went up behind Conan, and the horse
+lay down with them and rose up again. "I think that you are mocking at
+my horse and at myself," said the big man; "and it is a pity for me to
+be spending the rest of the year with you, after all the humbugging I
+saw in you to-day, Finn. And I know well," he said, "that all I heard
+about you was nothing but lies, and there was no cause for the great
+name you have through the world. And I will quit you now, Finn," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>With that he went from them, slow and weak, dragging himself along till
+he had put a little hill between himself and the Fianna. And as soon as
+he was on the other side of it, he tucked up his cloak to his waist, and
+away with him, as if with the quickness of a swallow or a deer, and the
+rush of his going was like a blast of loud wind going over plains and
+mountains in spring-time.</p>
+
+<p>When the horse saw his master going from him, he could not bear with it,
+but great as his load was he set out at full gallop following after him.
+And when Finn and the Fianna saw the thirteen men behind Conan, son of
+Morna, on the horse, and he starting off, they shouted with mocking
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>And when Conan found that he was not able to come down off the horse, he
+screeched and shouted to them not to let him be brought away with the
+big man they knew nothing of, and he began abusing and reproaching them.
+"A cloud of death over water on you, Finn," he said, "and that some son
+of a slave or a robber of the bad blood, one that is a worse son of a
+father and mother even than yourself, may take all that might protect
+your life, and your head along with that, unless you follow us to
+whatever place or island the big man will carry us to, and unless you
+bring us back to Ireland again."</p>
+
+<p>Finn and the Fianna rose up then, and they followed the Gilla Decair
+over every bald hill, and through every valley and every river, on to
+pleasant Slieve Luachra, into the borders of Corca Duibhne; and the big
+man, that was up on the horse then along with Conan and the rest, faced
+towards the deep sea. And Liagan Luath of Luachar took hold of the
+horse's tail with his two hands, thinking to drag him back by the hair
+of it; but the horse gave a great tug, and away with him over the sea,
+and Liagan along with him, holding on to his tail.</p>
+
+<p>It was a heavy care to Finn, those fourteen men of his people to be
+brought away from him, and he himself under bonds to bring them back.
+"What can we do now?" Oisin asked him. "What should we do, but to follow
+our people to whatever place or island the big man has brought them,
+and, whatever way we do it, to bring them back to Ireland again." "What
+can we do, having neither a ship or any kind of boat?" said Oisin. "We
+have this," said Finn, "the Tuatha de Danaan left as a gift to the
+children of the Gael, that whoever might have to leave Ireland for a
+while, had but to go to Beinn Edair, and however many would go along
+with him, they would find a ship that would hold them all." Finn looked
+towards the sea then, and he saw two strong armed men coming towards
+him. The first one had on his back a shield ribbed and of many colours,
+having shapes of strange, wonderful beasts engraved on it, and a heavy
+sword at his side, and two thick spears on his shoulders; a cloak of
+lasting crimson about him, with a gold brooch on the breast; a band of
+white bronze on his head, gold under each of his feet; and the other was
+dressed in the same way. They made no delay till they came to where Finn
+was, and they bowed their heads and bent their knees before him, and
+Finn raised his hand over their heads, and bade them to give an account
+of themselves. "We are sons of the King of the Eastern World," they
+said, "and we are come to Ireland asking to be taken into the service of
+Finn; for we heard there was not a man in all Ireland," they said,
+"would be better than yourself to judge of the skill we have." "What is
+your name, and what skill is that?" said Finn. "My name is Feradach,
+the Very Brave," he said; "and I have a carpenter's axe and a sling, and
+if there were so many as thirty hundred of the men of Ireland along with
+me in one spot, with three blows of the axe on the sling-stick I could
+get a ship that would hold them all. And I would ask no more help of
+them," he said, "than to bow down their heads while I was striking those
+three blows." "That is a good art," said Finn. "And tell me now," he
+said, "what can the other man do?" "I can do this," he said, "I can
+follow the track of the teal over nine ridges and nine furrows until I
+come on her in her bed; and it is the same to me to do it on sea as on
+land," he said. "That is a good art," said Finn; "and it would be a good
+help to us if you would come following a track with us now." "What is
+gone from you?" said one of the men. Finn told them then the whole story
+of the Hard Servant.</p>
+
+<p>Then Feradach, the Very Brave, struck three blows on his sling-stick
+with the axe that he had, and the whole of the Fianna bowed their heads,
+and on the moment the whole of the bay and of the harbour was filled
+with ships and with fast boats. "What will we do with that many ships?"
+said Finn. "We will do away with all you make no use of," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Caoilte rose up then and let out three great shouts, and all the Fianna
+of Ireland, in whatever places they were, heard them, and they thought
+Finn and his people to be in some kind of danger from men from beyond
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>They came then in small companies as they chanced to be, till they came
+to the stepping-stones of the Cat's Head in the western part of Corca
+Duibhne. And they asked news of Finn, what had happened that he called
+them away from their hunting, and Finn told them all that had happened.
+Then Finn and Oisin went into council together, and it is what they
+agreed; that as but fifteen of his people were brought away from Finn,
+he himself with fifteen others would go on their track; Oisin to be left
+at the head of the Fianna to guard Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And they said farewell to one another, and a grand ship was made ready
+for Finn and his people, and there was food put in it for using and gold
+for giving away. The young men and the heroes took to their seats then,
+and took hold of the oars, and they set out over the restless hills and
+the dark valleys of the great sea.</p>
+
+<p>And the sea rose up and bellowed, and there was madness on the broken
+green waters; but to Finn and his people it was a call in the morning
+and a sleepy time at night to be listening to the roaring and the
+crooning that was ever and always about the sides of the ship.</p>
+
+<p>They went on like that for three days and three nights, and saw no
+country or island. But at the end of that time a man of them went up
+into the head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough
+grey cliff. They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of
+the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an
+eel's back. And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to
+the foot of the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Fergus of the True Lips said then to Diarmuid: "It is no brave thing you
+are doing, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to hold back like this, for it
+was with Manannan the Powerful, son of Lir, you were reared and got your
+learning, in the Land of Promise and in the coasts of the harbours, and
+with Angus Og, the Dagda's son. And are you without any share of their
+skill and their daring now," he said, "that would bring Finn and his
+people up this rock?"</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid's face reddened when he heard those words, and he took hold of
+Manannan's staves of power that were with him, and he reddened again,
+and he rose on the staves and gave a leap, and got a standing-place for
+his two feet on the overhanging rock. He looked down from that on Finn
+and his people, but whatever wish he had to bring them up to where he
+was, he was not able to do it.</p>
+
+<p>He left the rock behind him then, and he was not gone far when he saw a
+wild tangled place before him, with thick woods that were of all he had
+ever walked the most leafy and the fullest of the sounds of wind and
+streams and birds, and of the humming of bees.</p>
+
+<p>He went on walking the plain, and as he was looking about him, he saw a
+great tree with many twigs and branches, and a rock beside it, and a
+smooth-pointed drinking-horn on it, and a beautiful fresh well at its
+foot. And there was a great drouth on Diarmuid after the sea-journey,
+and he had a mind to drink a hornful of the water. But when he stooped
+to it he heard a great noise coming towards him, and he knew then there
+was enchantment in the water.</p>
+
+<p>"I will drink my fill of it for all that," he said. And it was not long
+after that till he saw a Man of Enchantments coming towards him armed,
+having no friendly look. And it was in no friendly way he spoke to
+Diarmuid when he came up to him, but he gave him great abuse. "It is no
+right thing," he said, "to be walking through my thickets and to be
+drinking up my share of water." With that they faced one another
+angrily, and they fought till the end of the day.</p>
+
+<p>The Enchanter thought it well to leave off fighting then, and he made a
+leap into the bottom of the well away from him, but there was vexation
+on Diarmuid to be left like that.</p>
+
+<p>He looked around him then, and he saw a herd of deer coming through the
+scrub, and he went towards them, and threw a spear that went through the
+nearest stag and drove the bowels out of him. He kindled a fire then,
+and he cut thin bits of the flesh and put them on spits of white hazel,
+and that night he had his fill of meat and of the water of the well.</p>
+
+<p>He rose up early on the morrow, and he found the Enchanter at the well
+before him. "It seems to me, Grandson of Duibhne," he said, "that it is
+not enough for you to be walking my scrub and my woods without killing
+my deer as well." With that they started again, giving one another blow
+for blow, thrust for thrust, and wound for wound till the end of the day
+came on them. And Diarmuid killed another great deer that night, and in
+the morning the fight began again. But in the evening, when the
+Enchanter was making his leap into the well, Diarmuid threw his arms
+about his neck, thinking to stop him, but it is what happened, he fell
+in himself. And when he was at the bottom of the well the Enchanter left
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid went then following after the Enchanter, and he found before
+him a beautiful wide flowery plain, and a comely royal city in the
+plain, and on the green before the dun he saw a great army; and when
+they saw Diarmuid following after the Enchanter, they left a way and a
+royal road for the Enchanter to pass through till he got inside the dun.
+And then they shut the gates, and the whole army turned on Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>But that put no fear or cowardice on him, but he went through them and
+over them like a hawk would go through little birds, or a wild dog
+through a flock of sheep, killing all before him, till some of them made
+away to the woods and wastes, and another share of them through the
+gates of the dun, and they shut them, and the gates of the city after
+them. And Diarmuid, all full of hurts and wounds after the hard fight,
+lay down on the plain. A very strong daring champion came then and
+kicked at him from behind, and at that Diarmuid roused himself up, and
+put out his brave ready hand for his weapons.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a while, Grandson of Duibhne," the champion said then; "it is not
+to do you any hurt or harm I am come, but to say to you it is a bad
+sleeping-place for you to have, and it on your ill-wisher's lawn. And
+come now with me," he said, "and I will give you a better
+resting-place."</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid followed him then, and they went a long, long way from that,
+till they came to a high-topped city, and three times fifty brave
+champions in it, three times fifty modest women, and another young woman
+on a bench, with blushes in her cheeks, and delicate hands, and having a
+silken cloak about her, and a dress sewed with gold threads, and on her
+head the flowing veil of a queen.</p>
+
+<p>There was a good welcome before Diarmuid for his own sake and the sake
+of his people, and he was put in a house of healing that was in the
+city, and good herbs were put to his hurts till he was smooth and sound
+again.</p>
+
+<p>And a feast was made then, and the tables and the benches were set, and
+no high person was put in the place of the mean, or mean in the place of
+the high, but every one in his own place, according to his nobility, or
+his descent, or his art. Plenty of good food was brought to them then,
+and well-tasting strong drinks, and they spent the first part of the
+night in drinking, and the second part with music and delight and
+rejoicing of the mind, and the third part in sound sleep that lasted
+till the sun rose over the heavy sodded earth on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Three days and three nights Diarmuid stopped in that city, and the best
+feast he ever found was given to him all through. And at the end of that
+time he asked what was the place he was in, and who was head of it. And
+the champion that brought him there told him it was Land-Under-Wave, and
+that the man that had fought with him was its king. "And he is an enemy
+of the Red Hand to me," he said. "And as to myself," he said, "I was
+one time getting wages from Finn, son of Cumhal, in Ireland, and I never
+put a year over me that pleased me better. And tell me now," he said,
+"what is the journey or the work that is before you?"</p>
+
+<p>And Diarmuid told him the story of the Hard Servant then from beginning
+to end.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as to Finn and his people, when they thought Diarmuid was too long
+away from them, they made ladders of the cords of the ship and put them
+against the rock, looking for him.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while they found the leavings of the meat he had eaten, for
+Diarmuid never ate meat without leaving some after him.</p>
+
+<p>Finn looked then on every side, and he saw a rider coming towards him
+over the plain on a dark-coloured beautiful horse, having a bridle of
+red gold. Finn saluted him when he came up, and the rider stooped his
+head and gave Finn three kisses, and asked him to go with him. They went
+on a long way till they came to a wide, large dwelling-place full of
+arms, and a great troop of armed men on the green before the fort. Three
+nights and three days Finn and his people stopped in the dun, and the
+best feast they ever got was served out to them.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of that time Finn asked what country was he in, and the man
+that brought him there told him it was the land of Sorcha, and that he
+himself was its king. "And I was with yourself one time, Finn, son of
+Cumhal," he said, "taking your wages through the length of a year in
+Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn and the King of Sorcha called a great gathering of the people
+and a great meeting. And when it was going on they saw a woman-messenger
+coming to them through the crowd, and the king asked news of her. "I
+have news indeed," she said; "the whole of the bay and the harbour is
+full of ships and of boats, and there are armies all through the country
+robbing all before them." "I know well," said the king, "it is the High
+King of Greece is in it, for he has a mind to put the entire world under
+him, and to get hold of this country like every other." The King of
+Sorcha looked at Finn then, and Finn understood it was help from him he
+was asking, and it is what he said: "I take the protection of this
+country on myself so long as I am in it." He and his people rose up
+then, and the King of Sorcha along with them, and they went looking for
+the strange army. And when they came up with it they made great
+slaughter of its champions, and those they did not kill ran before them,
+and made no better stand than a flock of frightened birds, till there
+were hardly enough of them left to tell the story.</p>
+
+<p>The High King spoke then, and it is what he said: "Who is it has done
+this great slaughter of my people? And I never heard before," he said,
+"any talk of the courage or of the doings of the men of Ireland either
+at this time or in the old times. But from this out," he said, "I will
+banish the Sons of the Gael for ever to the very ends of the earth."</p>
+
+<p>But Finn and the King of Sorcha raised a green tent in view of the ships
+of the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>The King of the Greeks called then for help against Finn and the King of
+Sorcha, to get satisfaction for the shame that was put on his people.
+And the sons of kings of the eastern and southern world came to his
+help, but they could make no stand against Finn and Osgar and Oisin and
+Goll, son of Morna. And at the last the King of Greece brought all his
+people back home, the way no more of them would be put an end to.</p>
+
+<p>And then Finn and the King of Sorcha called another great gathering. And
+while it was going on, they saw coming towards them a great troop of
+champions, bearing flags of many-coloured silk, and grey swords at
+their sides and high spears reared up over their heads. And in the front
+of them was Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne.</p>
+
+<p>When Finn saw him, he sent Fergus of the True Lips to ask news of him,
+and they told one another all that had happened.</p>
+
+<p>And it would take too long to tell, and it would tire the hearers, how
+Finn made the Hard Servant bring home his fifteen men that he had
+brought away. And when he had brought them back to Ireland, the whole of
+the Fianna were watching to see him ride away again, himself and his
+long-legged horse. But while they were watching him, he vanished from
+them, and all they could see was a mist, and it stretching out towards
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>And that is the story of the Hard Servant, and of Diarmuid's adventures
+on the island Under-Wave.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L69" id="L69" />CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES</h2>
+
+
+<p>And it is often the Fianna would have been badly off without the help of
+Diarmuid. It was he came to their help the time Miodac, the son of the
+King of Lochlann, brought them into the enchanted House of the Quicken
+Trees.</p>
+
+<p>It was by treachery he brought them in, giving himself out to be a poet,
+and making poems for Finn to make out the meaning of. A verse he made
+about a great army that he saw riding over the plains to victory, and
+robbing all before it, and the riders of it having no horses but plants
+and branches. "I understand that," said Finn, "it was an army of bees
+you saw, that was gathering riches from the flowers as it went." And
+another verse Miodac made was about a woman in Ireland that was swifter
+than the swiftest horse. "I know that," said Finn, "that woman is the
+River Boinn; and if she goes slow itself, she is swifter in the end than
+the swiftest horse, for her going never stops." And other verses he made
+about Angus' house at Brugh na Boinn, but Finn made them all out.</p>
+
+<p>And after that he said he had a feast ready for them, and he bade them
+go into his House of the Quicken Trees till he would bring it. And they
+did that, and went in, and it was a beautiful house, having walls of
+every colour, and foreign coverings of every colour on the floor, and a
+fire that gave out a very pleasant smoke. And they sat down there, and
+after a while Finn said: "It is a wonder such a beautiful house to be
+here." "There is a greater wonder than that," said Goll; "that fire that
+was so pleasant when we came in is giving out now the worst stench in
+the world." "There is a greater wonder than that," said Glas; "the walls
+that were of all colours are now but rough boards joined together."
+"There is a greater wonder than that," said Fiacha; "where there were
+seven high doors to the house there is now but one little door, and it
+shut." "Indeed, there is a more wonderful thing than that," said Conan;
+"for we sat down on beautiful coverings, and now there is nothing
+between us and the bare ground, and it as cold as the snow of one
+night." And he tried to rise up, but he could not stir, or any of the
+rest of them, for there was enchantment that kept them where they were.</p>
+
+<p>And it was the treachery of Miodac, and the spells of the Three Kings of
+the Island of the Floods that had brought them into that danger. And
+Finn knew by his divination that their enemies were gathering to make an
+end of them, and he said to his people there was no use in making
+complaints, but to sound the music of the Dord Fiann.</p>
+
+<p>And some of the Fianna that were waiting for him not far off heard that
+sorrowful music, and came fighting against Miodac and his armies, and
+they fought well, but they could not stand against them. And at the last
+it was Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, that made an end of Miodac that
+was so treacherous, and of the Three Kings of the Island of the Floods,
+and took the enchantment off the floor of the House of the Rowan Trees
+with their blood.</p>
+
+<p>And when he was freeing the Fianna, Conan called out, asking him to
+bring him a share of the feast Miodac had made ready for his own
+friends, for there was hunger on him. And when Diarmuid took no heed of
+him, he said: "If it was a comely woman was speaking to you, Diarmuid,
+you would not refuse to listen."</p>
+
+<p>For if many women loved Diarmuid, there were many he himself gave his
+love to; and if he was often called Diarmuid the brave, or the hardy, or
+the comely, or the Hawk of Ess Ruadh, it is often he was called as well
+the friend and the coaxer of women, Diarmuid-na-man.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L70" id="L70" />BOOK SEVEN: DIARMUID AND GRANIA.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE FLIGHT FROM TEAMHAIR</h2>
+
+
+<p>Finn rose up one morning early in Almhuin of Leinster, and he sat out
+alone on the green lawn without a boy or a servant being with him. And
+Oisin followed him there, and Diorraing the Druid. "What is the cause of
+your early rising, Finn?" said Oisin. "It is not without cause, indeed,
+I rise early," said Finn, "for I am without a wife or a companion since
+Maighneis, daughter of Black Garraidh, died from me; for quiet sleep is
+not used to come to a man that is without a fitting wife." "Why would
+you be like that?" said Oisin, "for there is not a woman in all green
+Ireland you would throw a look on but we would bring her to you, willing
+or unwilling." "I myself could find a wife would be fitting for you,"
+said Diorraing. "Who is that?" said Finn. "It is Grania, daughter of the
+High King of Ireland," said Diorraing; "and she is the woman of the best
+make and shape and the best speech of the women of the whole world." "By
+my word, Diorraing," said Finn, "there is strife and disagreement
+between the High King and myself this long time, and it would not be
+pleasing to me to get a refusal from him. And it is best for you two to
+go together," he said, "and to ask his daughter for me in marriage; the
+way that if he gives a refusal, it will be to you and not to myself he
+will give it." "We will go," said Oisin, "even if it is little profit we
+will get by it. And let no one at all know of our going," he said,
+"until such time as we are come back again."</p>
+
+<p>After that the two bade farewell to Finn, and set out, and it is not
+told what they did till they came to Teamhair. The King of Ireland was
+holding a gathering at that time on the green of Teamhair, and the chief
+nobles of his people were with him. And there was a friendly welcome
+given to Oisin and to Diorraing, and the king put off the gathering
+till the next day, for he was sure it was some pressing thing had
+brought these two men of the Fianna to Teamhair. And Oisin went aside
+with him, and told him it was to ask his daughter Grania in marriage
+they were come from Finn, Head of the Fianna of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>The king spoke, and it is what he said: "There is not a son of a king or
+of a great prince, there is not a champion in Ireland my daughter has
+not given a refusal to, and it is on me they all lay the blame of that.
+And I will give you no answer at all," he said, "till you go to herself;
+for it is better for you to get her own answer, than to be displeased
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>So they went together to the sunny house of the women, and the king sat
+down at the head of the high seat beside Grania, and he said: "Here,
+Grania, are two of the people of Finn, son of Cumhal, come to ask you as
+a wife for him, and what answer have you a mind to give them?" And it is
+what Grania said: "If he is a fitting son-in-law for you, why would he
+not be a fitting husband for me?"</p>
+
+<p>They were satisfied then, and there was a feast made for them that night
+in Grania's sunny house, and the king settled for a meeting a fortnight
+from that time between himself and Finn at Teamhair.</p>
+
+<p>So Oisin and Diorraing went back again to Almhuin, and told Finn their
+story from beginning to end. And as everything wears away, so did that
+time of delay.</p>
+
+<p>And then Finn gathered together the seven battalions of the Fianna from
+every part where they were to Almhuin. And they set out in great bands
+and troops till they came to Teamhair.</p>
+
+<p>The king was out on the green before them, and the great people of the
+men of Ireland, and there was a great welcome before Finn and the
+Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>But when Grania saw grey-haired Finn, she said: "It is a great wonder
+it was not for Oisin Finn asked me, for he would be more fitting for me
+than a man that is older than my father."</p>
+
+<p>But they talked together for a while, and Finn was putting questions to
+Grania, for she had the name of being very quick with answers. "What is
+whiter than snow?" he said. "The truth," said Grania. "What is the best
+colour?" said Finn. "The colour of childhood," said she. "What is hotter
+than fire?" "The face of a hospitable man when he sees a stranger coming
+in, and the house empty." "What has a taste more bitter than poison?"
+"The reproach of an enemy." "What is best for a champion?" "His doings
+to be high, and his pride to be low." "What is the best of jewels?" "A
+knife." "What is sharper than a sword?" "The wit of a woman between two
+men." "What is quicker than the wind?" said Finn then. "A woman's mind,"
+said Grania. And indeed she was telling no lie when she said that. And
+for all their talk together she had no liking for Finn, and she felt the
+blood in her heart to be rising against him.</p>
+
+<p>And the wedding-feast was made ready then, and they all went into the
+king's feasting-house in the Middle Court. And the king sat down to take
+his share of drinking and pleasure, and his wife at his left side, and
+Grania beside her again; and Finn, son of Cumhal, at the right hand of
+the king, and Oisin at the other side, and every other one according to
+his nobility and his birth.</p>
+
+<p>Then Daire of the poems stood up before Grania, and sang the songs and
+good poems of her fathers to her. And there was sitting near to Grania a
+knowledgeable man, a Druid of Finn's people, and it was not long until
+they began to talk together. "Tell me now," said Grania, "who is that
+man on the right hand of Oisin?" "That is Goll, son of Morna," said the
+Druid, "the ready fighter." "Who is that beside Goll?" said Grania.
+"Osgar, son of Oisin," said the Druid. "And who is that thin-legged man
+beside Osgar?" "That is Caoilte, son of Ronan." "Who is that proud,
+hasty man beside Caoilte?" "Lugaidh's Son of the Strong Hand." "Who is
+that sweet-worded man," she said then, "with the dark hair, and cheeks
+like the rowan berry, on the left side of Oisin, son of Finn?" "That is
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," said the Druid, "that is the best lover
+of women in the whole world." "That is a good company," said Grania.</p>
+
+<p>And after the feast had gone on a while, their own feast was made for
+the dogs outside. And the dogs began to fight with one another, and the
+noise was heard in the hall, and the chief men of the Fianna went to
+drive them away from one another.</p>
+
+<p>Now Diarmuid was used to keep his cap always over the love-spot the
+woman had left on his forehead, for no woman could see that spot but she
+would give him her love. And it chanced, while he was driving the dogs
+apart, the cap fell from him, and Grania was looking cut at him as it
+fell, and great love for him came on her there and then. And she called
+her serving-maid to her, and bade her bring the great golden cup that
+held drink for nine times nine men from the sunny house. And when the
+serving-maid brought the cup, she filled it with wine that had
+enchantment in it, and she said: "Give the cup first to Finn, and bid
+him take a drink from it, and tell him it is I myself sent it to him."
+So the serving-maid did that, and Finn took the cup and drank out of it,
+and no sooner did he drink than he fell into a deep sleep. And then the
+cup was given to the king, and the queen, and the sons of kings, and the
+whole company, but only Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and Diarmuid, and
+Diorraing the Druid. And all that drank of it fell into the same heavy
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>And when they were all in their sleep, Grania rose up softly from the
+seat where she was, and she turned her face to Diarmuid, and she said:
+"Will you take my love, Diarmuid, son of Duibhne, and will you bring me
+away out of this house to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not," said Diarmuid; "I will not meddle with the woman that is
+promised to Finn." "If that is so," said Grania, "I put you under Druid
+bonds, to bring me out of this house to-night before the awaking of Finn
+and of the King of Ireland from their sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"It is under bad bonds you are putting me, Grania," said Diarmuid. "And
+why is it," he said, "that you put them on me more than on the great men
+and sons of kings that are in the Middle Court to-night? for there is
+not one of them all but is as well worthy of a woman's love as myself."
+"By my hand, Diarmuid, it is not without cause I laid those bonds on
+you," said Grania; "for I was at the door a while ago when you were
+parting the dogs," she said, "and my eyes fell on you, and I gave you
+the love there and then that I never gave to any other, and never will
+give for ever."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a wonder you to give that love to me, and not to Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "for there is not in Ireland a man is a better lover of a
+woman than himself. And do you know this, Grania," he said, "the night
+Finn is in Teamhair it is he himself is the keeper of its gates. And as
+that is so, we cannot leave the town." "There is a side door of escape
+at my sunny house," said Grania, "and we will go out by it." "It is a
+thing I will never do," said Diarmuid, "to go out by any side door of
+escape at all." "That may be so," said Grania, "but I heard it said that
+every fighting man has leave to pass over the walls of any dun and of
+any strong place at all by the shafts of his spears. And I will go out
+through the door," she said, "and let you follow me like that."</p>
+
+<p>With that she went out, and Diarmuid spoke to his people, and it is what
+he said, "O Oisin, son of Finn, what must I do with these bonds that
+are laid on me?" "You are not guilty if the bonds were laid on you,"
+said Oisin; "and I tell you to follow Grania, and to keep yourself well
+out of the hands of Finn." "Osgar, son of Oisin," he said then, "what
+must I do with these bonds that are put on me?" "I tell you to follow
+Grania," said Osgar, "for it is a pitiful man that would break his
+bonds." "What advice do you give me, Caoilte?" said Diarmuid. "It is
+what I say," said Caoilte, "that I myself have a fitting wife; and that
+it would be better to me than all the riches of the world Grania to have
+given me that love." "What advice do you give me, Diorraing?" "I tell
+you to follow Grania," said Diorraing, "although you will get your death
+by it, and that is bad to me." "Is that the advice you all give me?"
+said Diarmuid. "It is," said Oisin, and all the rest with him. With that
+Diarmuid stood up and stretched out his hand for his weapons, and he
+said farewell to Oisin and the others, and every tear he shed was of the
+size of a mountain berry. He went out then to the wall of the dun, and
+he put the shafts of his two spears under him, and he rose with a light
+leap and he came down on the grassy earth outside, and Grania met him
+there. Then Diarmuid said: "It is a bad journey you are come on, Grania.
+For it would be better for you to have Finn, son of Cumhal, as a lover
+than myself, for I do not know any part or any western corner of Ireland
+that will hide you. And if I do bring you with me," he said, "it is not
+as a wife I will bring you, but I will keep my faith to Finn. And turn
+back now to the town," he said, "and Finn will never get news of what
+you are after doing." "It is certain I will not turn back," said Grania,
+"and I will never part with you till death parts us." "If that is so,
+let us go on, Grania," said Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>They went on then, and they were not gone far out from the town when
+Grania said: "I am getting tired, indeed." "It is a good time to be
+tired," said Diarmuid, "and go now back again to your own house. For I
+swear by the word of a true champion," he said, "I will never carry
+yourself or any other woman to the end of life and time." "That is not
+what you have to do," said Grania, "for my father's horses are in a
+grass field by themselves, and chariots with them; and turn back now,
+and bring two horses of them, and I will wait in this place till you
+come to me again."</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid went back then for the horses, and we have no knowledge of
+their journey till they reached to the ford on the Sionnan, that is
+called now Ath-luain.</p>
+
+<p>And Diarmuid said then to Grania: "It is easier to Finn to follow our
+track, the horses being with us." "If that is so," said Grania: "leave
+the horses here, and I will go on foot from this out."</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid went down to the river then, and he brought a horse with him
+over the ford, and left the other horse the far side of the river. And
+he himself and Grania went a good way with the stream westward, and they
+went to land at the side of the province of Connacht. And wherever they
+went, Diarmuid left unbroken bread after him, as a sign to Finn he had
+kept his faith with him.</p>
+
+<p>And from that they went on to Doire-da-Bhoth, the Wood of the Two Huts.
+And Diarmuid cut down the wood round about them, and he made a fence
+having seven doors of woven twigs, and he set out a bed of soft rushes
+and of the tops of the birch-tree for Grania in the very middle of the
+wood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L71" id="L71" />CHAPTER II. THE PURSUIT</h2>
+
+
+<p>And as to Finn, son of Cumhal, I will tell out his story now.</p>
+
+<p>All that were in Teamhair rose up early in the morning of the morrow,
+and they found Diarmuid and Grania were wanting from them, and there
+came a scorching jealousy and a weakness on Finn. He sent out his
+trackers then on the plain, and bade them to follow Diarmuid and Grania.
+And they followed the track as far as the ford on the Sionnan, and Finn
+and the Fianna followed after them, but they were not able to carry the
+track across the ford. And Finn gave them his word that unless they
+would find the track again without delay, he would hang them on each
+side of the ford.</p>
+
+<p>Then the sons of Neamhuin went up against the stream, and they found a
+horse on each side of it, and then they went on with the stream
+westward, and they found the track going along the side of the Province
+of Connacht, and Finn and the Fianna of Ireland followed it on. And Finn
+said: "I know well where we will find Diarmuid and Grania now; it is in
+Doire-da-Bhoth they are." Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and Diorraing were
+listening when Finn said those words. And Osgar spoke to the others, and
+it is what he said: "There is danger they might be there, and it would
+be right for us to give them some warning; and look now, Osgar, where is
+Bran the hound, for Finn himself is no dearer to him than Diarmuid, and
+bid him go now with a warning to him."</p>
+
+<p>So Osgar told Bran, and Bran understood him well, and she went to the
+rear of the whole troop the way Finn would not see her, and she followed
+on the track of Diarmuid and Grania till she came to Doire-da-Bhoth, and
+she put her head into Diarmuid's bosom, and he in his sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid started up out of his sleep then, and he awoke Grania, and said
+to her: "Here is Bran, Finn's hound, and she is come with a warning to
+tell us Finn himself is coming." "Let us take that warning, then," said
+Grania, "and make your escape." "I will not take it," said Diarmuid,
+"for if I cannot escape Finn, I would as soon he took me now as at any
+other time." When Grania heard that, great fear came on her.</p>
+
+<p>Bran went away from them then, and when Oisin saw her coming back, he
+said: "I am in dread Bran found no chance to get to Diarmuid, and we
+should send him some other warning. And look where is Fearghoin," he
+said, "Caoilte's serving-man." Now it was the way with Fearghoin, every
+shout he would give would be heard in the three nearest hundreds to him.
+So they made him give out three shouts the way Diarmuid would hear him.
+And Diarmuid heard him, and he said to Grania: "I hear Caoilte's
+serving-man, and it is with Caoilte he is, and it is along with Finn
+Caoilte is, and those shouts were sent as a warning to me." "Take that
+warning," said Grania. "I will not take it," said Diarmuid, "for Finn
+and the Fianna will come up with us before we leave the wood." And fear
+and great dread came on Grania when she heard him say that.</p>
+
+<p>As for Finn, he did not leave off following the track till he came to
+Doire-da-Bhoth, and he sent the sons of Neamhuin to search through the
+wood, and they saw Diarmuid, and the woman along with him. They came
+back then where Finn was, and he asked them were Diarmuid and Grania in
+the wood? "Diarmuid is in it," they said, "and there is some woman with
+him, but we knew Diarmuid, and we do not know Grania." "May no good come
+to the friends of Diarmuid for his sake," said Finn, "and he will not
+quit that wood till he has given me satisfaction for everything he has
+done to me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is jealousy has put you astray, Finn," said Oisin; "you to think
+Diarmuid would stop here on the plain of Maen Mhagh, and no close place
+in it but Doire-da-Bhoth, and you following after him." "Saying that
+will do you no good," said Finn, "for I knew well when I heard the three
+shouts Caoilte's serving-man gave out, it was you sent them to Diarmuid
+as a warning. And another thing," he said, "it was you sent my own
+hound Bran to him. But none of those things you have done will serve
+you, for he will not leave Doire-da-Bhoth till he gives me satisfaction
+for everything he has done to me, and every disgrace he has put on me."
+"It is great foolishness for you, Finn," said Osgar then, "to be
+thinking Diarmuid would stop in the middle of this plain and you waiting
+here to strike the head off him." "Who but himself cut the wood this
+way," said Finn, "and made this close sheltered place with seven woven
+narrow doors to it. And O Diarmuid," he said out then, "which of us is
+the truth with, myself or Oisin?" "You never failed from your good
+judgment, Finn," said Diarmuid, "and indeed I myself and Grania are
+here." Then Finn called to his men to go around Diarmuid and Grania, and
+to take them.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was shown at this time to Angus Og, at Brugh na Boinne, the great
+danger Diarmuid was in, that was his pupil at one time, and his dear
+foster-son. He set out then with the clear cold wind, and did not stop
+in any place till he came to Doire-da-Bhoth. And he went unknown to Finn
+or the Fianna into the place where Diarmuid and Grania were, and he
+spoke kind words to Diarmuid, and he said: "What is the thing you have
+done, grandson of Duibhne?" "It is," said Diarmuid, "the daughter of the
+King of Ireland that has made her escape with me from her father and
+from Finn, and it is not by my will she came." "Let each of you come
+under a border of my cloak, so," said Angus, "and I will bring you out
+of the place where you are without knowledge of Finn or his people."
+"Bring Grania with you," said Diarmuid, "but I will never go with you;
+but if I am alive I will follow you before long. And if I do not," he
+said, "give Grania to her father, and he will do well or ill to her."</p>
+
+<p>With that Angus put Grania under the border of his cloak, and brought
+her out unknown to Finn or the Fianna, and there is no news told of them
+till they came to Ros-da-Shoileach, the Headland of the Two Sallows.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Diarmuid, after Angus and Grania going from him, he stood up
+as straight as a pillar and put on his armour and his arms, and after
+that he went to a door of the seven doors he had made, and he asked who
+was at it. "There is no enemy to you here," they said, "for there are
+here Oisin and Osgar and the best men of the sons of Baiscne along with
+us. And come out to us now, and no one will have the daring to do any
+harm or hurt on you." "I will not go out to you," said Diarmuid, "till I
+see at what door Finn himself is." He went then to another door of the
+seven and asked who was at it. "Caoilte, son of Ronan, and the rest of
+the sons of Ronan along with him; and come out to us now, and we will
+give ourselves for your sake." "I will not go out to you," said
+Diarmuid, "for I will not put you under Finn's anger for any well-doing
+to myself." He went on to another door then and asked who was at it.
+"There is Conan, son of Morna, and the rest of the sons of Morna along
+with him; and it is enemies to Finn we are, and you are a great deal
+more to us than he is, and you may come out and no one will dare lay a
+hand on you." "I will not indeed," said Diarmuid, "for Finn would be
+better pleased to see the death of every one of you than to let me
+escape." He went then to another door and asked who was at it. "A friend
+and a comrade of your own, Fionn, son of Cuadan, head of the Fianna of
+Munster, and his men along with him; and we are of the one country and
+the one soil, and we will give our bodies and our lives for your sake."
+"I will not go out to you," said Diarmuid, "for I would not like Finn to
+have a grudge against you for any good you did to me." He went then to
+another door and asked who was at it. "It is Fionn, son of Glor, head
+of the Fianna of Ulster, and his men along him; and come out now to us
+and there is no one will dare hurt or harm you." "I will not go out to
+you," said Diarmuid, "for you are a friend to me, and your father along
+with you, and I would not like the unfriendliness of Finn to be put on
+you for my sake." He went then to another door, and he asked who was at
+it. "There is no friend of yours here," they said, "for there is here
+Aodh Beag the Little from Eamhuin, and Aodh Fada the Long from Eamhuin,
+and Caol Crodha the Fierce, and Goineach the Wounder, and Gothan the
+White-fingered, and Aoife his daughter, and Cuadan the Tracker from
+Eamhuin; and we are unfriendly people to you, and if you come out to us
+we will not spare you at all, but will make an end of you." "It is a bad
+troop is in it," said Diarmuid; "you of the lies and of the tracking and
+of the one shoe, and it is not fear of your hands is upon me, but
+because I am your enemy I will not go out."</p>
+
+<p>He went then to the last of the seven doors and asked who was at it. "No
+friend of yours," they said, "but it is Finn, son of Cumhal, and four
+hundred paid fighting men along with him; and if you will come out to us
+we will make opened marrow of you." "I give you my word, Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "that the door you are at yourself is the first door I will
+pass out of."</p>
+
+<p>When Finn heard that, he warned his battalions on pain of lasting death
+not to let Diarmuid past them unknown. But when Diarmuid heard what he
+said, he rose on the staves of his spears and he went with a very high,
+light leap on far beyond Finn and his people, without their knowledge.
+He looked back at them then, and called out that he had gone past them,
+and he put his shield on his back and went straight on towards the west,
+and it was not long before he was out of sight of Finn and the Fianna.
+Then when he did not see any one coming after him, he turned back to
+where he saw Angus and Grania going out of the wood, and he followed on
+their track till he came to Ros-da-Shoileach.</p>
+
+<p>He found Angus and Grania there in a sheltered, well-lighted cabin, and
+a great blazing fire kindled in it, and the half of a wild boar on
+spits. Diarmuid greeted them, and the life of Grania all to went out of
+her with joy before him.</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid told them his news from beginning to end, and they ate their
+share that night, and they went to sleep till the coming of the day and
+of the full light on the morrow. And Angus rose up early, and he said to
+Diarmuid: "I am going from you now, grandson of Duibhne; and I leave
+this advice with you," he said, "not to go into a tree with one trunk,
+and you flying before Finn, and not to be going into a cave of the earth
+that has but one door, and not to be going to an island of the sea that
+has but one harbour. And in whatever place you cook your share of food,"
+he said, "do not eat it there; and in whatever place you eat it, do not
+lie down there; and in whatever place you lie down, do not rise up there
+on the morrow." He said farewell to them after that, and went his way.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L72" id="L72" />CHAPTER III. THE GREEN CHAMPIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Then Diarmuid and Grania went along the right bank of the Sionnan
+westward till they came to Garbh-abha-na-Fiann, the rough river of the
+Fianna. And Diarmuid killed a salmon on the brink of the river, and put
+it to the fire on a spit. Then he himself and Grania went across the
+stream to eat it, as Angus bade them; and then they went westward to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>They rose up early on the morrow, and they travelled straight westward
+till they came to the marsh of Finnliath.</p>
+
+<p>And on the marsh they met with a young man, having a good shape and
+appearance, but without fitting dress or arms. Diarmuid greeted the
+young man, and asked news of him. "A fighting lad I am, looking for a
+master," he said, "and Muadhan is my name." "What would you do for me,
+young man?" said Diarmuid. "I would be a servant to you in the day, and
+watch for you in the night," he said. "I tell you to keep that young
+man," said Grania, "for you cannot be always without people."</p>
+
+<p>Then they made an agreement with him, and bound one another, and they
+went on together westward till they reached the Carrthach river. And
+then Muadhan bade Diarmuid and Grania to go up on his back till he would
+carry them over the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"That would be a big load for you," said Grania. But he put them upon
+his back and carried them over. Then they went on till they came to the
+Beith, and Muadhan brought them over on his back the same way. And they
+went into a cave at the side of Currach Cinn Adhmuid, the Woody Headland
+of the Bog, over Tonn Toime, and Muadhan made ready beds of soft rushes
+and tops of the birch for them in the far end of the cave. And he went
+himself into the scrub that was near, and took a straight long rod of a
+quicken-tree, and he put a hair and a hook on the rod, and a holly berry
+on the hook, and he went up the stream, and he took a salmon with the
+first cast. Then he put on a second berry and killed another fish, and
+he put on a third berry and killed the third fish. Then he put the hook
+and the hair under his belt, and struck the rod into the earth, and he
+brought the three salmon where Diarmuid and Grania were, and put them on
+spits. When they were done, Muadhan said: "I give the dividing of the
+fish to you, Diarmuid." "I would sooner you to divide it than myself,"
+said Diarmuid. "I will give the dividing of the fish to you, so,
+Grania," said he. "I am better satisfied you to divide it," said Grania.
+"If it was you that divided the fish, Diarmuid," said Muadhan, "you
+would have given the best share to Grania; and if it was Grania divided
+it, she would have given you the best share; and as it is myself is
+dividing it, let you have the biggest fish, Diarmuid, and let Grania
+have the second biggest, and I myself will have the one is smallest."</p>
+
+<p>They spent the night there, and Diarmuid and Grania slept in the far
+part of the cave, and Muadhan kept watch for them until the rising of
+the day and the full light of the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid rose up early, and he bade Grania keep watch for Muadhan, and
+that he himself would go and take a walk around the country. He went out
+then, and he went up on a hill that was near, and he was looking about
+him, east and west, north and south. He was not long there till he saw a
+great fleet of ships coming from the west, straight to the bottom of the
+hill where he was. And when they were come to land, nine times nine of
+the chief men of the ships came on shore, and Diarmuid went down and
+greeted them, and asked news of them, and to what country they belonged.</p>
+
+<p>"Three kings we are of the Green Champions of Muir-na-locht," said they;
+"and Finn, son of Cumhal, sent looking for us by cause of a thief of the
+woods, and an enemy of his own that has gone hiding from him; and it is
+to hinder him we are come. And we are twenty hundred good fighting men,
+and every one of us is a match for a hundred, and besides that," he
+said, "we have three deadly hounds with us; fire will not burn them, and
+water will not drown them, and arms will not redden on them, and we will
+lay them on his track, and it will be short till we get news of him.
+And tell us who you are yourself?" they said, "and have you any word of
+the grandson of Duibhne?" "I saw him yesterday," said Diarmuid; "and I
+myself," he said, "am but a fighting man, walking the world by the
+strength of my hand and by the hardness of my sword. And by my word," he
+said, "you will know Diarmuid's hand when you will meet it." "Well, we
+found no one up to this," said they. "What are your own names?" said
+Diarmuid. "Dubh-chosach, the Black-footed, Fionn-chosach, the
+Fair-footed, and Treun-chosach, the Strong-footed," they said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there wine in your ships?" said Diarmuid. "There is," said they. "If
+you have a mind to bring out a tun of wine," said Diarmuid, "I will do a
+trick for you." They sent men to get the tun, and when it came Diarmuid
+took it between his two hands and drank a drink out of it, and the
+others drank what was left of it. Diarmuid took up the tun after that,
+and brought it to the top of the hill, and he went up himself on the
+tun, and let it go down the steep of the hill till it was at the bottom.
+And then he brought the tun up the hill again, and he himself on it
+coming and going, and he did that trick three times before the
+strangers. But they said he was a man had never seen a good trick when
+he called that a trick; and with that a man of them went up on the tun,
+but Diarmuid gave a stroke of his foot at it and the young man fell from
+it before it began to move, and it rolled over him and crushed him, that
+he died. And another man went on it, and another after him again, till
+fifty of them were killed trying to do Diarmuid's trick, and as many of
+them as were not killed went back to their ships that night.</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid went back then to where he left Grania; and Muadhan put the
+hair and the hook on the rod till he killed three salmon; and they ate
+their meal that night, and he kept watch for them the same way he did
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid went out early the next day again to the hill, and it was not
+long till he saw the three strangers coming towards him, and he asked
+them would they like to see any more tricks. They said they would sooner
+get news of the grandson of Duibhne. "I saw a man that saw him
+yesterday," said Diarmuid. And with that he put off his arms and his
+clothes, all but the shirt that was next his skin, and he struck the
+Crann Buidhe, the spear of Manannan, into the earth with the point
+upwards. And then he rose with a leap and lit on the point of the spear
+as light as a bird, and came down off it again without a wound on him.
+Then a young man of the Green Champions said: "It is a man has never
+seen feats that would call that a feat"; and he put off his clothing and
+made a leap, and if he did he came down heavily on the point of the
+spear, and it went through his heart, and he fell to the ground. The
+next day Diarmuid came again, and he brought two forked poles out of the
+wood and put them standing upright on the hill, and he put the sword of
+Angus Og, the Mor-alltach, the Big-fierce one, between the two forks on
+its edge. Then he raised himself lightly over it, and walked on the
+sword three times from the hilt to the point, and he came down and asked
+was there a man of them could do that feat.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a foolish question," said a man of them then, "for there was
+never any feat done in Ireland but a man of our own would do it." And
+with that he rose up to walk on the sword; but it is what happened, he
+came down heavily on it the way he was cut in two halves.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the champions bade him take away his sword then, before any
+more of their people would fall by it; and they asked him had he any
+word of the grandson of Duibhne. "I saw a man that saw him to-day," said
+Diarmuid, "and I will go ask news of him to-night."</p>
+
+<p>He went back then to where Grania was, and Muadhan killed three salmon
+for their supper, and kept a watch for them through the night. And
+Diarmuid rose up at the early break of day, and he put his battle
+clothes on him, that no weapon could go through, and he took the sword
+of Angus, that left no leavings after it, at his left side, and his two
+thick-handled spears, the Gae Buidhe and the Gae Dearg, the Yellow and
+the Red, that gave wounds there was no healing for. And then he wakened
+Grania, and he bade her to keep watch for Muadhan, and he himself would
+go out and take a look around.</p>
+
+<p>When Grania saw him looking so brave, and dressed in his clothes of
+anger and of battle, great fear took hold of her, and she asked what was
+he going to do. "It is for fear of meeting my enemies I am like this,"
+said he. That quieted Grania, and then Diarmuid went out to meet the
+Green Champions.</p>
+
+<p>They came to land then, and they asked had he news of the grandson of
+Duibhne. "I saw him not long ago," said Diarmuid. "If that is so, let us
+know where is he," said they, "till we bring his head to Finn, son of
+Cumhal." "I would be keeping bad watch for him if I did that," said
+Diarmuid, "for his life and his body are under the protection of my
+valour, and by reason of that I will do no treachery on him." "Is that
+true?" said they. "It is true indeed," said Diarmuid. "Let you yourself
+quit this place, so," they said, "or we will bring your head to Finn
+since you are an enemy to him." "It is in bonds I would be," said
+Diarmuid, "the time I would leave my head with you." And with that he
+drew his sword the Mor-alltach out of its sheath, and he made a fierce
+blow at the head nearest him that put it in two halves. Then he made an
+attack on the whole host of the Green Champions, and began to destroy
+them, cutting through the beautiful shining armour of the men of
+Muir-na-locht till there was hardly a man but got shortening of life and
+the sorrow of death, or that could go back to give news of the fight,
+but only the three kings and a few of their people that made their
+escape back to their ships. Diarmuid turned back then without wound or
+hurt on him, and he went to where Crania and Muadhan were. They bade him
+welcome, and Grania asked him did he hear any news of Finn and the
+Fianna of Ireland, and he said he did not, and they ate their food and
+spent the night there.</p>
+
+<p>He rose up again with the early light of the morrow and went back to the
+hill, and when he got there he struck a great blow on his shield that
+set the strand shaking with the sound. And Dubh-chosach heard it, and he
+said he himself would go fight with Diarmuid, and he went on shore there
+and then.</p>
+
+<p>And he and Diarmuid threw the arms out of their hands and rushed on one
+another like wrestlers, straining their arms and their sinews, knotting
+their hands on one another's backs, fighting like bulls in madness, or
+like two daring hawks on the edge of a cliff. But at the last Diarmuid
+raised up Dubh-chosach on his shoulder and threw his body to the ground,
+and bound him fast and firm on the spot. And Fionn-chosach and
+Treun-chosach came one after the other to fight with him then, and he
+put the same binding on them; and he said he would strike the heads off
+them, only he thought it a worse punishment to leave them in those
+bonds. "For there is no one can free you," he said. And he left them
+there, worn out and sorrowful.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning after that, Diarmuid told Grania the whole story of the
+strangers from beginning to end, and of all he had done to them, and how
+on the fifth day he had put their kings in bonds. "And they have three
+fierce hounds in a chain ready to hunt me," he said. "Did you take the
+heads off those three kings?" said Grania, "I did not," said Diarmuid,
+"for there is no man of the heroes of Ireland can loosen those bonds but
+four only, Oisin, son of Finn, and Osgar, son of Oisin, and Lugaidh's
+Son of the Strong Hand, and Conan, son of Morna; and I know well," he
+said, "none of those four will do it. But all the same, it is short till
+Finn will get news of them, and it is best for us to be going from this
+cave, or Finn and the three hounds might come on us."</p>
+
+<p>After that they left the cave, and they went on till they came to the
+bog of Finnliath. Grania began to fall behind them, and Muadhan put her
+on his back and carried her till they came to the great Slieve Luachra.
+Then Diarmuid sat down on the brink of the stream that was flowing
+through the heart of the mountain, and Grania was washing her hands, and
+she asked his knife from him to cut her nails with.</p>
+
+<p>As to the strangers, as many of them as were alive yet, they came to the
+hill where their three leaders were bound, and they thought to loose
+them; but it is the way those bonds were, all they did by meddling with
+them was to draw them tighter.</p>
+
+<p>And they were not long there till they saw a woman coming towards them
+with the quickness of a swallow or a weasel or a blast of wind over bare
+mountain-tops. And she asked them who was it had done that great
+slaughter on them. "Who are you that is asking that?" said they. "I am
+the Woman of the Black Mountain, the woman-messenger of Finn, son of
+Cumhal," she said; "and it is looking for you Finn sent me." "Indeed we
+do not know who it was did this slaughter," they said, "but we will tell
+you his appearance. A young man he was, having dark curling hair and
+ruddy cheeks. And it is worse again to us," they said, "our three
+leaders to be bound this way, and we not able to loose them." "What way
+did that young man go from you?" said the woman. "It was late last
+night he left us," they said, "and we do not know where is he gone." "I
+give you my word," she said, "it was Diarmuid himself that was in it;
+and take your hounds now and lay them on his track, and I will send Finn
+and the Fianna of Ireland to you."</p>
+
+<p>They left a woman-Druid then attending on the three champions that were
+bound, and they brought their three hounds out of the ship and laid them
+on Diarmuid's track, and followed them till they came to the opening of
+the cave, and they went into the far part of it and found the beds where
+Diarmuid and Crania had slept. Then they went on westward till they came
+to the Carrthach river, and to the bog of Finnliath, and so on to the
+great Slieve Luachra.</p>
+
+<p>But Diarmuid did not know they were after him till he got sight of them
+with their banners of soft silk and their three wicked hounds in the
+front of the troop and three strong champions holding them in chains.
+And when he saw them coming like that he was filled with great hatred of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>There was one of them had a well-coloured green cloak on him, and he
+came out far beyond the others, and Grania gave the knife back to
+Diarmuid. "I think you have not much love for that young man of the
+green cloak, Grania," said Diarmuid. "I have not indeed," said Grania;
+"and it would be better if I had never given love to any man at all to
+this day." Diarmuid put the knife in the sheath then, and went on; and
+Muadhan put Grania on his back and carried her on into the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long till a hound of the three hounds was loosed after
+Diarmuid, and Muadhan said to him to follow Grania, and he himself would
+check the hound. Then Muadhan turned back, and he took a whelp out of
+his belt, and put it on the flat of his hand. And when the whelp saw the
+hound rushing towards him, and its jaws open, he rose up and made a leap
+from Muadhan's hand into the throat of the hound, and came out of its
+side, bringing the heart with it, and he leaped back again to Muadhan's
+hand, and left the hound dead after him.</p>
+
+<p>Muadhan went on then after Diarmuid and Grania, and he took up Grania
+again and carried her a bit of the way into the mountain. Then another
+hound was loosened after them, and Diarmuid said to Muadhan: "I often
+heard there is nothing can stand against weapons of Druid wounding, and
+the throat of no beast can be made safe from them. And will you stand
+now," he said, "till I put the Gae Dearg, the Red Spear, through that
+hound."</p>
+
+<p>Then Muadhan and Grania stopped to see the cast. And Diarmuid made a
+cast at the hound, and the spear went through its body and brought out
+its bowels; and he took up the spear again, and they went forward.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after that the third hound was loosed. And Grania said
+then: "This is the one is fiercest of them, and there is great fear on
+me, and mind yourself now, Diarmuid."</p>
+
+<p>It was not long till the hound overtook them, and the place he overtook
+them was Lic Dhubhain, the flag-stone of Dubhan, on Slieve Luachra. He
+rose with a light leap over Diarmuid, as if he had a mind to seize on
+Grania, but Diarmuid took him by the two hind legs, and struck a blow of
+his carcase against the side of the rock was nearest, till he had let
+out his brains through the openings of his head and of his ears. And
+then Diarmuid took up his arms and his battle clothes, and put his
+narrow-topped finger into the silken string of the Gae Dearg, and he
+made a good cast at the young man of the green cloak that was at the
+head of the troop that killed him. Then he made another cast at the
+second man and killed him, and the third man in the same way. And as it
+is not the custom to stand after leaders are fallen, the strangers when
+they saw what had happened took to flight.</p>
+
+<p>And Diarmuid followed after them, killing and scattering, so that unless
+any man of them got away over the forests, or into the green earth, or
+under the waters, there was not a man or messenger of them left to tell
+the news, but only the Woman-messenger of the Black Mountain, that kept
+moving around about when Diarmuid was putting down the strangers.</p>
+
+<p>And it was not long till Finn saw her coming towards him where he was,
+her legs failing, and her tongue muttering, and her eyes drooping, and
+he asked news of her. "It is very bad news I have to tell you," she
+said; "and it is what I think, that it is a person without a lord I am."
+Then she told Finn the whole story from beginning to end, of the
+destruction Diarmuid had done, and how the three deadly hounds had
+fallen by him. "And it is hardly I myself got away," she said. "What
+place did the grandson of Duibhne go to?" said Finn. "I do not know
+that," she said.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn heard of the Kings of the Green Champions that were bound
+by Diarmuid, he called his men to him, and they went by every short way
+and every straight path till they reached the hill, and it was torment
+to the heart of Finn to see the way they were. Then he said: "Oisin," he
+said, "loosen those three kings for me." "I will not loosen them," said
+Oisin, "for Diarmuid put bonds on me not to loosen any man he would
+bind." "Loosen them, Osgar," said Finn then. "I give my word," said
+Osgar, "it is more bonds I would wish to put on them sooner than to
+loosen them." Neither would Conan help them, or Lugaidh's Son. And any
+way, they were not long talking about it till the three kings died under
+the hardness of the bonds that were on them.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn made three wide-sodded graves for them, and a flag-stone was
+put over them, and another stone raised over that again, and their names
+were written in branching Ogham, and it is tired and heavy-hearted Finn
+was after that; and he and his people went back to Almhuin of Leinster.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L73" id="L73" />CHAPTER IV. THE WOOD OF DUBHROS</h2>
+
+
+<p>And as to Diarmuid and Grania and Muadhan, they went on through Ui
+Chonaill Gabhra, and left-hand ways to Ros-da-Shoileach, and Diarmuid
+killed a wild deer that night, and they had their fill of meat and of
+pure water, and they slept till the morning of the morrow. And Muadhan
+rose up early, and spoke to Diarmuid, and it is what he said, that he
+himself was going away. "It is not right for you to do that," said
+Diarmuid, "for everything I promised you I fulfilled it, without any
+dispute."</p>
+
+<p>But he could not hinder him, and Muadhan said farewell to them and left
+them there and then, and it is sorrowful and downhearted Diarmuid and
+Grania were after him.</p>
+
+<p>After that they travelled on straight to the north, to Slieve Echtge,
+and from that to the hundred of Ui Fiachrach; and when they got there
+Grania was tired out, but she took courage and went on walking beside
+Diarmuid till they came to the wood of Dubhros.</p>
+
+<p>Now, there was a wonderful quicken-tree in that wood, and the way it
+came to be there is this:</p>
+
+<p>There rose a dispute one time between two women of the Tuatha de Danaan,
+Aine and Aoife, daughters of Manannan, son of Lir, for Aoife had given
+her love to Lugaidh's Son, and Aine had given her love to a man of her
+own race, and each of them said her own man was a better hurler than the
+other. And it came from that dispute that there was a great hurling
+match settled between the Men of Dea and the Fianna of Ireland, and the
+place it was to be played was on a beautiful plain near Loch Lein.</p>
+
+<p>They all came together there, and the highest men and the most daring of
+the Tuatha de Danaan were there, the three Garbhs of Slieve Mis, and the
+three Mases of Slieve Luachra, and the three yellow-haired Murchadhs,
+and the three Eochaidhs of Aine, and the three Fionns of the White
+House, and the three Sgals of Brugh na Boinne, and the three Ronans of
+Ath na Riogh, and the Suirgheach Suairc, the Pleasant Wooer from Lionan,
+and the Man of Sweet Speech from the Boinn, and Ilbrec, the
+Many-Coloured, son of Manannan, and Neamhanach, son of Angus Og, and
+Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and Manannan, son of Lir.</p>
+
+<p>They themselves and the Fianna were playing the match through the length
+of three days and three nights, from Leamhain to the valley of the
+Fleisg, that is called the Crooked Valley of the Fianna, and neither of
+them winning a goal. And when the Tuatha de Danaan that were watching
+the game on each side of Leamhain saw it was so hard for their hurlers
+to win a goal against the Fianna, they thought it as well to go away
+again without playing out the game.</p>
+
+<p>Now the provision the Men of Dea had brought with them from the Land of
+Promise was crimson nuts, and apples, and sweet-smelling rowan berries.
+And as they were passing through the district of Ui Fiachrach by the
+Muaidh, a berry of the rowan berries fell from them, and a tree grew up
+from it. And there was virtue in its berries, and no sickness or disease
+would ever come on any person that would eat them, and those that would
+eat them would feel the liveliness of wine and the satisfaction of mead
+in them, and any old person of a hundred years that would eat them would
+go back to be young again, and any young girl that would eat them would
+grow to be a flower of beauty.</p>
+
+<p>And it happened one time after the tree was grown, there were messengers
+of the Tuatha de Danaan going through the wood of Dubhros. And they
+heard a great noise of birds and of bees, and they went where the noise
+was, and they saw the beautiful Druid tree. They went back then and told
+what they had seen, and all the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan when
+they heard it knew the tree must have grown from a berry of the Land of
+the Ever-Living Living Ones. And they enquired among all their people,
+till they knew it was a young man of them, that was a musician, had
+dropped the berry.</p>
+
+<p>And it is what they agreed, to send him in search of a man of Lochlann
+that would guard the tree by day and sleep in it by night. And the women
+of the Sidhe were very downhearted to see him going from them, for there
+was no harper could play half so sweetly on his harp as he could play on
+an ivy leaf.</p>
+
+<p>He went on then till he came to Lochlann, and he sat down on a bank and
+sleep came on him. And he slept till the rising of the sun on the
+morrow; and when he awoke he saw a very big man coming towards him, that
+asked him who was he. "I am a messenger from the Men of Dea," he said;
+"and I am come looking for some very strong man that would be willing to
+guard a Druid tree that is in the wood of Dubhros. And here are some of
+the berries he will be eating from morning to night," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And when the big man had tasted the berries, he said: "I will go and
+guard all the trees of the wood to get those berries."</p>
+
+<p>And his name was the Searbhan Lochlannach, the Surly One of Lochlann.
+Very black and ugly he was, having crooked teeth, and one eye only in
+the middle of his forehead. And he had a thick collar of iron around his
+body, and it was in the prophecy that he would never die till there
+would be three strokes of the iron club he had, struck upon himself. And
+he slept in the tree by night and stopped near it in the daytime, and he
+made a wilderness of the whole district about him, and none of the
+Fianna dared go hunt there because of the dread of him that was on them.</p>
+
+<p>But when Diarmuid came to the wood of Dubhros, he went into it to where
+the Surly One was, and he made bonds of agreement with him, and got
+leave from him to go hunting in the wood, so long as he would not touch
+the berries of the tree. And he made a cabin then for himself and for
+Grania in the wood.</p>
+
+<p>As for Finn and his people, they were not long at Almhuin till they saw
+fifty armed men coming towards them, and two that were taller and
+handsomer than the rest in the front of them. Finn asked did any of his
+people know them. "We do not know them," they said, "but maybe you
+yourself know them, Finn." "I do not," he said; "but it seems to be they
+are enemies to myself." The troop of armed men came up to them then and
+they greeted him, and Finn asked news of them, and from what country
+they came. "I am Aonghus, son of Art Og of the children of Morna," one
+of them said, "and this is Aodh, son of Andela; and we are enemies of
+your own, and our fathers were at the killing of your father, and they
+themselves died for that deed. And it is to ask peace we are come now to
+you," they said. "Where were you the time my father was killed?" "In our
+mothers' wombs," said they; "and our mothers were two women of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, and it is time for us now to get our father's place
+among the Fianna." "I will give you that," said Finn, "but I must put a
+fine on you first in satisfaction for my father's death." "We have
+neither gold or silver or goods or cattle to give you, Finn," said they.
+"Do not put a fine on them, Finn," said Oisin, "beyond the death of
+their fathers for your father." "It is what I think," said Finn, "if any
+one killed myself, Oisin, it would be easy to pay the fine you would
+ask. And there will no one come among the Fianna," he said, "without
+giving what I ask in satisfaction for my father's death." "What is it
+you are asking of us?" said Aonghus, son of Art Og. "I am asking but the
+head of a champion, or the full of a fist of the berries of the
+quicken-tree at Dubhros." "I will give you a good advice, children of
+Morna," said Oisin, "to go back to the place you were reared, and not to
+ask peace of Finn through the length of your lives. For it is not an
+easy thing Finn is asking of you; and do you know whose head he is
+asking you to bring him?" "We do not," said they. "The head of Diarmuid,
+grandson of Duibhne, is the head he is asking of you. And if you were
+twenty hundred men in their full strength, Diarmuid would not let you
+take that head." "And what are the berries Finn is asking of us?" they
+said then. "There is nothing is harder for you to get than those
+berries," said Oisin.</p>
+
+<p>He told them then the whole story of the tree, and of the Searbhan, the
+Surly One of Lochlann, that was put to mind it by the Tuatha de Danaan.
+But Aodh, son of Andela, spoke then, and it is what he said, that he
+would sooner get his death looking for those berries than to go home
+again to his mother's country. And he said to Oisin to care his people
+till he would come back again, and if anything should happen himself and
+his brother in their journey, to send them back again to the Land of
+Promise. And the two said farewell then to Oisin and to the chief men of
+the Fianna, and they went forward till they reached Dubhros. And they
+went along the wood till they found a track, and they followed it to
+the door of the hunting-cabin where Diarmuid and Grania were.</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid heard them coming, and he put his hand on his weapons and asked
+who was at the door. "We are of the children of Morna," they said,
+"Aodh, son of Andela, and Aonghus, son of Art Og." "What brings you to
+this wood?" said Diarmuid. "Finn, son of Cumhal, that put us looking for
+your head, if you are Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," said they. "I am
+indeed," said Diarmuid. "If that is so," they said, "Finn will take
+nothing from us but your head, or a fistful of the berries of the
+quicken-tree of Dubhros as satisfaction for the death of his father."
+"It is not easy for you to get either of those things," said Diarmuid,
+"and it is a pity for any one to be under the power of that man. And
+besides that," he said, "I know it was he himself made an end of your
+fathers, and that was enough satisfaction for him to get; and if you do
+bring him what he asks, it is likely he will not make peace with you in
+the end." "Is it not enough for you," said Aodh, "to have brought his
+wife away from Finn without speaking ill of him?" "It is not for the
+sake of speaking ill of him I said that," said Diarmuid, "but to save
+yourselves from the danger he has sent you into."</p>
+
+<p>"What are those berries Finn is asking?" said Grania, "that they cannot
+be got for him?"</p>
+
+<p>Diarmuid told her then the whole story of the berry the Tuatha de Danaan
+had lost, and of the tree that had sprung up from it, and of the man of
+Lochlann that was keeping the tree. "And at the time Finn sent me hiding
+here and became my enemy," he said, "I got leave from the Surly One to
+hunt, but he bade me never to meddle with the berries. And now, sons of
+Morna," he said, "there is your choice, to fight with me for my head, or
+to go asking the berries of the Surly One." "I swear by the blood of my
+people," said each of them, "I will fight with yourself first."</p>
+
+<p>With that the two young men made ready for the fight. And it is what
+they chose, to fight with the strength of their hands alone. And
+Diarmuid put them down and bound the two of them there and then. "That
+is a good fight you made," said Grania. "But, by my word," she said,
+"although the children of Morna do not go looking for those berries, I
+will not lie in a bed for ever till I get a share of them; and I will
+not live if I do not get them," she said. "Do not make me break my peace
+with the Surly One," said Diarmuid, "for he will not let me take them."
+"Loose these tyings from us," said the two young men, "and we will go
+with you, and we will give ourselves for your sake." "You must not come
+with me," said Diarmuid; "for if you got the full of your eyes of that
+terrible one, you would be more likely to die than to live." "Well, do
+us this kindness," they said then; "loosen these bonds on us, and give
+us time to go by ourselves and see the fight before you strike off our
+heads." So Diarmuid did that for them.</p>
+
+<p>Then Diarmuid went to the Surly One, and he chanced to be asleep before
+him, and he gave him a stroke of his foot the way he lifted his head and
+looked up at him, and he said: "Have you a mind to break our peace,
+Grandson of Duibhne?" "That is not what I want," said Diarmuid; "but it
+is Grania, daughter of the High King," he said, "has a desire to taste
+those berries, and it is to ask a handful of them I am come." "I give my
+word," said he, "if she is to die for it, she will never taste a berry
+of those berries." "I would not do treachery on you," said Diarmuid;
+"and so I tell you, willing or unwilling, I will take those berries from
+you."</p>
+
+<p>When the Surly One heard that, he rose up on his feet and lifted his
+club and struck three great blows on Diarmuid, that gave him some
+little hurt in spite of his shield. But when Diarmuid saw him not
+minding himself, he threw down his weapons, and made a great leap and
+took hold of the club with his two hands. And when he had a hold of the
+club he struck three great blows on him that put his brains out through
+his head. And the two young men of the sons of Morna were looking at the
+whole fight; and when they saw the Surly One was killed they came out.
+And Diarmuid sat down, for he was spent with the dint of the fight, and
+he bid the young men to bury the body under the thickets of the wood,
+the way Grania would not see it. "And after that," he said, "let you go
+back to her and bring her here." So they dragged away the body and
+buried it, and they went then for Grania and brought her to Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>"There are the berries you were asking, Grania," he said, "and you may
+take what you like of them now." "I give my word," said Grania, "I will
+not taste a berry of those berries but the one your own hand will pluck,
+Diarmuid." Diarmuid rose up then and plucked the berries for Grania, and
+for the children of Morna, and they ate their fill of them. And he said
+then to the young men: "Take all you can of these berries, and bring
+them with you to Finn, and tell him it was yourselves made an end of the
+Surly One of Lochlann." "We give you our word," said they, "we begrudge
+giving any of them to Finn."</p>
+
+<p>But Diarmuid plucked a load of the berries for them, and they gave him
+great thanks for all he had done; and they went back to where Finn was
+with the Fianna. And Diarmuid and Grania went up into the top of the
+tree where the bed of the Surly One was. And the berries below were but
+bitter berries beside the ones above in the tree. And when the two young
+men came to Finn, he asked news of them. "We have killed the Surly One
+of Lochlann," they said; "and we have brought you berries from the
+quicken-tree of Dubhros, in satisfaction for your father, that we may
+get peace from you." They gave the berries then into Finn's hand, and he
+knew them, and he said to the young men: "I give you my word," he said,
+"it was Diarmuid himself plucked those berries, for I know the smell of
+his hand on them; and I know well it was he killed the Surly One, and I
+will go now and see is he himself alive at the quicken-tree."</p>
+
+<p>After that he called for the seven battalions of the Fianna, and he set
+out and went forward to Dubhros. And they followed the track of Diarmuid
+to the foot of the quicken-tree, and they found the berries without
+protection, so they ate their fill of them. And the great heat of the
+day came on them, and Finn said they would stop where they were till the
+heat would be past; "for I know well," he said, "Diarmuid is up in the
+quicken-tree." "It is a great sign of jealousy in you, Finn," said
+Oisin, "to think that Diarmuid would stop there up in the quicken-tree
+and he knowing you are wanting to kill him."</p>
+
+<p>Finn asked for a chess-board after that, and he said to Oisin: "I will
+play a game with you now on this." They sat down then, Oisin and Osgar
+and Lugaidh's Son and Diorraing on the one side of the board, and Finn
+on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>And they were playing that game with great skill and knowledge, and Finn
+pressed Oisin so hard that he had no move to make but the one, and Finn
+said: "There is one move would win the game for you, Oisin, and I defy
+all that are with you to show you that move." Then Diarmuid said up in
+the tree where he was, and no one heard him but Grania: "It is a pity
+you be in straits, and without myself to show you that move." "It is
+worse off you are yourself," said Grania, "to be in the bed of the
+Surly One of Lochlann in the top of the quicken-tree, and the seven
+battalions of the Fianna round about it to take your life."</p>
+
+<p>But Diarmuid took a berry of the tree, and aimed at the one of the
+chessmen that ought to be moved, and Oisin moved it and turned the game
+against Finn by that move. It was not long before the game was going
+against Oisin the second time, and when Diarmuid saw that he threw
+another berry at the chessman it was right to move, and Oisin moved it
+and turned the game against Finn in the same way. And the third time
+Finn was getting the game from Oisin, and Diarmuid threw the third berry
+on the man that would give the game to Oisin, and the Fianna gave a
+great shout when the game was won. Finn spoke then, and it is what he
+said: "It is no wonder you to win the game, Oisin, and you having the
+help of Osgar, and the watchfulness of Diorraing, and the skill of
+Lugaidh's Son, and the teaching of the grandson of Duibhne with you."
+"That is a great sign of jealousy in you, Finn," said Osgar, "to think
+Diarmuid would stop in this tree, and you so near him." "Which of us has
+the truth, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," Finn said out then, "myself
+or Osgar?" "You never lost your good judgment, Finn," said Diarmuid
+then; "and I myself and Grania are here, in the bed of the Surly One of
+Lochlann." Then Diarmuid rose up and gave three kisses to Grania in the
+sight of Finn and the Fianna. And a scorching jealousy and a weakness
+came on Finn when he saw that, and he said: "It was worse to me,
+Diarmuid, the seven battalions of the Fianna to see what you did at
+Teamhair, taking away Grania the night you were yourself my guard. But
+for all that," he said, "you will give your head for the sake of those
+three kisses."</p>
+
+<p>With that Finn called to the four hundred paid fighting men that were
+with him that they might make an end of Diarmuid; and he put their
+hands into one another's hands around that quicken-tree, and bade them,
+if they would not lose their lives, not to let Diarmuid pass out through
+them. And he said that to whatever man would take Diarmuid, he would
+give his arms and his armour, and a place among the Fianna of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Then one of the Fianna, Garbh of Slieve Cua, said it was Diarmuid had
+killed his own father, and he would avenge him now, and he went up the
+quicken-tree to make an end of him.</p>
+
+<p>Now, about that time it was made known to Angus Og, in Brugh na Boinne,
+the danger Diarmuid was in, and he came to his help, unknown to the
+Fianna. And when Garbh of Slieve Cua was coming up the tree, Diarmuid
+gave him a kick of his foot, and he fell down among the hired men, and
+they struck off his head, for Angus Og had put the appearance of
+Diarmuid on him. But after he was killed, his own shape came on him
+again, and the Fianna knew that it was Garbh was killed.</p>
+
+<p>Then Garbh of Slieve Crot said it was Diarmuid had killed his father,
+and he went up to avenge him, and the same thing happened. And in the
+end all the nine Garbhs, of Slieve Guaire, and Slieve Muice, and Slieve
+Mor, and Slieve Lugha, and Ath Fraoch, and Slieve Mis and Drom-mor, went
+trying to take Diarmuid's life and lost their own lives, every one of
+them having the shape and appearance of Diarmuid when he died. And Finn
+was very sorry and discouraged when he saw that these nine men had come
+to their death.</p>
+
+<p>Then Angus said he would bring away Grania with him. "Do so," said
+Diarmuid; "and if I am living at evening I will follow you." Then Angus
+said farewell to Diarmuid, and he put his Druid cloak about Grania and
+about himself, and they went away in the safety of the cloak, unknown to
+Finn and the Fianna, till they came to Brugh na Boinne.</p>
+
+<p>Then Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, spoke, and it is what he said: "I
+will come down to you, Finn, and to the Fianna. And I will do death and
+destruction on you and on your people, for I am certain your mind is
+made up to give me no rest, but to bring me to my death in some place.
+And I have nowhere to go from this danger," he said, "for I have no
+friend or comrade under whose protection I could go in any far part of
+the great world, for it is often I fought against the men of the great
+world for love of you. For there never came battle or fight, danger or
+trouble on you, but I would go into it for your sake and the sake of the
+Fianna; and not only that, but I would fight before you and after you.
+And I give my word, Finn," he said, "you will pay hard for me, and you
+will not get me as a free gift." "It is the truth Diarmuid is speaking,"
+said Osgar, "and give him forgiveness now, and peace." "I will not do
+that," said Finn, "to the end of life and time; and he will not get
+peace or rest for ever till I get satisfaction from him for every
+reproach he has put on me." "It is a great shame and a great sign of
+jealousy you to say that," said Osgar. "And I give the word of a true
+champion," he said, "that unless the skies come down upon me, or the
+earth opens under my feet, I will not let you or any one of the Fianna
+of Ireland give him cut or wound; and I take his body and his life under
+the protection of my valour, and I will keep him safe against all the
+men of Ireland." "Those are big words you have, Osgar," said Goll then,
+"to say you would bring a man away in spite of all the men of Ireland."
+"It is not you will raise them up against me, Goll," said Osgar, "for
+none of them would mind what you would say." "If that is what you are
+saying, you champion of great fights," said Goll, "let us see now what
+you can do." "You will have to go through with the fight you have taken
+on yourself," said Corrioll, son of Goll, in a loud voice. And Osgar
+answered him fiercely: "If I do I will shorten your bones, and your
+father's bones along with them. And come down now, Diarmuid," he said,
+"since Finn has no mind to leave you in peace, and I promise on my body
+and my life there will no harm be done to you to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Then Diarmuid stood up on a high bough of the boughs of the tree, and he
+rose with a light leap by the shaft of his spear, and lit on the grass
+far beyond Finn and the Fianna. And he himself and Osgar went towards
+one another, in spite of the Fianna that went between them, and Diarmuid
+struck down those that were in his way; and as to Osgar, the throwing of
+his spears as he scattered the Fianna was like the sound of the wind
+going through a valley, or water falling over flag-stones. And Conan,
+that was always bitter, said: "Let the sons of Baiscne go on killing one
+another." But Finn, when he saw Diarmuid was gone from him, bade them
+put their weapons up, and turn back again to Almhuin.</p>
+
+<p>And he sent those of his men that could be healed to places of healing,
+and the nine Garbhs, and the others of his men that were killed, he put
+into wide-sodded graves. And it is tired and downhearted and sorrowful
+he was after that, and he made an oath he would take no great rest till
+he would have avenged on Diarmuid all that he had done.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L74" id="L74" />CHAPTER V. THE QUARREL</h2>
+
+
+<p>And as to Osgar and Diarmuid, they went on, and no cut or wound on them,
+to where Angus and Grania were at Brugh na Boinne; and there was a good
+welcome before them, and Diarmuid told them the whole story from
+beginning to end, and it is much that Grania did not die then and there,
+hearing all he had gone through.</p>
+
+<p>And then she and Diarmuid set out again, and they went and stopped for
+a while in a cave that was near the sea.</p>
+
+<p>And one night while they were there a great storm came on, so that they
+went into the far part of the cave. But bad as the night was, a man of
+the Fomor, Ciach, the Fierce One, his name was, came over the western
+ocean in a currach, with two oars, and he drew it into the cave for
+shelter. And Diarmuid bade him welcome, and they sat down to play chess
+together. And he got the best of the game, and what he asked as his
+winnings was Grania to be his wife, and he put his arms about her as if
+to bring her away. And Grania said: "I am this long time going with the
+third best man of the Fianna, and he never came as near as that to me."</p>
+
+<p>And Diarmuid took his sword to kill Ciach, and there was anger on Grania
+when she saw that, and she had a knife in her hand and she struck it
+into Diarmuid's thigh. And Diarmuid made an end of the Fomor, and he
+said no word to Grania, but ran out and away through the storm.</p>
+
+<p>And Grania went following after him, and calling to him, but there was
+great anger on him and he would not answer her. And at last at the break
+of day she overtook him, and after a while they heard the cry of a
+heron, and she asked him what was it made the heron cry out.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me that," she said, "Grandson of Duibhne, to whom I gave my love."
+And Diarmuid said: "O Grania, daughter of the High King, woman who never
+took a step aright, it is because she was frozen to the rocks she gave
+that cry." And Grania was asking forgiveness of him, and he was
+reproaching her, and it is what he said: "O Grania of the beautiful
+hair, though you are more beautiful than the green tree under blossom,
+your love passes away as quickly as the cold cloud at break of day. And
+you are asking a hard thing of me now," he said, "and it is a pity what
+you said to me, Grania, for it was you brought me away from the house of
+my lord, that I am banished from it to this day; and now I am troubled
+through the night, fretting after its delight in every place.</p>
+
+<p>"I am like a wild deer, or a beast that is astray, going ever and always
+through the long valleys; there is great longing on me to see one of my
+kindred from the host.</p>
+
+<p>"I left my own people that were brighter than lime or snow; their heart
+was full of generosity to me, like the sun that is high above us; but
+now they follow me angrily, to every harbour and every strand.</p>
+
+<p>"I lost my people by you, and my lord, and my large bright ships on
+every sea; I lost my treasure and my gold; it is hunger you gave me
+through your love.</p>
+
+<p>"I lost my country and my kindred; my men that were used to serve me; I
+lost quietness and affection; I lost the men of Ireland and the Fianna
+entirely.</p>
+
+<p>"I lost delight and music; I lost my own right doing and my honour; I
+lost the Fianna of Ireland, my great kinsmen, for the sake of the love
+you gave me.</p>
+
+<p>"O Grania, white as snow, it would have been a better choice for you to
+have given hatred to me, or gentleness to the Head of the Fianna."</p>
+
+<p>And Grania said: "O Diarmuid of the face like snow, or like the down of
+the mountains, the sound of your voice was dearer to me than all the
+riches of the leader of the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>"Your blue eye is dearer to me than his strength, and his gold and his
+great hall; the love-spot on your forehead is better to me than honey in
+streams; the time I first looked on it, it was more to me than the whole
+host of the King of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>"My heart fell down there and then before your high beauty; when you
+came beside me, it was like the whole of life in one day.</p>
+
+<p>"O Diarmuid of the beautiful hands, take me now the same as before; it
+was with me the fault was entirely; give me your promise not to leave
+me."</p>
+
+<p>But Diarmuid said: "How can I take you again, you are a woman too fond
+of words; one day you give up the Head of the Fianna, and the next day
+myself, and no lie in it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is you parted me from Finn, the way I fell under sorrow and grief;
+and then you left me yourself, the time I was full of affection."</p>
+
+<p>And Grania said: "Do not leave me now this way, and my love for you ever
+growing like the fresh branches of the tree with the kind long heat of
+the day."</p>
+
+<p>But Diarmuid would not give in to her, and he said: "You are a woman
+full of words, and it is you have put me under sorrow. I took you with
+myself, and you struck at me for the sake of the man of the Fomor."</p>
+
+<p>They came then to a place where there was a cave, and water running by
+it, and they stopped to rest; and Grania said: "Have you a mind to eat
+bread and meat now, Diarmuid?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would eat it indeed if I had it," said Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a knife, so," she said, "till I cut it." "Look for the knife in
+the sheath where you put it yourself," said Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>She saw then that the knife was in his thigh where she had struck it,
+for he would not draw it out himself. So she drew it out then; and that
+was the greatest shame that ever came upon her.</p>
+
+<p>They stopped then in the cave. And the next day when they went on again,
+Diarmuid did not leave unbroken bread like he had left every other day
+as a sign to Finn that he had kept his faith with him, but it was broken
+bread he left after him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L75" id="L75" />CHAPTER VI. THE WANDERERS</h2>
+
+
+<p>And they went on wandering after that, all through Ireland, hiding from
+Finn in every place, sleeping under the cromlechs, or with no shelter at
+all, and there was no place they would dare to stop long in. And
+wherever they went Finn would follow them, for he knew by his divination
+where they went. But one time he made out they were on a mountain, for
+he saw them with heather under them; and it was beside the sea they
+were, asleep on heather that Diarmuid had brought down from the hills
+for their bed; and so he went searching the hills and did not find them.</p>
+
+<p>And Grania would be watching over Diarmuid while he slept, and she would
+make a sleepy song for him, and it is what she would be saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep a little, a little little, for there is nothing at all to fear,
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne; sleep here soundly, soundly, Diarmuid, to
+whom I have given my love.</p>
+
+<p>"It is I will keep watch for you, grandchild of shapely Duibhne; sleep a
+little, a blessing on you, beside the well of the strong field; my lamb
+from above the lake, from the banks of the strong streams.</p>
+
+<p>"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the South, of Dedidach of the high
+poets, the time he took away old Morann's daughter, for all Conall could
+do against him.</p>
+
+<p>"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the North, of fair comely
+Fionnchadh of Ess Ruadh, the time he took Slaine with bravery as we
+think, in spite of Failbhe of the Hard Head.</p>
+
+<p>"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the West, of Aine, daughter of
+Gailian, the time she went on a journey in the night with Dubhthach from
+Doirinis, by the light of torches.</p>
+
+<p>"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the East, of Deaghadh the proud,
+the brave fighter, the time he took Coincheann, daughter of Binn, in
+spite of fierce Decheall of Duibhreann.</p>
+
+<p>"O heart of the valour of the lands to the west of Greece, my heart
+will go near to breaking if I do not see you every day. The parting of
+us two will be the parting of two children of the one house; it will be
+the parting of life from the body, Diarmuid, hero of the bright lake of
+Carman."</p>
+
+<p>And then to rouse him she would make another song, and it is what she
+would say: "Caoinche will be loosed on your track; it is not slow the
+running of Caoilte will be; do not let death reach to you, do not give
+yourself to sleep for ever.</p>
+
+<p>"The stag to the east is not asleep, he does not cease from bellowing;
+though he is in the woods of the blackbirds, sleep is not in his mind;
+the hornless doe is not asleep, crying after her speckled fawn; she is
+going over the bushes, she does not sleep in her home.</p>
+
+<p>"The cuckoo is not asleep, the thrush is not asleep, the tops of the
+trees are a noisy place; the duck is not asleep, she is made ready for
+good swimming; the bog lark is not asleep to-night on the high stormy
+bogs; the sound of her clear voice is sweet; she is not sleeping between
+the streams."</p>
+
+<p>One time they were in a cave of Beinn Edair, and there was an old woman
+befriending them and helping them to keep a watch. And one day she
+chanced to go up to the top of Beinn Edair, and she saw an armed man
+coming towards her, and she did now know him to be Finn; and when he was
+come near she asked what was he looking for. "It is looking for a woman
+I am come," he said, "and for a woman's love. And will you do all I will
+ask you?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I will do that," she said; for she thought it was her own love he was
+asking.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me then," he said, "where is Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne?"</p>
+
+<p>So she told him where he was hiding, and he bade her to keep him in the
+cave till such time as he would come back with his men.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman went back then, and it is what she did, she dipped her
+cloak in the sea-water before she went into the cave; and Diarmuid asked
+her why was her cloak so wet. "It is," she said, "that I never saw or
+never heard of the like of this day for cold and for storms. There is
+frost on every hillside," she said, "and there is not a smooth plain in
+all Elga where there is not a long rushing river between every two
+ridges. And there is not a deer or a crow in the whole of Ireland can
+find a shelter in any place." And she was shaking the wet off her cloak,
+and she was making a complaint against the cold, and it is what she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Cold, cold, cold to-night is the wide plain of Lurg; the snow is higher
+than the mountains, the deer cannot get at their share of food.</p>
+
+<p>"Cold for ever; the storm is spread over all; every furrow on the
+hillside is a river, every ford is a full pool, every full loch is a
+great sea; every pool is a full loch; horses cannot go through the ford
+of Ross any more than a man on his two feet.</p>
+
+<p>"The fishes of Inisfail are going astray; there is no strand or no pen
+against the waves; there are no dwellings in the country, there is no
+bell heard, no crane is calling.</p>
+
+<p>"The hounds of the wood of Cuan find no rest or no sleep in their
+dwelling-place; the little wren cannot find shelter in her nest on the
+slope of Lon.</p>
+
+<p>"A sharp wind and cold ice have come on the little company of birds; the
+blackbird cannot get a ridge to her liking or shelter for her side in
+the woods of Cuan.</p>
+
+<p>"It is steady our great pot hangs from its hook; it is broken the cabin
+is on the slope of Lon; the snow has made the woods smooth, it is hard
+to climb to the ridge of Bennait Bo.</p>
+
+<p>"The ancient bird of Glen Ride gets grief from the bitter wind; it is
+great is her misery and her pain, the ice will be in her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind well not to rise up from coverings and from down, mind this well;
+there would be no good sense in it. Ice is heaped up in every ford; it
+is for that I am saying and ever saying 'Cold.'"</p>
+
+<p>The old woman went out after that, and when she was gone, Grania took
+hold of the cloak she had left there and she put her tongue to it, and
+found the taste of salt water on it. "My grief, Diarmuid," she said
+then, "the old woman has betrayed us. And rise up now," she said, "and
+put your fighting suit upon you."</p>
+
+<p>So Diarmuid did that, and he went out, and Grania along with him. And no
+sooner were they outside than they saw Finn and the Fianna of Ireland
+coming towards them. Then Diarmuid looked around him and he saw a little
+boat at hand in the shelter of the harbour, and he himself and Grania
+went into it. And there was a man before them in the boat having
+beautiful clothes on him, and a wide embroidered golden-yellow cloak
+over his shoulders behind. And they knew it was Angus was in it, that
+had come again to help them to escape from Finn, and they went back with
+him for a while to Brugh na Boinne, and Osgar came to them there.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L76" id="L76" />CHAPTER VII. FIGHTING AND PEACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>And after a while Finn bade his people to make his ship ready, and to
+put a store of food and of drink in it. They did that, and he himself
+and a thousand of his men went into the ship; and they were nine days
+between sailing and rowing till they came to harbour in the north of
+Alban.</p>
+
+<p>They bound the ship to the posts of the harbour then, and Finn with five
+of his people went to the dun of the King of Alban, and Finn struck a
+blow with the hand-wood on the door, and the door-keeper asked who was
+in it, and they told him it was Finn, son of Cumhal. "Let him in," said
+the king.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn and his people went in, and the king made them welcome, and he
+bade Finn to sit down in his own place, and they were given strong
+pleasant drinks, and the king sent for the rest of Finn's people and
+bade them welcome to the dun.</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn told what it was brought him there, and that it was to ask
+help and advice against the grandson of Duibhne he was come.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have a right to give me your help," he said, "for it was he
+that killed your father and your two brothers, and many of your best men
+along with them."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," said the king; "and I will give you my own two sons and
+a thousand men with each of them." Finn was glad when he heard that, and
+he and his men took leave of the king and of his household, and left
+wishes for life and health with them, and the king did the same by them.</p>
+
+<p>And it was near Brugh na Boinne Finn and his people came to land, and
+Finn sent messengers to the house of Angus to give out a challenge of
+battle against Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne.</p>
+
+<p>"What should I do about this, Osgar?" said Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>"We will both go out and make a stand against them, and we will not let
+a serving-man of them escape, but we will make an end of them all," said
+Osgar.</p>
+
+<p>So they rose up on the morning of the morrow and they put their suits of
+battle on their comely bodies; and it would be a pity for those, be they
+many or few, that would meet those two men, and their anger on them. And
+they bound the rims of their shields together the way they would not be
+parted from one another in the right. And the sons of the King of Alban
+said that they themselves and their people would go first to meet them.
+So they came to shore, and made a rush to meet Diarmuid and Osgar. But
+the two fought so well that they beat them back and scattered them, and
+made a great slaughter, and put great terror on them, so that at the
+last there was not a man left to stand against them.</p>
+
+<p>And after that, Finn went out again on the sea, and his people with him,
+and there is no word of them till they came to the Land of Promise where
+Finn's nurse was. And when she saw Finn coming she was very joyful
+before him. And Finn told her the whole story from beginning to end, and
+the cause of his quarrel with Diarmuid; and he said it was to ask an
+advice from her he was come, and that it was not possible to put him
+down by any strength of an army, unless enchantment would put him down.
+"I will go with you," said the old woman, "and I will do enchantment on
+him." Finn was very glad when he heard that, and he stopped there that
+night, and they set out for Ireland on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>And when they came to Brugh na Boinne, the nurse put a Druid mist around
+Finn and the Fianna, the way no one could know they were there. Now the
+day before that, Osgar had parted from Diarmuid, and Diarmuid was out
+hunting by himself. That was shown to the hag, and she took a drowned
+leaf having a hole in it, like the quern of a mill, and she rose with
+that by her enchantments on a blast of Druid wind over Diarmuid, and
+began to aim at him through the hole with deadly spears, till she had
+done him great harm, for all his arms and his clothing, and he could not
+make away he was so hard pressed. And every danger he was ever in was
+little beside that danger. And it is what he thought, that unless he
+could strike the old woman through the hole that was in the leaf, she
+would give him his death there and then. And he lay down on his back,
+and the Gae Dearg, the Red Spear, in his hand, and he made a great cast
+of the spear, that it went through the hole, and the hag fell dead on
+the spot. And he struck off her head and brought it back with him to
+Angus Og.</p>
+
+<p>And the next morning early, Angus rose up, and he went where Finn was,
+and he asked would he make peace with Diarmuid, and Finn said he would.
+And then he went to the King of Ireland to ask peace for Diarmuid, and
+he said he would agree to it.</p>
+
+<p>And then he went back to where Diarmuid and Grania were, and asked him
+would he make peace with the High King and with Finn. "I am willing,"
+said Diarmuid, "if they will give the conditions I will ask." "What
+conditions are those?" said Angus.</p>
+
+<p>"The district my father had," said Diarmuid, "that is, the district of
+Ui Duibhne, without right of hunting to Finn, and without rent or
+tribute to the King of Ireland, and with that the district of Dumhais in
+Leinster, for they are the best in Ireland, and the district of Ceis
+Corainn from the King of Ireland as a marriage portion with his
+daughter; and those are the conditions on which I will make peace with
+them." "Would you be peaceable if you got those conditions?" said Angus.
+"It would go easier with me to make peace if I got them," said Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>Then Angus went with that news to where the King of Ireland was with
+Finn. And they gave him all those conditions, and they forgave him all
+he had done through the whole of the time he had been in his hiding,
+that was sixteen years.</p>
+
+<p>And the place Diarmuid and Grania settled in was Rath Grania, in the
+district of Ceis Corainn, far away from Finn and from Teamhair. And
+Grania bore him children there, four sons and one daughter. And they
+lived there in peace, and the people used to be saying there was not a
+man living at the same time was richer as to gold and to silver, as to
+cattle and to sheep, than Diarmuid.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L77" id="L77" />CHAPTER VIII. THE BOAR OF BEINN GULBAIN</h2>
+
+
+<p>But at last one day Grania spoke to Diarmuid, and it is what she said,
+that it was a shame on them, with all the people and the household they
+had, and all their riches, the two best men in Ireland never to have
+come to the house, the High King, her father, and Finn, son of Cumhal.
+"Why do you say that, Grania," said Diarmuid, "and they being enemies to
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is what I would wish," said Grania, "to give them a feast, the way
+you would get their affection." "I give leave for that," said Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>So Grania was making ready a great feast through the length of a year,
+and messengers were sent for the High King of Ireland, and for Finn and
+the seven battalions of the Fianna; and they came, and they were using
+the feast from day to day through the length of a year.</p>
+
+<p>And on the last night of the year, Diarmuid was in his sleep at Rath
+Grania; and in the night he heard the voice of hounds through his sleep,
+and he started up, and Grania caught him and put her two arms about him,
+and asked what had startled him. "The voice of a hound I heard," said
+he; "and it is a wonder to me to hear that in the night." "Safe keeping
+on you," said Grania, "for it is the Tuatha de Danaan are doing that on
+you, on account of Angus of Brugh na Boinn, and lie down on the bed
+again." But for all that no sleep came to him, and he heard the voice of
+the hound again, and he started up a second time to follow after it. But
+Grania caught hold of him the second time and bade him to lie down, and
+she said it was no fitting thing to go after the voice of a hound in the
+night. So he lay down again, and he fell asleep, but the voice of the
+hound awakened him the third time. And the day was come with its full
+light that time, and he said: "I will go after the voice of the hound
+now, since the day is here." "If that is so," said Grania, "bring the
+Mor-alltach, the Great Fierce One, the sword of Manannan, with you, and
+the Gae Dearg." "I will not," he said; "but I will take the
+Beag-alltach, the Little Fierce One, and the Gae Buidhe in the one hand,
+and the hound Mac an Chuill, the Son of the Hazel, in the other hand."</p>
+
+<p>Then Diarmuid went out of Rath Grania, and made no delay till he came to
+the top of Beinn Gulbain, and he found Finn before him there, without
+any one at all in his company. Diarmuid gave him no greeting, but asked
+him was it he was making that hunt. Finn said it was not a hunt he was
+making, but that he and some of the Fianna had gone out after midnight;
+"and one of our hounds that was loose beside us, came on the track of a
+wild boar," he said, "and they were not able to bring him back yet. And
+there is no use following that boar he is after," he said, "for it is
+many a time the Fianna hunted him, and he went away from them every time
+till now, and he has killed thirty of them this morning. And he is
+coming up the mountain towards us," he said, "and let us leave this hill
+to him now."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not leave the hill through fear of him," said Diarmuid. "It
+would be best for you, Diarmuid," said Finn, "for it is the earless
+Green Boar of Beinn Gulbain is in it, and it is by him you will come to
+your death, and Angus knew that well when he put bonds on you not to go
+hunting pigs." "I never knew of those bonds," said Diarmuid; "but
+however it is, I will not quit this through fear of him. And let you
+leave Bran with me now," he said, "along with Mac an Chuill." "I will
+not," said Finn, "for it is often he met this boar before and could do
+nothing against him." He went away then and left Diarmuid alone on the
+top of the hill. "I give my word," said Diarmuid, "you made this hunt
+for my death, Finn; and if it is here I am to find my death," he said,
+"I have no use in going aside from it now."</p>
+
+<p>The boar came up the face of the mountain then, and the Fianna after
+him. Diarmuid loosed Mac an Chuill from his leash then, but that did not
+serve him, for he did not wait for the boar, but ran from him. "It is a
+pity not to follow the advice of a good woman," said Diarmuid, "for
+Grania bade me this morning to bring the Mor-alltach and the Gae Dearg
+with me." Then he put his finger into the silken string of the Gae
+Buidhe, and took a straight aim at the boar and hit him full in the
+face; but if he did, the spear did not so much as give him a scratch.
+Diarmuid was discouraged by that, but he drew the Beag-alltach, and made
+a full stroke at the back of the boar, but neither did that make a wound
+on him, but it made two halves of the sword. Then the boar made a brave
+charge at Diarmuid, that cut the sod from under his feet and brought him
+down; but Diarmuid caught hold of the boar on rising, and held on to
+him, having one of his legs on each side of him, and his face to his
+hinder parts. And the boar made away headlong down the hill, but he
+could not rid himself of Diarmuid; and he went on after that to Ess
+Ruadh, and when he came to the red stream he gave three high leaps over
+it, backwards and forwards, but he could not put him from his back, and
+he went back by the same path till he went up the height of the
+mountain again. And at last on the top of the mountain he freed himself,
+and Diarmuid fell on the ground. And then the boar made a rush at him,
+and ripped him open, that his bowels came out about his feet. But if he
+did, Diarmuid made a cast at him with the hilt of his sword that was in
+his hand yet, and dashed out his brains, so that he fell dead there and
+then. And Rath na h-Amhrann, the Rath of the Sword Hilt, is the name of
+that place to this day.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long till Finn and the Fianna of Ireland came to the place,
+and the pains of death were coming on Diarmuid at that time. "It is well
+pleased I am to see you that way, Diarmuid," said Finn; "and it is a
+pity all the women of Ireland not to be looking at you now, for your
+great beauty is turned to ugliness, and your comely shape to
+uncomeliness." "For all that, you have power to heal me, Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "if you had a mind to do it." "What way could I heal you?"
+said Finn. "Easy enough," said Diarmuid, "for the time you were given
+the great gift of knowledge at the Boinn, you got this gift with it,
+that any one you would give a drink to out of the palms of your hands
+would be young and well again from any sickness after it." "You are not
+deserving of that drink from me," said Finn. "That is not true," said
+Diarmuid; "it is well I deserve it from you; for the time you went to
+the house of Dearc, son of Donnarthadh, and your chief men with you for
+a feast, your enemies came round the house, and gave out three great
+shouts against you, and threw fire and firebrands into it. And you rose
+up and would have gone out, but I bade you to stop there at drinking and
+pleasure, for that I myself would go out and put them down. And I went
+out, and put out the flames, and made three red rushes round the house,
+and I killed fifty in every rush, and I came in again without a wound.
+And it is glad and merry and in good courage you were that night,
+Finn," he said, "and if it was that night I had asked a drink of you,
+you would have given it; and it would be right for you to give it to me
+now." "That is not so," said Finn; "it is badly you have earned a drink
+or any good thing from me; for the night you went to Teamhair with me,
+you took Grania away from me in the presence of all the men of Ireland,
+and you being my own guard over her that night."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not blame me for that, Finn," said Diarmuid, "for what did I ever do
+against you, east or west, but that one thing; and you know well Grania
+put bonds on me, and I would not fail in my bonds for the gold of the
+whole world. And you will know it is well I have earned a drink from
+you, if you bring to mind the night the feast was made in the House of
+the Quicken Tree, and how you and all your men were bound there till I
+heard of it, and came fighting and joyful, and loosed you with my own
+blood, and with the blood of the Three Kings of the Island of the
+Floods; and if I had asked a drink of you that night, Finn, you would
+not have refused it. And I was with you in the smiting of Lon, son of
+Liobhan, and you are the man that should not forsake me beyond any other
+man. And many is the strait has overtaken yourself and the Fianna of
+Ireland since I came among you, and I was ready every time to put my
+body and my life in danger for your sake, and you ought not to do this
+unkindness on me now. And besides that," he said, "there has many a good
+champion fallen through the things you yourself have done, and there is
+not an end of them yet; and there will soon come great misfortunes on
+the Fianna, and it is few of their seed will be left after them. And it
+is not for yourself I am fretting, Finn," he said, "but for Oisin and
+Osgar, and the rest of my dear comrades, and as for you, Oisin, you will
+be left lamenting after the Fianna. And it is greatly you will feel the
+want of me yet, Finn," he said; "and if the women of the Fianna knew I
+was lying in my wounds on this ridge, it is sorrowful their faces would
+be at this time."</p>
+
+<p>And Osgar said then: "Although I am nearer in blood to you, Finn, than
+to Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, I will not let you refuse him this
+drink; and by my word," he said, "if any prince in the world would do
+the same unkindness to Diarmuid that you have done, it is only the one
+of us that has the strongest hand would escape alive. And give him a
+drink now without delay," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know of any well at all on this mountain," said Finn. "That is
+not so," said Diarmuid, "for there is not nine footsteps from you the
+well that has the best fresh water that can be found in the world."</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn went to the well, and he took the full of his two hands of the
+water. But when he was no more than half-way back, the thought of Grania
+came on him, and he let the water slip through his hands, and he said he
+was not able to bring it. "I give my word," said Diarmuid, "it was of
+your own will you let it from you." Then Finn went back the second time
+to get the water, but coming back he let it through his hands again at
+the thought of Grania. And Diarmuid gave a pitiful sigh of anguish when
+he saw that. "I swear by my sword and by my spear," said Osgar, "that if
+you do not bring the water without any more delay, Finn, there will not
+leave this hill but yourself or myself." Finn went back the third time
+to the well after what Osgar said, and he brought the water to Diarmuid,
+but as he reached him the life went out of his body. Then the whole
+company of the Fianna that were there gave three great heavy shouts,
+keening for Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>And Osgar looked very fiercely at Finn, and it is what he said, that it
+was a greater pity Diarmuid to be dead than if he himself had died. And
+the Fianna of Ireland had lost their yoke of battle by him, he said.
+"Let us leave this hill," said Finn then, "before Angus and the Tuatha
+de Danaan come upon us, for although we have no share in the death of
+Diarmuid, he would not believe the truth from us." "I give my word,"
+said Osgar, "if I had thought it was against Diarmuid you made the hunt
+of Beinn Gulbain, you would never have made it"</p>
+
+<p>Then Finn and the Fianna went away from the hill, and Finn leading
+Diarmuid's hound Mac an Chuill. But Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and
+Lugaidh's Son turned back again and put their four cloaks over Diarmuid,
+and then they went after the rest of the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>And when they came to the Rath, Grania was out on the wall looking for
+news of Diarmuid; and she saw Finn and the Fianna of Ireland coming
+towards her. Then she said: "If Diarmuid was living, it is not led by
+Finn that Mac an Chuill would be coming home." And she was at that time
+heavy with child, and her strength went from her and she fell down from
+the wall. And when Oisin saw the way she was he bade Finn and the others
+to go on from her, but she lifted up her head and she asked Finn to
+leave Mac an Chuill with her. And he said he would not, and that he did
+not think it too much for him to inherit from Diarmuid, grandson of
+Duibhne.</p>
+
+<p>When Oisin heard that, he snatched the hound out of Finn's hand and gave
+it to Grania, and then he followed after his people.</p>
+
+<p>Then when Grania was certain of Diarmuid's death she gave out a long
+very pitiful cry that was heard through the whole place, and her women
+and her people came to her, and asked what ailed her to give a cry like
+that. And she told them how Diarmuid had come to his death by the Boar
+of Beinn Gulbain in the hunt Finn had made. "And there is grief in my
+very heart," she said, "I not to be able to fight myself with Finn, and
+I would not have let him go safe out of this place."</p>
+
+<p>When her people heard of the death of Diarmuid they gave three great
+heavy cries in the same way, that were heard in the clouds and the waste
+places of the sky. And then Grania bade the five hundred that she had
+for household to go to Beinn Gulbain for the body of Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>And when they were bringing it back, she went out to meet them, and they
+put down the body of Diarmuid, and it is what she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am your wife, beautiful Diarmuid, the man I would do no hurt to; it
+is sorrowful I am after you to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"I am looking at the hawk and the hound my secret love used to be
+hunting with; she that loved the three, let her be put in the grave with
+Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us be glad to-night, let us make all welcome to-night, let us be
+open-handed to-night, since we are sitting by the body of a king.</p>
+
+<p>"And O Diarmuid," she said, "it is a hard bed Finn has given you, to be
+lying on the stones and to be wet with the rain. Ochone!" she said,
+"your blue eyes to be without sight, you that were friendly and generous
+and pursuing. O love! O Diarmuid! it is a pity it is he sent you to your
+death.</p>
+
+<p>"You were a champion of the men of Ireland, their prop in the middle of
+the fight; you were the head of every battle; your ways were glad and
+pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"It is sorrowful I am, without mirth, without light, but only sadness
+and grief and long dying; your harp used to be sweet to me, it wakened
+my heart to gladness. Now my courage is fallen down, I not to hear you
+but to be always remembering your ways. Och! my grief is going through
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand curses on the day when Grania gave you her love, that put
+Finn of the princes from his wits; it is a sorrowful story your death is
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"Many heroes were great and strong about me in the beautiful plain;
+their hands were good at wrestling and at battle; Ochone! that I did not
+follow them.</p>
+
+<p>"You were the man was best of the Fianna, beautiful Diarmuid, that
+women loved. It is dark your dwelling-place is under the sod, it is
+mournful and cold your bed is; it is pleasant your laugh was to-day; you
+were my happiness, Diarmuid."</p>
+
+<p>And she went back then into the Rath, and bade her people to bring the
+body to her there.</p>
+
+<p>Now just at this time, it was showed to Angus at Brugh na Boinne that
+Diarmuid was dead on Beinn Gulbain, for he had kept no watch over him
+the night before.</p>
+
+<p>And he went on the cold wind towards Beinn Gulbain, and his people with
+him, and on the way they met with Grania's people that were bringing the
+body to the Rath.</p>
+
+<p>And when they saw him they held out the wrong sides of their shields as
+a sign of peace, and Angus knew them; and he and his people gave three
+great terrible cries over the body of Diarmuid.</p>
+
+<p>And Angus spoke then, and it is what he said: "I was never one night
+since the time I brought you to Brugh na Boinne, being nine months old,
+without keeping watch and protection over you till last night, Diarmuid,
+grandson of Duibhne; and now your blood has been shed and you have been
+cut off sharply, and the Boar of Beinn Gulbain has put you down,
+Diarmuid of the bright face and the bright sword. And it is a pity Finn
+to have done this treachery," he said, "and you at peace with him.</p>
+
+<p>"And lift up his body now," he said, "and bring it to the Brugh in the
+lasting rocks. And if I cannot bring him back to life," he said, "I will
+put life into him the way he can be talking with me every day."</p>
+
+<p>Then they put his body on a golden bier, and his spears over it pointed
+upwards, and they went on till they came to Brugh na Boinne.</p>
+
+<p>And Grania's people went to her and told her how Angus would not let
+them bring the body into the Rath, but brought it away himself to Brugh
+na Boinne. And Grania said she had no power over him.</p>
+
+<p>And she sent out then for her four sons that were being reared in the
+district of Corca Ui Duibhne. And when they came she gave them a loving
+welcome, and they came into the Rath and sat down there according to
+their age. And Grania spoke to them with a very loud, clear voice, and
+it is what she said: "My dear children, your father has been killed by
+Finn, son of Cumhal, against his own bond and agreement of peace, and
+let you avenge it well upon him. And here is your share of the
+inheritance of your father," she said, "his arms and his armour, and his
+feats of valour and power; and I will share these arms among you
+myself," she said, "and that they may bring you victory in every battle.
+Here is the sword for Donnchadh," she said, "the best son Diarmuid had;
+and the Gae Dearg for Eochaidh; and here is the armour for Ollann, for
+it will keep the body it is put on in safety; and the shield for Connla.
+And make no delay now," she said, "but go and learn every sort of skill
+in fighting, till such time as you will come to your full strength to
+avenge your father."</p>
+
+<p>So they took leave of her then, and of their household.</p>
+
+<p>And some of their people said: "What must we do now, since our lords
+will be going into danger against Finn and the Fianna of Ireland?" And
+Donnchadh, son of Diarmuid, bade them stop in their own places; "for if
+we make peace with Finn," he said, "there need be no fear on you, and if
+not, you can make your choice between ourselves and him." And with that
+they set out on their journey.</p>
+
+<p>But after a while Finn went secretly and unknown to the Fianna to the
+place where Grania was, and he got to see her in spite of all her high
+talk, and he spoke gently to her. And she would not listen to him, but
+bade him to get out of her sight, and whatever hard thing her tongue
+could say, she said it. But all the same, he went on giving her gentle
+talk and loving words, till in the end he brought her to his own will.</p>
+
+<p>And there is no news told of them, until such time as they came to where
+the seven battalions of the Fianna were waiting for Finn. And when they
+saw him coming, and Grania with him, like any new wife with her husband,
+they gave a great shout of laughter and of mockery, and Grania bowed
+down her head with shame, "By my word, Finn," said Oisin, "you will keep
+a good watch on Grania from this out."</p>
+
+<p>And some said the change had come on her because the mind of a woman
+changes like the water of a running stream; but some said it was Finn
+that had put enchantment on her.</p>
+
+<p>And as to the sons of Diarmuid, they came back at the end of seven
+years, after learning all that was to be learned of valour in the far
+countries of the world. And when they came back to Rath Grania they were
+told their mother was gone away with Finn, son of Cumhal, without
+leaving any word for themselves or for the King of Ireland. And they
+said if that was so, there was nothing for them to do. But after that
+they said they would make an attack on Finn, and they went forward to
+Almhuin, and they would take no offers, but made a great slaughter of
+every troop that came out against them.</p>
+
+<p>But at last Grania made an agreement of peace between themselves and
+Finn, and they got their father's place among the Fianna; and that was
+little good to them, for they lost their lives with the rest in the
+battle of Gabhra. And as to Finn and Grania, they stopped with one
+another to the end.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L78" id="L78" />BOOK EIGHT: CNOC-AN-AIR.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. TAILC, SON OF TREON</h2>
+
+
+<p>One time the Fianna were all gathered together doing feats and casting
+stones. And after a while the Druid of Teamhair that was with them said:
+"I am in dread, Finn of the Fianna, that there is some trouble near at
+hand; and look now at those dark clouds of blood," he said, "that are
+threatening us side by side overhead. And there is fear on me," he said,
+"that there is some destruction coming on the Fianna."</p>
+
+<p>Finn looked up then, and he saw the great cloud of blood, and he called
+Osgar to look at it. "That need not knock a start from you," said Osgar,
+"with all the strength there is in your arms, and in the men that are
+with you." Then all the Fianna looked up at the cloud, and some of them
+were glad and cheerful and some were downhearted.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Druid bade Finn to call all his battalions together and to
+divide them into two halves, that they could be watching for the coming
+of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>So Finn sounded the Dord Fiann, and they answered with a shout, every
+one hurrying to be the first. And Finn bade Osgar and Goll and Faolan to
+keep watch through the night, and he bade Conan the Bald to stop in the
+darkness of the cave of Liath Ard. "For it is you can shout loudest," he
+said, "to warn us if you see the enemy coming." "That I may be pierced
+through the middle of my body," said Conan, "if I will go watching for
+troubles or for armies alone, without some more of the Fianna being with
+me." "It is not fitting for you to refuse Finn," said Lugaidh's Son;
+"and it is you can shout the loudest," he said, "if the enemies come
+near the height." "Do not be speaking to me any more," said Conan, "for
+I will not go there alone, through the length of my days, for Finn and
+the whole of the Fianna." "Go then, Conan," said Osgar, "and Aodh Beag
+will go with you, and you can bring dogs with you, Bran and Sceolan and
+Fuaim and Fearagan; and let you go now without begrudging it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So Conan went then to Liath Ard, and Aodh Beag and Finn's hounds along
+with him. And as to Finn, he lay down to sleep, and it was not long till
+he saw through his sleep Aodh Beag his son, and he without his head. And
+after that he saw Goll fighting with a very strong man. And he awoke
+from his sleep, and called the Druid of the Fianna to him, and asked him
+the meaning of what he saw. "I am in dread there is some destruction
+coming on the Fianna," said the Druid; "but Aodh Beag will not be
+wounded in the fight, or Goll," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And it was not long till Finn heard a great shout, and he sounded the
+Dord Fiann, and then he saw Conan running, and the hounds after him. And
+Finn sounded the Dord Fiann again before Conan came up, and when he
+came, Osgar asked him where was Aodh Beag. "He was at the door of the
+cave when I left it," said Conan, "but I did not look behind me since
+then," he said; "and it was not Aodh Beag was troubling me." "What was
+troubling you then?" said Osgar. "Nothing troubles me but myself," said
+Conan; "although I am well pleased at any good that comes to you," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Osgar went then running hard, till he came to the cave, and there he
+found Aodh Beag with no fear or trouble on him at all, stopping there
+till he would hear the noise of the shields. And Osgar brought him back
+to where the Fianna were, and they saw a great army coming as if in
+search of them.</p>
+
+<p>And a beautiful woman, having a crimson cloak, came to them over the
+plain, and she spoke to Finn, and her voice was as sweet as music. And
+Finn asked her who was she, and who did she come looking for. "I am the
+daughter of Garraidh, son of Dolar Dian, the Fierce," she said; "and my
+curse upon the King of Greece that bound me to the man that is
+following after me, and that I am going from, Tailc, son of Treon."
+"Tell me why are you shunning him, and I will protect you in spite of
+him," said Finn. "It is not without reason I hate him," said she, "for
+he has no good appearance, and his skin is of the colour of coal, and he
+has the head and the tail of a cat. And I have walked the world three
+times," she said, "and I did not leave a king or a great man without
+asking help from him, and I never got it yet." "I will give you
+protection," said Finn, "or the seven battalions of the Fianna will fall
+for your sake."</p>
+
+<p>With that they saw the big strange man, Tailc, son of Treon, coming
+towards them, and he said no word at all of greeting to Finn, but he
+called for a battle on account of his wife.</p>
+
+<p>So a thousand of the Fianna went out to meet him and his men; and if
+they did they all fell, and not one of them came back again. And then
+another thousand of the best men of the Fianna, having blue and green
+shields, went out under Caoilte, son of Ronan, and they were worsted by
+Tailc and his people. And then Osgar asked leave of Finn to go out and
+fight the big man. "I will give you leave," said Finn, "although I am
+sure you will fall by him." So Osgar went out, and he himself and Tailc,
+son of Treon, were fighting through the length of five days and five
+nights without food or drink or sleep. And at the end of that time,
+Osgar made an end of Tailc, and struck his head off. And when the Fianna
+saw that, they gave a shout of lamentation for those they had lost of
+the Fianna, and two shouts of joy for the death of Tailc.</p>
+
+<p>And as to the young woman, when she saw all the slaughter that had been
+done on account of her, shame reddened her face, and she fell dead there
+and then. And to see her die like that, after all she had gone through,
+preyed more on the Fianna than any other thing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L79" id="L79" />CHAPTER II. MEARGACH'S WIFE</h2>
+
+
+<p>And while the Fianna were gathered yet on the hill where Tailc, son of
+Treon, had been put down, they saw a very great champion coming towards
+them, having an army behind him. He took no notice of any one more than
+another, but he asked in a very rough voice where was Finn, the Head of
+the Fianna. And Aodh Beag, that had a quiet heart, asked him who was he,
+and what was he come for. "I will tell you nothing at all, child," said
+the big man, "for it is short your years are, and I will tell nothing at
+all to any one but Finn." So Aodh Beag brought him to where Finn was,
+and Finn asked him his name. "Meargach of the Green Spears is my name,"
+he said; "and arms were never reddened yet on my body, and no one ever
+boasted of driving me backwards. And was it you, Finn," he said, "put
+down Tailc, son of Treon?" "It was not by me he fell," said Finn, "but
+by Osgar of the strong hand." "Was it not a great shame for you, Finn,"
+said Meargach then, "to let the queen-woman that had such a great name
+come to her death by the Fianna?" "It was not by myself or by any of the
+Fianna she got her death," said Finn; "it was seeing the army lost that
+brought her to her death. But if it is satisfaction for her death or the
+death of Tailc you want," he said, "You can get it from a man of the
+Fianna, or you can go quietly from this place." Then Meargach said he
+would fight with any man they would bring against him, to avenge Tailc,
+son of Treon.</p>
+
+<p>And it was Osgar stood up against him, and they fought a very hard fight
+through the length of three days, and at one time the Fianna thought it
+was Osgar was worsted, and they gave a great sorrowful shout. But in the
+end Osgar put down Meargach and struck his head off, and at that the
+seven battalions of the Fianna gave a shout of victory, and the army of
+Meargach keened him very sorrowfully. And after that, the two sons of
+Meargach, Ciardan the Swift and Liagan the Nimble, came up and asked
+who would come against them, hand to hand, that they might get
+satisfaction for their father.</p>
+
+<p>And it was Goll stood up against Ciardan, and it was not long till he
+put him down; and Conan came out against Liagan, and Liagan mocked at
+him and said: "It is foolishness your coming is, bald man!" But Conan
+made a quick blow and struck his head off before the fight was begun at
+all.</p>
+
+<p>And Faolan said that was a shameful thing to do, not to stand his ground
+and make a fair fight. But Conan said: "If I could make an end of the
+whole army by one blow, I would do it, and I would not be ashamed, and
+the whole of the Fianna could not shelter them from me."</p>
+
+<p>Then the two armies came towards each other, and they were making ready
+for the attack. And they saw a beautiful golden-haired woman coming
+towards them, and she crying and ever crying, and the battle was given
+up on both sides, waiting for her to come; and the army of Meargach knew
+it was their queen, Ailne of the Bright Face, and they raised a great
+cry of grief; and the Fianna were looking at her, and said no word.</p>
+
+<p>And she asked where was her husband, and where were her two sons. "High
+Queen," said Finn then, "for all they were so complete and quick and
+strong, the three you are asking for fell in fight."</p>
+
+<p>And when the queen-woman heard that, she cried out aloud, and she went
+to the place where her husband and her two sons were lying, and she
+stood over their bodies, and her golden hair hanging, and she keened
+them there. And her own people raised a sharp lamentation listening to
+her, and the Fianna themselves were under grief.</p>
+
+<p>And it is what she said: "O Meargach," she said, "of the sharp green
+spears, it is many a fight and many a heavy battle your hard hand fought
+in the gathering of the armies or alone.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew any wound to be on your body after them; and it is full
+sure I am, it was not strength but treachery got the upper hand of you
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"It is long your journey was from far off, from your own kind country to
+Inisfail, to come to Finn and the Fianna, that put my three to death
+through treachery.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! to have lost my husband, my head, by the treachery of the
+Fianna; my two sons, my two men that were rough in the fight.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my food and my drink; my grief! my teaching everywhere; my
+grief! my journey from far off, and I to have lost my high heroes.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my house thrown down; my grief! my shelter and my shield; my
+grief! Meargach and Ciardan; my grief! Liagan of the wide chest.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my protection and my shelter; my grief! my strength and my
+power; my grief! there is darkness come from this thing; my grief
+to-night you to be in your weakness.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my gladness and my pleasure; my grief! my desire in every
+place; my grief! my courage is gone and my strength; my grief from this
+night out for ever.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my guide and my going; my grief! my desire to the day of my
+death; my grief! my store and my sway; my grief! my heroes that were
+open-handed.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my bed and my sleep; my grief! my journey and my coming; my
+grief! my teacher and my share; my sorrowful grief! my three men.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my beauty and my ornaments; my grief! my jewels and my
+riches; my grief! my treasures and my goods; my grief! my three Candles
+of Valour.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my friends and my kindred; my grief! my people and my
+friends. My grief! my father and my mother; my grief and my trouble! you
+to be dead.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief my portion and my welcome; my grief! my health at every time;
+my grief! my increase and my light; my sore trouble, you to be without
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! your spear and your sword; my grief! your gentleness and your
+love; my grief! your country and your home; my grief! you to be parted
+from my reach.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my coasts and my harbours; my grief! my wealth and my
+prosperity; my grief! my greatness and my kingdom; my grief and my
+crying are until death.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my luck altogether; my grief for you in time of battle; my
+grief! my gathering of armies; my grief! my three proud lions.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my games and my drinking; my grief! my music and my delight;
+my grief! my sunny house and my women; my crying grief, you to be under
+defeat.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! my lands and my hunting; my grief! my three sure fighters;
+Och! my grief! they are my sorrow, to fall far off by the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the great host of the Sidhe that were fighting over the dun,
+giving battle to one another in the valleys of the air, that destruction
+would put down my three.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the noise of the voices of the Sidhe coming into my ears,
+that a story of new sorrow was not far from me; it is your death it was
+foretelling.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew at the beginning of the day when my three good men went from me,
+when I saw tears of blood on their cheeks, that they would not come back
+to me as winners.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the voice of the battle-crow over your dun every evening,
+since you went from me comely and terrible, that misfortune and grief
+were at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well I remember, my three strong ones, how often I used to be
+telling you that if you would go to Ireland, I would not see the joy of
+victory on your faces.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the voice of the raven every morning since you went from me,
+that your fall was sure and certain; that you would never come back to
+your own country.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew, my three great ones, by your forgetting the thongs of your
+hounds, that you would not gain the day or escape from the treachery of
+the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew, Candles of Valour, by the stream near the dun turning to blood
+when you set out, that there would be treachery in Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the eagle coming every evening over the dun, that it would
+not be long till I would hear a story of bad news of my three.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the withering of the tree before the dun, that you would
+never come back as conquerors from the treachery of Finn, son of
+Cumhal."</p>
+
+<p>When Grania, now, heard what the woman was saying, there was anger on
+her, and she said: "Do not be speaking against Finn or the Fianna,
+Queen, for it was not by any treachery or any deceit your three men were
+brought to their end."</p>
+
+<p>But Ailne made her no answer and gave no heed to her, but she went on
+with her complaint, and she crying and ever crying.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew, looking after you the day you went out from the dun, by the
+flight of the raven before you, there was no good sign of your coming
+back again.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by Ciardan's hounds that were howling mournfully every evening,
+that it would not be long till I would have bad news of you.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by my sleep that went from me, by my tears through every lasting
+night, that there was no luck before you.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the sorrowful vision that showed myself in danger, my head
+and my hands cut off, that it was yourselves were without sway.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew by the voice of Uaithnin, the hound that is dearest to Liagan,
+howling early every morning, that death was certain for my three.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew when I saw in a vision a lake of blood in the place of the dun,
+that my three were put down by the deceit that was always with Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be faulting Finn," said Grania then, "however vexed your heart
+may be. And leave off now," she said, "speaking against the Fianna and
+against himself; for if your men had stopped in their own country," she
+said, "without coming to avenge the son of Treon, there would no harm
+have happened them." "I would not put any reproach on the Fianna,
+Grania," said Ailne, "if my three men had been put down in fair battle,
+but they are not living to bear witness to me," she said; "and it is
+likely they were put under Druid spells at the first, or they would
+never have given in." "If they were living, Queen," said Grania, "they
+would not be running down the Fianna, but they would tell you it was by
+bravery and the strong hand they fell." "I do not believe you or the
+Fianna when you say that," said Ailne; "for no one that came to meet
+them ever got the sway over them by the right of the sword." "If you do
+not believe what I am saying, beautiful Ailne," said Grania, "I tell
+you more of your great army will fall by the Fianna, and that not by
+treachery." "That is not so," said Ailne, "but I have good hopes that my
+own army will do destruction on the Fianna, for the sake of the men that
+are dead." "Well, Ailne," said Grania, "I know it is a far journey you
+have come. And come now and eat and drink," she said, "with myself and
+with the Fianna."</p>
+
+<p>But Ailne would not do that, but she said it would not be fitting for
+her to take food from people that did such deeds, and what she wanted
+was satisfaction for the death of her husband and her two sons.</p>
+
+<p>And first it was settled for two men of each side to go out against one
+another; and then Ailne said that there should be thirty men on each
+side, and then she said she would not be satisfied to go back to her own
+country till she brought the head of Finn with her, or till the last of
+his men had fallen. And there was a great battle fought in the end, and
+it is seldom the Fianna fought so hard a battle as that.</p>
+
+<p>And it would be too long to tell, and it would tire the hearers, how
+many good men were killed on each side. But in the end Ailne of the
+Bright Face was worsted, and she went back with what were left of her
+men to their own country, and no one knew where they went.</p>
+
+<p>And the hill in the west those battles were fought on got the name of
+Cnoc-an-Air, the Hill of Slaughter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L80" id="L80" />CHAPTER III. AILNE'S REVENGE</h2>
+
+
+<p>One day Finn and his people were hunting on Slieve Fuad, and a stag
+stood against them for a while and fought with his great rough horns,
+and then he turned and ran, and the Fianna followed after him till they
+came to the green hill of Liadhas, and from that to rocky Cairgin. And
+there they lost him again for a while, till Sceolan started him again,
+and he went back towards Slieve Fuad, and the Fianna after him.</p>
+
+<p>But Finn and Daire of the Songs, that were together, went astray and
+lost the rest of their people, and they did not know was it east or west
+they were going.</p>
+
+<p>Finn sounded the Dord Fiann then, and Daire played some sorrowful music
+to let their people know where they were. But when the Fianna heard the
+music, it seemed to be a long way off; and sometimes they thought it was
+in the north it was, and sometimes in the east, and then it changed to
+the west, the way they did not know in the wide world where was it
+coming from.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn and Daire, a Druid mist came about them, and they did not
+know what way they were going.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while they met with a young woman, comely and pleasant, and
+they asked who was she, and what brought her there. "Glanluadh is my
+name," she said, "and my husband is Lobharan; and we were travelling
+over the plain together a while ago, and we heard the cry of hounds, and
+he left me and went after the hunt, and I do not know where is he, or
+what way did he go." "Come on then with us," said Finn, "and we will
+take care of you, for we ourselves do not know what way the hunt is
+gone, east or west." So they went on, and before long they came to a
+hill, and they heard sleepy music of the Sidhe beside them. And after
+that there came shouts and noises, and then the music began again, and
+heavy sleep came on Finn and Daire. And when they awoke from their sleep
+they saw a very large lighted house before them, and a stormy blue sea
+around it. Then they saw a very big grey man coming through the waves,
+and he took hold of Finn and of Daire, and all their strength went from
+them, and he brought them across the waves and into the house, and he
+shut the door of the house with iron hooks. "My welcome to you, Finn of
+the great name," he said then in a very harsh voice; "it is long we are
+waiting here for you."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down then on the hard side of a bed, and the woman of the house
+came to them, and they knew her to be Ailne, wife of Meargach. "It is
+long I am looking for you, Finn," she said, "to get satisfaction for the
+treachery you did on Meargach and on my two comely young sons, and on
+Tailc, son of Treon, and all his people. And do you remember that,
+Finn?" she said. "I remember well," said Finn, "that they fell by the
+swords of the Fianna, not by treachery but in fighting." "It was by
+treachery they fell," said the Grey Man then; "and it is our witness to
+it, pleasant Ailne to be the way she is, and many a strong army under
+grief on account of her." "What is Ailne to you, man of the rough
+voice?" said Finn. "I am her own brother," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>With that he put bonds on the three, Finn and Daire and Glanluadh, and
+he put them down into some deep shut place.</p>
+
+<p>They were very sorrowful then, and they stopped there to the end of five
+days and five nights, without food, without drink, without music.</p>
+
+<p>And Ailne went to see them then, and Finn said to her: "O Ailne," he
+said, "bring to mind the time you come to Cnoc-an-Air, and the way the
+Fianna treated you with generosity; and it is not fitting for you," he
+said, "to keep us now under shame and weakness and in danger of death."
+"I know well I got kind treatment from Grania," said Ailne in a
+sorrowful voice; "but for all that, Finn," she said, "if all the Fianna
+were in that prison along with you under hard bonds, it would please me
+well, and I would not pity their case. And what is it set you following
+after Finn," she said then to Glanluadh, "for that is not a fitting
+thing for you to do, and his own kind wife living yet."</p>
+
+<p>Then Glanluadh told her the whole story, and how she was walking the
+plain with Lobharan her husband, and he followed the hunt, and the mist
+came about her that she did not know east from west, and how she met
+then with Finn that she never saw before that time. "If that is so,"
+said Ailne, "it is not right for you to be under punishment without
+cause."</p>
+
+<p>She called then to her brother the Grey Man, and bade him take the
+spells off Glanluadh. And when she was set free it is sorry she was to
+leave Daire in bonds, and Finn. And when she had bidden them farewell
+she went out with Ailne, and there was food brought to her, but a cloud
+of weakness came on her of a sudden, that it was a pity to see the way
+she was.</p>
+
+<p>And when Ailne saw that, she brought out an enchanted cup of the Sidhe
+and gave her a drink from it. And no sooner did Glanluadh drink from the
+cup than her strength and her own appearance came back to her again; but
+for all that, she was fretting after Finn and Daire in their bonds. "It
+seems to me, Glanluadh, you are fretting after those two men," said
+Ailne. "I am sorry indeed," said Glanluadh, "the like of those men to be
+shut up without food or drink." "If it is pleasing to you to give them
+food you may give it," said Ailne, "for I will not make an end of them
+till I see can I get the rest of the Fianna into bonds along with them."
+The two women brought food and drink then to Finn, and to Daire; and
+Glanluadh gave her blessing to Finn, and she cried when she saw the way
+he was; but as to Ailne, she had no pity at all for the King of the
+Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the Grey Man, he heard them talking of the Fianna, and they
+were saying that Daire had a great name for the sweetness of his music.
+"I have a mind to hear that sweet music," said he. So he went to the
+place where they were, and he bade Daire to let him hear what sort of
+music he could make. "My music pleased the Fianna well," said Daire;
+"but I think it likely it would not please you." "Play it for me now,
+till I know if the report I heard of you is true," said the Grey Man.
+"Indeed, I have no mind for music," said Daire, "being weak and
+downhearted the way I am, through your spells that put down my courage."
+"I will take my spells off you for so long as you play for me," said the
+Grey Man. "I could never make music seeing Finn in bonds the way he is,"
+said Daire; "for it is worse to me, he to be under trouble than myself."
+"I will take the power of my spells off Finn till you play for me," said
+the Grey Man.</p>
+
+<p>He weakened the spells then, and gave them food and drink, and it
+pleased him greatly the way Daire played the music, and he called to
+Glanluadh and to Ailne to come and to listen to the sweetness of it. And
+they were well pleased with it, and it is glad Glanluadh was, seeing
+them not so discouraged as they were.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the Fianna, they were searching for Finn and for Daire in
+every place they had ever stopped in. And when they came to this place
+they could hear Daire's sweet music; and at first they were glad when
+they heard it, and then when they knew the way he himself and Finn were,
+they made an attack on Ailne's dun to release them.</p>
+
+<p>But the Grey Man heard their shouts, and he put the full power of his
+spells again on Finn and on Daire. And the Fianna heard the music as if
+stammering, and then they heard a great noise like the loud roaring of
+waves, and when they heard that, there was not one of them but fell into
+a sleep and clouds of death, under those sorrowful spells.</p>
+
+<p>And then the Grey Man and Ailne came out quietly from where they were,
+and they brought the whole of the men of the Fianna that were there into
+the dun. And they put hard bonds on them, and put them where Finn and
+Daire were. And there was great grief on Finn and Daire when they saw
+them, and they were all left there together for a while.</p>
+
+<p>Then Glanluadh said to the Grey Man: "If Daire's music is pleasing to
+you, let him play it to us now." "If you have a mind for music," said
+the Grey Man, "Daire must play it for us, and for Finn and his army as
+well."</p>
+
+<p>They went then to where they were, and bade Daire to play. "I could
+never play sweet music," said Daire, "the time the Fianna are in any
+trouble; for when they are in trouble, I myself am in trouble, and I
+could not sound any sweet string," he said, "while there is trouble on
+any man of them." The Grey Man weakened the spells then on them all, and
+Daire played first the strings of sweetness, and of the noise of
+shouting, and then he sang his own grief and the grief of all the
+Fianna. And at that the Grey Man said it would not be long before he
+would put the whole of the Fianna to death; and then Daire played a tune
+of heavy shouts of lamentation. And then at Finn's bidding he played the
+music of sweet strings for the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>They were kept, now, a long time in that prison, and they got very hard
+treatment; and sometimes Ailne's brother would come in and strike the
+heads off some of them, for none of them could rise up from the seats
+they were sitting on through his enchantments. But one time he was going
+to strike the bald head off Conan, and Conan made a great leap from the
+seat; but if he did, he left strips of his skin hanging to it, that his
+back was left bare. And then he came round the Grey Man with his pitiful
+words: "Stop your hand now," he said, "for that is enough for this time;
+and do not send me to my death yet awhile, and heal me of my wounds
+first," he said, "before you make an end of me." And the reason he said
+that was because he knew Ailne to have an enchanted cup in the dun, that
+had cured Glanluadh.</p>
+
+<p>And the Grey Man took pity on his case, and he brought him out and bade
+Ailne to bring the cup to him and to cure his wounds. "I will not bring
+it," said Ailne, "for it would be best give no time at all to him or to
+the Fianna, but to make an end of them." "It is not to be saved from
+death I am asking, bright-faced Ailne," said Conan, "but only not to go
+to my death stripped bare the way I am." When Ailne heard that, she
+brought a sheepskin and she put it on Conan's back, and it fitted and
+grew to him, and covered his wounds. "I will not put you to death,
+Conan," said the Grey Man then, "but you can stop with myself to the end
+of your life." "You will never be without grief and danger and the fear
+of treachery if you keep him with you," said Ailne; "for there is
+treachery in his heart the same as there is in the rest of them." "There
+is no fear of that," said her brother, "or I will make no delay until I
+put the whole of the Fianna to death." And with that he brought Conan to
+where the enchanted cup was, and he put it in his hand. And just at that
+moment they heard Daire playing very sweet sorrowful music, and the Grey
+Man went to listen to it, very quick and proud. And Conan followed him
+there, and after a while the Grey Man asked him what did he do with the
+enchanted cup. "I left it where I found it, full of power," said Conan.</p>
+
+<p>The Grey Man hurried back then to the place where the treasures of the
+dun were. But no sooner was he gone than Conan took out the cup that he
+had hidden, and he gave a drink from it to Finn and to Osgar and to the
+rest of the Fianna. And they that were withered and shaking, without
+strength, without courage, got back their own appearance and their
+strength again on the moment.</p>
+
+<p>And when the Grey Man came back from looking for the cup, and saw what
+had happened, he took his sword and made a stroke at Conan. But Conan
+called to Osgar to defend him, and Osgar attacked the Grey Man, and it
+was not long till he made him acquainted with death.</p>
+
+<p>And when Ailne saw that, with the grief and the dread that came on her,
+she fell dead then and there.</p>
+
+<p>Then all the Fianna made a feast with what they found of food and of
+drink, and they were very joyful and merry. But when they rose up in the
+morning, there was no trace or tidings of the dun, but it was on the
+bare grass they were lying.</p>
+
+<p>But as to Conan, the sheepskin never left him; and the wool used to grow
+on it every year, the same as it would on any other skin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L81" id="L81" />BOOK NINE: THE WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. THE QUARREL WITH THE SONS OF MORNA</h2>
+
+
+<p>One time when the Fianna were gone here and there hunting, Black
+Garraidh and Caoilte were sitting beside Finn, and they were talking of
+the battle where Finn's father was killed. And Finn said then to
+Garraidh: "Tell me now, since you were there yourself, what way was it
+you brought my father Cumhal to his death?" "I will tell you that since
+you ask me," said Garraidh; "it was my own hand and the hands of the
+rest of the sons of Morna that made an end of him." "That is cold
+friendship from my followers the sons of Morna," said Finn. "If it is
+cold friendship," said Garraidh, "put away the liking you are letting on
+to have for us, and show us the hatred you have for us all the while."
+"If I were to lift my hand against you now, sons of Morna," said Finn,
+"I would be well able for you all without the help of any man." "It was
+by his arts Cumhal got the upper hand of us," said Garraidh; "and when
+he got power over us," he said, "he banished us to every far country; a
+share of us he sent to Alban, and a share of us to dark Lochlann, and a
+share of us to bright Greece, parting us from one another; and for
+sixteen years we were away from Ireland, and it was no small thing to us
+to be without seeing one another through that time. And the first day we
+came back to Ireland," he said, "we killed sixteen hundred men, and no
+lie in it, and not a man of them but would be keened by a hundred. And
+we took their duns after that," he said, "and we went on till we were
+all around one house in Munster of the red walls. But so great was the
+bravery of the man in that house, that was your father, that it was
+easier to find him than to kill him. And we killed all that were of his
+race out on the hill, and then we made a quick rush at the house where
+Cumhal was, and every man of us made a wound on his body with his spear.
+And I myself was in it, and it was I gave him the first wound. And
+avenge it on me now, Finn, if you have a mind to," he said.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break" />
+
+<p>It was not long after that, Finn gave a feast at Almhuin for all his
+chief men, and there came to it two sons of the King of Alban, and sons
+of the kings of the great world. And when they were all sitting at the
+feast, the serving-men rose up and took drinking-horns worked by skilled
+men, and having shining stones in them, and they poured out strong drink
+for the champions; and it is then mirth rose up in their young men, and
+courage in their fighting men, and kindness and gentleness in their
+women, and knowledge and foreknowledge in their poets.</p>
+
+<p>And then a crier rose up and shook a rough iron chain to silence the
+clowns and the common lads and idlers, and then he shook a chain of old
+silver to silence the high lords and chief men of the Fianna, and the
+learned men, and they all listened and were silent.</p>
+
+<p>And Fergus of the True Lips rose up and sang before Finn the songs and
+the good poems of his forefathers; and Finn and Oisin and Lugaidh's Son
+rewarded him with every good thing. And then he went on to Goll, son of
+Morna, and told the fights and the destructions and the cattle-drivings
+and the courtings of his fathers; and it is well-pleased and high-minded
+the sons of Morna were, listening to that.</p>
+
+<p>And Goll said then: "Where is my woman-messenger?" "I am here, King of
+the Fianna," said she. "Have you brought me my hand-tribute from the men
+of Lochlann?" "I have brought it surely," said she. And with that she
+rose up and laid on the floor of the hall before Goll a load of pure
+gold, the size of a good pig, and that would be a heavy load for a
+strong man. And Goll loosened the covering that was about it, and he
+gave Fergus a good reward from it as he was used to do; for there never
+was a wise, sharp-worded poet, or a sweet harp-player, or any learned
+man of Ireland or of Alban, but Goll would give him gold or silver or
+some good thing.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn saw that, he said: "How long is it, Goll, you have this
+rent on the men of Lochlann, and my own rent being on them always with
+it, and one of my own men, Ciaran son of Latharne, and ten hundred men
+of his household, guarding it and guarding my right of hunting?" And
+Goll saw there was anger on Finn, and he said: "It is a long time, Finn,
+I have that rent on the men of Lochlann, from the time your father put
+war and quarrels on me, and the King of Ireland joined with him, and I
+was made to quit Ireland by them. And I went into Britain," he said,
+"and I took the country and killed the king himself and did destruction
+on his people, but Cumhal put me out of it; and from that I went to
+Fionnlochlann, and the king fell by me, and his household, and Cumhal
+put me out of it; and I went from that to the country of the Saxons, and
+the king and his household fell by me, and Cumhal put me out of it. But
+I came back then to Ireland, and I fought a battle against your father,
+and he fell by me there. And it was at that time I put this rent upon
+the men of Lochlann. And, Finn," he said, "it is not a rent of the
+strong hand you have put on them, but it is a tribute for having the
+protection of the Fianna of Ireland, and I do not lessen that. And you
+need not begrudge that tribute to me," he said, "for if I had more than
+that again, it is to you and to the men of Ireland I would give it."</p>
+
+<p>There was great anger on Finn then, and he said: "You tell me, Goll," he
+said, "by your own story, that you came from the city of Beirbhe to
+fight against my father, and that you killed him in the battle; and it
+is a bold thing you to tell that to me." "By your own hand," said Goll,
+"if you were to give me the same treatment your father gave me, I would
+pay you the same way as I paid him." "It would be hard for you to do
+that," said Finn, "for there are a hundred men in my household against
+every man there is in your household." "That was the same with your
+father," said Goll, "and I avenged my disgrace on him; and I would do
+the same on yourself if you earned it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then Cairell of the White Skin, son of Finn, said: "It is many a man of
+Finn's household you have put down, Goll!" And Bald Conan when he heard
+that said: "I swear by my arms, Goll was never without having a hundred
+men in his household, every one of them able to get the better of
+yourself." "And is it to them you belong, crooked-speaking, bare-headed
+Conan?" said Cairell. "It is to them I belong, you black, feeble,
+nail-scratching, rough-skinned Cairell; and I will make you know it was
+Finn was in the wrong," said Conan.</p>
+
+<p>With that Cairell rose up and gave a furious blow of his fist to Conan,
+and Conan took it with no great patience, but gave him back a blow in
+his teeth, and from that they went on to worse blows again. And the two
+sons of Goll rose up to help Conan, and Osgar went to the help of
+Cairell, and it was not long till many of the chief men of the Fianna
+were fighting on the one side or the other, on the side of Finn or on
+the side of the sons of Morna.</p>
+
+<p>But then Fergus of the True Lips rose up, and the rest of the poets of
+the Fianna along with him, and they sang their songs and their poems to
+check and to quiet them. And they left off their fighting at the sound
+of the poets' songs, and they let their weapons fall on the floor, and
+the poets took them up, and made peace between the fighters; and they
+put bonds on Finn and on Goll to keep the peace for a while, till they
+could ask for a judgment from the High King of Ireland. And that was the
+end for that time of the little quarrel at Almhuin.</p>
+
+<p>But it broke out again, one time there was a falling out between Finn
+and Goll as to the dividing of a pig of the pigs of Manannan. And at
+Daire Tardha, the Oak Wood of Bulls, in the province of Connacht, there
+was a great fight between Finn's men and the sons of Morna. And the sons
+of Morna were worsted, and fifteen of their men were killed; and they
+made their mind up that from that time they would set themselves against
+any friends of Finn or of his people. And it was Conan the Bald gave
+them that advice, for he was always bitter, and a maker of quarrels and
+of mischief in every place.</p>
+
+<p>And they kept to their word, and spared no one. There was a
+yellow-haired queen that Finn loved, Berach Brec her name was, and she
+was wise and comely and worthy of any good man, and she had her house
+full of treasures, and never refused the asking of any. And any one that
+came to her house at Samhain time might stay till Beltaine, and have his
+choice then to go or to stay. And the sons of Morna had fostered her,
+and they went where she was and bade her to give up Finn and she need be
+in no dread of them. But she said she would not give up her kind lover
+to please them; and she was going away from them to her ship, and Art,
+son of Morna, made a cast of his spear that went through her body, that
+she died, and her people brought her up from the strand and buried her.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Goll, he took a little hound that Finn thought a great deal
+of, Conbeg its name was, and he drowned it in the sea; and its body was
+brought up to shore by a wave afterwards, and it was buried under a
+little green hill by the Fianna. And Caoilte made a complaint over it,
+and he said how swift the little hound was after deer, or wild pigs, and
+how good at killing them, and that it was a pity it to have died, out on
+the cold green waves. And about that time, nine women of the Tuatha de
+Danaan came to meet with nine men of the Fianna, and the sons of Morna
+saw them coming and made an end of them.</p>
+
+<p>And when Caoilte met with Goll, he made a cast of his spear at him that
+struck the golden helmet off his head and a piece of his flesh along
+with it. But Goll took it very proudly, and put on the helmet again and
+took up his weapons, and called out to his brothers that he was no way
+ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>And Finn went looking for the sons of Morna in every place to do
+vengeance on them. They were doing robbery and destruction one time in
+Slieve Echtge, that got its name from Echtge, daughter of Nuada of the
+Silver Hand, and Finn and the Fianna were to the west, at Slieve Cairn
+in the district of Corcomruadh. And Finn was in doubt if the sons of
+Morna were gone southward into Munster or north into Connacht. So he
+sent Aedan and Cahal, two sons of the King of Ulster, and two hundred
+righting men with them, into the beautiful pleasant province of
+Connacht, and every day they used to go looking for the sons of Morna
+from place to place. But after a while the three battalions of the
+Fianna that were in Corcomruadh saw the track of a troop of men, and
+they thought it to be the track of the sons of Morna; and they closed
+round them at night, and made an end of them all. But when the full
+light came on the morrow, they knew them to be their own people, that
+were with the King of Ulster's sons, and they gave three great heavy
+cries, keening the friends they had killed in mistake.</p>
+
+<p>And Caoilte and Oisin went to Rath Medba and brought a great stone and
+put it over the king's sons, and it was called Lia an Imracail, the
+Stone of the Mistake. And the place where Goll brought his men the time
+he parted from Finn in anger got the name of Druimscarha, the Parting
+Hill of Heroes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L82" id="L82" />CHAPTER II. DEATH OF GOLL</h2>
+
+
+<p>And at last it chanced that Goll and Cairell, son of Finn, met with one
+another, and said sharp words, and they fought in the sea near the
+strand, and Cairell got his death by Goll. And there was great anger and
+great grief on Finn, seeing his son, that was so strong and comely,
+lying dead and grey, like a blighted branch.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Goll, he went away to a cave that was in a point stretching
+out into the sea; and he thought to stop there till Finn's anger would
+have passed.</p>
+
+<p>And Osgar knew where he was, and he went to see him, that had been his
+comrade in so many battles. But Goll thought it was as an enemy he came,
+and he made a cast of his spear at him, and though Osgar got no wound by
+it, it struck his shield and crushed it. And Finn took notice of the way
+the shield was, and when he knew that Goll had made a cast at Osgar
+there was greater anger again on him. And he sent out his men and bade
+them to watch every path and every gap that led to the cave where Goll
+was, the way they would make an end of him.</p>
+
+<p>And when Goll knew Finn to be watching for his life that way, he made no
+attempt to escape, but stopped where he was, without food, without
+drink, and he blinded with the sand that was blowing into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And his wife came to a rock where she could speak with him, and she
+called to him to come to her. "Come over to me," she said; "and it is a
+pity you to be blinded where you are, on the rocks of the waste sea,
+with no drink but the salt water, a man that was first in every fight.
+And come now to be sleeping beside me," she said; "and in place of the
+hard sea-water I will nourish you from my own breast, and it is I will
+do your healing. And the gold of your hair is my desire for ever," she
+said, "and do not stop withering there like an herb in the winter-time,
+and my heart black with grief within me."</p>
+
+<p>But Goll would not leave the spot where he was for all she could say.
+"It is best as it is," he said, "and I never took the advice of a woman
+east or west, and I never will take it. And O sweet-voiced queen," he
+said, "what ails you to be fretting after me; and remember now your
+silver and your gold, and your silks and stuffs, and remember the seven
+hounds I gave you at Cruadh Ceirrge, and every one of them without
+slackness till he has killed the deer. And do not be crying tears after
+me, queen with the white hands," he said; "but remember your constant
+lover, Aodh, the son of the best woman of the world, that came out from
+Spain asking for you, and that I fought at Corcar-an-Deirg; and go to
+him now," he said, "for it is bad when a woman is in want of a good
+man."</p>
+
+<p>And he lay down on the rocks, and at the end of twelve days he died. And
+his wife keened him there, and made a great lamentation for her husband
+that had such a great name, and that was the second best of the Fianna
+of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And when Conan heard of the death of Goll his brother, there was great
+anger on him, and he went to Garraidh, and asked him to go with him to
+Finn to ask satisfaction for Goll. "I am not willing to go," said
+Garraidh, "since we could get no satisfaction for the great son of
+Morna." "Whether you have a mind to go or not, I will go," said Conan;
+"and I will make an end of every man I meet with, for the sake of
+yellow-haired Goll; I will have the life of Oisin, Finn's great son, and
+of Osgar and of Caoilte and of Daire of the Songs; I will have no
+forgiveness for them; we must show no respect for Finn, although we may
+die in the fight, having no help from Goll. And let us take that work in
+hand, and make no delay," he said; "for if Finn is there, his strength
+will be there, until we put him under his flag-stone."</p>
+
+<p>But it is not likely Garraidh went with him, and he after speaking such
+foolish words.</p>
+
+<p>And what happened Conan in the end is not known. But there is a cairn of
+stones on a hill of Burren, near to Corcomruadh, and the people of
+Connacht say it is there he is buried, and that there was a stone found
+there one time, having on it in the old writing: "Conan the
+swift-footed, the bare-footed." But the Munster people say it is on
+their own side of Burren he is buried.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L83" id="L83" />CHAPTER III. THE BATTLE OF GABHRA</h2>
+
+
+<p>Now, with one thing and another, the High King of Ireland had got to be
+someway bitter against Finn and the Fianna; and one time that he had a
+gathering of his people he spoke out to them, and he bade them to
+remember all the harm that had been done them through the Fianna, and
+all their pride, and the tribute they asked. "And as to myself," he
+said, "I would sooner die fighting the Fianna, if I could bring them
+down along with me, than live with Ireland under them the way it is
+now."</p>
+
+<p>All his people were of the same mind, and they said they would make no
+delay, but would attack the Fianna and make an end of them. "And we will
+have good days of joy and of feasting," they said, "when once Almhuin is
+clear of them."</p>
+
+<p>And the High King began to make plans against Finn; and he sent to all
+the men of Ireland to come and help him. And when all was ready, he sent
+and bade Osgar to come to a feast he was making at Teamhair.</p>
+
+<p>And Osgar, that never was afraid before any enemy, set out for Teamhair,
+and three hundred of his men with him. And on the way they saw a woman
+of the Sidhe washing clothes at a river, and there was the colour of
+blood on the water where she was washing them. And Osgar said to her:
+"There is red on the clothes you are washing; and it is for the dead you
+are washing them." And the woman answered him, and it is what she said:
+"It is not long till the ravens will be croaking over your own head
+after the battle." "Is there any weakness in our eyes," said Osgar,
+"that a little story like that would set us crying? And do another
+foretelling for us now," he said, "and tell us will any man of our
+enemies fall by us before we ourselves are made an end of?"</p>
+
+<p>"There will nine hundred fall by yourself," she said; "and the High
+King himself will get his death-wound from you."</p>
+
+<p>Osgar and his men went on then to the king's house at Teamhair, and they
+got good treatment, and the feast was made ready, and they were three
+days at pleasure and at drinking.</p>
+
+<p>And on the last day of the drinking, the High King called out with a
+loud voice, and he asked Osgar would he make an exchange of spears with
+him. "Why do you ask that exchange," said Osgar, "when I myself and my
+spear were often with yourself in time of battle? And you would not ask
+it of me," he said, "if Finn and the Fianna were with me now." "I would
+ask it from any fighting man among you," said the king, "and for rent
+and tribute along with it." "Any gold or any treasure you might ask of
+us, we would give it to you," said Osgar, "but it is not right for you
+to ask my spear." There were very high words between them then, and they
+threatened one another, and at the last the High King said: "I will put
+my spear of the seven spells out through your body." "And I give my word
+against that," said Osgar, "I will put my spear of the nine spells
+between the meeting of your hair and your beard."</p>
+
+<p>With that he and his men rose up and went out of Teamhair, and they
+stopped to rest beside a river, and there they heard the sound of a very
+sorrowful tune, that was like keening, played on a harp. And there was
+great anger on Osgar when he heard that, and he rose up and took his
+arms and roused his people, and they went on again to where Finn was.
+And there came after them a messenger from the High King, and the
+message he brought was this, that he never would pay tribute to the
+Fianna or bear with them at all from that time.</p>
+
+<p>And when Finn heard that, he sent a challenge of battle, and he gathered
+together all the Fianna that were left to him. But as to the sons of
+Morna, it was to the High King of Ireland they gathered.</p>
+
+<p>And it was at the hill of Gabhra the two armies met, and there were
+twenty men with the King of Ireland for every man that was with Finn.</p>
+
+<p>And it is a very hard battle was fought that day, and there were great
+deeds done on both sides; and there never was a greater battle fought in
+Ireland than that one.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Osgar, it would be hard to tell all he killed on that day;
+five score of the Sons of the Gael, and five score fighting men from the
+Country of Snow, and seven score of the Men of Green Swords that never
+went a step backward, and four hundred from the Country of the Lion, and
+five score of the sons of kings; and the shame was for the King of
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>But as to Osgar himself, that began the day so swift and so strong, at
+the last he was like leaves on a strong wind, or like an aspen-tree that
+is falling. But when he saw the High King near him, he made for him like
+a wave breaking on the strand; and the king saw him coming, and shook
+his greedy spear, and made a cast of it, and it went through his body
+and brought him down on his right knee, and that was the first grief of
+the Fianna. But Osgar himself was no way daunted, but he made a cast of
+his spear of the nine spells that went into the High King at the meeting
+of the hair and the beard, and gave him his death. And when the men
+nearest to the High King saw that, they put the king's helmet up on a
+pillar, the way his people would think he was living yet. But Osgar saw
+it, and he lifted a thin bit of a slab-stone that was on the ground
+beside him, and he made a cast of it that broke the helmet where it was;
+and then he himself fell like a king.</p>
+
+<p>And there fell in that battle the seven sons of Caoilte, and the son of
+the King of Lochlann that had come to give them his help, and it would
+be hard to count the number of the Fianna that fell in that battle.</p>
+
+<p>And when it was ended, those that were left of them went looking for
+their dead. And Caoilte stooped down over his seven brave sons, and
+every living man of the Fianna stooped over his own dear friends. And it
+was a lasting grief to see all that were stretched in that place, but
+the Fianna would not have taken it to heart the way they did, but for
+being as they were, a beaten race.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Oisin, he went looking for Osgar, and it is the way he found
+him, lying stretched, and resting on his left arm and his broken shield
+beside him, and his sword in his hand yet, and his blood about him on
+every side. And he put out his hand to Oisin, and Oisin took it and gave
+out a very hard cry. And Osgar said: "It is glad I am to see you safe,
+my father." And Oisin had no answer to give him. And just then Caoilte
+came where they were, and he looked at Osgar. "What way are you now, my
+darling?" he said. "The way you would like me to be," said Osgar.</p>
+
+<p>Then Caoilte searched the wound, and when he saw how the spear had torn
+its way through to the back, he cried out, and a cloud came over him and
+his strength failed him. "O Osgar," he said, "you are parted from the
+Fianna, and they themselves must be parted from battle from this out,"
+he said, "and they must pay their tribute to the King of Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>Then Caoilte and Oisin raised up Osgar on their shields and brought him
+to a smooth green hill till they would take his dress off. And there was
+not a hands-breadth of his white body that was without a wound.</p>
+
+<p>And when the rest of the Fianna saw what way Osgar was, there was not a
+man of them that keened his own son or his brother, but every one of
+them came keening Osgar.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while, at noonday, they saw Finn coming towards them, and
+what was left of the Sun-banner raised on a spear-shaft. All of them
+saluted Finn then, but he made no answer, and he came up to the hill
+where Osgar was. And when Osgar saw him coming he saluted him, and he
+said: "I have got my desire in death, Finn of the sharp arms." And Finn
+said: "It is worse the way you were, my son, on the day of the battle at
+Beinn Edair when the wild geese could swim on your breast, and it was my
+hand that gave you healing." "There can no healing be done for me now
+for ever," said Osgar, "since the King of Ireland put the spear of seven
+spells through my body." And Finn said: "It is a pity it was not I
+myself fell in sunny scarce Gabhra, and you going east and west at the
+head of the Fianna." "And if it was yourself fell in the battle," said
+Osgar, "you would not hear me keening after you; for no man ever knew
+any heart in me," he said, "but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered
+with iron. But the howling of the dogs beside me," he said, "and the
+keening of the old righting men, and the crying of the women one after
+another, those are the things that are vexing me." And Finn said: "Child
+of my child, calf of my calf, white and slender, it is a pity the way
+you are. And my heart is starting like a deer," he said, "and I am weak
+after you and after the Fianna of Ireland. And misfortune has followed
+us," he said; "and farewell now to battles and to a great name, and
+farewell to taking tributes; for every good thing I ever had is gone
+from me now," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And when Osgar heard those words he stretched out his hands, and his
+eyelids closed. And Finn turned away from the rest, and he cried tears
+down; and he never shed a tear through the whole length of his lifetime
+but only for Osgar and for Bran.</p>
+
+<p>And all that were left of the Fianna gave three gorrowful cries after
+Osgar, for there was not one of the Fianna beyond him, unless it might
+be Finn or Oisin.</p>
+
+<p>And it is many of the Fianna were left dead in Gabhra, and graves were
+made for them. And as to Lugaidh's Son, that was so tall a man and so
+good a fighter, they made a very wide grave for him, as was fitting for
+a king. And the whole length of the rath at Gabhra, from end to end, it
+is that was the grave of Osgar, son of Oisin, son of Finn.</p>
+
+<p>And as to Finn himself, he never had peace or pleasure again from that
+day.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L84" id="L84" />BOOK TEN: THE END OF THE FIANNA.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. DEATH OF BRAN</h2>
+
+
+<p>One day Finn was hunting, and Bran went following after a fawn. And they
+were coming towards Finn, and the fawn called out, and it said: "If I go
+into the sea below I will never come back again; and if I go up into the
+air above me, it will not save me from Bran." For Bran would overtake
+the wild geese, she was that swift.</p>
+
+<p>"Go out through my legs," said Finn then. So the fawn did that, and Bran
+followed her; and as Bran went under him, Finn squeezed his two knees on
+her, that she died on the moment.</p>
+
+<p>And there was great grief on him after that, and he cried tears down the
+same as he did when Osgar died.</p>
+
+<p>And some said it was Finn's mother the fawn was, and that it was to save
+his mother he killed Bran. But that is not likely, for his mother was
+beautiful Muirne, daughter of Tadg, son of Nuada of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and it was never heard that she was changed into a fawn. It is
+more likely it was Oisin's mother was in it.</p>
+
+<p>But some say Bran and Sceolan are still seen to start at night out of
+the thicket on the hill of Almhuin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L85" id="L85" />CHAPTER II. THE CALL OF OISIN</h2>
+
+
+<p>One misty morning, what were left of the Fianna were gathered together
+to Finn, and it is sorrowful and downhearted they were after the loss of
+so many of their comrades.</p>
+
+<p>And they went hunting near the borders of Loch Lein, where the bushes
+were in blossom and the birds were singing; and they were waking up the
+deer that were as joyful as the leaves of a tree in summer-time.</p>
+
+<p>And it was not long till they saw coming towards them from the west a
+beautiful young woman, riding on a very fast slender white horse. A
+queen's crown she had on her head, and a dark cloak of silk down to the
+ground, having stars of red gold on it; and her eyes were blue and as
+clear as the dew on the grass, and a gold ring hanging down from every
+golden lock of her hair; and her cheeks redder than the rose, and her
+skin whiter than the swan upon the wave, and her lips as sweet as honey
+that is mixed through red wine.</p>
+
+<p>And in her hand she was holding a bridle having a golden bit, and there
+was a saddle worked with red gold under her. And as to the horse, he had
+a wide smooth cloak over him, and a silver crown on the back of his
+head, and he was shod with shining gold.</p>
+
+<p>She came to where Finn was, and she spoke with a very kind, gentle
+voice, and she said: "It is long my journey was, King of the Fianna."
+And Finn asked who was she, and what was her country and the cause of
+her coming. "Niamh of the Golden Head is my name," she said; "and I have
+a name beyond all the women of the world, for I am the daughter of the
+King of the Country of the Young." "What was it brought you to us from
+over the sea, Queen?" said Finn then. "Is it that your husband is gone
+from you, or what is the trouble that is on you?" "My husband is not gone
+from me," she said, "for I never went yet to any man. But O King of the
+Fianna," she said, "I have given my love and my affection to your own
+son, Oisin of the strong hands." "Why did you give your love to him
+beyond all the troops of high princes that are under the sun?" said
+Finn. "It was by reason of his great name, and of the report I heard of
+his bravery and of his comeliness," she said. "And though there is many
+a king's son and high prince gave me his love, I never consented to any
+till I set my love on Oisin."</p>
+
+<p>When Oisin heard what she was saying, there was not a limb of his body
+that was not in love with beautiful Niamh; and he took her hand in his
+hand, and he said: "A true welcome before you to this country, young
+queen. It is you are the shining one," he said; "it is you are the
+nicest and the comeliest; it is you are better to me than any other
+woman; it is you are my star and my choice beyond the women of the
+entire world." "I put on you the bonds of a true hero," said Niamh then,
+"you to come away with me now to the Country of the Young." And it is
+what she said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is the country is most delightful of all that are under the sun; the
+trees are stooping down with fruit and with leaves and with blossom.</p>
+
+<p>"Honey and wine are plentiful there, and everything the eye has ever
+seen; no wasting will come on you with the wasting away of time; you
+will never see death or lessening.</p>
+
+<p>"You will get feasts, playing and drinking; you will get sweet music on
+the strings; you will get silver and gold and many jewels.</p>
+
+<p>"You will get, and no lie in it, a hundred swords; a hundred cloaks of
+the dearest silk; a hundred horses, the quickest in battle; a hundred
+willing hounds.</p>
+
+<p>"You will get the royal crown of the King of the Young that he never
+gave to any one under the sun. It will be a shelter to you night and
+day in every rough fight and in every battle.</p>
+
+<p>"You will get a right suit of armour; a sword, gold-hilted, apt for
+striking; no one that ever saw it got away alive from it.</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred coats of armour and shirts of satin; a hundred cows and a
+hundred calves; a hundred sheep having golden fleeces; a hundred jewels
+that are not of this world.</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred glad young girls shining like the sun, their voices sweeter
+than the music of birds; a hundred armed men strong in battle, apt at
+feats, waiting on you, if you will come with me to the Country of the
+Young.</p>
+
+<p>"You will get everything I have said to you, and delights beyond them,
+that I have no leave to tell; you will get beauty, strength and power,
+and I myself will be with you as a wife."</p>
+
+<p>And after she had made that song, Oisin said: "O pleasant golden-haired
+queen, you are my choice beyond the women of the world; and I will go
+with you willingly," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And with that he kissed Finn his father and bade him farewell, and he
+bade farewell to the rest of the Fianna, and he went up then on the
+horse with Niamh.</p>
+
+<p>And the horse set out gladly, and when he came to the strand he shook
+himself and he neighed three times, and then he made for the sea. And
+when Finn and the Fianna saw Oisin facing the wide sea, they gave three
+great sorrowful shouts. And as to Finn, he said: "It is my grief to see
+you going from me; and I am without a hope," he said, "ever to see you
+coming back to me again."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L86" id="L86" />CHAPTER III. THE LAST OF THE GREAT MEN</h2>
+
+
+<p>And indeed that was the last time Finn and Oisin and the rest of the
+Fianna of Ireland were gathered together, for hunting, for battle, for
+chess-playing, for drinking or for music; for they all wore away after
+that, one after another.</p>
+
+<p>As to Caoilte, that was old and had lost his sons, he used to be
+fretting and lonesome after the old times. And one day that there was
+very heavy snow on the ground, he made this complaint:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is cold the winter is; the wind is risen; the fierce high-couraged
+stag rises up; it is cold the whole mountain is to-night, yet the fierce
+stag is calling. The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings does not lay
+his side to the ground; he no less than the stag of the top of cold
+Echtge hears the music of the wolves.</p>
+
+<p>"I, Caoilte, and brown-haired Diarmuid and pleasant light-footed Osgar,
+we used to be listening to the music of the wolves through the end of
+the cold night. It is well the brown deer sleeps with its hide to the
+hollow, hidden as if in the earth, through the end of the cold night.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day I am in my age, and I know but a few men; I used to shake my
+spear bravely in the ice-cold morning. It is often I put silence on a
+great army that is very cold to-night."</p>
+
+<p>And after a while he went into a hill of the Sidhe to be healed of his
+old wounds. And whether he came back from there or not is not known; and
+there are some that say he used to be talking with Patrick of the Bells
+the same time Oisin was with him. But that is not likely, or Oisin would
+not have made complaints about his loneliness the way he did.</p>
+
+<p>But a long time after that again, there was a king of Ireland making a
+journey. And he and his people missed their way, and when night-time
+came on, they were in a dark wood, and no path before them.</p>
+
+<p>And there came to them a very tall man, that was shining like a burning
+flame, and he took hold of the bridle of the king's horse, and led him
+through the wood till they came to the right road. And the King of
+Ireland asked him who was he, and first he said: "I am your
+candlestick"; and then he said: "I was with Finn one time." And the king
+knew it was Caoilte, son of Ronan, was in it.</p>
+
+<p>And three times nine of the rest of the Fianna came out of the west one
+time to Teamhair. And they took notice that now they were wanting their
+full strength and their great name, no one took notice of them or came
+to speak with them at all. And when they saw that, they lay down on the
+side of the hill at Teamhair, and put their lips to the earth and died.</p>
+
+<p>And for three days and a month and a year from the time of the
+destruction of the Fianna of Ireland, Loch Dearg was under mists.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break" />
+
+<p>And as to Finn, there are some say he died by the hand of a fisherman;
+but it is likely that is not true, for that would be no death for so
+great a man as Finn, son of Cumhal. And there are some say he never
+died, but is alive in some place yet.</p>
+
+<p>And one time a smith made his way into a cave he saw, that had a door to
+it, and he made a key that opened it. And when he went in he saw a very
+wide place, and very big men lying on the floor. And one that was bigger
+than the rest was lying in the middle, and the Dord Fiann beside him;
+and he knew it was Finn and the Fianna were in it.</p>
+
+<p>And the smith took hold of the Dord Fiann, and it is hardly he could
+lift it to his mouth, and he blew a very strong blast on it, and the
+sound it made was so great, it is much the rocks did not come down on
+him. And at the sound, the big men lying on the ground shook from head
+to foot. He gave another blast then, and they all turned on their
+elbows.</p>
+
+<p>And great dread came on him when he saw that, and he threw down the Dord
+Fiann and ran from the caye and locked the door after him, and threw the
+key into the lake. And he heard them crying after him, "You left us
+worse than you found us." And the cave was not found again since that
+time.</p>
+
+<p>But some say the day will come when the Dord Fiann will be sounded three
+times, and that at the sound of it the Fianna will rise up as strong and
+as well as ever they were. And there are some say Finn, son of Cumhal,
+has been on the earth now and again since the old times, in the shape of
+one of the heroes of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>And as to the great things he and his men did when they were together,
+it is well they have been kept in mind through the poets of Ireland and
+of Alban. And one night there were two men minding sheep in a valley,
+and they were saying the poems of the Fianna while they were there. And
+they saw two very tall shapes on the two hills on each side of the
+valley, and one of the tall shapes said to the other: "Do you hear that
+man down below? I was the second doorpost of battle at Gabhra, and that
+man knows all about it better than myself."</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L87" id="L87" />BOOK ELEVEN: OISIN AND PATRICK.</h2>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I. OISIN'S STORY</h2>
+
+
+<p>As to Oisin, it was a long time after he was brought away by Niamh that
+he came back again to Ireland. Some say it was hundreds of years he was
+in the Country of the Young, and some say it was thousands of years he
+was in it; but whatever time it was, it seemed short to him.</p>
+
+<p>And whatever happened him through the time he was away, it is a withered
+old man he was found after coming back to Ireland, and his white horse
+going away from him, and he lying on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>And it was S. Patrick had power at that time, and it was to him Oisin
+was brought; and he kept him in his house, and used to be teaching him
+and questioning him. And Oisin was no way pleased with the way Ireland
+was then, but he used to be talking of the old times, and fretting after
+the Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>And Patrick bade him to tell what happened him the time he left Finn and
+the Fianna and went away with Niamh. And it is the story Oisin
+told:&mdash;"The time I went away with golden-haired Niamh, we turned our
+backs to the land, and our faces westward, and the sea was going away
+before us, and filling up in waves after us. And we saw wonderful things
+on our journey," he said, "cities and courts and duns and lime-white
+houses, and shining sunny-houses and palaces. And one time we saw beside
+us a hornless deer running hard, and an eager white red-eared hound
+following after it. And another time we saw a young girl on a horse and
+having a golden apple in her right hand, and she going over the tops of
+the waves; and there was following after her a young man riding a white
+horse, and having a crimson cloak and a gold-hilted sword in his right
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Follow on with your story, pleasant Oisin," said Patrick, "for you did
+not tell us yet what was the country you went to."</p>
+
+<p>"The Country of the Young, the Country of Victory, it was," said Oisin.
+"And O Patrick," he said, "there is no lie in that name; and if there
+are grandeurs in your Heaven the same as there are there, I would give
+my friendship to God.</p>
+
+<p>"We turned our backs then to the dun," he said, "and the horse under us
+was quicker than the spring wind on the backs of the mountains. And it
+was not long till the sky darkened, and the wind rose in every part, and
+the sea was as if on fire, and there was nothing to be seen of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"But after we were looking at the clouds and the stars for a while the
+wind went down, and the storm, and the sun brightened. And we saw before
+us a very delightful country under full blossom, and smooth plains in
+it, and a king's dun that was very grand, and that had every colour in
+it, and sunny-houses beside it, and palaces of shining stones, made by
+skilled men. And we saw coming out to meet us three fifties of armed
+men, very lively and handsome. And I asked Niamh was this the Country of
+the Young, and she said it was. 'And indeed, Oisin,' she said, 'I told
+you no lie about it, and you will see all I promised you before you for
+ever.'</p>
+
+<p>"And there came out after that a hundred beautiful young girls, having
+cloaks of silk worked with gold, and they gave me a welcome to their own
+country. And after that there came a great shining army, and with it a
+strong beautiful king, having a shirt of yellow silk and a golden cloak
+over it, and a very bright crown on his head. And there was following
+after him a young queen, and fifty young girls along with her.</p>
+
+<p>"And when all were come to the one spot, the king took me by the hand,
+and he said out before them all: 'A hundred thousand welcomes before
+you, Oisin, son of Finn. And as to this country you are come to,' he
+said, 'I will tell you news of it without a lie. It is long and lasting
+your life will be in it, and you yourself will be young for ever. And
+there is no delight the heart ever thought of,' he said, 'but it is
+here against your coming. And you can believe my words, Oisin,' he said,
+'for I myself am the King of the Country of the Young, and this is its
+comely queen, and it was golden-headed Niamh our daughter that went over
+the sea looking for you to be her husband for ever.' I gave thanks to
+him then, and I stooped myself down before the queen, and we went
+forward to the royal house, and all the high nobles came out to meet us,
+both men and women, and there was a great feast made there through the
+length of ten days and ten nights.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is the way I married Niamh of the Golden Hair, and that is the
+way I went to the Country of the Young, although it is sorrowful to me
+to be telling it now, O Patrick from Rome," said Oisin.</p>
+
+<p>"Follow on with your story, Oisin of the destroying arms," said Patrick,
+"and tell me what way did you leave the Country of the Young, for it is
+long to me till I hear that; and tell us now had you any children by
+Niamh, and was it long you were in that place."</p>
+
+<p>"Two beautiful children I had by Niamh," said Oisin, "two young sons and
+a comely daughter. And Niamh gave the two sons the name of Finn and of
+Osgar, and the name I gave to the daughter was The Flower.</p>
+
+<p>"And I did not feel the time passing, and it was a long time I stopped
+there," he said, "till the desire came on me to see Finn and my comrades
+again. And I asked leave of the king and of Niamh to go back to Ireland.
+'You will get leave from me,' said Niamh; 'but for all that,' she said,
+'it is bad news you are giving me, for I am in dread you will never come
+back here again through the length of your days.' But I bade her have no
+fear, since the white horse would bring me safe back again from Ireland.
+'Bear this in mind, Oisin,' she said then, 'if you once get off the
+horse while you are away, or if you once put your foot to ground, you
+will never come back here again. And O Oisin,' she said, 'I tell it to
+you now for the third time, if you once get down from the horse, you
+will be an old man, blind and withered, without liveliness, without
+mirth, without running, without leaping. And it is a grief to me,
+Oisin,' she said, 'you ever to go back to green Ireland; and it is not
+now as it used to be, and you will not see Finn and his people, for
+there is not now in the whole of Ireland but a Father of Orders and
+armies of saints; and here is my kiss for you, pleasant Oisin,' she
+said, 'for you will never come back any more to the Country of the
+Young.'</p>
+
+<p>"And that is my story, Patrick, and I have told you no lie in it," said
+Oisin. "And O Patrick," he said, "if I was the same the day I came here
+as I was that day, I would have made an end of all your clerks, and
+there would not be a head left on a neck after me."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on with your story," said Patrick, "and you will get the same good
+treatment from me you got from Finn, for the sound of your voice is
+pleasing to me."</p>
+
+<p>So Oisin went on with his story, and it is what he said: "I have nothing
+to tell of my journey till I came back into green Ireland, and I looked
+about me then on all sides, but there were no tidings to be got of Finn.
+And it was not long till I saw a great troop of riders, men and women,
+coming towards me from the west. And when they came near they wished me
+good health; and there was wonder on them all when they looked at me,
+seeing me so unlike themselves, and so big and so tall.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked them then did they hear if Finn was still living, or any other
+one of the Fianna, or what had happened them. 'We often heard of Finn
+that lived long ago,' said they, 'and that there never was his equal for
+strength or bravery or a great name; and there is many a book written
+down,' they said, 'by the sweet poets of the Gael, about his doings and
+the doings of the Fianna, and it would be hard for us to tell you all
+of them. And we heard Finn had a son,' they said, 'that was beautiful
+and shining, and that there came a young girl looking for him, and he
+went away with her to the Country of the Young.'</p>
+
+<p>"And when I knew by their talk that Finn was not living or any of the
+Fianna, it is downhearted I was, and tired, and very sorrowful after
+them. And I made no delay, but I turned my face and went on to Almhuin
+of Leinster. And there was great wonder on me when I came there to see
+no sign at all of Finn's great dun, and his great hall, and nothing in
+the place where it was but weeds and nettles."</p>
+
+<p>And there was grief on Oisin then, and he said: "Och, Patrick! Och,
+ochone, my grief! It is a bad journey that was to me; and to be without
+tidings of Finn or the Fianna has left me under pain through my
+lifetime."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave off fretting, Oisin," said Patrick, "and shed your tears to the
+God of grace. Finn and the Fianna are slack enough now, and they will
+get no help for ever." "It is a great pity that would be," said Oisin,
+"Finn to be in pain for ever; and who was it gained the victory over
+him, when his own hand had made an end of so many a hard fighter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is God gained the victory over Finn," said Patrick, "and not the
+strong hand of an enemy; and as to the Fianna, they are condemned to
+hell along with him, and tormented for ever."</p>
+
+<p>"O Patrick," said Oisin, "show me the place where Finn and his people
+are, and there is not a hell or a heaven there but I will put it down.
+And if Osgar, my own son, is there," he said, "the hero that was bravest
+in heavy battles, there is not in hell or in the Heaven of God a troop
+so great that he could not destroy it."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us leave off quarrelling on each side now," said Patrick; "and go
+on, Oisin, with your story. What happened you after you knew the Fianna
+to be at an end?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you that, Patrick," said Oisin. "I was turning to go away,
+and I saw the stone trough that the Fianna used to be putting their
+hands in, and it full of water. And when I saw it I had such a wish and
+such a feeling for it that I forgot what I was told, and I got off the
+horse. And in the minute all the years came on me, and I was lying on
+the ground, and the horse took fright and went away and left me there,
+an old man, weak and spent, without sight, without shape, without
+comeliness, without strength or understanding, without respect.</p>
+
+<p>"There, Patrick, is my story for you now," said Oisin, "and no lie in
+it, of all that happened me going away and coming back again from the
+Country of the Young."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L88" id="L88" />CHAPTER II. OISIN IN PATRICK'S HOUSE</h2>
+
+
+<p>And Oisin stopped on with S. Patrick, but he was not very well content
+with the way he was treated. And one time he said: "They say I am
+getting food, but God knows I am not, or drink; and I Oisin, son of
+Finn, under a yoke, drawing stones." "It is my opinion you are getting
+enough," said S. Patrick then, "and you getting a quarter of beef and a
+churn of butter and a griddle of bread every day." "I often saw a
+quarter of a blackbird bigger than your quarter of beef," said Oisin,
+"and a rowan berry as big as your churn of butter, and an ivy leaf as
+big as your griddle of bread." S, Patrick was vexed when he heard that,
+and he said to Oisin that he had told a lie.</p>
+
+<p>There was great anger on Oisin then, and he went where there was a
+litter of pups, and he bade a serving-boy to nail up the hide of a
+freshly killed bullock to the wall, and to throw the pups against it one
+by one. And every one that he threw fell down from the hide till it came
+to the last, and he held on to it with his teeth and his nails. "Rear
+that one," said Oisin, "and drown all the rest."</p>
+
+<p>Then he bade the boy to keep the pup in a dark place, and to care it
+well, and never to let it taste blood or see the daylight. And at the
+end of a year, Oisin was so well pleased with the pup, that he gave it
+the name of Bran Og, young Bran.</p>
+
+<p>And one day he called to the serving-boy to come on a journey with him,
+and to bring the pup in a chain. And they set out and passed by
+Slieve-nam-ban, where the witches of the Sidhe do be spinning with their
+spinning-wheels; and then they turned eastward into Gleann-na-Smol. And
+Oisin raised a rock that was there, and he bade the lad take from under
+it three things, a great sounding horn of the Fianna, and a ball of iron
+they had for throwing, and a very sharp sword. And when Oisin saw those
+things, he took them in his hands, and he said: "My thousand farewells
+to the day when you were put here!" He bade the lad to clean them well
+then; and when he had done that, he bade him to sound a blast on the
+horn. So the boy did that, and Oisin asked him did he see anything
+strange. "I did not," said the boy. "Sound it again as loud as you can,"
+said Oisin. "That is as hard as I can sound it, and I can see nothing
+yet," said the boy when he had done that. Then Oisin took the horn
+himself, and he put it to his mouth, and blew three great blasts on it.
+"What do you see now?" he said. "I see three great clouds coming," he
+said, "and they are settling down in the valley; and the first cloud is
+a flight of very big birds, and the second cloud is a flight of birds
+that are bigger again, and the third flight is of the biggest and the
+blackest birds the world ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the dog doing?" said Oisin. "The eyes are starting from his
+head, and there is not a rib of hair on him but is standing up." "Let
+him loose now," said Oisin.</p>
+
+<p>The dog rushed down to the valley then, and he made an attack on one of
+the birds, that was the biggest of all, and that had a shadow like a
+cloud. And they fought a very fierce fight, but at last Bran Og made an
+end of the big bird, and lapped its blood. But if he did, madness came
+on him, and he came rushing back towards Oisin, his jaws open and his
+eyes like fire. "There is dread on me, Oisin," said the boy, "for the
+dog is making for us, mad and raging." "Take this iron ball and make a
+cast at him when he comes near," said Oisin. "I am in dread to do that,"
+said the boy. "Put it in my hand, and turn it towards him," said Oisin.
+The boy did that, and Oisin made a cast of the ball that went into the
+mouth and the throat of the dog, and choked him, and he fell down the
+slope, twisting and foaming.</p>
+
+<p>Then they went where the great bird was left dead, and Oisin bade the
+lad to cut a quarter off it with the sword, and he did so. And then he
+bade him cut open the body, and in it he found a rowan berry, the
+biggest he had ever seen, and an ivy leaf that was bigger than the
+biggest griddle.</p>
+
+<p>So Oisin turned back then, and went to where S. Patrick was, and he
+showed him the quarter of the bird that was bigger than any quarter of a
+bullock, and the rowan berry that was bigger than a churning of butter,
+and the leaf. "And you know now, Patrick of the Bells," he said, "that I
+told no lie; and it is what kept us all through our lifetime," he said,
+"truth that was in our hearts, and strength in our arms, and fulfilment
+in our tongues."</p>
+
+<p>"You told no lie indeed," said Patrick.</p>
+
+<p>And when Oisin had no sight left at all, he used every night to put up
+one of the serving-men on his shoulders, and to bring him out to see how
+were the cattle doing. And one night the servants had no mind to go, and
+they agreed together to tell him it was a very bad night.</p>
+
+<p>And it is what the first of them said; "It is outside there is a heavy
+sound with the heavy water dropping from the tops of trees; the sound of
+the waves is not to be heard for the loud splashing of the rain." And
+then the next one said: "The trees of the wood are shivering, and the
+birch is turning black; the snow is killing the birds; that is the story
+outside." And the third said: "It is to the east they have turned their
+face, the white snow and the dark rain; it is what is making the plain
+so cold is the snow that is dripping and getting hard."</p>
+
+<p>But there was a serving-girl in the house, and she said: "Rise up,
+Oisin, and go out to the white-headed cows, since the cold wind is
+plucking the trees from the hills."</p>
+
+<p>Oisin went out then, and the serving-man on his shoulders; but it is
+what the serving-man did, he brought a vessel of water and a birch broom
+with him, and he was dashing water in Oisin's face, the way he would
+think it was rain. But when they came to the pen where the cattle were,
+Oisin found the night was quiet, and after that he asked no more news of
+the weather from the servants.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L89" id="L89" />CHAPTER III. THE ARGUMENTS</h2>
+
+
+<p>And S. Patrick took in hand to convert Oisin, and to bring him to
+baptism; but it was no easy work he had to do, and everything he would
+say, Oisin would have an answer for it. And it is the way they used to
+be talking and arguing with one another, as it was put down afterwards
+by the poets of Ireland:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Oisin, it is long your sleep is. Rise up and listen to the
+Psalm. Your strength and your readiness are gone from you, though you
+used to be going into rough fights and battles."</p>
+
+<p>OLSIN. "My readiness and my strength are gone from me since Finn has no
+armies living; I have no liking for clerks, their music is not sweet to
+me after his."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "You never heard music so good from the beginning of the world
+to this day; it is well you would serve an army on a hill, you that are
+old and silly and grey."</p>
+
+<p>OLSIN. "I used to serve an army on a hill, Patrick of the closed-up
+mind; it is a pity you to be faulting me; there was never shame put on
+me till now.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard music was sweeter than your music, however much you are
+praising your clerks: the song of the blackbird in Leiter Laoi, and the
+sound of the Dord Fiann; the very sweet thrush of the Valley of the
+Shadow, or the sound of the boats striking the strand. The cry of the
+hounds was better to me than the noise of your schools, Patrick.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Nut, little Nut of my heart, the little dwarf that was with
+Finn, when he would make tunes and songs he would put us all into deep
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"The twelve hounds that belonged to Finn, the time they would be let
+loose facing out from the Siuir, their cry was sweeter than harps and
+than pipes.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a little story about Finn; we were but fifteen men; we took the
+King of the Saxons of the feats, and we won a battle against the King of
+Greece.</p>
+
+<p>"We fought nine battles in Spain, and nine times twenty battles in
+Ireland; from Lochlann and from the eastern world there was a share of
+gold coming to Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief! I to be stopping after him, and without delight in games or
+in music; to be withering away after my comrades; my grief it is to be
+living. I and the clerks of the Mass books are two that can never agree.</p>
+
+<p>"If Finn and the Fianna were living, I would leave the clerks and the
+bells; I would follow the deer through the valleys, I would like to be
+close on his track.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Heaven of God, Patrick, for Finn of the Fianna and his race; make
+prayers for the great man; you never heard of his like."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "I will not ask Heaven for Finn, man of good wit that my anger
+is rising against, since his delight was to be living in valleys with
+the noise of hunts."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If you had been in company with the Fianna, Patrick of the
+joyless clerks and of the bells, you would not be attending on schools
+or giving heed to God."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "I would not part from the Son of God for all that have lived
+east or west; O Oisin, O shaking poet, there will harm come on you in
+satisfaction for the priests."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "It was a delight to Finn the cry of his hounds on the mountains,
+the wild dogs leaving their harbours, the pride of his armies, those
+were his delights."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "There was many a thing Finn took delight in, and there is not
+much heed given to it after him; Finn and his hounds are not living now,
+and you yourself will not always be living, Oisin."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "There is a greater story of Finn than of us, or of any that have
+lived in our time; all that are gone and all that are living, Finn was
+better to give out gold than themselves."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "All the gold you and Finn used to be giving out, it is little
+it does for you now; he is in Hell in bonds because he did treachery and
+oppression."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "It is little I believe of your truth, man from Rome with the
+white books, Finn the open-handed head of the Fianna to be in the hands
+of devils or demons."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Finn is in bonds in Hell, the pleasant man that gave out
+gold; in satisfaction for his disrespect to God, he is under grief in
+the house of pain."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If the sons of Morna were within it, or the strong men of the
+sons of Baiscne, they would take Finn out of it, or they would have the
+house for themselves."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "If the five provinces of Ireland were within it, or the strong
+seven battalions of the Fianna, they would not be able to bring Finn out
+of it, however great their strength might be."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If Faolan and Goll were living, and brown-haired Diarmuid and
+brave Osgar, Finn of the Fianna could not be held in any house that was
+made by God or devils."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "If Faolan and Goll were living, and all the Fianna that ever
+were, they could not bring out Finn from the house where he is in pain."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "What did Finn do against God but to be attending on schools and
+on armies? Giving gold through a great part of his time, and for another
+while trying his hounds."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "In payment for thinking of his hounds and for serving the
+schools of the poets, and because he gave no heed to God, Finn of the
+Fianna is held down."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "You say, Patrick of the Psalms, that the Fianna could not take
+out Finn, or the five provinces of Ireland along with them.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a little story about Finn. We were but fifteen men when we took
+the King of Britain of the feasts by the strength of our spears and our
+own strength.</p>
+
+<p>"We took Magnus the great, the son of the King of Lochlann of the
+speckled ships; we came back no way sorry or tired, we put our rent on
+far places.</p>
+
+<p>"O Patrick, the story is pitiful, the King of the Fianna to be under
+locks; a heart without envy, without hatred, a heart hard in earning
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>"It is an injustice, God to be unwilling to give food and riches; Finn
+never refused strong or poor, although cold Hell is now his
+dwelling-place.</p>
+
+<p>"It is what Finn had a mind for, to be listening to the sound of Druim
+Dearg; to sleep at the stream of Ess Ruadh, to be hunting the deer of
+Gallimh of the bays.</p>
+
+<p>"The cries of the blackbird of Leiter Laoi, the wave of Rudraighe
+beating the strand, the bellowing of the ox of Magh Maoin, the lowing of
+the calf of Gleann da Mhail.</p>
+
+<p>"The noise of the hunt on Slieve Crot, the sound of the fawns round
+Slieve Cua, the scream of the sea-gulls there beyond on Iorrus, the
+screech of the crows over the battle.</p>
+
+<p>"The waves vexing the breasts of the boats, the howling of the hounds at
+Druim Lis; the voice of Bran on Cnoc-an-Air, the outcry of the streams
+about Slieve Mis.</p>
+
+<p>"The call of Osgar going to the hunt; the voice of the hounds on the
+road of the Fianna, to be listening to them and to the poets, that was
+always his desire.</p>
+
+<p>"A desire of the desires of Osgar was to listen to the striking of
+shields; to be hacking at bones in a battle, it is what he had a mind
+for always.</p>
+
+<p>"We went westward one time to hunt at Formaid of the Fianna, to see the
+first running of our hounds.</p>
+
+<p>"It was Finn was holding Bran, and it is with myself Sceolan was;
+Diarmuid of the Women had Fearan, and Osgar had lucky Adhnuall.</p>
+
+<p>"Conan the Bald had Searc; Caoilte, son of Ronan, had Daol; Lugaidh's
+Son and Goll were holding Fuaim and Fothran.</p>
+
+<p>"That was the first day we loosed out a share of our hounds to a
+hunting; and Och! Patrick, of all that were in it, there is not one left
+living but myself.</p>
+
+<p>"O Patrick, it is a pity the way I am now, a spent old man without
+sway, without quickness, without strength, going to Mass at the altar.</p>
+
+<p>"Without the great deer of Slieve Luchra; without the hares of Slieve
+Cuilinn; without going into fights with Finn; without listening to the
+poets.</p>
+
+<p>"Without battles, without taking of spoils; without playing at nimble
+feats; without going courting or hunting, two trades that were my
+delight."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Leave off, old man, leave your foolishness; let what you have
+done be enough for you from this out. Think on the pains that are before
+you; the Fianna are gone, and you yourself will be going."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If I go, may yourself not be left after me, Patrick of the
+hindering heart; if Conan, the least of the Fianna, were living, your
+buzzing would not be left long to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Or if this was the day I gave ten hundred cows to the headless woman
+that came to the Valley of the Two Oxen; the birds of the air brought
+away the ring I gave her, I never knew where she went herself from me."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "That is little to trouble you, Oisin; it was but for a while
+she was with you; it is better for you to be as you are than to be among
+them again."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "O Son of Calphurn of the friendly talk, it is a pity for him
+that gives respect to clerks and bells; I and Caoilte my friend, we were
+not poor when we were together.</p>
+
+<p>"The music that put Finn to his sleep was the cackling of the ducks from
+the lake of the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of
+Doire an Cairn, the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries.</p>
+
+<p>"The whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories, or from the
+rough branches of the ridge by the stream; the grouse of the heather of
+Cruachan; the call of the otter of Druim-re-Coir.</p>
+
+<p>"The song of the blackbird of Doire an Cairn indeed I never heard
+sweeter music, if I could be under its nest.</p>
+
+<p>"My grief that I ever took baptism; it is little credit I got by it,
+being without food, without drink, doing fasting and praying."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "In my opinion it did not harm you, old man; you will get nine
+score cakes of bread, wine and meat to put a taste on it; it is bad talk
+you are giving."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "This mouth that is talking with you, may it never confess to a
+priest, if I would not sooner have the leavings of Finn's house than a
+share of your own meals."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "He got but what he gathered from the banks, or whatever he
+could kill on the rough hills; he got hell at the last because of his
+unbelief."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "That was not the way with us at all, but our fill of wine and of
+meat; justice and a right beginning at the feasts, sweet drinks and
+every one drinking them.</p>
+
+<p>"It is fretting after Diarmuid and Goll I am, and after Fergus of the
+True Lips, the time you will not let me be speaking of them, O new
+Patrick from Rome."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "We would give you leave to be speaking of them, but first you
+should give heed to God. Since you are now at the end of your days,
+leave your foolishness, weak old man."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "O Patrick, tell me as a secret, since it is you have the best
+knowledge, will my dog or my hound be let in with me to the court of the
+King of Grace?"</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Old man in your foolishness that I cannot put any bounds to,
+your dog or your hound will not be let in with you to the court of the
+King of Power."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If I had acquaintance with God, and my hound to be at hand, I
+would make whoever gave food to myself give a share to my hound as well.</p>
+
+<p>"One strong champion that was with the Fianna of Ireland would be better
+than the Lord of Piety, and than you yourself, Patrick."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "O Oisin of the sharp blades, it is mad words you are saying.
+God is better for one day than the whole of the Fianna of Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "Though I am now without sway and my life is spent to the end, do
+not put abuse, Patrick, on the great men of the sons of Baiscne.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had Conan with me, the man that used to be running down the
+Fianna, it is he would break your head within among your clerks and your
+priests."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "It is a silly thing, old man, to be talking always of the
+Fianna; remember your end is come, and take the Son of God to help you."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "I used to sleep out on the mountain under the grey dew; I was
+never used to go to bed without food, while there was a deer on the hill
+beyond."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "You are astray at the end of your life between the straight
+way and the crooked. Keep out from the crooked path of pains, and the
+angels of God will come beneath your head."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If myself and open-handed Fergus and Diarmuid were together now
+on this spot, we would go in every path we ever went in, and ask no
+leave of the priests."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Leave off, Oisin; do not be speaking against the priests that
+are telling the word of God in every place. Unless you leave off your
+daring talk, it is great pain you will have in the end."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "When myself and the leader of the Fianna were looking for a boar
+in a valley, it was worse to me not to see it than all your clerks to be
+without their heads."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "It is pitiful seeing you without sense; that is worse to you
+than your blindness; if you were to get sight within you, it is great
+your desire would be for Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "It is little good it would be to me to be sitting in that city,
+without Caoilte, without Osgar, without my father being with me.</p>
+
+<p>"The leap of the buck would be better to me, or the sight of badgers
+between two valleys, than all your mouth is promising me, and all the
+delights I could get in Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Your thoughts are foolish, they will come to nothing; your
+pleasure and your mirth are gone. Unless you will take my advice
+to-night, you will not get leave on this side or that."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If myself and the Fianna were on the top of a hill to-day
+drawing our spear-heads, we would have our choice of being here or there
+in spite of books and priests and bells."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "You were like the smoke of a wisp, or like a stream in a
+valley, or like a whirling wind on the top of a hill, every tribe of you
+that ever lived."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "If I was in company with the people of strong arms, the way I
+was at Bearna da Coill, I would sooner be looking at them than at this
+troop of the crooked croziers.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had Scolb Sceine with me, or Osgar, that was smart in battles, I
+would not be without meat to-night at the sound of the bell of the seven
+tolls."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Oisin, since your wits are gone from you be glad at what I
+say; it is certain to me you will leave the Fianna and that you will
+receive the God of the stars."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "There is wonder on me at your hasty talk, priest that has
+travelled in every part, to say that I would part from the Fianna, a
+generous people, never niggardly."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "If you saw the people of God, the way they are settled at
+feasts, every good thing is more plentiful with them than with Finn's
+people, however great their name was.</p>
+
+<p>"Finn and the Fianna are lying now very sorrowful on the flag-stone of
+pain; take the Son of God in their place; make your repentance and do
+not lose Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "I do not believe your talk now. O Patrick of the crooked staves,
+Finn and the Fianna to be there within, unless they find pleasure being
+in it."</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Make right repentance now, before you know when your end is
+coming; God is better for one hour than the whole of the Fianna of
+Ireland."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "That is a daring answer to make to me, Patrick of the crooked
+crozier; your crozier would be in little bits if I had Osgar with me
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"If my son Osgar and God were hand to hand on the Hill of the Fianna, if
+I saw my son put down, I would say that God was a strong man.</p>
+
+<p>"How could it be that God or his priests could be better men than Finn,
+the King of the Fianna, a generous man without crookedness.</p>
+
+<p>"If there was a place above or below better than the Heaven of God, it
+is there Finn would go, and all that are with him of his people.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that a generous man never goes to the hell of pain; there was
+not one among the Fianna that was not generous to all.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask of God, Patrick, does He remember when the Fianna were alive, or
+has He seen east or west any man better than themselves in their
+fighting.</p>
+
+<p>"The Fianna used not to be saying treachery; we never had the name of
+telling lies. By truth and the strength of our hands we came safe out of
+every battle.</p>
+
+<p>"There never sat a priest in a church, though you think it sweet to be
+singing psalms, was better to his word than the Fianna, or more generous
+than Finn himself.</p>
+
+<p>"If my comrades were living to-night, I would take no pleasure in your
+crooning in the church; as they are not living now, the rough voice of
+the bells has deafened me.</p>
+
+<p>"Och! in the place of battles and heavy fights, where I used to have my
+place and to take my pleasure, the crozier of Patrick being carried, and
+his clerks at their quarrelling.</p>
+
+<p>"Och! slothful, cheerless Conan, it is great abuse I used to be giving
+you; why do you not come to see me now? you would get leave for making
+fun and reviling through the whole of the niggardly clerks.</p>
+
+<p>"Och! where are the strong men gone that they do not come together to
+help me! O Osgar of the sharp sword of victory, come and free your
+father from his bonds!</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the strong son of Lugaidh? Och! Diarmuid of all the women!
+Och! Caoilte, son of Ronan, think of our love, and travel to me!"</p>
+
+<p>PATRICK. "Stop your talk, you withered, witless old man; it is my King
+that made the Heavens, it is He that gives blossom to the trees, it is
+He made the moon and the sun, the fields and the grass."</p>
+
+<p>OISIN. "It was not in shaping fields and grass that my king took his
+delight, but in overthrowing fighting men, and defending countries, and
+bringing his name into every part.</p>
+
+<p>"In courting, in playing, in hunting, in baring his banner at the first
+of a fight; in playing at chess, at swimming, in looking around him at
+the drinking-hall.</p>
+
+<p>"O Patrick, where was your God when the two came over the sea that
+brought away the queen of Lochlann of the Ships? Where was He when Dearg
+came, the son of the King of Lochlann of the golden shields? Why did not
+the King of Heaven protect them from the blows of the big man?</p>
+
+<p>"Or when Tailc, son of Treon, came, the man that did great slaughter on
+the Fianna; it was not by God that champion fell, but by Osgar, in the
+sight of all.</p>
+
+<p>"Many a battle and many a victory was gained by the Fianna of Ireland; I
+never heard any great deed was done by the King of Saints, or that He
+ever reddened His hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a great shame for God not to take the locks of pain off
+Finn; if God Himself were in bonds, my king would fight for His sake.</p>
+
+<p>"Finn left no one in pain or in danger without freeing him by silver or
+gold, or by fighting till he got the victory.</p>
+
+<p>"For the strength of your love, Patrick, do not forsake the great men;
+bring in the Fianna unknown to the King of Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a good claim I have on your God, to be among his clerks the way I
+am; without food, without clothing, without music, without giving
+rewards to poets.</p>
+
+<p>"Without the cry of the hounds or the horns, without guarding coasts,
+without courting generous women; for all that I have suffered by the
+want of food, I forgive the King of Heaven in my will."</p>
+
+<p>Oisin said: "My story is sorrowful. The sound of your voice is not
+pleasant to me. I will cry my fill, but not for God, but because Finn
+and the Fianna are not living."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L90" id="L90" />CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S LAMENTS</h2>
+
+
+<p>And Oisin used to be making laments, and sometimes he would be making
+praises of the old times and of Finn; and these are some of them that
+are remembered yet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I saw the household of Finn; it was not the household of a soft
+     race; I had a vision of that man yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>     I saw the household of the High King, he with the brown,
+     sweet-voiced son; I never saw a better man.</p>
+
+<p>     I saw the household of Finn; no one saw it as I saw it; I saw Finn
+     with the sword, Mac an Luin. Och! it was sorrowful to see it.</p>
+
+<p>     I cannot tell out every harm that is on my head; free us from our
+     trouble for ever; I have seen the household of Finn.</p></div>
+
+<p>It is a week from yesterday I last saw Finn; I never saw a braver man. A
+king of heavy blows; my law, my adviser, my sense and my wisdom, prince
+and poet, braver than kings, King of the Fianna, brave in all countries;
+golden salmon of the sea, clean hawk of the air, rightly taught,
+avoiding lies; strong in his doings, a right judge, ready in courage, a
+high messenger in bravery and in music.</p>
+
+<p>His skin lime-white, his hair golden; ready to work, gentle to women.
+His great green vessels full of rough sharp wine, it is rich the king
+was, the head of his people.</p>
+
+<p>Seven sides Finn's house had, and seven score shields on every side.
+Fifty fighting men he had about him having woollen cloaks; ten bright
+drinking-cups in his hall; ten blue vessels, ten golden horns.</p>
+
+<p>It is a good household Finn had, without grudging, without lust, without
+vain boasting, without chattering, without any slur on any one of the
+Fianna.</p>
+
+<p>Finn never refused any man; he never put away any one that came to his
+house. If the brown leaves falling in the woods were gold, if the white
+waves were silver, Finn would have given away the whole of it.</p>
+
+<p>Blackbird of Doire an Chairn, your voice is sweet; I never heard on any
+height of the world music was sweeter than your voice, and you at the
+foot of your nest.</p>
+
+<p>The music is sweetest in the world, it is a pity not to be listening to
+it for a while, O son of Calphurn of the sweet bells, and you would
+overtake your nones again.</p>
+
+<p>If you knew the story of the bird the way I know it, you would be crying
+lasting tears, and you would give no heed to your God for a while.</p>
+
+<p>In the country of Lochlann of the blue streams, Finn, son of Cumhal, of
+the red-gold cups, found that bird you hear now; I will tell you its
+story truly.</p>
+
+<p>Doire an Chairn, that wood there to the west, where the Fianna used to
+be delaying, it is there they put the blackbird, in the beauty of the
+pleasant trees.</p>
+
+<p>The stag of the heather of quiet Cruachan, the sorrowful croak from the
+ridge of the Two Lakes; the voice of the eagle of the Valley of the
+Shapes, the voice of the cuckoo on the Hill of Brambles.</p>
+
+<p>The voice of the hounds in the pleasant valley; the scream of the eagle
+on the edge of the wood; the early outcry of the hounds going over the
+Strand of the Red Stones.</p>
+
+<p>The time Finn lived and the Fianna, it was sweet to them to be listening
+to the whistle of the blackbird; the voice of the bells would not have
+been sweet to them.</p>
+
+
+<p>There was no one of the Fianna without his fine silken shirt and his
+soft coat, without bright armour, without shining stones on his head,
+two spears in his hand, and a shield that brought victory.</p>
+
+<p>If you were to search the world you would not find a harder man, best of
+blood, best in battle; no one got the upper hand of him. When he went
+out trying his white hound, which of us could be put beside Finn?</p>
+
+<p>One time we went hunting on Slieve-nam-ban; the sun was beautiful
+overhead, the voice of the hounds went east and west, from hill to hill.
+Finn and Bran sat for a while on the hill, every man was jealous for the
+hunt. We let out three thousand hounds from their golden chains; every
+hound of them brought down two deer.</p>
+
+<p>Patrick of the true crozier, did you ever see, east or west, a greater
+hunt than that hunt of Finn and the Fianna? O son of Calphurn of the
+bells, that day was better to me than to be listening to your
+lamentations in the church.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break" />
+
+<p>There is no strength in my hands to-night, there is no power within me;
+it is no wonder I to be sorowful, being thrown down in the sorrow of old
+age.</p>
+
+<p>Everything is a grief to me beyond any other man on the face of the
+earth, to be dragging stones along to the church and the hill of the
+priests.</p>
+
+<p>I have a little story of our people. One time Finn had a mind to make a
+dun on the bald hill of Cuailgne, and he put it on the Fianna of Ireland
+to bring stones for building it; a third on the sons of Morna, a third
+on myself, and a third on the sons of Baiscne.</p>
+
+<p>I gave an answer to Finn, son of Cumhal; I said I would be under his
+sway no longer, and that I would obey him no more.</p>
+
+<p>When Finn heard that, he was silent a long time, the man without a He,
+without fear. And he said to me then: "You yourself will be dragging
+stones before your death comes to you."</p>
+
+<p>I rose up then with anger on me, and there followed me the fourth of the
+brave battalions of the Fianna. I gave my own judgments, there were many
+of the Fianna with me.</p>
+
+<p>Now my strength is gone from me, I that was adviser to the Fianna; my
+whole body is tired to-night, my hands, my feet, and my head, tired,
+tired, tired.</p>
+
+<p>It is bad the way I am after Finn of the Fianna; since he is gone away,
+every good is behind me.</p>
+
+<p>Without great people, without mannerly ways; it is sorrowful I am after
+our king that is gone.</p>
+
+<p>I am a shaking tree, my leaves gone from me; an empty nut, a horse
+without a bridle; a people without a dwelling-place, I Oisin, son of
+Finn.</p>
+
+<hr class="thought-break" />
+
+<p>It is long the clouds are over me to-night! it is long last night was;
+although this day is long, yesterday was longer again to me; every day
+that comes is long to me!</p>
+
+<p>That is not the way I used to be, without fighting, without battles,
+without learning feats, without young girls, without music, without
+harps, without bruising bones, without great deeds; without increase of
+learning, without generosity, without drinking at feasts, without
+courting, without hunting, the two trades I was used to; without going
+out to battle, Ochone! the want of them is sorrowful to me.</p>
+
+<p>No hunting of deer or stag, it is not like that I would wish to be; no
+leashes for our hounds, no hounds; it is long the clouds are over me
+to-night!</p>
+
+<p>Without rising up to do bravery as we were used, without playing as we
+had a mind; without swimming of our fighting men in the lake; it is long
+the clouds are over me to-night!</p>
+
+<p>There is no one at all in the world the way I am; it is a pity the way I
+am; an old man dragging stones; it is long the clouds are over me
+to-night!</p>
+
+<p>I am the last of the Fianna, great Oisin, son of Finn, listening to the
+voice of bells; it is long the clouds are over me to-night!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L91" id="L91" />NOTES</h2>
+
+<h2>I. THE APOLOGY</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Irish text of the greater number of the stories in this book has
+been published, and from this text I have worked, making my own
+translation as far as my scholarship goes, and when it fails, taking the
+meaning given by better scholars. In some cases the Irish text has not
+been printed, and I have had to work by comparing and piecing together
+various translations. I have had to put a connecting sentence of my own
+here and there, and I have fused different versions together, and
+condensed many passages, and I have left out many, using the choice that
+is a perpetual refusing, in trying to get some clear outline of the
+doings of the heroes.</p>
+
+<p>I have found it more natural to tell the stories in the manner of the
+thatched houses, where I have heard so many legends of Finn and his
+friends, and Oisin and Patrick, and the Ever-Living Ones, and the
+Country of the Young, rather than in the manner of the slated houses,
+where I have not heard them.</p>
+
+<p>Four years ago, Dr Atkinson, a Professor of Trinity College, Dublin, in
+his evidence before the Commission of Intermediate Education, said of
+the old literature of Ireland:&mdash;"It has scarcely been touched by the
+movements of the great literatures; it is the untrained popular feeling.
+Therefore it is almost intolerably low in tone&mdash;I do not mean naughty,
+but low; and every now and then, when the circumstance occasions it, it
+goes down lower than low ... If I read the books in the Greek, the Latin
+or the French course, in almost every one of them there is something
+with an ideal ring about it&mdash;something that I can read with positive
+pleasure&mdash;something that has what the child might take with him as a
+&nbsp;
+&#954;
+&#964;
+&#951;
+&#956;
+&#945;
+&nbsp;
+&#949;
+&#953;
+&#962;
+&nbsp;
+&#948;
+&#949;
+&#953;
+&mdash;a perpetual treasure; but if I read the Irish
+books, I see nothing ideal in them, and my astonishment is that through
+the whole range of Irish literature that I have read (and I have read
+an enormous range of it), the smallness of the element of idealism is
+most noticeable ... And as there is very little idealism there is very
+little imagination ... The Irish tales as a rule are devoid of it
+fundamentally."</p>
+
+<p>Dr Atkinson is an Englishman, but unfortunately not only
+fellow-professors in Trinity but undergraduates there have been
+influenced by his opinion, that Irish literature is a thing to be
+despised. I do not quote his words to draw attention to a battle that is
+still being fought, but to explain my own object in working, as I have
+worked ever since that evidence was given, to make a part of Irish
+literature accessible to many, especially among my young countrymen, who
+have not opportunity to read the translations of the chief scholars,
+scattered here and there in learned periodicals, or patience and time to
+disentangle overlapping and contradictory versions, that they may judge
+for themselves as to its "lowness" and "want of imagination," and the
+other well-known charges brought against it before the same Commission.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that those who have once learned to care for the story of
+Cuchulain of Muirthemne, and of Finn and Lugh and Etain, and to
+recognise the enduring belief in an invisible world and an immortal life
+behind the visible and the mortal, will not be content with my
+redaction, but will go, first to the fuller versions of the best
+scholars, and then to the manuscripts themselves. I believe the forty
+students of old Irish lately called together by Professor Kuno Meyer
+will not rest satisfied until they have explored the scores and scores
+of uncatalogued and untranslated manuscripts in Trinity College Library,
+and that the enthusiasm which the Gaelic League has given birth to will
+lead to much fine scholarship.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two ago I had a letter from one of the best Greek scholars and
+translators in England, who says of my "Cuchulain": "It opened up a
+great world of beautiful legend which, though accounting myself as an
+Irishman, I had never known at all. I am sending out copies to Irish
+friends in Australia who, I am sure, will receive the same sort of
+impression, almost an impression of pride in the beauty of the Irish
+mind, as I received myself." And President Roosevelt wrote to me a
+little time ago that after he had read "Cuchulain of Muirthemne," he had
+sent for all the other translations from the Irish he could get, to take
+on his journey to the Western States.</p>
+
+<p>I give these appreciative words not, I think, from vanity, for they are
+not for me but for my material, to show the effect our old literature
+has on those who come fresh to it, and that they do not complain of its
+"want of imagination." I am, of course, very proud and glad in having
+had the opportunity of helping to make it known, and the task has been
+pleasant, although toil-some. Just now, indeed, on the 6th October, I am
+tired enough, and I think with sympathy of the old Highland piper, who
+complained that he was "withered with yelping the seven Fenian
+battalions."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L92" id="L92" />II. THE AGE AND ORIGIN OF THE STORIES OF THE FIANNA</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mr Alfred Nutt says in <i>Ossian and the Ossianic Literature,</i> No. 3 of
+his excellent series of sixpenny pamphlets, <i>Popular Studies in
+Mythology, Romance, and Folklore</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The body of Gaelic literature connected with the name of Ossian is of
+very considerable extent and of respectable antiquity. The oldest texts,
+prose for the most part, but also in verse, are preserved in Irish MSS.
+of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and go back to a period from one
+hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty years older at least. The
+bulk of Ossianic literature is, however, of later date as far as the
+form under which it has come down to us is concerned. A number of
+important texts, prose for the most part, are preserved in MSS. of the
+fourteenth century, but were probably redacted in the thirteenth and
+twelfth centuries. But by far the largest mass consists of narrative
+poems, as a rule dramatic in structure. These have come down to us in
+MSS. written in Scotland from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of
+the seventeenth century, in Ireland from the sixteenth down to the
+middle of the nineteenth century. The Gaelic-speaking peasantry, alike
+in Ireland and Scotland, have preserved orally a large number of these
+ballads, as also a great mass of prose narratives, the heroes of which
+are Ossian and his comrades.</p>
+
+<p>"Were all Ossianic texts preserved in MSS. older than the present
+century to be printed, they would fill some eight to ten thousand octavo
+pages. The mere bulk of the literature, even if we allow for
+considerable repetition of incident, arrests attention. If we further
+recall that for the last five hundred years this body of romance has
+formed the chief imaginative recreation of Gaeldom, alike in Ireland and
+Scotland, and that a peasantry unable to read or write has yet preserved
+it almost entire, its claims to consideration and study will appear
+manifest."</p>
+
+<p>He then goes on to discuss how far the incidents in the stories can be
+accepted as they were accepted by Irish historical writers of the
+eleventh century as authentic history:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately there is little need for me to discuss the credibility or
+otherwise of the historic records concerning Finn, his family, and his
+band of warriors. They may be accepted or rejected according to
+individual bent of mind without really modifying our view of the
+literature. For when we turn to the romances, whether in prose or verse,
+we find that, although the history is professedly the same as that of
+the Annals, firstly, we are transported to a world entirely romantic, in
+which divine and semi-divine beings, ungainly monsters and giants, play a
+prominent part, in which men and women change shapes with animals, in
+which the lives of the heroes are miraculously prolonged&mdash;in short, we
+find ourselves in a land of Faery; secondly, we find that the historic
+conditions in which the heroes are represented as living do not, for the
+most part, answer to anything we know or can surmise of the third
+century. For Finn and his warriors are perpetually on the watch to guard
+Ireland against the attacks of over-sea raiders, styled Lochlannac by
+the narrators, and by them undoubtedly thought of as Norsemen. But the
+latter, as is well known, only came to Ireland at the close of the
+eighth century, and the heroic period of their invasions extended for
+about a century, from 825 to 925; to be followed by a period of
+comparative settlement during the tenth century, until at the opening of
+the eleventh century the battle of Clontarf, fought by Brian, the great
+South Irish chieftain, marked the break-up of the separate Teutonic
+organisations and the absorption of the Teutons into the fabric of Irish
+life. In these pages then we may disregard the otherwise interesting
+question of historic credibility in the Ossianic romances: firstly,
+because they have their being in a land unaffected by fact; secondly,
+because if they ever did reflect the history of the third century the
+reflection was distorted in after-times, and a pseudo-history based upon
+events of the ninth and tenth centuries was substituted for it. What the
+historian seeks for in legend is far more a picture of the society in
+which it took rise than a record of the events which it commemorates."</p>
+
+<p>In a later part of the pamphlet Mr Nutt discusses such questions as
+whether we may look for examples of third-century customs in the
+stories, what part of the stories first found their way into writing,
+whether the Oisin and Patrick dialogues were written under the influence
+of actual Pagan feeling persisting from Pagan times, or whether "a
+change came over the feeling of Gaeldom during the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries," when the Oisin and Patrick dialogues in their
+present form began to be written. His final summing-up is that
+"well-nigh the same stories that were told of Finn and his warrior
+braves by the Gael of the eleventh century are told in well-nigh the
+same way by his descendant to-day." Mr Nutt does not enquire how long
+the stories may have been told before the first story was written down.
+Larminie, however, whose early death was the first great loss of our
+intellectual movement, pushes them backward for untold ages in the
+introduction to his <i>West Irish Folk Tales and Romances</i>. He builds up a
+detailed and careful argument, for which I must refer readers to his
+book, to prove that the Scottish Highlands and Ireland have received
+their folk-lore both from "Aryan and Non-Aryan sources," and that in the
+Highlands there is more non-Aryan influence and more non-Aryan blood
+than in Ireland. He argues that nothing is more improbable than that all
+folk-tales are Aryan, as has sometimes been supposed, and sums up as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They bear the stamp of the genius of more than one race. The pure and
+placid but often cold imagination of the Aryan has been at work on some.
+In others we trace the more picturesque fancy, the fierceness and
+sensuality, the greater sense of artistic elegance belonging to races
+whom the Aryan, in spite of his occasional faults of hardness and
+coarseness, has, on the whole, left behind him. But as the greatest
+results in the realm of the highest art have always been achieved in the
+case of certain blends of Aryan with other blood, I should hardly deem
+it extravagant if it were asserted that in the humbler regions of the
+folk-tale we might trace the working of the same law. The process which
+has gone on may in part have been as follows:&mdash;Every race which has
+acquired very definite characteristics must have been for a long time
+isolated. The Aryans during their period of isolation probably developed
+many of their folk-germs into their larger myths, owing to the greater
+constructiveness of their imagination, and thus, in a way, they used up
+part of their material. Afterwards, when they became blended with other
+races less advanced, they acquired fresh material to work on. We have in
+Ireland an instance to hand, of which a brief discussion may help to
+illustrate the whole race theory.</p>
+
+<p>"The larger Irish legendary literature divides itself into three
+cycles&mdash;the divine, the heroic, the Fenian. Of these three the last is
+so well-known orally in Scotland that it has been a matter of dispute to
+which country it really belongs. It belongs, in fact, to both. Here,
+however, comes in a strange contrast with the other cycles. The first
+is, so far as I am aware, wholly unknown in Scotland, the second
+comparatively unknown. What is the explanation? Professor Zimmer not
+having established his late-historical view as regards Finn, and the
+general opinion among scholars having tended of recent years towards the
+mythical view, we want to know why there is so much more community in
+one case than in the other. Mr O'Grady long since seeing this
+difficulty, and then believing Finn to be historical, was induced to
+place the latter in point of time before Cuchulain and his compeers. But
+this view is of course inadmissible when Finn is seen not to be
+historical at all. There remains but one explanation. The various bodies
+of legend in question are, so far as Ireland is concerned, only earlier
+or later, as they came into the island with the various races to which
+they belonged. The wider prevalence, then, of the Finn Saga would
+indicate that it belonged to an early race occupying both Ireland and
+Scotland. Then entered the Aryan Gael, and for him henceforth, as the
+ruler of the island, his own gods and heroes were sung by his own bards.
+His legends became the subject of what I may call the court poetry, the
+aristocratic literature. When he conquered Scotland, he took with him
+his own gods and heroes; but in the latter country the bardic system
+never became established, and hence we find but feeble echoes of the
+heroic cycle among the mountains of the North. That this is the
+explanation is shown by what took place in Ireland. Here the heroic
+cycle has been handed down in remembrance almost solely by the bardic
+literature. The popular memory retains but few traces of it. Its
+essentially aristocratic character is shown by the fact that the people
+have all but forgotten it, if they ever knew it. But the Fenian cycle
+has not been forgotten. Prevailing everywhere, still cherished by the
+conquered peoples, it held its ground in Scotland and Ireland alike,
+forcing its way in the latter country even into the written literature,
+and so securing a twofold lease of existence ... The Fenian cycle, in a
+word, is non-Aryan folk-literature partially subjected to Aryan
+treatment."</p>
+
+<p>The whole problem is extremely complex, and several other writers have
+written upon it. Mr Borlase, for instance, has argued in his big book on
+the Dolmens that the cromlechs, and presumably the Diarmuid and Crania
+legend, is connected with old religious rites of an erotic nature coming
+down from a very primitive state of society.</p>
+
+<p>I have come to my own conclusion not so much because of any weight of
+argument, as because I found it impossible to arrange the stories in a
+coherent form so long as I considered them a part of history. I tried to
+work on the foundation of the Annalists, and fit the Fianna into a
+definite historical epoch, but the whole story seemed trivial and
+incoherent until I began to think of them as almost contemporaneous with
+the battle of Magh Tuireadh, which even the Annalists put back into
+mythical ages. In this I have only followed some of the story-tellers,
+who have made the mother of Lugh of the Long Hand the grandmother of
+Finn, and given him a shield soaked with the blood of Balor. I cannot
+think of any of the stories as having had a modern origin, or that the
+century in which each was written down gives any evidence as to its age.
+"How Diarmuid got his Love-Spot," for instance, which was taken down
+only a few years ago from some old man's recitation by Dr Hyde, may well
+be as old as "Finn and the Phantoms," which is in one of the earliest
+manuscripts. It seems to me that one cannot choose any definite period
+either from the vast living mass of folk-lore in the country or from the
+written text, and that there is as good evidence of Finn being of the
+blood of the gods as of his being, as some of the people tell me, "the
+son of an O'Shaughnessy who lived at Kiltartan Cross."</p>
+
+<p>Dr Douglas Hyde, although he placed the Fenian after the Cuchulain cycle
+in his <i>History of Irish Literature</i>, has allowed me to print this
+note:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"While believing in the real objective existence of the Fenians as a
+body of Janissaries who actually lived, ruled, and hunted in King
+Cormac's time, I think it equally certain that hundreds of stories,
+traits, and legends far older and more primitive than any to which they
+themselves could have given rise, have clustered about them. There is
+probably as large a bulk of primitive mythology to be found in the Finn
+legend as in that of the Red Branch itself. The story of the Fenians was
+a kind of nucleus to which a vast amount of the flotsam and jetsam of a
+far older period attached itself, and has thus been preserved."</p>
+
+<p>As I found it impossible to give that historical date to the stories, I,
+while not adding in anything to support my theory, left out such names
+as those of Cormac and Art, and such more or less historical personages,
+substituting "the High King." And in the "Battle of the White Strand," I
+left out the name of Caelur, Tadg's wife, because I had already followed
+another chronicler in giving him Ethlinn for a wife. In the earlier part
+I have given back to Angus Og the name of "The Disturber," which had, as
+I believe, strayed from him to the Saint of the same name.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L93" id="L93" />III. THE AUTHORITIES</h2>
+
+
+<p>The following is a list of the authorities I have been chiefly helped by
+in putting these stories together and in translation of the text. But I
+cannot make it quite accurate, for I have sometimes transferred a mere
+phrase, sometimes a whole passage from one story to another, where it
+seemed to fit better. I have sometimes, in the second part of the book,
+used stories preserved in the Scottish Gaelic, as will be seen by my
+references. I am obliged to write these notes away from libraries, and
+cannot verify them, but I think they are fairly correct.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="L94" id="L94" />
+PART ONE. BOOKS ONE, TWO, AND THREE</h3>
+
+<ul class="auth">
+  <li>THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN, AND LUGH OF THE LONG HAND, AND THE COMING OF THE GAEL.&mdash;
+    <ul class="authSub">
+        <li>O'Curry, <i>Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>MSS. Materials</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Atlantis</i>;</li>
+        <li>De Jubainville, <i>Cycle Mythologique</i>;</li>
+        <li>Hennessy, <i>Chronicum Scotorum</i>;</li>
+        <li>Atkinson, <i>Book of Leinster</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Annals of the Four Masters</i>;</li>
+        <li>Nennius, <i>Hist, Brit.</i> (Irish Version);</li>
+        <li>Zimmer, <i>Glossae Hibernacae</i>;</li>
+        <li>Whitley Stokes, <i>Three Irish Glossaries</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Revue Celtique</i> and <i>Irische Texte</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Gaedelica</i>;</li>
+        <li>Nutt, <i>Voyage of Bran</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Proceedings Ossianic Societ</i>;</li>
+        <li>O'Beirne Crowe, <i>Amra Columcille</i>;</li>
+        <li>Dean of Lismore's Book;</li>
+        <li>Windisch, <i>Irische Texte</i>;</li>
+        <li>Hennessy and others in <i>Revue Celtique</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Kilkenny Archaeological Journal</i>;</li>
+        <li>Keatinge's <i>History</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Ogyia</i>;</li>
+        <li>Curtin's <i>Folk Tales</i>;</li>
+        <li><i>Proceedings Royal Irish Academy</i>, MSS. Series;</li>
+        <li>Dr Sigerson, <i>Bards of Gael and Gall</i>;</li>
+        <li>Miscellanies, <i>Celtic Society</i>.</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<h3>
+BOOK FOUR: THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES</h3>
+
+<p>I have used many of the above, and for separate stories, I may
+give these authorities:&mdash;</p>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>MIDHIR AND ETAIN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>O'Curry, <i>Manners and Customs</i>;</li>
+<li>Professor Kuno Meyer in Nutt's <i>Voyage of Bran</i>;</li>
+<li>M&uuml;ller, <i>Revue Celtique</i>;</li>
+<li>Nutt, <i>Voyage of Bran</i>;</li>
+<li>De Jubainville, <i>Epop&eacute;e Celtique</i>;</li>
+<li>Standish Hayes O'Grady, MS. lent me by him.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>MANANNAN AT PLAY.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub"><li>S. Hayes O'Grady, <i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>HIS CALL TO BRAN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Professor Kuno Meyer in Nutt's <i>Voyage of Bran</i>;</li>
+<li>S. Hayes O'Grady, <i>Silva Gaedelica</i>;</li>
+<li>De Jubainville, <i>Cycle Mythologique</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>HIS THREE CALLS TO CORMAC.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Whitley Stokes, <i>Irische Texte</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>CLIODNA'S WAVE.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>S. Hayes O'Grady, <i>Silva Gaedelica</i>;</li>
+<li>Whitley Stokes, <i>Dinnsenchus</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>HIS CALL TO CONNLA.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>O'Beirne Crowe, <i>Kilkenny Arch. Journal</i>;</li>
+<li>Windisch, <i>Irische Texte</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>TADG IN THE ISLANDS.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>S. Hayes O'Grady, <i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>LAEGAIRE IN THE HAPPY PLAIN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>S.H. O'Grady, <i>Silva Gaedelica</i>;
+Kuno Meyer in Nutt's <i>Voyage of Bran</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>O'Curry, <i>Atlantis</i>.</li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<h3>PART TWO. THE FIANNA</h3>
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE COMING OF FINN, AND FINN'S HOUSEHOLD.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Proceedings Ossianic Society</i>;</li>
+<li>Kuno Meyer, <i>Four Songs of Summer and Winter</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Revue Celtique</i>;</li>
+<li>S. Hayes O'Grady, <i>Silva Gaedelica</i>;</li>
+<li>Curtin's <i>Folk Tales</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>BIRTH OF BRAN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>OISIN'S MOTHER.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Kennedy, <i>Legendary Fictions Irish Celts</i>;</li>
+<li>Mac Innis;</li>
+<li><i>Leabhar na Feinne</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>BEST MEN OF THE FIANNA.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Dean of Lismore's Book;</li>
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica;</i></li>
+<li><i>Leabhar na Feinne</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth">
+    <li>LAD OF THE SKINS.&mdash;
+        <ul class="authSub">
+            <li><i>Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition</i>;</li>
+            <li>Larminie's <i>Folk Tales</i>;</li>
+            <li>Curtin's <i>Tales</i>.</li>
+        </ul>
+    </li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE HOUND.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>;</li>
+<li>Whitley Stokes, <i>Dinnsenchus</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>RED RIDGE.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Kuno Meyer, <i>Anec. Oxonienses</i>;</li>
+<li>Hanmer's <i>Chronicle</i>;</li>
+<li>Dean of Lismore;</li>
+<li>Curtin's <i>Tales</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>KING OF BRITAIN'S SON.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>DONN, SON OF MIDHIR.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>HOSPITALITY OF CUANNA'S HOUSE.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>CAT-HEADS AND DOG-HEADS.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Dean of Lismore;</li>
+<li><i>Leabhar na Feinne</i>;</li>
+<li>Campbell's <i>Popular Tales of the Western Highlands</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>LOMNA'S HEAD.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>O'Curry, <i>Orc. Treith</i>, O'Donovan, ed. Stokes.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>ILBREC OF ESS RUADH.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>CAVE OF CRUACHAN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Stokes, <i>Irische Texts.</i>
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE SHADOWY ONE.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>O'Curry.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>FINN'S MADNESS.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE RED WOMAN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Hyde, <i>Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>FINN AND THE PHANTOMS.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Kuno Meyer, <i>Revue Celtique</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE PIGS OF ANGUS.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>OISIN'S CHILDREN.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>O'Curry;</li>
+<li><i>Leabhar na Feinne</i>;</li>
+<li>Campbell's <i>Popular Tales of the Western Highlands</i>;</li>
+<li>Stokes, <i>Irische Texte</i>;</li>
+<li>Dean of Lismore;</li>
+<li><i>Celtic Magazine</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>BIRTH OF DIARMUID.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grania</i> (Society for Preservation of the Irish Language);</li>
+<li>Campbell's <i>Popular Tales</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>HOW DIARMUID GOT HIS LOVE-SPOT.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Hyde, <i>Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>DAUGHTER OF KING UNDER-WAVE.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Campbell's <i>Popular Tales</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE HARD SERVANT.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>MSS. in Royal Irish Academy, and in Dr Hyde's possession.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>DIARMUID AND GRANIA.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Text Published by S. Hayes O'Grady,
+<i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>, and re-edited by N. O'Duffey for Society for Preservation of the Irish Language;</li>
+<li>Kuno Meyer, <i>Revue Celtique</i>, and <i>Four Songs</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Leabhar na Feinne</i>;</li>
+<li>Campbell's <i>Popular Tales</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Kilkenny Arch. Journal</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Folk Lore</i>, vol. vii., 1896;</li>
+<li>Dean of Lismore;</li>
+<li>Nutt, <i>Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>CNOC-AN-AIR, ETC.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub"><li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>;</li>
+<li>Dean of Lismore;</li>
+<li><i>Leabhar na Feinne</i>;</li>
+<li>Campbell's <i>Popular Tales</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>;</li>
+<li>O'Curry;</li>
+<li><i>Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition</i>;</li>
+<li>Stokes, <i>Irische Texte</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>THE END OF THE FIANNA.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li>Hyde, <i>Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Silva Gaedelica</i>;</li>
+<li>Miss Brooke's <i>Reliques</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Annals of the Four Masters</i>;</li>
+<li><i>Celtic Magazine</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>OISIN AND PATRICK, AND OISIN'S LAMENTS.&mdash;
+<ul class="authSub">
+<li><i>Proc. Ossianic Society</i>;</li>
+<li>Dean of Lismore;</li>
+<li><i>Kilkenny Arch, fournal</i>;</li>
+<li>Curtin's <i>Tales</i>.
+</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+
+<p>I have taken Grania's sleepy song, and the description of Finn's shield
+and of Cumhal's treasure-bag, and the fact of Finn's descent from
+Ethlinn, from <i>Duanaire Finn</i>, now being edited for the Irish Texts
+Society by Mr John MacNeill, the proofs of which I have been kindly
+allowed to see. And I have used sometimes parts of stories, or comments
+on them gathered directly from the people, who have kept these heroes so
+much in mind. The story of Caoilte coming to the help of the King of
+Ireland in a dark wood is the only one I have given without either a
+literary or a folk ancestry. It was heard or read by Mr Yeats, he cannot
+remember where, but he had, with it in his mind, written of "Caoilte's
+burning hair" in one of his poems.</p>
+
+<p>I and my readers owe special thanks to those good workers in the
+discovery of Irish literature, Professor Kuno Meyer and Mr Whitley
+Stokes, translators of so many manuscripts; and to my friend and kinsman
+Standish Hayes O'Grady, for what I have taken from that wonderful
+treasure-house, his <i>Silva Gaedelica</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L95" id="L95" />IV. THE PRONUNCIATION</h2>
+
+<p>This is the approximate pronunciation of some of the more difficult
+names:</p>
+
+<ul class="auth">
+  <li>Adhnuall
+     <ul class="authSub">
+       <li>Ai-noo-al.</li>
+     </ul>
+  </li>
+</ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ailbhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Alva.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Almhuin
+<ul class="authSub"><li>All-oon, <i>or</i> Alvin.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Aobh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Aev, <i>or</i> Eev.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Aodh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Ae (rhyming to "day").</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Aoibhill
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Evill.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Aoife
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Eefa.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Badb
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Bibe.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Beltaine, or Bealtaine
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Bal-tinna.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Bladhma
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Bly-ma.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Bodb Dearg
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Bove Darrig.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Caoilte
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Cweeltia.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cam Ruidhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Corn Rwee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ciabhan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Kee-a-van.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cliodna
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Cleevna.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Coincheann
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Kun-Kann.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Crann Buidhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Cran bwee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Credhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Crae-a.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cumhal
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Coo-al.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Deaghadh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>D'ya-a.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Dubhthach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Duffach.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Duibhreann
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Dhiv-ran.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Duibhrium
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Dhiv-rinn.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Dun
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Doon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Eimher
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Aevir.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Emhain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Avvin.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Eochaid
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Eohee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Eoghan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Owen.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fionnchad
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Finn-&#259;ch-a.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fodhla
+<ul class="authSub"><li>F&oacute;la.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fodla
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Fola.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Gallimh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Gol-yiv.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Glas Gaibhnenn
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Glos Gov-nan.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Leith Laeig
+<ul class="authSub"><li>L&#277;h Laeg.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Dairbhreach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loch Darvragh.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Lugaidh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loo-ee, <i>or</i> Lewy.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Lugh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh an Ionganaidh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moy-in-eean-ee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Cuillean
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moy Cullin.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Feabhail
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moy Fowl.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Macraimhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moy Mucrivva.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Mell
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moy Mal.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Rein
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moy Raen.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Tuireadh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moytirra.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Manannan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>M&#257;n&#259;naun.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Midhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Mee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Midhna
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Mec-na.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Mochaomhog
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Mo-cwecv-&#333;g.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Muadhan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moo-aun.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Murchadh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Murachu.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Nemhnain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Now-nin.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Niamh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Nee-av.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Og
+<ul class="authSub"><li>&#334;g.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Rath Medba, or Meadhbha
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Ra Maev-a.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Rudraighe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Rury.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Samhain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Sow-in.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Scathniamh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Scau-nee-av.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Sceolan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Skolaun.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Searbhan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Sharavaun.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Sidhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Shee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Echtge
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Sleev Acht-ga.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Tadg
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Teig.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Teamhair
+<ul class="authSub"><li>T'yower, <i>or</i> Tavvir.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Tuatha de Danaan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Too-&#259;-h&#259; Donnan.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Tuathmumhain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Too-moon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+<p>I have not followed a fixed rule as to the spelling of Irish names; I
+have taken the spelling I give from various good authorities, but they
+vary so much that, complete accuracy not being easy, I sometimes look to
+custom and convenience. I use, for instance, "Slieve" for "Sliabh,"
+because it comes so often, and a mispronunciation would spoil so many
+names. I have treated "Inbhir" (a river mouth) in the same way, spelling
+it "Inver," and even adopting it as an English word, because it is so
+useful. The forty scholars of the New School of Old Irish will do us
+good service if they work at the question both of spelling and of
+pronunciation of the old names and settle them as far as is possible.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="L96" id="L96" />V. THE PLACE NAMES</h2>
+
+<ul class="auth"><li>Accuill
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Achill, Co. Mayo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Aine Cliach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Cnoc Aine, Co. Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Almhuin
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Kildare.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ath Cliath
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Dublin.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Athluain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Athlone.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ath na Riogh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Athenry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Badhamain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Cahir, Co. Tipperary.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Baile Cronin
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Barony of Imokilty, Co. Cork.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Banna
+<ul class="authSub"><li>The Bann.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Beare
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Berehaven.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Bearna na Eadargana
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Bearnas Mor
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Donegal.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Beinn Gulbain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Benbulban, Co. Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Beire do Bhunadas
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Berehaven.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Bel-atha Senaig
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Ballyshannon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Belgata
+<ul class="authSub"><li>In Connemara.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Benna Boirde
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Source of the Bann and Mourne Mountains.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Berramain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Tralee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Bhas
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Bush.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Boinn
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Boyne.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Bri Leith
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Longford.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cairbre
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Carbury.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cairgin
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Three miles south of Londonderry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Carrthach River
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Carra, near Dunkerrin Mountains.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ceanntaile
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Kinsale.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ceiscorainn
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cill Dolun
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Killaloe, Co. Clare.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cliodna's Wave
+<ul class="authSub"><li>At Glandore, Co. Cork.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cluantarbh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Clontarf.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cnoc Aine
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cnoc-an-Air
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cnoc na righ
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Corca Duibhne
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Corcaguiny, Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Corrslieve
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Carlow Mountains.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Crotta Cliach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Galtee Mountains.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cruachan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Cruachan Aigle
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Croagh Patrick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Doire a Cairn
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Derrycarn, Co. Meath.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Doire-da-Bhoth
+<ul class="authSub"><li>In Slieve Echtge.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Druim Cleibh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Druim Lis
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Loch Gill.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Druimscarha
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near River Arighis, Co. Cork.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Dun Sobairce
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Dunsevenh, Co. Antrim.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Durlas
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Thurles.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ess Dara
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ess Ruadh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Assaroe, Co. Donegal.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fidh Gaible
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Fergill, Co. Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Finntraighe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Ventry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fionn
+<ul class="authSub"><li>The Finn.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fionnabraic
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Kilfenna, Co. Clare.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fionntutach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Fleisge
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Gabhra
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Tara.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Gaibh atha na Fiann
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Leamhar, flows from Killarney.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Gairech and Ilgairech
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Hills near Mullingar.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Gallimh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Galway.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Gleann na Caor
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Cork.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Gullach Dollairb
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Barony of Rathconrath.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Hill of Bairnech
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Killarney.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Hill of Uisnech
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Westmeath.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Inver Cechmaine
+<ul class="authSub"><li>East coast of Ulster.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Inver Colpa
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Drogheda.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Inver Slane
+<ul class="authSub"><li>N.E. of Leinster.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Irrus Domnann
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Erris, Co. Mayo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Island of Toraig
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Tory Island, Co. Donegal.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Laoi
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Lee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Leith Laoi
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Leitrim.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Linn Feic
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Slaney.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Bel Sead
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Tipperary.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch C&eacute;
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Dairbhreach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loch Derryvaragh, Co. Westmeath.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Deirg Dheirc
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loch Derg on the Shannon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Eirne
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loch Erne.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Feabhail
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loch Foyle.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Lein
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Killarney.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch Orbson
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loch Corrib.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Loch na-n Ean
+<ul class="authSub"><li>In Co. Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Lough Neatach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Loch Neagh.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Luimneach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Maev Mhagh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Plain about Loughrea.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Cobha
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Iveagh, Co. Down.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Cuilenn
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moycullen, Co. Galway.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Femen
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Tipperary.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Larg
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Leine
+<ul class="authSub"><li>King's County.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Luirg
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Maini
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Wexford.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Mucraimhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Athenry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Nia
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Same as Magh Tuireadh.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Rein
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Leitrim.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Magh Tuireadh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Moytura near Sligo, scene of great battle, and Moytura, near Cong, scene of first battle.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>March of Finnliath
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Lee, near Tralee.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Midhe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Meath, west of Ardagh.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Mis Geadh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>In Bay of Erris.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Muaid
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Moy.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Muc-inis
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Muckinish, off Connemara.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Nas
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Naas.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Nem
+<ul class="authSub"><li>The Nem.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Oenach Clochan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Morristown, Co. Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Osraige
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Ossory.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Paps of Dana
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Portlairge
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Waterford.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>River Maigh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ros da Shioleach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ruirlech
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Liffey.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Samair
+<ul class="authSub"><li>R. Cumhair, runs through Bruff.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Sionnan
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Shannon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Siuir Beoir and Berba
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Suir, Co. Tipperary. Siuir and Suir and Nore and Barrow.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Baisne
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Bladmai
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Slieve Bloom.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Buane
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Slieve Banne, Co. Roscommon.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Conaill
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Border of Leitrim and Donegal.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Crot
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Tipperary.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Cua
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Waterford.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Cua and Slieve Crot
+<ul class="authSub"><li>In Galtee Mountains.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Cuailgne
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Louth.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Echtge
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Galway.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Fuad
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Armagh.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Guaire
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Cavan.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Luchra
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Lugha
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Mayo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Mis
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve Muice
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Tipperary.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Slieve-nam-Ban
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Tipperary</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Sligach
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Srub Bruin
+<ul class="authSub"><li>In West Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Sruth na Maoile
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Mull of Cantire.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Tailltin
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Telltown.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Teamhair
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Tara, Co. Meath.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Teunhair Luchra
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Castle Island, Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>The Beith
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Behy, Barony of Dunkerrin.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>The Beoir
+<ul class="authSub"><li>The Berba.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>The Islands of Mod
+<ul class="authSub"><li>In Clew Bay.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>The Lemain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Laune, Co. Kerry.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>The Muaidh
+<ul class="authSub"><li>River Moy, Co. Sligo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Tonn Toime
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Toines, near Killarney.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Traigh Eothaile
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Near Ballisodare.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Tuathmumain
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Thomond.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ui Chonaill Gabhra
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Limerick.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Ui Fiachraih, Fiachraig
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Co. Mayo.</li></ul></li></ul>
+<ul class="auth"><li>Wave of Rudraighe
+<ul class="authSub"><li>Bay of Dundrum.</li></ul></li></ul>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Gods and Fighting Men, by Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODS AND FIGHTING MEN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 14465-h.htm or 14465-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/6/14465/
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Ledger and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/14465-h/images/gaelic.png b/old/14465-h/images/gaelic.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f849481
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14465-h/images/gaelic.png
diff --git a/old/14465.txt b/old/14465.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..76e197c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14465.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,16590 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gods and Fighting Men, by Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gods and Fighting Men
+
+Author: Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14465]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODS AND FIGHTING MEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Ledger and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+GODS AND FIGHTING MEN:
+
+THE STORY OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN
+AND OF THE FIANNA OF IRELAND,
+
+ARRANGED AND PUT INTO ENGLISH BY LADY GREGORY.
+
+WITH A PREFACE BY W.B. YEATS
+
+1905
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION TO THE MEMBERS OF THE IRISH LITERARY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
+
+
+My Friends, those I know and those I do not know, I am glad in the year
+of the birth of your Society to have this book to offer you.
+
+It has given great courage to many workers here--working to build up
+broken walls--to know you have such friendly thoughts of them in your
+minds. A few of you have already come to see us, and we begin to hope
+that one day the steamers across the Atlantic will not go out full, but
+come back full, until some of you find your real home is here, and say
+as some of us say, like Finn to the woman of enchantments--
+
+[Illustration: Irish Gaelic]
+
+"We would not give up our own country--Ireland--if we were to get the
+whole world as an estate, and the Country of the Young along with it."
+
+AUGUSTA GREGORY.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+I
+
+A few months ago I was on the bare Hill of Allen, "wide Almhuin of
+Leinster," where Finn and the Fianna lived, according to the stories,
+although there are no earthen mounds there like those that mark the
+sites of old buildings on so many hills. A hot sun beat down upon
+flowering gorse and flowerless heather; and on every side except the
+east, where there were green trees and distant hills, one saw a level
+horizon and brown boglands with a few green places and here and there
+the glitter of water. One could imagine that had it been twilight and
+not early afternoon, and had there been vapours drifting and frothing
+where there were now but shadows of clouds, it would have set stirring
+in one, as few places even in Ireland can, a thought that is peculiar to
+Celtic romance, as I think, a thought of a mystery coming not as with
+Gothic nations out of the pressure of darkness, but out of great spaces
+and windy light. The hill of Teamhair, or Tara, as it is now called,
+with its green mounds and its partly wooded sides, and its more gradual
+slope set among fat grazing lands, with great trees in the hedgerows,
+had brought before one imaginations, not of heroes who were in their
+youth for hundreds of years, or of women who came to them in the
+likeness of hunted fawns, but of kings that lived brief and politic
+lives, and of the five white roads that carried their armies to the
+lesser kingdoms of Ireland, or brought to the great fair that had given
+Teamhair its sovereignty, all that sought justice or pleasure or had
+goods to barter.
+
+
+II
+
+It is certain that we must not confuse these kings, as did the mediaeval
+chroniclers, with those half-divine kings of Almhuin. The chroniclers,
+perhaps because they loved tradition too well to cast out utterly much
+that they dreaded as Christians, and perhaps because popular imagination
+had begun the mixture, have mixed one with another ingeniously, making
+Finn the head of a kind of Militia under Cormac MacArt, who is supposed
+to have reigned at Teamhair in the second century, and making Grania,
+who travels to enchanted houses under the cloak of Angus, god of Love,
+and keeps her troubling beauty longer than did Helen hers, Cormac's
+daughter, and giving the stories of the Fianna, although the impossible
+has thrust its proud finger into them all, a curious air of precise
+history. It is only when one separates the stories from that mediaeval
+pedantry, as in this book, that one recognises one of the oldest worlds
+that man has imagined, an older world certainly than one finds in the
+stories of Cuchulain, who lived, according to the chroniclers, about the
+time of the birth of Christ. They are far better known, and one may be
+certain of the antiquity of incidents that are known in one form or
+another to every Gaelic-speaking countryman in Ireland or in the
+Highlands of Scotland. Sometimes a labourer digging near to a cromlech,
+or Bed of Diarmuid and Crania as it is called, will tell one a tradition
+that seems older and more barbaric than any description of their
+adventures or of themselves in written text or story that has taken form
+in the mouths of professed story-tellers. Finn and the Fianna found
+welcome among the court poets later than did Cuchulain; and one finds
+memories of Danish invasions and standing armies mixed with the
+imaginations of hunters and solitary fighters among great woods. One
+never hears of Cuchulain delighting in the hunt or in woodland things;
+and one imagines that the story-teller would have thought it unworthy in
+so great a man, who lived a well-ordered, elaborate life, and had his
+chariot and his chariot-driver and his barley-fed horses to delight in.
+If he is in the woods before dawn one is not told that he cannot know
+the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of the oak; and when Emer
+laments him no wild creature comes into her thoughts but the cuckoo that
+cries over cultivated fields. His story must have come out of a time
+when the wild wood was giving way to pasture and tillage, and men had no
+longer a reason to consider every cry of the birds or change of the
+night. Finn, who was always in the woods, whose battles were but hours
+amid years of hunting, delighted in the "cackling of ducks from the Lake
+of the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of Doire an
+Cairn; the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries; the
+whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories or from the rough
+branches of the Ridge of the Stream; the grouse of the heather of
+Cruachan; the call of the otter of Druim re Coir." When sorrow comes
+upon the queens of the stories, they have sympathy for the wild birds
+and beasts that are like themselves: "Credhe wife of Cael came with the
+others and went looking through the bodies for her comely comrade, and
+crying as she went. And as she was searching she saw a crane of the
+meadows and her two nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watching
+the nestlings; and when the crane covered one of the birds to save it,
+he would make a rush at the other bird, the way she had to stretch
+herself out over the birds; and she would sooner have got her own death
+by the fox than the nestlings to be killed by him. And Credhe was
+looking at that, and she said: 'It is no wonder I to have such love for
+my comely sweetheart, and the bird in that distress about her
+nestlings.'"
+
+
+III
+
+One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that
+howls at something a man's eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive
+lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious of many
+things that we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly,
+more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away. Although the
+gods come to Cuchulain, and although he is the son of one of the
+greatest of them, their country and his are far apart, and they come to
+him as god to mortal; but Finn is their equal. He is continually in
+their houses; he meets with Bodb Dearg, and Angus, and Manannan, now as
+friend with friend, now as with an enemy he overcomes in battle; and
+when he has need of their help his messenger can say: "There is not a
+king's son or a prince, or a leader of the Fianna of Ireland, without
+having a wife or a mother or a foster-mother or a sweetheart of the
+Tuatha de Danaan." When the Fianna are broken up at last, after hundreds
+of years of hunting, it is doubtful that he dies at all, and certain
+that he comes again in some other shape, and Oisin, his son, is made
+king over a divine country. The birds and beasts that cross his path in
+the woods have been fighting men or great enchanters or fair women, and
+in a moment can take some beautiful or terrible shape. One thinks of him
+and of his people as great-bodied men with large movements, that seem,
+as it were, flowing out of some deep below the narrow stream of personal
+impulse, men that have broad brows and quiet eyes full of confidence in
+a good luck that proves every day afresh that they are a portion of the
+strength of things. They are hardly so much individual men as portions
+of universal nature, like the clouds that shape themselves and re-shape
+themselves momentarily, or like a bird between two boughs, or like the
+gods that have given the apples and the nuts; and yet this but brings
+them the nearer to us, for we can remake them in our image when we will,
+and the woods are the more beautiful for the thought. Do we not always
+fancy hunters to be something like this, and is not that why we think
+them poetical when we meet them of a sudden, as in these lines in
+"Pauline":
+
+                              "An old hunter
+    Talking with gods; or a nigh-crested chief
+    Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos"
+
+
+IV
+
+One must not expect in these stories the epic lineaments, the many
+incidents, woven into one great event of, let us say, the story of the
+War for the Brown Bull of Cuailgne, or that of the last gathering at
+Muirthemne. Even Diarmuid and Grania, which is a long story, has nothing
+of the clear outlines of Deirdre, and is indeed but a succession of
+detached episodes. The men who imagined the Fianna had the imagination
+of children, and as soon as they had invented one wonder, heaped another
+on top of it. Children--or, at any rate, it is so I remember my own
+childhood--do not understand large design, and they delight in little
+shut-in places where they can play at houses more than in great expanses
+where a country-side takes, as it were, the impression of a thought. The
+wild creatures and the green things are more to them than to us, for
+they creep towards our light by little holes and crevices. When they
+imagine a country for themselves, it is always a country where one can
+wander without aim, and where one can never know from one place what
+another will be like, or know from the one day's adventure what may meet
+one with to-morrow's sun. I have wished to become a child again that I
+might find this book, that not only tells one of such a country, but is
+fuller than any other book that tells of heroic life, of the childhood
+that is in all folk-lore, dearer to me than all the books of the western
+world.
+
+Children play at being great and wonderful people, at the ambitions
+they will put away for one reason or another before they grow into
+ordinary men and women. Mankind as a whole had a like dream once;
+everybody and nobody built up the dream bit by bit, and the ancient
+story-tellers are there to make us remember what mankind would have been
+like, had not fear and the failing will and the laws of nature tripped
+up its heels. The Fianna and their like are themselves so full of power,
+and they are set in a world so fluctuating and dream-like, that nothing
+can hold them from being all that the heart desires.
+
+I have read in a fabulous book that Adam had but to imagine a bird, and
+it was born into life, and that he created all things out of himself by
+nothing more important than an unflagging fancy; and heroes who can make
+a ship out of a shaving have but little less of the divine prerogatives.
+They have no speculative thoughts to wander through eternity and waste
+heroic blood; but how could that be otherwise, for it is at all times
+the proud angels who sit thinking upon the hill-side and not the people
+of Eden. One morning we meet them hunting a stag that is "as joyful as
+the leaves of a tree in summer-time"; and whatever they do, whether they
+listen to the harp or follow an enchanter over-sea, they do for the sake
+of joy, their joy in one another, or their joy in pride and movement;
+and even their battles are fought more because of their delight in a
+good fighter than because of any gain that is in victory. They live
+always as if they were playing a game; and so far as they have any
+deliberate purpose at all, it is that they may become great gentlemen
+and be worthy of the songs of poets. It has been said, and I think the
+Japanese were the first to say it, that the four essential virtues are
+to be generous among the weak, and truthful among one's friends, and
+brave among one's enemies, and courteous at all times; and if we
+understand by courtesy not merely the gentleness the story-tellers have
+celebrated, but a delight in courtly things, in beautiful clothing and
+in beautiful verse, one understands that it was no formal succession of
+trials that bound the Fianna to one another. Only the Table Round, that
+is indeed, as it seems, a rivulet from the same river, is bound in a
+like fellowship, and there the four heroic virtues are troubled by the
+abstract virtues of the cloister. Every now and then some noble knight
+builds himself a cell upon the hill-side, or leaves kind women and
+joyful knights to seek the vision of the Grail in lonely adventures. But
+when Oisin or some kingly forerunner--Bran, son of Febal, or the
+like--rides or sails in an enchanted ship to some divine country, he but
+looks for a more delighted companionship, or to be in love with faces
+that will never fade. No thought of any life greater than that of love,
+and the companionship of those that have drawn their swords upon the
+darkness of the world, ever troubles their delight in one another as it
+troubles Iseult amid her love, or Arthur amid his battles. It is one of
+the ailments of our speculation that thought, when it is not the
+planning of something, or the doing of something or some memory of a
+plain circumstance separates us from one another because it makes us
+always more unlike, and because no thought passes through another's ear
+unchanged. Companionship can only be perfect when it is founded on
+things, for things are always the same under the hand, and at last one
+comes to hear with envy of the voices of boys lighting a lantern to
+ensnare moths, or of the maids chattering in the kitchen about the fox
+that carried off a turkey before breakfast. This book is full of
+fellowship untroubled like theirs, and made noble by a courtesy that has
+gone perhaps out of the world. I do not know in literature better
+friends and lovers. When one of the Fianna finds Osgar dying the proud
+death of a young man, and asks is it well with him, he is answered, "I
+am as you would have me be." The very heroism of the Fianna is indeed
+but their pride and joy in one another, their good fellowship. Goll, old
+and savage, and letting himself die of hunger in a cave because he is
+angry and sorry, can speak lovely words to the wife whose help he
+refuses. "'It is best as it is,' he said, 'and I never took the advice
+of a woman east or west, and I never will take it. And oh, sweet-voiced
+queen,' he said, 'what ails you to be fretting after me? and remember
+now your silver and your gold, and your silks ... and do not be crying
+tears after me, queen with the white hands,' he said, 'but remember your
+constant lover Aodh, son of the best woman of the world, that came from
+Spain asking for you, and that I fought on Corcar-an-Dearg; and go to
+him now,' he said, 'for it is bad when a woman is without a good man.'"
+
+
+VI
+
+They have no asceticism, but they are more visionary than any ascetic,
+and their invisible life is but the life about them made more perfect
+and more lasting, and the invisible people are their own images in the
+water. Their gods may have been much besides this, for we know them from
+fragments of mythology picked out with trouble from a fantastic history
+running backward to Adam and Eve, and many things that may have seemed
+wicked to the monks who imagined that history, may have been altered or
+left out; but this they must have been essentially, for the old stories
+are confirmed by apparitions among the country-people to-day. The Men of
+Dea fought against the mis-shapen Fomor, as Finn fights against the
+Cat-Heads and the Dog-Heads; and when they are overcome at last by men,
+they make themselves houses in the hearts of hills that are like the
+houses of men. When they call men to their houses and to their country
+Under-Wave they promise them all that they have upon earth, only in
+greater abundance. The god Midhir sings to Queen Etain in one of the
+most beautiful of the stories: "The young never grow old; the fields and
+the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's eggs;
+warm streams of mead and wine flow through that country; there is no
+care or no sorrow on any person; we see others, but we ourselves are not
+seen." These gods are indeed more wise and beautiful than men; but men,
+when they are great men, are stronger than they are, for men are, as it
+were, the foaming tide-line of their sea. One remembers the Druid who
+answered, when some one asked him who made the world, "The Druids made
+it." All was indeed but one life flowing everywhere, and taking one
+quality here, another there. It sometimes seems to one as if there is a
+kind of day and night of religion, and that a period when the influences
+are those that shape the world is followed by a period when the greater
+power is in influences that would lure the soul out of the world, out of
+the body. When Oisin is speaking with S. Patrick of the friends and the
+life he has outlived, he can but cry out constantly against a religion
+that has no meaning for him. He laments, and the country-people have
+remembered his words for centuries: "I will cry my fill, but not for
+God, but because Finn and the Fianna are not living."
+
+
+VII
+
+Old writers had an admirable symbolism that attributed certain energies
+to the influence of the sun, and certain others to the lunar influence.
+To lunar influence belong all thoughts and emotions that were created by
+the community, by the common people, by nobody knows who, and to the sun
+all that came from the high disciplined or individual kingly mind. I
+myself imagine a marriage of the sun and moon in the arts I take most
+pleasure in; and now bride and bridegroom but exchange, as it were, full
+cups of gold and silver, and now they are one in a mystical embrace.
+From the moon come the folk-songs imagined by reapers and spinners out
+of the common impulse of their labour, and made not by putting words
+together, but by mixing verses and phrases, and the folk-tales made by
+the capricious mixing of incidents known to everybody in new ways, as
+one deals out cards, never getting the same hand twice over. When one
+hears some fine story, one never knows whether it has not been hazard
+that put the last touch of adventure. Such poetry, as it seems to me,
+desires an infinity of wonder or emotion, for where there is no
+individual mind there is no measurer-out, no marker-in of limits. The
+poor fisher has no possession of the world and no responsibility for it;
+and if he dreams of a love-gift better than the brown shawl that seems
+too common for poetry, why should he not dream of a glove made from the
+skin of a bird, or shoes made from the skin of a fish, or a coat made
+from the glittering garment of the salmon? Was it not Aeschylus who said
+he but served up fragments from the banquet of Homer?--but Homer himself
+found the great banquet on an earthen floor and under a broken roof. We
+do not know who at the foundation of the world made the banquet for the
+first time, or who put the pack of cards into rough hands; but we do
+know that, unless those that have made many inventions are about to
+change the nature of poetry, we may have to go where Homer went if we
+are to sing a new song. Is it because all that is under the moon thirsts
+to escape out of bounds, to lose itself in some unbounded tidal stream,
+that the songs of the folk are mournful, and that the story of the
+Fianna, whenever the queens lament for their lovers, reminds us of songs
+that are still sung in country-places? Their grief, even when it is to
+be brief like Grania's, goes up into the waste places of the sky. But
+in supreme art or in supreme life there is the influence of the sun too,
+and the sun brings with it, as old writers tell us, not merely
+discipline but joy; for its discipline is not of the kind the multitudes
+impose upon us by their weight and pressure, but the expression of the
+individual soul turning itself into a pure fire and imposing its own
+pattern, its own music, upon the heaviness and the dumbness that is in
+others and in itself. When we have drunk the cold cup of the moon's
+intoxication, we thirst for something beyond ourselves, and the mind
+flows outward to a natural immensity; but if we have drunk from the hot
+cup of the sun, our own fullness awakens, we desire little, for wherever
+one goes one's heart goes too; and if any ask what music is the
+sweetest, we can but answer, as Finn answered, "what happens." And yet
+the songs and stories that have come from either influence are a part,
+neither less than the other, of the pleasure that is the bride-bed of
+poetry.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Gaelic-speaking Ireland, because its art has been made, not by the
+artist choosing his material from wherever he has a mind to, but by
+adding a little to something which it has taken generations to invent,
+has always had a popular literature. One cannot say how much that
+literature has done for the vigour of the race, for one cannot count the
+hands its praise of kings and high-hearted queens made hot upon the
+sword-hilt, or the amorous eyes it made lustful for strength and beauty.
+One remembers indeed that when the farming people and the labourers of
+the towns made their last attempt to cast out England by force of arms
+they named themselves after the companions of Finn. Even when Gaelic has
+gone, and the poetry with it, something of the habit of mind remains in
+ways of speech and thought and "come-all-ye"s and poetical saying; nor
+is it only among the poor that the old thought has been for strength or
+weakness. Surely these old stories, whether of Finn or Cuchulain, helped
+to sing the old Irish and the old Norman-Irish aristocracy to their end.
+They heard their hereditary poets and story-tellers, and they took to
+horse and died fighting against Elizabeth or against Cromwell; and when
+an English-speaking aristocracy had their place, it listened to no
+poetry indeed, but it felt about it in the popular mind an exacting and
+ancient tribunal, and began a play that had for spectators men and women
+that loved the high wasteful virtues. I do not think that their own
+mixed blood or the habit of their time need take all, or nearly all,
+credit or discredit for the impulse that made our modern gentlemen fight
+duels over pocket-handkerchiefs, and set out to play ball against the
+gates of Jerusalem for a wager, and scatter money before the public eye;
+and at last, after an epoch of such eloquence the world has hardly seen
+its like, lose their public spirit and their high heart and grow
+querulous and selfish as men do who have played life out not heartily
+but with noise and tumult. Had they understood the people and the game a
+little better, they might have created an aristocracy in an age that has
+lost the meaning of the word. When one reads of the Fianna, or of
+Cuchulain, or of some great hero, one remembers that the fine life is
+always a part played finely before fine spectators. There also one
+notices the hot cup and the cold cup of intoxication; and when the fine
+spectators have ended, surely the fine players grow weary, and
+aristocratic life is ended. When O'Connell covered with a dark glove the
+hand that had killed a man in the duelling field, he played his part;
+and when Alexander stayed his army marching to the conquest of the world
+that he might contemplate the beauty of a plane-tree, he played his
+part. When Osgar complained as he lay dying, of the keening of the women
+and the old fighting men, he too played his part; "No man ever knew any
+heart in me," he said, "but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered with
+iron; but the howling of the dogs beside me," he said, "and the keening
+of the old fighting men and the crying of the women one after another,
+those are the things that are vexing me." If we would create a great
+community--and what other game is so worth the labour?--we must recreate
+the old foundations of life, not as they existed in that splendid
+misunderstanding of the eighteenth century, but as they must always
+exist when the finest minds and Ned the beggar and Seaghan the fool
+think about the same thing, although they may not think the same thought
+about it.
+
+
+IX
+
+When I asked the little boy who had shown me the pathway up the Hill of
+Allen if he knew stories of Finn and Oisin, he said he did not, but that
+he had often heard his grandfather telling them to his mother in Irish.
+He did not know Irish, but he was learning it at school, and all the
+little boys he knew were learning it. In a little while he will know
+enough stories of Finn and Oisin to tell them to his children some day.
+It is the owners of the land whose children might never have known what
+would give them so much happiness. But now they can read this book to
+their children, and it will make Slieve-na-man, Allen, and Benbulben,
+the great mountain that showed itself before me every day through all my
+childhood and was yet unpeopled, and half the country-sides of south and
+west, as populous with memories as are Dundealgan and Emain Macha and
+Muirthemne; and after a while somebody may even take them to some famous
+place and say, "This land where your fathers lived proudly and finely
+should be dear and dear and again dear"; and perhaps when many names
+have grown musical to their ears, a more imaginative love will have
+taught them a better service.
+
+
+X
+
+I need say nothing about the translation and arrangement of this book
+except that it is worthy to be put beside "Cuchulain of Muirthemne."
+Such books should not be commended by written words but by spoken words,
+were that possible, for the written words commending a book, wherein
+something is done supremely well, remain, to sound in the ears of a
+later generation, like the foolish sound of church bells from the tower
+of a church when every pew is full.
+
+W.B. YEATS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I. THE GODS
+
+  Book I. The Coming of the Tuatha de Danaan
+
+    Chap.    I. The Fight with the Firbolgs
+            II. The Reign of Bres
+
+  Book II. Lugh of the Long Hand
+
+    Chap.    I. The Coming of Lugh
+            II. The Sons of Tuireann
+           III. The Great Battle of Magh Tuireadh
+            IV. The Hidden House of Lugh
+
+  Book III. The Coming of the Gael
+
+    Chap.    I. The Landing
+            II. The Battle of Tailltin
+
+  Book IV. The Ever-Living Living Ones
+
+    Chap.    I. Bodb Dearg
+            II. The Dagda
+           III. Angus Og
+            IV. The Morrigu
+             V. Aine
+            VI. Aoibhell
+           VII. Midhir and Etain
+          VIII. Manannan
+            IX. Manannan at play
+             X. His Call to Bran
+            XI. His Three Calls to Cormac
+           XII. Cliodna's Wave
+          XIII. His Call to Connla
+           XIV. Tadg in Manannan's Islands
+        XV. Laegaire in the Happy Plain
+
+  Book V. The Fate of The Children of Lir
+
+
+PART II. THE FIANNA
+
+  Book I. Finn, Son of Cumhal
+
+    Chap.   I. The Coming of Finn
+           II. Finn's Household
+          III. Birth of Bran
+           IV. Oisin's Mother
+            V. The Best Men of the Fianna
+
+  Book II. Finn's Helpers
+
+    Chap.   I. The Lad of the Skins
+           II. Black, Brown, and Grey
+          III. The Hound
+           IV. Red Ridge
+
+  Book III. The Battle of the White Strand
+
+    Chap.    I. The Enemies of Ireland
+            II. Cael and Credhe
+           III. Conn Crither
+            IV. Glas, Son of Dremen
+             V. The Help of the Men of Dea
+            VI. The March of the Fianna
+           VII. The First Fighters
+          VIII. The King of Ulster's Son
+            IX. The High King's Son
+             X. The King of Lochlann and his Sons
+            XI. Labran's Journey
+           XII. The Great Fight
+          XIII. Credhe's Lament
+
+  Book IV. Huntings and Enchantments
+
+    Chap.     I. The King of Britain's Son
+             II. The Cave of Ceiscoran
+            III. Donn, Son of Midhir
+             IV. The Hospitality of Cuanna's House
+              V. Cat-Heads and Dog-Heads
+             VI. Lomna's Head
+            VII. Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh
+           VIII. The Cave of Cruachan
+             IX. The Wedding at Ceann Slieve
+              X. The Shadowy One
+             XI. Finn's Madness
+            XII. The Red Woman
+           XIII. Finn and the Phantoms
+            XIV. The Pigs of Angus
+             XV. The Hunt of Slieve Cuilinn
+
+  Book V. Oisin's Children
+
+
+  Book VI. Diarmuid
+
+    Chap.     I. Birth of Diarmuid
+             II. How Diarmuid got his Love-Spot
+            III. The Daughter of King Under-Wave
+             IV. The Hard Servant
+              V. The House of the Quicken Trees
+
+  Book VII. Diarmuid and Grania
+
+    Chap.     I. The Flight from Teamhair
+             II. The Pursuit
+            III. The Green Champions
+             IV. The Wood of Dubhros
+              V. The Quarrel
+             VI. The Wanderers
+            VII. Fighting and Peace
+           VIII. The Boar of Beinn Gulbain
+
+  Book VIII. Cnoc-an-Air
+
+    Chap.    I. Tailc, Son of Treon
+            II. Meargach's Wife
+           III. Ailne's Revenge
+
+  Book IX. The Wearing Away of the Fianna
+
+    Chap.    I. The Quarrel with the Sons of Morna
+            II. Death of Goll
+           III. The Battle of Gabhra
+
+  Book X. The End of the Fianna
+
+    Chap.    I. Death of Bran
+            II. The Call of Oisin
+           III. The Last of the Great Men
+
+  Book XI. Oisin and Patrick
+
+    Chap.    I. Oisin's Story
+            II. Oisin in Patrick's House
+           III. The Arguments
+            IV. Oisin's Laments
+
+
+
+
+GODS AND FIGHTING MEN.
+
+PART ONE: THE GODS.
+
+BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE FIGHT WITH THE FIRBOLGS
+
+
+It was in a mist the Tuatha de Danaan, the people of the gods of Dana,
+or as some called them, the Men of Dea, came through the air and the
+high air to Ireland.
+
+It was from the north they came; and in the place they came from they
+had four cities, where they fought their battle for learning: great
+Falias, and shining Gorias, and Finias, and rich Murias that lay to the
+south. And in those cities they had four wise men to teach their young
+men skill and knowledge and perfect wisdom: Senias in Murias; and Arias,
+the fair-haired poet, in Finias; and Urias of the noble nature in
+Gorias; and Morias in Falias itself. And they brought from those four
+cities their four treasures: a Stone of Virtue from Falias, that was
+called the Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny; and from Gorias they brought
+a Sword; and from Finias a Spear of Victory; and from Murias the fourth
+treasure, the Cauldron that no company ever went away from unsatisfied.
+
+It was Nuada was king of the Tuatha de Danaan at that time, but
+Manannan, son of Lir, was greater again. And of the others that were
+chief among them were Ogma, brother to the king, that taught them
+writing, and Diancecht, that understood healing, and Neit, a god of
+battle, and Credenus the Craftsman, and Goibniu the Smith. And the
+greatest among their women were Badb, a battle goddess; and Macha, whose
+mast-feeding was the heads of men killed in battle; and the Morrigu,
+the Crow of Battle; and Eire and Fodla and Banba, daughters of the
+Dagda, that all three gave their names to Ireland afterwards; and Eadon,
+the nurse of poets; and Brigit, that was a woman of poetry, and poets
+worshipped her, for her sway was very great and very noble. And she was
+a woman of healing along with that, and a woman of smith's work, and it
+was she first made the whistle for calling one to another through the
+night. And the one side of her face was ugly, but the other side was
+very comely. And the meaning of her name was Breo-saighit, a fiery
+arrow. And among the other women there were many shadow-forms and great
+queens; but Dana, that was called the Mother of the Gods, was beyond
+them all.
+
+And the three things they put above all others were the plough and the
+sun and the hazel-tree, so that it was said in the time to come that
+Ireland was divided between those three, Coll the hazel, and Cecht the
+plough, and Grian the sun.
+
+And they had a well below the sea where the nine hazels of wisdom were
+growing; that is, the hazels of inspiration and of the knowledge of
+poetry. And their leaves and their blossoms would break out in the same
+hour, and would fall on the well in a shower that raised a purple wave.
+And then the five salmon that were waiting there would eat the nuts, and
+their colour would come out in the red spots of their skin, and any
+person that would eat one of those salmon would know all wisdom and all
+poetry. And there were seven streams of wisdom that sprang from that
+well and turned back to it again; and the people of many arts have all
+drank from that well.
+
+It was on the first day of Beltaine, that is called now May Day, the
+Tuatha de Danaan came, and it was to the north-west of Connacht they
+landed. But the Firbolgs, the Men of the Bag, that were in Ireland
+before them, and that had come from the South, saw nothing but a mist,
+and it lying on the hills.
+
+Eochaid, son of Erc, was king of the Firbolgs at that time, and
+messengers came to him at Teamhair, and told him there was a new race of
+people come into Ireland, but whether from the earth or the skies or on
+the wind was not known, and that they had settled themselves at Magh
+Rein.
+
+They thought there would be wonder on Eochaid when he heard that news;
+but there was no wonder on him, for a dream had come to him in the
+night, and when he asked his Druids the meaning of the dream, it is what
+they said, that it would not be long till there would be a strong enemy
+coming against him.
+
+Then King Eochaid took counsel with his chief advisers, and it is what
+they agreed, to send a good champion of their own to see the strangers
+and to speak with them. So they chose out Sreng, that was a great
+fighting man, and he rose up and took his strong red-brown shield, and
+his two thick-handled spears, and his sword, and his head-covering, and
+his thick iron club, and he set out from Teamhair, and went on towards
+the place the strangers were, at Magh Rein.
+
+But before he reached it, the watchers of the Tuatha de Danaan got sight
+of him, and they sent out one of their own champions, Bres, with his
+shield and his sword and his two spears, to meet him and to talk with
+him.
+
+So the two champions went one towards the other slowly, and keeping a
+good watch on one another, and wondering at one another's arms, till
+they came near enough for talking; and then they stopped, and each put
+his shield before his body and struck it hard into the ground, and they
+looked at one another over the rim. Bres was the first to speak, and
+when Sreng heard it was Irish he was talking, his own tongue, he was
+less uneasy, and they drew nearer, and asked questions as to one
+another's family and race.
+
+And after a while they put their shields away, and it was what Sreng
+said, that he had raised his in dread of the thin, sharp spears Bres had
+in his hand. And Bres said he himself was in dread of the thick-handled
+spears he saw with Sreng, and he asked were all the arms of the Firbolgs
+of the same sort. And Sreng took off the tyings of his spears to show
+them better, and Bres wondered at them, being so strong and so heavy,
+and so sharp at the sides though they had no points. And Sreng told him
+the name of those spears was Craisech, and that they would break through
+shields and crush flesh and bones, so that their thrust was death or
+wounds that never healed. And then he looked at the sharp, thin,
+hard-pointed spears that were with Bres. And in the end they made an
+exchange of spears, the way the fighters on each side would see the
+weapons the others were used to. And it is the message Bres sent to the
+Firbolgs, that if they would give up one half of Ireland, his people
+would be content to take it in peace; but if they would not give up that
+much, there should be a battle. And he and Sreng said to one another
+that whatever might happen in the future, they themselves would be
+friends.
+
+Sreng went back then to Teamhair and gave the message and showed the
+spear; and it is what he advised his people, to share the country and
+not to go into battle with a people that had weapons so much better than
+their own. But Eochaid and his chief men consulted together, and they
+said in the end: "We will not give up the half of the country to these
+strangers; for if we do," they said, "they will soon take the whole."
+
+Now as to the Men of Dea, when Bres went back to them, and showed them
+the heavy spear, and told them of the strong, fierce man he had got it
+from, and how sturdy he was and well armed, they thought it likely there
+would soon be a battle. And they went back from where they were to a
+better place, farther west in Connacht, and there they settled
+themselves, and made walls and ditches on the plain of Magh Nia, where
+they had the great mountain, Belgata, in their rear. And while they were
+moving there and putting up their walls, three queens of them, Badb and
+Macha and the Morrigu, went to Teamhair where the Firbolgs were making
+their plans. And by the power of their enchantments they brought mists
+and clouds of darkness over the whole place, and they sent showers of
+fire and of blood over the people, the way they could not see or speak
+with one another through the length of three days. But at the end of
+that time, the three Druids of the Firbolgs, Cesarn and Gnathach and
+Ingnathach, broke the enchantment.
+
+The Firbolgs gathered their men together then, and they came with their
+eleven battalions and took their stand at the eastern end of the plain
+of Magh Nia.
+
+And Nuada, king of the Men of Dea, sent his poets to make the same offer
+he made before, to be content with the half of the country if it was
+given up to him. King Eochaid bade the poets to ask an answer of his
+chief men that were gathered there; and when they heard the offer they
+would not consent. So the messengers asked them when would they begin
+the battle. "We must have a delay," they said; "for we want time to put
+our spears and our armour in order, and to brighten our helmets and to
+sharpen our swords, and to have spears made like the ones you have. And
+as to yourselves," they said, "you will be wanting to have spears like
+our Craisechs made for you." So they agreed then to make a delay of a
+quarter of a year for preparation.
+
+It was on a Midsummer day they began the battle. Three times nine
+hurlers of the Tuatha de Danaan went out against three times nine
+hurlers of the Firbolgs, and they were beaten, and every one of them was
+killed. And the king, Eochaid, sent a messenger to ask would they have
+the battle every day or every second day. And it is what Nuada answered
+that they would have it every day, but there should be just the same
+number of men fighting on each side. Eochaid agreed to that, but he was
+not well pleased, for there were more men of the Firbolgs than of the
+Men of Dea.
+
+So the battle went on for four days, and there were great feats done on
+each side, and a great many champions came to their death. But for those
+that were alive at evening, the physicians on each side used to make a
+bath of healing, with every sort of healing plant or herb in it, the way
+they would be strong and sound for the next day's fight.
+
+And on the fourth day the Men of Dea got the upper hand, and the
+Firbolgs were driven back. And a great thirst came on Eochaid, their
+king, in the battle, and he went off the field looking for a drink, and
+three fifties of his men protecting him; but three fifties of the Tuatha
+de Danaan followed after them till they came to the strand that is
+called Traigh Eothaile, and they had a fierce fight there, and at the
+last King Eochaid fell, and they buried him there, and they raised a
+great heap of stones over his grave.
+
+And when there were but three hundred men left of the eleven battalions
+of the Firbolgs, and Sreng at the head of them, Nuada offered them
+peace, and their choice among the five provinces of Ireland. And Sreng
+said they would take Connacht; and he and his people lived there and
+their children after them. It is of them Ferdiad came afterwards that
+made such a good fight against Cuchulain, and Erc, son of Cairbre, that
+gave him his death. And that battle, that was the first fought in
+Ireland by the Men of Dea, was called by some the first battle of Magh
+Tuireadh.
+
+And the Tuatha de Danaan took possession of Teamhair, that was sometimes
+called Druim Cain, the Beautiful Ridge, and Liathdruim, the Grey Ridge,
+and Druim na Descan, the Ridge of the Outlook, all those names were
+given to Teamhair. And from that time it was above all other places, for
+its king was the High King over all Ireland. The king's rath lay to the
+north, and the Hill of the Hostages to the north-east of the High Seat,
+and the Green of Teamhair to the west of the Hill of the Hostages. And
+to the north-east, in the Hill of the Sidhe, was a well called Nemnach,
+and out of it there flowed a stream called Nith, and on that stream the
+first mill was built in Ireland.
+
+And to the north of the Hill of the Hostages was the stone, the Lia
+Fail, and it used to roar under the feet of every king that would take
+possession of Ireland. And the Wall of the Three Whispers was near the
+House of the Women that had seven doors to the east, and seven doors to
+the west; and it is in that house the feasts of Teamhair used to be
+held. And there was the Great House of a Thousand Soldiers, and near it,
+to the south, the little Hill of the Woman Soldiers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE REIGN OF BRES
+
+
+But if Nuada won the battle, he lost his own arm in it, that was struck
+off by Sreng; and by that loss there came troubles and vexation on his
+people.
+
+For it was a law with the Tuatha de Danaan that no man that was not
+perfect in shape should be king. And after Nuada had lost the battle he
+was put out of the kingship on that account.
+
+And the king they chose in his place was Bres, that was the most
+beautiful of all their young men, so that if a person wanted to praise
+any beautiful thing, whether it was a plain, or a dun, or ale, or a
+flame, or a woman, or a man, or a horse, it is what he would say, "It is
+as beautiful as Bres." And he was the son of a woman of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, but who his father was no one knew but herself.
+
+But in spite of Bres being so beautiful, his reign brought no great good
+luck to his people; for the Fomor, whose dwelling-place was beyond the
+sea, or as some say below the sea westward, began putting tribute on
+them, the way they would get them under their own rule.
+
+It was a long time before that the Fomor came first to Ireland; dreadful
+they were to look at, and maimed, having but one foot or one hand, and
+they under the leadership of a giant and his mother. There never came to
+Ireland an army more horrible or more dreadful than that army of the
+Fomor. And they were friendly with the Firbolgs and content to leave
+Ireland to them, but there was jealousy between them and the Men of Dea.
+
+And it was a hard tax they put on them, a third part of their corn they
+asked, and a third part of their milk, and a third part of their
+children, so that there was not smoke rising from a roof in Ireland but
+was under tribute to them. And Bres made no stand against them, but let
+them get their way.
+
+And as to Bres himself, he put a tax on every house in Ireland of the
+milk of hornless dun cows, or of the milk of cows of some other single
+colour, enough for a hundred men. And one time, to deceive him, Nechtan
+singed all the cows of Ireland in a fire of fern, and then he smeared
+them with the ashes of flax seed, the way they were all dark brown. He
+did that by the advice of the Druid Findgoll, son of Findemas. And
+another time they made three hundred cows of wood with dark brown pails
+in place of udders, and the pails were filled with black bog stuff. Then
+Bres came to look at the cows, and to see them milked before him, and
+Cian, father of Lugh, was there. And when they were milked it was the
+bog stuff that was squeezed out; and Bres took a drink of it thinking it
+to be milk, and he was not the better of it for a long time.
+
+And there was another thing against Bres; he was no way open-handed, and
+the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan grumbled against him, for their
+knives were never greased in his house, and however often they might
+visit him there was no smell of ale on their breath. And there was no
+sort of pleasure or merriment in his house, and no call for their poets,
+or singers, or harpers, or pipers, or horn-blowers, or jugglers, or
+fools. And as to the trials of strength they were used to see between
+their champions, the only use their strength was put to now was to be
+doing work for the king. Ogma himself, the shining poet, was under
+orders to bring firing to the palace every day for the whole army from
+the Islands of Mod; and he so weak for want of food that the sea would
+sweep away two-thirds of his bundle every day. And as to the Dagda, he
+was put to build raths, for he was a good builder, and he made a trench
+round Rath Brese. And he used often to be tired at the work, and one
+time he nearly gave in altogether for want of food, and this is the way
+that happened. He used to meet in the house an idle blind man, Cridenbel
+his name was, that had a sharp tongue, and that coveted the Dagda's
+share of food, for he thought his own to be small beside it. So he said
+to him: "For the sake of your good name let the three best bits of your
+share be given to me." And the Dagda gave in to that every night; but he
+was the worse of it, for what the blind man called a bit would be the
+size of a good pig, and with his three bits he would take a full third
+of the whole.
+
+But one day, as the Dagda was in the trench, he saw his son, Angus Og,
+coming to him. "That is a good meeting," said Angus; "but what is on
+you, for you have no good appearance to-day?" "There is a reason for
+that," said the Dagda, "for every evening, Cridenbel, the blind man,
+makes a demand for the three best bits of my share of food, and takes
+them from me." "I will give you an advice," said Angus. He put his hand
+in his bag then, and took out three pieces of gold and gave them to him.
+
+"Put these pieces of gold into the three bits you will give this evening
+to Cridenbel," he said, "and they will be the best bits in the dish, and
+the gold will turn within him the way he will die."
+
+So in the evening the Dagda did that; and no sooner had Cridenbel
+swallowed down the gold than he died. Some of the people said then to
+the king: "The Dagda has killed Cridenbel, giving him some deadly herb."
+The king believed that, and there was anger on him against the Dagda,
+and he gave orders he should be put to death. But the Dagda said: "You
+are not giving the right judgment of a prince." And he told all that had
+happened, and how Cridenbel used to say, "Give me the three best bits
+before you, for my own share is not good to-night." "And on this
+night," he said, "the three pieces of gold were the best things before
+me, and I gave them to him, and he died."
+
+The king gave orders then to have the body cut open. And they found the
+gold inside it, and they knew it was the truth the Dagda had told.
+
+And Angus came to him again the next day, and he said: "Your work will
+soon be done, and when you are given your wages, take nothing they may
+offer you till the cattle of Ireland are brought before you, and choose
+out a heifer then, black and black-maned, that I will tell you the signs
+of."
+
+So when the Dagda had brought his work to an end, and they asked him
+what reward he wanted, he did as Angus had bidden him. And that seemed
+folly to Bres; he thought the Dagda would have asked more than a heifer
+of him.
+
+There came a day at last when a poet came to look for hospitality at the
+king's house, Corpre, son of Etain, poet of the Tuatha de Danaan. And it
+is how he was treated, he was put in a little dark narrow house where
+there was no fire, or furniture, or bed; and for a feast three small
+cakes, and they dry, were brought to him on a little dish. When he rose
+up on the morrow he was no way thankful, and as he was going across the
+green, it is what he said: "Without food ready on a dish; without milk
+enough for a calf to grow on; without shelter; without light in the
+darkness of night; without enough to pay a story-teller; may that be the
+prosperity of Bres."
+
+And from that day there was no good luck with Bres, but it is going down
+he was for ever after. And that was the first satire ever made in
+Ireland.
+
+Now as to Nuada: after his arm being struck off, he was in his sickness
+for a while, and then Diancecht, the healer, made an arm of silver for
+him, with movement in every finger of it, and put it on him. And from
+that he was called Nuada Argat-lamh, of the Silver Hand, for ever after.
+
+Now Miach, son of Diancecht, was a better hand at healing than his
+father, and had done many things. He met a young man, having but one
+eye, at Teamhair one time, and the young man said: "If you are a good
+physician you will put an eye in the place of the eye I lost." "I could
+put the eye of that cat in your lap in its place," said Miach. "I would
+like that well," said the young man. So Miach put the cat's eye in his
+head; but he would as soon have been without it after, for when he
+wanted to sleep and take his rest, it is then the eye would start at the
+squeaking of the mice, or the flight of the birds, or the movement of
+the rushes; and when he was wanting to watch an army or a gathering, it
+is then it was sure to be in a deep sleep.
+
+And Miach was not satisfied with what his father had done to the king,
+and he took Nuada's own hand that had been struck off, and brought it to
+him and set it in its place, and he said: "Joint to joint, and sinew to
+sinew." Three days and three nights he was with the king; the first day
+he put the hand against his side, and the second day against his breast,
+till it was covered with skin, and the third day he put bulrushes that
+were blackened in the fire on it, and at the end of that time the king
+was healed.
+
+But Diancecht was vexed when he saw his son doing a better cure than
+himself, and he threw his sword at his head, that it cut the flesh, but
+the lad healed the wound by means of his skill. Then Diancecht threw it
+a second time, that it reached the bone, but the lad was able to cure
+the wound. Then he struck him the third time and the fourth, till he cut
+out the brain, for he knew no physician could cure him after that blow;
+and Miach died, and he buried him.
+
+And herbs grew up from his grave, to the number of his joints and
+sinews, three hundred and sixty-five. And Airmed, his sister, came and
+spread out her cloak and laid out the herbs in it, according to their
+virtue. But Diancecht saw her doing that, and he came and mixed up the
+herbs, so that no one knows all their right powers to this day.
+
+Then when the Tuatha de Danaan saw Nuada as well as he was before, they
+gathered together to Teamhair, where Bres was, and they bade him give up
+the kingship, for he had held it long enough. So he had to give it up,
+though he was not very willing, and Nuada was put back in the kingship
+again.
+
+There was great vexation on Bres then, and he searched his mind to know
+how could he be avenged on those that had put him out, and how he could
+gather an army against them; and he went to his mother, Eri, daughter of
+Delbaith, and bade her tell him what his race was.
+
+"I know that well," she said; and she told him then that his father was
+a king of the Fomor, Elathan, son of Dalbaech, and that he came to her
+one time over a level sea in some great vessel that seemed to be of
+silver, but she could not see its shape, and he himself having the
+appearance of a young man with yellow hair, and his clothes sewed with
+gold, and five rings of gold about his neck. And she that had refused
+the love of all the young men of her own people, gave him her love, and
+she cried when he left her. And he gave her a ring from his hand, and
+bade her give it only to the man whose finger it would fit, and he went
+away then the same way as he had come.
+
+And she brought out the ring then to Bres, and he put it round his
+middle finger, and it fitted him well. And they went then together to
+the hill where she was the time she saw the silver vessel coming, and
+down to the strand, and she and Bres and his people set out for the
+country of the Fomor.
+
+And when they came to that country they found a great plain with many
+gatherings of people on it, and they went to the gathering that looked
+the best, and the people asked where did they come from, and they said
+they were come from Ireland. "Have you hounds with you?" they asked them
+then, for it was the custom at that time, when strangers came to a
+gathering, to give them some friendly challenge. "We have hounds," said
+Bres. So the hounds were matched against one another, and the hounds of
+the Tuatha de Danaan were better than the hounds of the Fomor. "Have you
+horses for a race?" they asked then. "We have," said Bres. And the
+horses of the Tuatha de Danaan beat the horses of the Fomor.
+
+Then they asked was any one among them a good hand with the sword, and
+they said Bres was the best. But when he put his hand to his sword,
+Elathan, his father, that was among them, knew the ring, and he asked
+who was this young man. Then his mother answered him and told the whole
+story, and that Bres was his own son.
+
+There was sorrow on his father then, and he said: "What was it drove you
+out of the country you were king over?" And Bres said: "Nothing drove me
+out but my own injustice and my own hardness; I took away their
+treasures from the people, and their jewels, and their food itself. And
+there were never taxes put on them before I was their king."
+
+"That is bad," said his father; "it is of their prosperity you had a
+right to think more than of your own kingship. And their good-will
+would be better than their curses," he said; "and what is it you are
+come to look for here?" "I am come to look for fighting men," said Bres,
+"that I may take Ireland by force." "You have no right to get it by
+injustice when you could not keep it by justice," said his father. "What
+advice have you for me then?" said Bres.
+
+And Elathan bade him go to the chief king of the Fomor, Balor of the
+Evil Eye, to see what advice and what help would he give him.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO: LUGH OF THE LONG HAND.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF LUGH
+
+
+Now as to Nuada of the Silver Hand, he was holding a great feast at
+Teamhair one time, after he was back in the kingship. And there were two
+door-keepers at Teamhair, Gamal, son of Figal, and Camel, son of
+Riagall. And a young man came to the door where one of them was, and
+bade him bring him in to the king. "Who are you yourself?" said the
+door-keeper. "I am Lugh, son of Cian of the Tuatha de Danaan, and of
+Ethlinn, daughter of Balor, King of the Fomor," he said; "and I am
+foster-son of Taillte, daughter of the King of the Great Plain, and of
+Echaid the Rough, son of Duach." "What are you skilled in?" said the
+door-keeper; "for no one without an art comes into Teamhair." "Question
+me," said Lugh; "I am a carpenter." "We do not want you; we have a
+carpenter ourselves, Luchtar, son of Luachaid." "Then I am a smith." "We
+have a smith ourselves, Colum Cuaillemech of the Three New Ways." "Then
+I am a champion." "That is no use to us; we have a champion before,
+Ogma, brother to the king." "Question me again," he said; "I am a
+harper." "That is no use to us; we have a harper ourselves, Abhean, son
+of Bicelmos, that the Men of the Three Gods brought from the hills." "I
+am-a poet," he said then, "and a teller of tales." "That is no use to
+us; we have a teller of tales ourselves, Ere, son of Ethaman." "And I am
+a magician." "That is no use to us; we have plenty of magicians and
+people of power." "I am a physician," he said. "That is no use; we have
+Diancecht-for our physician." "Let me be a cup-bearer," he said. "We do
+not want you; we have nine cup-bearers ourselves." "I am a good worker
+in brass." "We have a worker in brass ourselves, that is Credne Cerd."
+
+Then Lugh said: "Go and ask the king if he has any one man that can do
+all these things, and if he has, I will not ask to come into Teamhair."
+The door-keeper went into the king's house then and told him all that.
+"There is a young man at the door," he said, "and his name should be the
+Ildanach, the Master of all Arts, for all the things the people of your
+house can do, he himself is able to do every one of them." "Try him with
+the chess-boards," said Nuada. So the chess-boards were brought out, and
+every game that was played, Lugh won it. And when Nuada was told that,
+he said: "Let him in, for the like of him never came into Teamhair
+before."
+
+Then the door-keeper let him pass, and he came into the king's house and
+sat down in the seat of knowledge. And there was a great flag-stone
+there that could hardly be moved by four times twenty yoke of oxen, and
+Ogma took it up and hurled it out through the house, so that it lay on
+the outside of Teamhair, as a challenge to Lugh. But Lugh hurled it back
+again that it lay in the middle of the king's house. He played the harp
+for them then, and he had them laughing and crying, till he put them
+asleep at the end with a sleepy tune. And when Nuada saw all the things
+Lugh could do, he began to think that by his help the country might get
+free of the taxes and the tyranny put on it by the Fomor. And it is what
+he did, he came down from his throne, and he put Lugh on it in his
+place, for the length of thirteen days, the way they might all listen to
+the advice he would give.
+
+This now is the story of the birth of Lugh. The time the Fomor used to
+be coming to Ireland, Balor of the Strong Blows, or, as some called
+him, of the Evil Eye, was living on the Island of the Tower of Glass.
+There was danger for ships that went near that island, for the Fomor
+would come out and take them. And some say the sons of Nemed in the old
+time, before the Firbolgs were in Ireland, passed near it in their
+ships, and what they saw was a tower of glass in the middle of the sea,
+and on the tower something that had the appearance of men, and they went
+against it with Druid spells to attack it. And the Fomor worked against
+them with Druid spells of their own; and the sons of Nemed attacked the
+tower, and it vanished, and they thought it was destroyed. But a great
+wave rose over them then, and all their ships went down and all that
+were in them.
+
+And the tower was there as it was before, and Balor living in it. And it
+is the reason he was called "of the Evil Eye," there was a power of
+death in one of his eyes, so that no person could look at it and live.
+It is the way it got that power, he was passing one time by a house
+where his father's Druids were making spells of death, and the window
+being open he looked in, and the smoke of the poisonous spells was
+rising up, and it went into his eye. And from that time he had to keep
+it closed unless he wanted to be the death of some enemy, and then the
+men that were with him would lift the eyelid with a ring of ivory.
+
+Now a Druid foretold one time that it was by his own grandson he would
+get his death. And he had at that time but one child, a daughter whose
+name was Ethlinn; and when he heard what the Druid said, he shut her up
+in the tower on the island. And he put twelve women with her to take
+charge of her and to guard her, and he bade them never to let her see a
+man or hear the name of a man.
+
+So Ethlinn was brought up in the tower, and she grew to be very
+beautiful; and sometimes she would see men passing in the currachs, and
+sometimes she would see a man in her dreams. But when she would speak of
+that to the women, they would give her no answer.
+
+So there was no fear on Balor, and he went on with war and robbery as he
+was used, seizing every ship that passed by, and sometimes going over to
+Ireland to do destruction there.
+
+Now it chanced at that time there were three brothers of the Tuatha de
+Danaan living together in a place that was called Druim na Teine, the
+Ridge of the Fire, Goibniu and Samthainn and Cian. Cian was a lord of
+land, and Goibniu was the smith that had such a great name. Now Cian had
+a wonderful cow, the Glas Gaibhnenn, and her milk never failed. And
+every one that heard of her coveted her, and many had tried to steal her
+away, so that she had to be watched night and day.
+
+And one time Cian was wanting some swords made, and he went to Goibniu's
+forge, and he brought the Glas Gaibhnenn with him, holding her by a
+halter. When he came to the forge his two brothers were there together,
+for Samthainn had brought some steel to have weapons made for himself;
+and Cian bade Samthainn to hold the halter while he went into the forge
+to speak with Goibniu.
+
+Now Balor had set his mind for a long time on the Glas Gaibhnenn, but he
+had never been able to get near her up to this time. And he was watching
+not far off, and when he saw Samthainn holding the cow, he put on the
+appearance of a little boy, having red hair, and came up to him and told
+him he heard his two brothers that were in the forge saying to one
+another that they would use all his steel for their own swords, and make
+his of iron. "By my word," said Samthainn, "they will not deceive me so
+easily. Let you hold the cow, little lad," he said, "and I will go in to
+them." With that he rushed into the forge, and great anger on him. And
+no sooner did Balor get the halter in his hand than he set out, dragging
+the Glas along with him, to the strand, and across the sea to his own
+island.
+
+When Cian saw his brother coming in he rushed out, and there he saw
+Balor and the Glas out in the sea. And he had nothing to do then but to
+reproach his brother, and to wander about as if his wits had left him,
+not knowing what way to get his cow back from Balor. At last he went to
+a Druid to ask an advice from him; and it is what the Druid told him,
+that so long as Balor lived, the cow would never be brought back, for no
+one would go within reach of his Evil Eye.
+
+Cian went then to a woman-Druid, Birog of the Mountain, for her help.
+And she dressed him in a woman's clothes, and brought him across the sea
+in a blast of wind, to the tower where Ethlinn was. Then she called to
+the women in the tower, and asked them for shelter for a high queen she
+was after saving from some hardship, and the women in the tower did not
+like to refuse a woman of the Tuatha de Danaan, and they let her and her
+comrade in. Then Birog by her enchantments put them all into a deep
+sleep, and Cian went to speak with Ethlinn. And when she saw him she
+said that was the face she had seen in her dreams. So she gave him her
+love; but after a while he was brought away again on a blast of wind.
+
+And when her time came, Ethlinn gave birth to a son. And when Balor knew
+that, he bade his people put the child in a cloth and fasten it with a
+pin, and throw him into a current of the sea. And as they were carrying
+the child across an arm of the sea, the pin dropped out, and the child
+slipped from the cloth into the water, and they thought he was drowned.
+But he was brought away by Birog of the Mountain, and she brought him to
+his father Cian; and he gave him to be fostered by Taillte, daughter of
+the King of the Great Plain. It is thus Lugh was born and reared.
+
+And some say Balor came and struck the head off Cian on a white stone,
+that has the blood marks on it to this day; but it is likely it was some
+other man he struck the head off, for it was by the sons of Tuireann
+that Cian came to his death.
+
+And after Lugh had come to Teamhair, and made his mind up to join with
+his father's people against the Fomor, he put his mind to the work; and
+he went to a quiet place in Grellach Dollaid, with Nuada and the Dagda,
+and with Ogma; and Goibniu and Diancecht were called to them there. A
+full year they stopped there, making their plans together in secret, the
+way the Fomor would not know they were going to rise against them till
+such time as all would be ready, and till they would know what their
+strength was. And it is from that council the place got the name
+afterwards of "The Whisper of the Men of Dea."
+
+And they broke up the council, and agreed to meet again that day three
+years, and every one of them went his own way, and Lugh went back to his
+own friends, the sons of Manannan.
+
+And it was a good while after that, Nuada was holding a great assembly
+of the people on the Hill of Uisnech, on the west side of Teamhair. And
+they were not long there before they saw an armed troop coming towards
+them from the east, over the plain; and there was a young man in front
+of the troop, in command over the rest, and the brightness of his face
+was like the setting sun, so that they were not able to look at him
+because of its brightness.
+
+And when he came nearer they knew it was Lugh Lamh-Fada, of the Long
+Hand, that had come back to them, and along with him were the Riders of
+the Sidhe from the Land of Promise, and his own foster-brothers, the
+sons of Manannan, Sgoith Gleigeil, the White Flower, and Goitne
+Gorm-Shuileach, the Blue-eyed Spear, and Sine Sindearg, of the Red Ring,
+and Donall Donn-Ruadh, of the Red-brown Hair. And it is the way Lugh
+was, he had Manannan's horse, the Aonbharr, of the One Mane, under him,
+that was as swift as the naked cold wind of spring, and the sea was the
+same as dry land to her, and the rider was never killed off her back.
+And he had Manannan's breast-plate on him, that kept whoever was wearing
+it from wounds, and a helmet on his head with two beautiful precious
+stones set in the front of it and one at the back, and when he took it
+off, his forehead was like the sun on a dry summer day. And he had
+Manannan's sword, the Freagarthach, the Answerer, at his side, and no
+one that was wounded by it would ever get away alive; and when that
+sword was bared in a battle, no man that saw it coming against him had
+any more strength than a woman in child-birth.
+
+And the troop came to where the King of Ireland was with the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and they welcomed one another.
+
+And they were not long there till they saw a surly, slovenly troop
+coming towards them, nine times nine of the messengers of the Fomor,
+that were coming to ask rent and taxes from the men of Ireland; and the
+names of the four that were the hardest and the most cruel were Eine and
+Eathfaigh and Coron and Compar; and there was such great dread of these
+four on the Tuatha de Danaan, that not one of them would so much as
+punish his own son or his foster-son without leave from them.
+
+They came up then to where the King of Ireland was with the Riders of
+the Sidhe, and the king and all the Tuatha de Danaan stood up before
+them. And Lugh of the Long Hand said: "Why do you rise up before that
+surly, slovenly troop, when you did not rise up before us?"
+
+"It is needful for us to do it," said the king; "for if there was but a
+child of us sitting before them, they would not think that too small a
+cause for killing him." "By my word," said Lugh, "there is a great
+desire coming on me to kill themselves." "That is a thing would bring
+harm on us," said the king, "for we would meet our own death and
+destruction through it." "It is too long a time you have been under this
+oppression," said Lugh. And with that he started up and made an attack
+on the Fomor, killing and wounding them, till he had made an end of
+eight nines of them, but he let the last nine go under the protection of
+Nuada the king. "And I would kill you along with the others," he said,
+"but I would sooner see you go with messages to your own country than my
+own people, for fear they might get any ill-treatment."
+
+So the nine went back then till they came to Lochlann, where the men of
+the Fomor were, and they told them the story from beginning to end, and
+how a young well-featured lad had come into Ireland and had killed all
+the tax-gatherers but themselves, "and it is the reason he let us off,"
+they said, "that we might tell you the story ourselves."
+
+"Do you know who is the young man?" said Balor of the Evil Eye then.
+
+"I know well," said Ceithlenn, his wife; "he is the son of your
+daughter and mine. And it was foretold," she said, "that from the time
+he would come into Ireland, we would never have power there again for
+ever."
+
+Then the chief men of the Fomor went into a council, Eab, son of Neid,
+and Seanchab, grandson of Neid, and Sital Salmhor, and Liath, son of
+Lobais, and the nine poets of the Fomor that had learning and the gift
+of foreknowledge, and Lobais the Druid, and Balor himself and his twelve
+white-mouthed sons, and Ceithlenn of the Crooked Teeth, his queen.
+
+And it was just at that time Bres and his father Elathan were come to
+ask help of the Fomor, and Bres said: "I myself will go to Ireland, and
+seven great battalions of the Riders of the Fomor along with me, and I
+will give battle to this Ildanach, this master of all arts, and I will
+strike his head off and bring it here to you, to the green of Berbhe."
+"It would be a fitting thing for you to do," said they all. "Let my
+ships be made ready for me," said Bres, "and let food and provisions be
+put in them."
+
+So they made no delay, but went and got the ships ready, and they put
+plenty of food and drink in them, and the two swift Luaths were sent out
+to gather the army to Bres. And when they were all gathered, they made
+ready their armour and their weapons, and they set out for Ireland.
+
+And Balor the king followed them to the harbour, and he said: "Give
+battle to that Ildanach, and strike off his head; and tie that island
+that is called Ireland to the back of your ships, and let the destroying
+water take its place, and put it on the north side of Lochlann, and not
+one of the Men of Dea will follow it there to the end of life and time."
+
+Then they pushed out their ships and put up their painted sails, and
+went out from the harbour on the untilled country, on the ridges of the
+wide-lying sea, and they never turned from their course till they came
+to the harbour of Eas Dara. And from that they sent out an army through
+West Connacht and destroyed it altogether, through and through. And the
+King of Connacht at that time was Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE SONS OF TUIREANN
+
+
+And Lugh of the Long Hand was at that time at Teamhair with the King of
+Ireland, and it was showed to him that the Fomor were after landing at
+Eas Dara. And when he knew that, he made ready Manannan's horse, the
+Aonbharr, at the time of the battle of the day and night; and he went
+where Nuada the king was, and told him how the Fomor had landed at Eas
+Dara and had spoiled Bodb Dearg's country; "and it is what I want," he
+said, "to get help from you to give battle to them." But Nuada was not
+minded to avenge the destruction that was done on Bodb Dearg and not on
+himself, and Lugh was not well pleased with his answer, and he went
+riding out of Teamhair westward. And presently he saw three armed men
+coming towards him, his own father Cian, with his brothers Cu and
+Ceithen, that were the three sons of Cainte, and they saluted him. "What
+is the cause of your early rising?" they said. "It is good cause I have
+for it," said Lugh, "for the Fomor are come into Ireland and have robbed
+Bodb Dearg; and what help will you give me against them?" he said.
+
+"Each one of us will keep off a hundred from you in the battle," said
+they. "That is a good help," said Lugh; "but there is a help I would
+sooner have from you than that: to gather the Riders of the Sidhe to me
+from every place where they are."
+
+So Cu and Ceithen went towards the south, and Cian set out northward,
+and he did not stop till he reached the Plain of Muirthemne. And as he
+was going across the plain he saw three armed men before him, that were
+the three sons of Tuireann, son of Ogma. And it is the way it was
+between the three sons of Tuireann and the three sons of Cainte, they
+were in hatred and enmity towards one another, so that whenever they met
+there was sure to be fighting among them.
+
+Then Cian said: "If my two brothers had been here it is a brave fight we
+would make; but since they are not, it is best for me to fall back."
+Then he saw a great herd of pigs near him, and he struck himself with a
+Druid rod that put on him the shape of a pig of the herd, and he began
+rooting up the ground like the rest.
+
+Then Brian, one of the sons of Tuireann, said to his brothers: "Did you
+see that armed man that was walking the plain a while ago?" "We did see
+him," said they. "Do you know what was it took him away?" said Brian.
+"We do not know that," said they. "It is a pity you not to be keeping a
+better watch over the plains of the open country in time of war," said
+Brian; "and I know well what happened him, for he struck himself with
+his Druid rod into the shape of a pig of these pigs, and he is rooting
+up the ground now like any one of them; and whoever he is, he is no
+friend to us." "That is bad for us," said the other two, "for the pigs
+belong to some one of the Tuatha de Danaan, and even if we kill them
+all, the Druid pig might chance to escape us in the end."
+
+"It is badly you got your learning in the city of learning," said Brian,
+"when you cannot tell an enchanted beast from a natural beast." And
+while he was saying that, he struck his two brothers with his Druid
+rod, and he turned them into two thin, fast hounds, and they began to
+yelp sharply on the track of the enchanted pig.
+
+And it was not long before the pig fell out from among the others, and
+not one of the others made away but only itself, and it made for a wood,
+and at the edge of the wood Brian gave a cast of his spear that went
+through its body. And the pig cried out, and it said: "It is a bad thing
+you have done to have made a cast at me when you knew me." "It seems to
+me you have the talk of a man," said Brian. "I was a man indeed," said
+he; "I am Cian, son of Cainte, and give me your protection now." "I
+swear by the gods of the air," said Brian, "that if the life came back
+seven times to you, I would take it from you every time." "If that is
+so," said Cian, "give me one request: let me go into my own shape
+again." "We will do that," said Brian, "for it is easier to me to kill a
+man than a pig."
+
+So Cian took his own shape then, and he said: "Give me mercy now." "We
+will not give it," said Brian. "Well, I have got the better of you for
+all that," said Cian; "for if it was in the shape of a pig you had killed
+me there would only be the blood money for a pig on me; but as it is in
+my own shape you will kill me, there never was and never will be any
+person killed for whose sake a heavier fine will be paid than for
+myself. And the arms I am killed with," he said, "it is they will tell
+the deed to my son."
+
+"It is not with weapons you will be killed, but with the stones lying on
+the ground," said Brian. And with that they pelted him with stones,
+fiercely and roughly, till all that was left of him was a poor,
+miserable, broken heap; and they buried him the depth of a man's body in
+the earth, and the earth would not receive that murder from them, but
+cast it up again. Brian said it should go into the earth again, and they
+put it in the second time, and the second time the earth would not take
+it. And six times the sons of Tuireann buried the body, and six times it
+was cast up again; but the seventh time it was put underground the earth
+kept it. And then they went on to join Lugh of the Long Hand for the
+battle.
+
+Now as to Lugh; upon parting with his father he went forward from
+Teamhair westward, to the hills that were called afterwards Gairech and
+Ilgairech, and to the ford of the Shannon that is now called Athluain,
+and to Bearna nah-Eadargana, the Gap of Separation, and over Magh Luirg,
+the Plain of Following, and to Corr Slieve na Seaghsa, the Round
+Mountain of the Poet's Spring, and to the head of Sean-Slieve, and
+through the place of the bright-faced Corann, and from that to Magh Mor
+an Aonaigh, the Great Plain of the Fair, where the Fomor were, and the
+spoils of Connacht with them.
+
+It is then Bres, son of Elathan, rose up and said: "It is a wonder to me
+the sun to be rising in the west to-day, and it rising in the east every
+other day." "It would be better for us it to be the sun," said the
+Druids. "What else is it?" said he. "It is the shining of the face of
+Lugh, son of Ethlinn," said they.
+
+Lugh came up to them then and saluted them. "Why do you come like a
+friend to us?" said they. "There is good cause for that," he said, "for
+there is but one half of me of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the other half
+of yourselves. And give me back now the milch cows of the men of
+Ireland," he said. "May early good luck not come to you till you get
+either a dry or a milch cow here," said a man of them, and anger on him.
+
+But Lugh stopped near them for three days and three nights, and at the
+end of that time the Riders of the Sidhe came to him. And Bodb Dearg,
+son of the Dagda, came with twenty-nine hundred men, and he said:
+
+"What is the cause of your delay in giving battle?"
+
+"Waiting for you I was," said Lugh.
+
+Then the kings and chief men of the men of Ireland took their armour on
+them, and they raised the points of their spears over their heads, and
+they made close fences of their shields. And they attacked their enemies
+on Magh Mor an Aonaigh, and their enemies answered them, and they threw
+their whining spears at one another, and when their spears were broken
+they drew their swords from their blue-bordered sheaths and began to
+strike at one another, and thickets of brown flames rose above them from
+the bitterness of their many-edged weapons.
+
+And Lugh saw the battle pen where Bres, son of Elathan, was, and he made
+a fierce attack on him and on the men that were guarding him, till he
+had made an end of two hundred of them.
+
+When Bres saw that, he gave himself up to Lugh's protection. "Give me my
+life this time," he said, "and I will bring the whole race of the Fomor
+to fight it out with you in a great battle; and I bind myself to that,
+by the sun and the moon, the sea and the land," he said.
+
+On that Lugh gave him his life, and then the Druids that were with him
+asked his protection for themselves. "By my word," said Lugh, "if the
+whole race of the Fomor went under my protection they would not be
+destroyed by me." So then Bres and the Druids set out for their own
+country.
+
+Now as to Lugh and the sons of Tuireann. After the battle of Magh Mor an
+Aonaigh, he met two of his kinsmen and asked them did they see his
+father in the fight. "We did not," said they. "I am sure he is not
+living," said Lugh; "and I give my word," he said, "there will no food
+or drink go into my mouth till I get knowledge by what death my father
+died."
+
+Then he set out, and the Riders of the Sidhe after him, till they came
+to the place where he and his father parted from one another, and from
+that to the place where his father went into the shape of a pig when he
+saw the sons of Tuireann.
+
+And when Lugh came to that place the earth spoke to him, and it said:
+"It is in great danger your father was here, Lugh, when he saw the sons
+of Tuireann before him, and it is into the shape of a pig he had to go,
+but it is in his own shape they killed him."
+
+Then Lugh told that to his people, and he found the spot where his
+father was buried, and he bade them dig there, the way he would know by
+what death the sons of Tuireann had made an end of him.
+
+Then they raised the body out of the grave and looked at it, and it was
+all one bed of wounds. And Lugh said: "It was the death of an enemy the
+sons of Tuireann gave my dear father." And he gave him three kisses, and
+it is what he said: "It is bad the way I am myself after this death, for
+I can hear nothing with my ears, and I can see nothing with my eyes, and
+there is not a living pulse in my heart, with grief after my father. And
+you gods I worship," he said, "it is a pity I not to have come here the
+time this thing was done. And it is a great thing that has been done
+here," he said, "the people of the gods of Dana to have done treachery
+on one another, and it is long they will be under loss by it and be
+weakened by it. And Ireland will never be free from trouble from this
+out, east and west," he said.
+
+Then they put Cian under the earth again, and after that there was
+keening made over his grave, and a stone was raised on it, and his name
+was written in Ogham, And Lugh said: "This hill will take its name from
+Cian, although he himself is stripped and broken. And it was the sons of
+Tuireann did this thing," he said, "and there will grief and anguish
+fall on them from it, and on their children after them. And it is no
+lying story I am telling you," he said; "and it is a pity the way I am,
+and my heart is broken in my breast since Cian, the brave man, is not
+living."
+
+Then he bade his people to go before him to Teamhair, "But do not tell
+the story till I tell it myself," he said.
+
+And when Lugh came to Teamhair he sat in the high seat of the king, and
+he looked about him and he saw the three sons of Tuireann. And those
+were the three that were beyond all others at Teamhair at that time for
+quickness and skill, for a good hand in battle, for beauty and an
+honourable name.
+
+Then Lugh bade his people to shake the chain of silence, and they did
+so, and they all listened. And Lugh said: "What are your minds fixed on
+at this time, Men of Dea?" "On yourself indeed," said they. "I have a
+question to ask of you," he said. "What is the vengeance each one of you
+would take on the man that would kill your father?"
+
+There was great wonder on them when they heard that, and one of the
+chief men among them said: "Tell us was it your own father that was
+killed?" "It was indeed," said Lugh; "and I see now in this house," he
+said, "the men that killed him, and they know themselves what way they
+killed him better than I know it." Then the king said: "It is not a
+death of one day only I would give the man that had killed my father, if
+he was in my power, but to cut off one of his limbs from day to day till
+I would make an end of him." All the chief men said the same, and the
+sons of Tuireann like the rest.
+
+"There are making that answer," said Lugh, "the three men that killed my
+father; and let them pay the fine for him now, since you are all
+together in the one place. And if they will not," he said, "I will not
+break the protection of the king's house, but they must make no attempt
+to quit this house till they have settled with me."
+
+"If it was I myself had killed your father," said the king, "I would be
+well content you to take a fine from me for him."
+
+"It is at us Lugh is saying all this," said the sons of Tuireann among
+themselves. "Let us acknowledge the killing of his father to him," said
+Iuchar and Iucharba. "I am in dread," said Brian, "that it is wanting an
+acknowledgment from us he is, in the presence of all the rest, and that
+he will not let us off with a fine afterwards." "It is best to
+acknowledge it," said the others; "and let you speak it out since you
+are the eldest."
+
+Then Brian, son of Tuireann, said: "It is at us you are speaking, Lugh,
+for you are thinking we went against the sons of Cainte before now; and
+we did not kill your father," he said, "but we will pay the fine for him
+the same as if we did kill him." "I will take a fine from you that you
+do not think of," said Lugh, "and I will say here what it is, and if it
+is too much for you, I will let you off a share of it." "Let us hear it
+from you," said they. "Here it is," said Lugh; "three apples, and the
+skin of a pig, and a spear, and two horses, and a chariot, and seven
+pigs, and a dog's whelp, and a cooking-spit, and three shouts on a hill.
+That is the fine I am asking," he said; "and if it is too much for you,
+a part of it will be taken off you presently, and if you do not think it
+too much, then pay it"
+
+"It is not too much," said Brian, "or a hundred times of it would not be
+too much. And we think it likely," he said, "because of its smallness
+that you have some treachery towards us behind it." "I do not think it
+too little of a fine," said Lugh; "and I give you the guarantee of the
+Tuatha de Danaan I will ask no other thing, and I will be faithful to
+you, and let you give the same pledge to me." "It is a pity you to ask
+that," said Brian, "for our own pledge is as good as any pledge in the
+world." "Your own pledge is not enough," said Lugh, "for it is often the
+like of you promised to pay a fine in this way, and would try to back
+out of it after."
+
+So then the sons of Tuireann bound themselves by the King of Ireland,
+and by Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and by the chief men of the Tuatha
+de Danaan, that they would pay that fine to Lugh.
+
+"It would be well for me now," said Lugh, "to give you better knowledge
+of the fine." "It would be well indeed," said they.
+
+"This is the way of it then," said Lugh. "The three apples I asked of
+you are the three apples from the Garden in the East of the World, and
+no other apples will do but these, for they are the most beautiful and
+have most virtue in them of the apples of the whole world. And it is
+what they are like, they are of the colour of burned gold, and they are
+the size of the head of a child a month old, and there is the taste of
+honey on them, and they do not leave the pain of wounds or the vexation
+of sickness on any one that eats them, and they do not lessen by being
+eaten for ever. And the skin I asked of you," he said, "is the pig skin
+of Tuis, King of Greece, and it heals all the wounds and all the
+sickness of the world, and whatever danger a man may be in, if it can
+but overtake the life in him, it will cure him; and it is the way it was
+with that pig, every stream of water it would go through would be turned
+into wine to the end of nine days after, and every wound it touched was
+healed; and it is what the Druids of Greece said, that it is not in
+itself this virtue was, but in the skin, and they skinned it, and the
+skin is there ever since. And I think, too, it will not be easy for you
+to get it, with or without leave."
+
+"And do you know what is the spear I am asking of you?" he said. "We do
+not," said they. "It is a very deadly spear belonging to the King of
+Persia, the Luin it is called, and every choice thing is done by it, and
+its head is kept steeped in a vessel of water, the way it will not burn
+down the place where it is, and it will be hard to get it. And do you
+know what two horses and what chariot I am asking of you? They are the
+chariot and the two wonderful horses of Dobar, King of Siogair, and the
+sea is the same as land to them, and there are no faster horses than
+themselves, and there is no chariot equal to that one in shape and in
+strength.
+
+"And do you know what are the seven pigs I asked of you? They are the
+pigs of Easal, King of the Golden Pillars; and though they are killed
+every night, they are found alive again the next day, and there will be
+no disease or no sickness on any person that will eat a share of them.
+
+"And the whelp I asked of you is Fail-Inis, the whelp belonging to the
+King of Ioruaidh, the Cold Country. And all the wild beasts of the world
+would fall down at the sight of her, and she is more beautiful than the
+sun in his fiery wheels, and it will be hard to get her.
+
+"And the cooking-spit I asked of you is a spit of the spits of the women
+of Inis Cenn-fhinne, the Island of Caer of the Fair Hair. And the three
+shouts you are to give on a hill must be given on the Hill of Miochaoin
+in the north of Lochlann. And Miochaoin and his sons are under bonds not
+to allow any shouts to be given on that hill; and it was with them my
+father got his learning, and if I would forgive you his death, they
+would not forgive you. And if you get through all your other voyages
+before you reach to them, it is my opinion they themselves will avenge
+him on you. And that is the fine I have asked of you," said Lugh.
+
+There was silence and darkness on the sons of Tuireann when they heard
+that. And they went to where their father was, and told him the fine
+that had been put on them. "It is bad news that is," said Tuireann; "and
+it is to your death and your destruction you will be going, looking for
+those things. But for all that, if Lugh himself had a mind to help you,
+you could work out the fine, and all the men of the world could not do
+it but by the power of Manannan or of Lugh. Go then and ask the loan of
+Manannan's horse, the Aonbharr, from Lugh, and if he has any wish to get
+the fine, he will give it to you; but if he does not wish it he will say
+the horse is not his, and that he would not give the loan of a loan. Ask
+him then for the loan of Manannan's curragh, the Scuabtuinne, the
+Sweeper of the Waves. And he will give that, for he is under bonds not
+to refuse a second request, and the curragh is better for you than the
+horse," he said.
+
+So the sons of Tuireann went to where Lugh was, and they saluted him,
+and they said they could not bring him the fine without his own help,
+and for that reason it would be well for them to get a loan of the
+Aonbharr. "I have that horse only on loan myself," said Lugh, "and I
+will not give a loan of a loan."
+
+"If that is so, give us the loan of Manannan's curragh," said Brian. "I
+will give that," said Lugh. "What place is it?" said they. "At Brugh na
+Boinn," said Lugh.
+
+Then they went back again to where Tuireann was, and his daughter Ethne,
+their sister, with him, and they told him they had got the curragh. "It
+is not much the better you will be for it," said Tuireann, "although
+Lugh would like well to get every part of this fine he could make use of
+before the battle with the Fomor. But he would like yourselves to come
+to your death looking for it."
+
+Then they went away, and they left Tuireann sorrowful and lamenting, and
+Ethne went with them to where the curragh was. And Brian got into it,
+and he said: "There is place but for one other person along with me
+here." And he began to find fault with its narrowness. "You ought not to
+be faulting the curragh," said Ethne; "and O my dear brother," she said,
+"it was a bad thing you did, to kill the father of Lugh of the Long
+Hand; and whatever harm may come to you from it, it is but just." "Do
+not say that, Ethne," they said, "for we are in good heart, and we will
+do brave deeds. And we would sooner be killed a hundred times over,"
+they said, "than to meet with the death of cowards." "My grief," said
+Ethne, "there is nothing more sorrowful than this, to see you driven out
+from your own country."
+
+Then the three pushed out their curragh from the beautiful clear-bayed
+shore of Ireland. "What course shall we take first?" said they. "We will
+go look for the apples," said Brian, "as they were the first thing we
+were bade bring. And so we ask of you, curragh of Manannan that is under
+us, to sail to the Garden in the East of the World."
+
+And the curragh did not neglect that order, but it sailed forward over
+the green-sided waves and deep places till it came to its harbour in the
+east of the world.
+
+And then Brian asked his brothers: "What way have you a mind to get into
+the garden? for I think," he said, "the king's champions and the
+fighting men of the country are always guarding it, and the king himself
+is chief over them." "What should we do," said his brothers, "but to
+make straight at them and attack them, and bring away the apples or fall
+ourselves, since we cannot escape from these dangers that are before us
+without meeting our death in some place." "It would be better," said
+Brian, "the story of our bravery and our craftiness to be told and to
+live after us, than folly and cowardice to be told of us. And what is
+best for us to do now," he said, "is to go in the shape of swift hawks
+into the garden, and the watchers have but their light spears to throw
+at us, and let you take good care to keep out of their reach; and after
+they have thrown them all, make a quick flight to the apples and let
+each of you bring away an apple of them in your claws, and I will bring
+away the third."
+
+They said that was a good advice, and Brian struck himself and the
+others with his Druid rod, and changed them into beautiful hawks. And
+they flew towards the garden, and the watchers took notice of them and
+shouted on every side of them, and threw showers of spears and darts,
+but the hawks kept out of their reach as Brian had bade them, till all
+the spears were spent, and then they swept down bravely on the apples,
+and brought them away with them, without so much as a wound.
+
+And the news went through the city and the whole district, and the king
+had three wise, crafty daughters, and they put themselves into the shape
+of three ospreys, and they followed the hawks to the sea, and sent
+flashes of lightning before them and after them, that scorched them
+greatly.
+
+"It is a pity the way we are now," said the sons of Tuireann, "for we
+will be burned through and through with this lightning if we do not get
+some relief." "If I can give you relief I will do it," said Brian. With
+that he struck himself and his brothers with the Druid rod, and they
+were turned into three swans, and they went down quickly into the sea,
+and the ospreys went away from them then, and the sons of Tuireann went
+into their boat.
+
+After that they consulted together, and it is what they agreed, to go to
+Greece and to bring away the skin of the pig, with or without leave. So
+they went forward till they came near to the court of the King of
+Greece.
+
+"What appearance should we put on us going in here?" said Brian. "What
+appearance should we go in with but our own?" said the others. "That is
+not what I think best," said Brian; "but to go in with the appearance of
+poets from Ireland, the way the high people of Greece will hold us in
+respect and in honour." "It would be hard for us to do that," they said,
+"and we without a poem, and it is little we know how to make one."
+
+However, they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they knocked at the
+door of the court, and the door-keeper asked who was in it. "We are
+poets of Ireland," said Brian, "and we are come with a poem to the
+king."
+
+The door-keeper went in and told the king that there were poets from
+Ireland at the door. "Let them in," said the king, "for it is in search
+of a good man they came so far from their own country." And the king
+gave orders that everything should be well set out in the court, the way
+they would say they had seen no place so grand in all their travels.
+
+The sons of Tuireann were let in then, having the appearance of poets,
+and they fell to drinking and pleasure without delay; and they thought
+they had never seen, and there was not in the world, a court so good as
+that or so large a household, or a place where they had met with better
+treatment.
+
+Then the king's poets got up to give out their poems and songs. And then
+Brian, son of Tuireann, bade his brothers to say a poem for the king.
+"We have no poem," said they; "and do not ask any poem of us, but the
+one we know before, and that is to take what we want by the strength of
+our hand if we are the strongest, or to fall by those that are against
+us if they are the strongest." "That is not a good way to make a poem,"
+said Brian. And with that he rose up himself and asked a hearing. And
+they all listened to him, and it is what he said:
+
+"O Tuis, we do not hide your fame; we praise you as the oak among kings;
+the skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I ask for
+it.
+
+"The war of a neighbour against an ear; the fair ear of his neighbour
+will be against him; he who gives us what he owns, his court will not be
+the scarcer for it.
+
+"A raging army and a sudden sea are a danger to whoever goes against
+them. The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness, this is the reward I
+ask, O Tuis."
+
+"That is a good poem," said the king; "but I do not know a word of its
+meaning." "I will tell you its meaning," said Brian. "'O Tuis, we do not
+hide your fame; we praise you as the oak above the kings.' That is, as
+the oak is beyond the kingly trees of the wood, so are you beyond the
+kings of the world for open-handedness and for grandeur.
+
+"'The skin of a pig, bounty without hardness.' That is, the skin of a
+pig you own is what I would wish to get from you as a reward for my
+poem.
+
+"'The war of a neighbour against an ear, the fair ear of his neighbour
+will be against him.' That is, you and I will be by the ears about the
+skin, unless I get it with your consent.
+
+"And that is the meaning of the poem," said Brian.
+
+"I would praise your poem," said the king, "if there was not so much
+about my pig-skin in it; and you have no good sense, man of poetry," he
+said, "to be asking that thing of me, and I would not give it to all
+the poets and the learned men and the great men of the world, since they
+could not take it away without my consent. But I will give you three
+times the full of the skin of gold as the price of your poem," he said.
+
+"May good be with you, king," said Brian, "and I know well it was no
+easy thing I was asking, but I knew I would get a good ransom for it.
+And I am that covetous," he said, "I will not be satisfied without
+seeing the gold measured myself into the skin."
+
+The king sent his servants with them then to the treasure-house to
+measure the gold. "Measure out the full of it to my brothers first,"
+said Brian, "and then give good measure to myself, since it was I made
+the poem."
+
+But when the skin was brought out, Brian made a quick sudden snatch at
+it with his left hand, and drew his sword and made a stroke at the man
+nearest him, and made two halves of him. And then he kept a hold of the
+skin and put it about himself, and the three of them rushed out of the
+court, cutting down every armed man before them, so that not one escaped
+death or wounding. And then Brian went to where the king himself was,
+and the king made no delay in attacking him, and they made a hard fight
+of it, and at the end the King of Greece fell by the hand of Brian, son
+of Tuireann.
+
+The three brothers rested for a while after that, and then they said
+they would go and look for some other part of the fine. "We will go to
+Pisear, King of Persia," said Brian, "and ask him for the spear."
+
+So they went into their boat, and they left the blue streams of the
+coast of Greece, and they said: "We are well off when we have the apples
+and the skin." And they stopped nowhere till they came to the borders of
+Persia.
+
+"Let us go to the court with the appearance of poets," said Brian, "the
+same as we went to the King of Greece." "We are content to do that,"
+said the others, "as all turned out so well the last time we took to
+poetry; not that it is easy for us to take to a calling that does not
+belong to us."
+
+So they put the poet's tie on their hair, and they were as well treated
+as they were at the other court; and when the time came for poems Brian
+rose up, and it is what he said:
+
+"It is little any spear looks to Pisear; the battles of enemies are
+broken, it is not too much for Pisear to wound every one of them.
+
+"A yew, the most beautiful of the wood, it is called a king, it is not
+bulky. May the spear drive on the whole crowd to their wounds of death."
+
+"That is a good poem," said the king, "but I do not understand why my
+own spear is brought into it, O Man of Poetry from Ireland."
+
+"It is because it is that spear of your own I would wish to get as the
+reward of my poem," said Brian. "It is little sense you have to be
+asking that of me," said the king; "and the people of my court never
+showed greater respect for poetry than now, when they did not put you to
+death on the spot."
+
+When Brian heard that talk from the king, he thought of the apple that
+was in his hand, and he made a straight cast and hit him in the
+forehead, so that his brains were put out at the back of his head, and
+he bared the sword and made an attack on the people about him. And the
+other two did not fail to do the same, and they gave him their help
+bravely till they had made an end of all they met of the people of the
+court. And then they found the spear, and its head in a cauldron of
+water, the way it would not set fire to the place.
+
+And after a while they said it was time for them to go and look for the
+rest of the great fine that was on them, and they asked one another what
+way should they go. "We will go to the King of the Island of Siogair,"
+said Brian, "for it is with him are the two horses and the chariot the
+Ildanach asked of us."
+
+They went forward then and brought the spear with them, and it is proud
+the three champions were after all they had done. And they went on till
+they were come to the court of the King of Siogair.
+
+"It is what we will do this time," said Brian, "we will go in with the
+appearance of paid soldiers from Ireland, and we will make friends with
+the king, the way we will get to know in what place the horses and the
+chariot are kept." And when they had settled on that they went forward
+to the lawn before the king's house.
+
+The king and the chief men that were with him rose up and came through
+the fair that was going on there, and they saluted the king, and he
+asked who were they. "We are trained fighting men from Ireland," they
+said, "and we are earning wages from the kings of the world." "Is it
+your wish to stop with me for a while?" said the king. "That is what we
+are wanting," said they. So then they made an agreement and took service
+with him.
+
+They stopped in the court a fortnight and a month, and they never saw
+the horses through that time. Then Brian said: "This is a bad way we are
+in, to have no more news of the horses now than the first day we came to
+the place." "What is best for us to do now?" said his brothers. "Let us
+do this," said Brian, "let us take our arms and gather our things
+together, and go to the king and tell him we will leave the country and
+this part of the world unless he will show us those horses."
+
+So they went to the king that very day, and he asked them what did they
+mean by getting themselves ready for a journey. "You will hear that,
+high king," said Brian; "it is because trained fighting men from
+Ireland, like ourselves, have always trust put in them by the kings they
+guard, and we are used to be told the secrets and the whispers of any
+person we are with, and that is not the way you have treated us since we
+came to you. For you have two horses and a chariot that are the best in
+the world, as we have been told, and we have not been given a sight of
+them yet." "It would be a pity you to go on that account," said the
+king, "when I would have showed them to you the first day, if I had
+known you had a wish to see them. And if you have a mind to see them
+now," he said, "you may see them; for I think there never came soldiers
+from Ireland to this place that were thought more of by myself and by my
+people than yourselves."
+
+He sent for the horses then, and they were yoked to the chariot, and
+their going was as fast as the cold spring wind, and the sea was the
+same as the land to them.
+
+And Brian was watching the horses closely, and on a sudden he took hold
+of the chariot and took the chariot driver out and dashed him against
+the nearest rock, and made a leap into his place himself, and made a
+cast of the Persian spear at the king, that went through his heart. And
+then he and his brothers scattered the people before them, and brought
+away the chariot.
+
+"We will go now to Easal, the King of the Golden Pillars," said Brian,
+"to look for the seven pigs the Ildanach bade us bring him."
+
+They sailed on then without delay or drawback to that high country. And
+it is the way the people of that country were, watching their harbours
+for fear of the sons of Tuireann, for the story of them had been told
+in all parts, how they had been sent out of Ireland by force, and how
+they were bringing away with them all the gifted treasures of the whole
+world.
+
+Easal came to the edge of the harbour to meet them, and he asked was it
+true what he heard, that the king of every country they had gone to had
+fallen by them. Brian said it was true, whatever he might wish to do to
+them for it. "What was it made you do that?" said Easal. Brian told him
+then it was the oppression and the hard sentence of another had put them
+to it; and he told him all that had happened, and how they had put down
+all that offered to stand against them until that time.
+
+"What did you come to this country now for?" said the king. "For the
+pigs belonging to yourself," said Brian; "for to bring them away with us
+is a part of the fine." "What way do you think to get them?" said the
+king. "If we get them with good-will," said Brian, "we are ready to take
+them thankfully; and if we do not, we are ready to do battle with
+yourself and your people on the head of them, that you may fall by us,
+and we may bring away the pigs in spite of you." "If that is to be the
+end of it," said the king, "it would be a pity to bring my people into a
+battle." "It would be a pity indeed," said Brian.
+
+Then the king whispered and took advice with his people about the
+matter, and it is what they agreed, to give up the pigs of their own
+free will to the sons of Tuireann, since they could not see that any one
+had been able to stand against them up to that time.
+
+Then the sons of Tuireann gave their thanks to Easal, and there was
+wonder on them to have got the pigs like that, when they had to fight
+for every other part of the fine. And more than that, they had left a
+share of their blood in every other place till then.
+
+Easal brought them to his own house that night, and they were served
+with food, and drink, and good beds, and all they could wish for. And
+they rose up on the morrow and came into the king's presence, and the
+pigs were given to them. "It is well you have done by us, giving us
+these pigs," said Brian, "for we did not get any share of the fine
+without fighting but these alone." And he made a poem for the king then,
+praising him, and putting a great name on him for what he had done.
+
+"What journey are you going to make now, sons of Tuireann?" said Easal.
+"We are going," they said, "to the country of Ioruaidh, on account of a
+whelp that is there." "Give me one request," said Easal, "and that is to
+bring me with you to the King of Ioruaidh, for a daughter of mine is his
+wife, and I would wish to persuade him to give you the whelp without a
+battle." "That will please us well," they said.
+
+So the king's ship was made ready, and we have no knowledge of what
+happened till they came to the delightful, wonderful coast of Ioruaidh.
+The people and the armies were watching the harbours and landing-places
+before them, and they knew them at once and shouted at them.
+
+Then Easal went on shore peaceably, and he went to where his son-in-law,
+the king, was, and told him the story of the sons of Tuireann from
+beginning to end. "What has brought them to this country?" said the King
+of Ioruaidh. "To ask for the hound you have," said Easal. "It was a bad
+thought you had coming with them to ask it," said the king, "for the
+gods have not given that much luck to any three champions in the world,
+that they would get my hound by force or by good-will." "It would be
+better for you to let them have the hound," said Easal, "since they have
+put down so many of the kings of the world."
+
+But all he could say was only idleness to the king. So he went then to
+where the sons of Tuireann were, and gave them the whole account. And
+when they heard the king's answer, they made no delay, but put quick
+hands on their arms, and offered to give battle to the army of Ioruaidh.
+And when they met, there was a brave battle fought on both sides. And as
+for the sons of Tuireann, they began to kill and to strike at the men of
+Ioruaidh till they parted from one another in the fight, so that Iuchar
+and Iucharba chanced to be on one side, and Brian by himself on the
+other side. It was a gap of danger and a breaking of ranks was before
+Brian in every path he took, till he came to the King of Ioruaidh in the
+battle pen where he was. And then the two brave champions began a fierce
+fight together, and they did not spare one another in it. And at the
+last Brian overcame the king, and bound him, and brought him through the
+middle of the army, till he came to the place where Easal was, and it is
+what he said: "There is your son-in-law for you, and I swear by my hand
+of valour, I would think it easier to kill him three times than to bring
+him to you once like this."
+
+So then the whelp was given to the sons of Tuireann, and the king was
+unbound, and peace was made between them. And when they had brought all
+this to an end, they bade farewell to Easal and to all the rest.
+
+Now as to Lugh of the Long Hand, it was showed to him that the sons of
+Tuireann had got all the things that were wanting to him against the
+battle with the Fomor; and on that he sent a Druid spell after them to
+put forgetfulness on them of the rest of the fine that they had not got.
+And he put a great desire and longing on them to go back to Ireland; so
+they forgot that a part of the fine was wanting to them, and they turned
+back again toward home.
+
+And it is the place where Lugh was at the time, at a gathering of the
+people for a fair on the green outside Teamhair, and the King of Ireland
+along with him. And it was made known to Lugh that the sons of Tuireann
+were landed at Brugh na Boinn. And he went into the city of Teamhair,
+and shut the gate after him, and he put on Manannan's smooth armour, and
+the cloak, of the daughters of Flidais, and he took his own arms in his
+hand.
+
+And the sons of Tuireann came where the king was, and they were made
+welcome by him and by the Tuatha de Danaan. And the king asked them did
+they get the fine. "We did get it," said they; "and where is Lugh till
+we give it to him?" "He was here a while ago," said the king. And the
+whole fair was searched for him, but he was not found.
+
+"I know the place where he is," said Brian; "for it has been made known
+to him that we are come to Ireland, and these deadly arms with us, and
+he is gone into Teamhair to avoid us."
+
+Messengers were sent to him then, and it is the answer he gave them that
+he would not come, but that the fine should be given to the king.
+
+So the sons of Tuireann did that, and when the king had taken the fine
+they all went to the palace in Teamhair; and Lugh came out on the lawn
+and the fine was given to him, and it is what he said: "There is a good
+payment here for any one that ever was killed or that ever will be
+killed. But there is something wanting to it yet that it is not lawful
+to leave out. And where is the cooking-spit?" he said; "and where are
+the three shouts on the hill that you did not give yet?"
+
+And when the sons of Tuireann heard that there came clouds of weakness
+on them. And they left the place and went to their father's house that
+night, and they told him all they had done, and the way Lugh had treated
+them.
+
+There was grief and darkness on Tuireann then, and they spent the night
+together. And on the morrow they went to their ship, and Ethne, their
+sister, with them, and she was crying and lamenting, and it is what she
+said:
+
+"It is a pity, Brian of my life, it is not to Teamhair your going is,
+after all the troubles you have had before this, even if I could not
+follow you.
+
+"O Salmon of the dumb Boinn, O Salmon of the Life River, since I cannot
+keep you here I am loath to part from you.
+
+"O Rider of the Wave of Tuaidh, the man that stands best in the fight,
+if you come back again, I think it will not be pleasing to your enemy.
+
+"Is there pity with you for the sons of Tuireann leaning now on their
+green shields? Their going is a cause for pity, my mind is filled up
+with it.
+
+"You to be to-night at Beinn Edair till the heavy coming of the morning,
+you who have taken forfeits from brave men, it is you have increased our
+grief.
+
+"It is a pity your journey is from Teamhair, and from the pleasant
+plains, and from great Uisnech of Midhe; there is nothing so pitiful as
+this."
+
+After that complaint they went out on the rough waves of the green sea;
+and they were a quarter of a year on the sea without getting any news of
+the island.
+
+Then Brian put on his water dress and he made a leap, and he was a long
+time walking in the sea looking for the Island of the Fair-Haired Women,
+and he found it in the end. And he went looking for the court, and when
+he came to it, all he found was a troop of women doing needlework and
+embroidering borders. And among all the other things they had with them,
+there was the cooking-spit.
+
+And when Brian saw it, he took it up in his hand and he was going to
+bring it with him to the door. And all the women began laughing when
+they saw him doing that, and it is what they said: "It is a brave deed
+you put your hand to; for even if your brothers were along with you, the
+least of the three times fifty women of us would not let the spit go
+with you or with them. But for all that," they said, "take a spit of the
+spits with you, since you had the daring to try and take it in spite of
+us."
+
+Brian bade them farewell then, and went to look for the boat. And his
+brothers thought it was too long he was away from them, and just as they
+were going to leave the place they were, they saw him coming towards
+them, and that raised their courage greatly.
+
+And he went into the boat, and they went on to look for the Hill of
+Miochaoin. And when they came there, Miochaoin, that was the guardian of
+the hill, came towards them; and when Brian saw him he attacked him, and
+the fight of those two champions was like the fight of two lions, till
+Miochaoin fell at the last.
+
+And after Miochaoin had fallen, his three sons came out to fight with
+the three sons of Tuireann. And if any one ever came from the east of
+the world to look at any fight, it is to see the fight of these
+champions he had a right to come, for the greatness of their blows and
+the courage of their minds. The names of the sons of Miochaoin were Core
+and Conn and Aedh, and they drove their three spears through the bodies
+of the sons of Tuireann, and that did not discourage them at all and
+they put their own three spears through the bodies of the sons of
+Miochaoin, so that they fell into the clouds and the faintness of death.
+
+And then Brian said: "What way are you now, my dear brothers?" "We are
+near our death," said they. "Let us rise up," he said, "and give three
+shouts upon the hill, for I see the signs of death coming on us." "We
+are not able to do that," said they. Then Brian rose up and raised each
+of them with one hand, and he shedding blood heavily all the time,
+until they gave the three shouts.
+
+After that Brian brought them with him to the boat, and they were
+travelling the sea for a long time, but at last Brian said: "I see Beinn
+Edair and our father's dun, and Teamhair of the Kings." "We would have
+our fill of health if we could see that," said the others; "and for the
+love of your good name, brother," they said, "raise up our heads on your
+breast till we see Ireland again, and life or death will be the same to
+us after that. And O Brian," they said, "Flame of Valour without
+treachery, we would sooner death to bring ourselves away, than to see
+you with wounds upon your body, and with no physician to heal you."
+
+Then they came to Beinn Edair, and from that they went on to their
+father's house, and Brian said to Tuireann: "Go, dear father, to
+Teamhair, and give this spit to Lugh, and bring the skin that has
+healing in it for our relief. Ask it from him for the sake of
+friendship," he said, "for we are of the one blood, and let him not give
+hardness for hardness. And O dear father," he said, "do not be long on
+your journey, or you will not find us alive before you."
+
+Then Tuireann went to Teamhair, and he found Lugh of the Long Hand
+before him, and he gave him the spit, and he asked the skin of him to
+heal his children, and Lugh said he would not give it And Tuireann came
+back to them and told them he had not got the skin. And Brian said:
+"Bring me with you to Lugh, to see would I get it from him."
+
+So they went to Lugh, and Brian asked the skin of him. And Lugh said he
+would not give it, and that if they would give him the breadth of the
+earth in gold for it, he would not take it from them, unless he was sure
+their death would come on them in satisfaction for the deed they had
+done.
+
+When Brian heard that, he went to the place his two brothers were, and
+he lay down between them, and his life went out from him, and out from
+the other two at the same time.
+
+And their father cried and lamented over his three beautiful sons, that
+had the making of a king of Ireland in each of them, and his strength
+left him and he died; and they were buried in the one grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE GREAT BATTLE OF MAGH TUIREADH
+
+
+And it was not long after Lugh had got the fine from the sons of
+Tuireann that the Fomor came and landed at Scetne.
+
+The whole host of the Fomor were come this time, and their king, Balor,
+of the Strong Blows and of the Evil Eye, along with them; and Bres, and
+Indech, son of De Domnann, a king of the Fomor, and Elathan, son of
+Lobos, and Goll and Ingol, and Octriallach, son of Indech, and Elathan,
+son of Delbaeth.
+
+Then Lugh sent the Dagda to spy out the Fomor, and to delay them till
+such time as the men of Ireland would come to the battle.
+
+So the Dagda went to their camp, and he asked them for a delay, and they
+said he might have that. And then to make sport of him, the Fomor made
+broth for him, for he had a great love for broth. So they filled the
+king's cauldron with four times twenty gallons of new milk, and the same
+of meal and fat, and they put in goats and sheep and pigs along with
+that, and boiled all together, and then they poured it all out into a
+great hole in the ground. And they called him to it then, and told him
+he should eat his fill, the way the Fomor would not be reproached for
+want of hospitality the way Bres was. "We will make an end of you if
+you leave any part of it after you," said Indech, son of De Domnann.
+
+So the Dagda took the ladle, and it big enough for a man and a woman to
+lie in the bowl of it, and he took out bits with it, the half of a
+salted pig, and a quarter of lard a bit would be. "If the broth tastes
+as well as the bits taste, this is good food," he said. And he went on
+putting the full of the ladle into his mouth till the hole was empty;
+and when all was gone he put down his hand and scraped up all that was
+left among the earth and the gravel.
+
+Sleep came on him then after eating the broth, and the Fomor were
+laughing at him, for his belly was the size of the cauldron of a great
+house. But he rose up after a while, and, heavy as he was, he made his
+way home; and indeed his dress was no way sightly, a cape to the hollow
+of the elbows, and a brown coat, long in the breast and short behind,
+and on his feet brogues of horse hide, with the hair outside, and in his
+hand a wheeled fork it would take eight men to carry, so that the track
+he left after him was deep enough for the boundary ditch of a province.
+And on his way he saw the Battle-Crow, the Morrigu, washing herself in
+the river Unius of Connacht, and one of her two feet at Ullad Echne, to
+the south of the water, and the other at Loscuinn, to the north of the
+water, and her hair hanging in nine loosened locks. And she said to the
+Dagda, that she would bring the heart's blood of Indech, son of De
+Domnann, that had threatened him, to the men of Ireland.
+
+And while he was away Lugh had called together the Druids, and smiths,
+and physicians, and law-makers, and chariot-drivers of Ireland, to make
+plans for the battle.
+
+And he asked the great magician Mathgen what could he do to help them.
+"It is what I can do," said Mathgen, "through my power I can throw down
+all the mountains of Ireland on the Fomor, until their tops will be
+rolling on the ground. And the twelve chief mountains of Ireland will
+bring you their help," he said, "and will fight for you: Slieve Leag and
+Denda Ulad, and Bennai Boirche and Bri Ruri, and Slieve Bladma and
+Slieve Snechtae, and Slieve Mis and Blai-Slieve, and Nemthann and Slieve
+Macca Belgodon, and Segois and Cruachan Aigle."
+
+Then he asked the cup-bearers what help they could give. "We will put a
+strong thirst on the Fomor," they said, "and then we will bring the
+twelve chief lochs of Ireland before them, and however great their
+thirst may be, they will find no water in them: Derc-Loch, Loch
+Luimnech, Loch Orbsen, Loch Righ, Loch Mescdhae, Loch Cuan, Loch Laeig,
+Loch Echach, Loch Febail, Loch Decket, Loch Riach, Mor-Loch. And we will
+go," they said, "to the twelve chief rivers of Ireland: the Buas, the
+Boinn, the Banna, the Nem, the Laoi, the Sionnan, the Muaid, the
+Sligech, the Samair, the Fionn, the Ruirtech, the Siuir; and they will
+all be hidden away from the Fomor the way they will not find a drop in
+them. But as for the men of Ireland," they said, "there will be drink
+for them if they were to be in the battle to the end of seven years."
+
+And Figol, son of Mamos, the Druid, was asked then what he would do, and
+he said: "It is what I will do, I will cause three showers of fire to
+pour on the faces of the army of the Fomor, and I will take from them
+two-thirds of their bravery and their strength, and I will put sickness
+on their bodies, and on the bodies of their horses. But as to the men of
+Ireland," he said, "every breath they breathe will be an increase of
+strength and of bravery to them; and if they are seven years in the
+battle they will never be any way tired."
+
+Then Lugh asked his two witches, Bechulle and Dianan: "What power can
+you bring to the battle?" "It is easy to say that," they said. "We will
+put enchantment on the trees and the stones and the sods of the earth,
+till they become an armed host against the Fomor, and put terror on them
+and put them to the rout."
+
+Then Lugh asked Carpre, the poet, son of Etain, what could he do. "It is
+not hard to say that," said Carpre. "I will make a satire on them at
+sunrise, and the wind from the north, and I on a hill-top and my back to
+a thorn-tree, and a stone and a thorn in my hand. And with that satire,"
+he said, "I will put shame on them and enchantment, the way they will
+not be able to stand against fighting men."
+
+Then he asked Goibniu the Smith what would he be able to do. "I will do
+this," he said. "If the men of Ireland stop in the battle to the end of
+seven years, for every sword that is broken and for every spear that is
+lost from its shaft, I will put a new one in its place. And no
+spear-point that will be made by my hand," he said, "will ever miss its
+mark; and no man it touches will ever taste life again. And that is more
+than Dolb, the smith of the Fomor, can do," he said.
+
+"And you, Credne," Lugh said then to his worker in brass, "what help can
+you give to our men in the battle?" "It is not hard to tell that," said
+Credne, "rivets for their spears and hilts for their swords and bosses
+and rims for their shields, I will supply them all."
+
+"And you, Luchta," he said then to his carpenter, "what will you do?" "I
+will give them all they want of shields and of spear shafts," said
+Luchta.
+
+Then he asked Diancecht, the physician, what would he do, and it is what
+he said: "Every man that will be wounded there, unless his head is
+struck off, or his brain or his marrow cut through, I will make him
+whole and sound again for the battle of the morrow."
+
+Then the Dagda said: "Those great things you are boasting you will do,
+I will do them all with only myself." "It is you are the good god!" said
+they, and they all gave a great shout of laughter.
+
+Then Lugh spoke to the whole army and put strength in them, so that each
+one had the spirit in him of a king or a great lord.
+
+Then when the delay was at an end, the Fomor and the men of Ireland came
+on towards one another till they came to the plain of Magh Tuireadh.
+That now was not the same Magh Tuireadh where the first battle was
+fought, but it was to the north, near Ess Dara.
+
+And then the two armies threatened one another. "The men of Ireland are
+daring enough to offer battle to us," said Bres to Indech, son of De
+Domnann. "I give my word," said Indech, "it is in small pieces their
+bones will be, if they do not give in to us and pay their tribute."
+
+Now the Men of Dea had determined not to let Lugh go into the battle,
+because of the loss his death would be to them; and they left nine of
+their men keeping a watch on him.
+
+And on the first day none of the kings or princes went into the battle,
+but only the common fighting men, and they fierce and proud enough.
+
+And the battle went on like that from day to day with no great advantage
+to one or the other side. But there was wonder on the Fomor on account
+of one thing. Such of their own weapons as were broken or blunted in the
+fight lay there as they were, and such of their own men as were killed
+showed no sign of life on the morrow; but it was not so with the Tuatha
+de Danaan, for if their men were killed or their weapons were broken
+to-day, they were as good as before on the morrow.
+
+And this is the way that happened. The well of Slaine lay to the west
+of Magh Tuireadh to the east of Loch Arboch. And Diancecht and his son
+Octruil and his daughter Airmed used to be singing spells over the well
+and to be putting herbs in it; and the men that were wounded to death in
+the battle would be brought to the well and put into it as dead men, and
+they would come out of it whole and sound, through the power of the
+spells. And not only were they healed, but there was such fire put into
+them that they would be quicker in the fight than they were before.
+
+And as to the arms, it is the way they were made new every day. Goibniu
+the Smith used to be in the forge making swords and spears, and he would
+make a spear-head by three turns, and then Luchta the Carpenter would
+make the shaft by three cuts, and the third cut was a finish, and would
+set it in the ring of the spear. And when the spear-heads were stuck in
+the side of the forge, he would throw the shaft and the rings the way
+they would go into the spear-head and want no more setting. And then
+Credne the Brazier would make the rivets by three turns and would cast
+the rings of the spears to them, and with that they were ready and were
+set together.
+
+And all this went against the Fomor, and they sent one of their young
+men to spy about the camp and to see could he find out how these things
+were done. It was Ruadan, son of Bres and of Brigit daughter of the
+Dagda they sent, for he was a son and grandson of the Tuatha de Danaan.
+So he went and saw all that was done, and came back to the Fomor.
+
+And when they heard his story it is what they thought, that Goibniu the
+Smith was the man that hindered them most. And they sent Ruadan back
+again, and bade him make an end of him.
+
+So he went back again to the forge, and he asked Goibniu would he give
+him a spear-head. And then he asked rivets of Credne, and a shaft of
+the carpenter, and all was given to him as he asked. And there was a
+woman there, Cron, mother to Fianlug, grinding the spears.
+
+And after the spear being given to Ruadan, he turned and threw it at
+Goibniu, that it wounded him. But Goibniu pulled it out and made a cast
+of it at Ruadan, that it went through him and he died; and Bres, his
+father, and the army of the Fomor, saw him die. And then Brigit came and
+keened her son with shrieking and with crying.
+
+And as to Goibniu, he went into the well and was healed. But after that
+Octriallach, son of Indech, called to the Fomor and bade each man of
+them bring a stone of the stones of Drinnes and throw them into the well
+of Slane. And they did that till the well was dried up, and a cairn
+raised over it, that is called Octriallach's Cairn.
+
+And it was while Goibniu was making spear-heads for the battle of Magh
+Tuireadh, a charge was brought against his wife. And it was seen that it
+was heavy news to him, and that jealousy came on him. And it is what he
+did, there was a spear-shaft in his hand when he heard the story, Nes
+its name was; and he sang spells over the spear-shaft, and any one that
+was struck with that spear afterwards, it would burn him up like fire.
+
+And at last the day of the great battle came, and the Fomor came out of
+their camp and stood in strong ranks. And there was not a leader or a
+fighting man of them was without good armour to his skin, and a helmet
+on his head, a broad spear in his right hand, a heavy sword in his belt,
+a strong shield on his shoulder. And to attack the army of the Fomor
+that day was to strike the head against a rock, or to go up fighting
+against a fire.
+
+And the Men of Dea rose up and left Lugh and his nine comrades keeping
+him, and they went on to the battle; and Midhir was with them, and Bodb
+Dearg and Diancecht. And Badb and Macha and the Morrigu called out that
+they would go along with them.
+
+And it was a hard battle was fought, and for a while it was going
+against the Tuatha de Danaan; and Nuada of the Silver Hand, their King,
+and Macha, daughter of Emmass, fell by Balor, King of the Fomor. And
+Cass-mail fell by Octriallach, and the Dagda got a dreadful wound from a
+casting spear that was thrown by Ceithlenn, wife of Balor.
+
+But when the battle was going on, Lugh broke away from those that were
+keeping him, and rushed out to the front of the Men of Dea. And then
+there was a fierce battle fought, and Lugh was heartening the men of
+Ireland to fight well, the way they would not be in bonds any longer.
+For it was better for them, he said, to die protecting their own country
+than to live under bonds and under tribute any longer. And he sang a
+song of courage to them, and the hosts gave a great shout as they went
+into battle, and then they met together, and each of them began to
+attack the other.
+
+And there was great slaughter, and laying low in graves, and many comely
+men fell there in the stall of death. Pride and shame were there side by
+side, and hardness and red anger, and there was red blood on the white
+skin of young fighting men. And the dashing of spear against shield, and
+sword against sword, and the shouting of the fighters, and the whistling
+of casting spears and the rattling of scabbards was like harsh thunder
+through the battle. And many slipped in the blood that was under their
+feet, and they fell, striking their heads one against another; and the
+river carried away bodies of friends and enemies together.
+
+Then Lugh and Balor met in the battle, and Lugh called out reproaches to
+him; and there was anger on Balor, and he said to the men that were with
+him: "Lift up my eyelid till I see this chatterer that is talking to
+me." Then they raised Balor's eyelid, but Lugh made a cast of his red
+spear at him, that brought the eye out through the back of his head, so
+that it was towards his own army it fell, and three times nine of the
+Fomor died when they looked at it. And if Lugh had not put out that eye
+when he did, the whole of Ireland would have been burned in one flash.
+And after this, Lugh struck his head off.
+
+And as for Indech, son of De Domnann, he fell and was crushed in the
+battle, and blood burst from his mouth, and he called out for Leat Glas,
+his poet, as he lay there, but he was not able to help him. And then the
+Morrigu came into the battle, and she was heartening the Tuatha de
+Danaan to fight the battle well; and, as she had promised the Dagda, she
+took the full of her two hands of Indech's blood, and gave it to the
+armies that were waiting at the ford of Unius; and it was called the
+Ford of Destruction from that day.
+
+And after that it was not a battle any more, but a rout, and the Fomor
+were beaten back to the sea. And Lugh and his comrades were following
+them, and they came up with Bres, son of Elathan, and no guard with him,
+and he said: "It is better for you to spare my life than to kill me. And
+if you spare me now," he said, "the cows of Ireland will never go dry."
+"I will ask an advice about that from our wise men," said Lugh. So he
+told Maeltine Mor-Brethach, of the Great Judgments, what Bres was after
+saying. But Maeltine said: "Do not spare him for that, for he has no
+power over their offspring, though he has power so long as they are
+living."
+
+Then Bres said: "If you spare me, the men of Ireland will reap a harvest
+of corn every quarter." But Maeltine said: "The spring is for ploughing
+and sowing, and the beginning of summer for the strength of corn, and
+the beginning of autumn for its ripeness, and the winter for using it."
+
+"That does not save you," said Lugh then to Bres. But then to make an
+excuse for sparing him, Lugh said: "Tell us what is the best way for the
+men of Ireland to plough and to sow and to reap."
+
+"Let their ploughing be on a Tuesday, and their casting seed into the
+field on a Tuesday, and their reaping on a Tuesday," said Bres. So Lugh
+said that would do, and he let him go free after that.
+
+It was in this battle Ogma found Orna, the sword of Tethra, a king of
+the Fomor, and he took it from its sheath and cleaned it. And when the
+sword was taken out of the sheath, it told all the deeds that had been
+done by it, for there used to be that power in swords.
+
+And Lugh and the Dagda and Ogma followed after the Fomor, for they had
+brought away the Dagda's harp with them, that was called Uaitne. And
+they came to a feasting-house, and in it they found Bres and his father
+Elathan, and there was the harp hanging on the wall. And it was in that
+harp the Dagda had bound the music, so that it would not sound till he
+would call to it. And sometimes it was called Dur-da-Bla, the Oak of Two
+Blossoms, and sometimes Coir-cethar-chuin, the Four-Angled Music.
+
+And when he saw it hanging on the wall it is what he said: "Come summer,
+come winter, from the mouth of harps and bags and pipes." Then the harp
+sprang from the wall, and came to the Dagda, and it killed nine men on
+its way.
+
+And then he played for them the three things harpers understand, the
+sleepy tune, and the laughing tune, and the crying tune. And when he
+played the crying tune, their tearful women cried, and then he played
+the laughing tune, till their women and children laughed; and then he
+played the sleepy tune, and all the hosts fell asleep. And through that
+sleep the three went away through the Fomor that would have been glad to
+harm them. And when all was over, the Dagda brought out the heifer he
+had got as wages from Bres at the time he was making his dun. And she
+called to her calf, and at the sound of her call all the cattle of
+Ireland the Fomor had brought away as tribute, were back in their fields
+again.
+
+And Ce, the Druid of Nuada of the Silver Hand, was wounded in the
+battle, and he went southward till he came to Carn Corrslebe. And there
+he sat down to rest, tired with his wounds and with the fear that was on
+him, and the journey. And he saw a smooth plain before him, and it full
+of flowers, and a great desire came on him to reach to that plain, and
+he went on till he came to it, and there he died. And when his grave was
+made there, a lake burst out over it and over the whole plain, and it
+was given the name of Loch Ce. And there were but four men of the Fomor
+left in Ireland after the battle, and they used to be going through the
+country, spoiling corn and milk and fruit, and whatever came from the
+sea, till they were driven out one Samhain night by the Morrigu and by
+Angus Og, that the Fomor might never be over Ireland again.
+
+And after the battle was won, and the bodies were cleared away, the
+Morrigu gave out the news of the great victory to the hosts and to the
+royal heights of Ireland and to its chief rivers and its invers, and it
+is what she said: "Peace up to the skies, the skies down to earth, the
+earth under the skies; strength to every one."
+
+And as to the number of men that fell in the battle, it will not be
+known till we number the stars of the sky, or flakes of snow, or the dew
+on the grass, or grass under the feet of cattle, or the horses of the
+Son of Lir in a stormy sea.
+
+And Lugh was made king over the Men of Dea then, and it was at Nas he
+had his court.
+
+And while he was king, his foster-mother Taillte, daughter of Magh Mor,
+the Great Plain, died. And before her death she bade her husband Duach
+the Dark, he that built the Fort of the Hostages in Teamhair, to clear
+away the wood of Cuan, the way there could be a gathering of the people
+around her grave. So he called to the men of Ireland to cut down the
+wood with their wide-bladed knives and bill-hooks and hatchets, and
+within a month the whole wood was cut down.
+
+And Lugh buried her in the plain of Midhe, and raised a mound over her,
+that is to be seen to this day. And he ordered fires to be kindled, and
+keening to be made, and games and sports to be held in the summer of
+every year out of respect to her. And the place they were held got its
+name from her, that is Taillten.
+
+And as to Lugh's own mother, that was tall beautiful Ethlinn, she came
+to Teamhair after the battle of Magh Tuireadh, and he gave her in
+marriage to Tadg, son of Nuada. And the children that were born to them
+were Muirne, mother of Finn, the Head of the Fianna of Ireland, and
+Tuiren, that was mother of Bran.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE HIDDEN HOUSE OF LUGH
+
+
+And after Lugh had held the kingship for a long time, the Dagda was made
+king in his place.
+
+And Lugh went away out of Ireland, and some said he died at Uisnech, the
+place where the five provinces meet, and the first place there was ever
+a fire kindled in Ireland. It was by Mide, son of Brath, it was kindled,
+for the sons of Nemed, and it was burning through six years, and it was
+from that fire every chief fire was kindled in Ireland.
+
+But Lugh was seen again in Ireland at the time Conchubar and the Men of
+the Red Branch went following white birds southward to the Boinn at the
+time of Cuchulain's birth. And it was he came and kept watch over
+Cuchulain in his three days' sleep at the time of the War for the Bull
+of Cuailgne.
+
+And after that again he was seen by Conn of the Hundred Battles, and
+this is the way that happened.
+
+Conn was in Teamhair one time, and he went up in the early morning to
+the Rath of the Kings at the rising of the sun, and his three Druids
+with him, Maol and Bloc and Bhuice; and his three poets, Ethain and Corb
+and Cesarn. And the reason he had for going up there with them every
+day, was to look about on every side, the way if any men of the Sidhe
+would come into Ireland they would not come unknown to him. And on this
+day he chanced to stand upon a stone that was in the rath, and the stone
+screamed under his feet, that it was heard all over Teamhair and as far
+as Bregia.
+
+Then Conn asked his chief Druid how the stone came there, and what it
+screamed for. And the Druid said he would not answer that till the end
+of fifty-three days. And at the end of that time, Conn asked him again,
+and it is what the Druid said: "The Lia Fail is the name of the stone;
+it is out of Falias it was brought, and it is in Teamhair it was set up,
+and in Teamhair it will stay for ever. And as long as there is a king in
+Teamhair it is here will be the gathering place for games, and if there
+is no king to come to the last day of the gathering, there will be
+hardness in that year. And when the stone screamed under your feet," he
+said, "the number of the screams it gave was a foretelling of the number
+of kings of your race that would come after you. But it is not I myself
+will name them for you," he said.
+
+And while they were in the same place, there came a great mist about
+them and a darkness, so that they could not know what way they were
+going, and they heard the noise of a rider coming towards them. "It
+would be a great grief to us," said Conn, "to be brought away into a
+strange country." Then the rider threw three spears at them, and every
+one came faster than the other. "It is the wounding of a king indeed,"
+said the Druids, "any one to cast at Conn of Teamhair."
+
+The rider stopped casting his spears on that, and he came to them and
+bade Conn welcome, and asked him to come to his house. They went on then
+till they came to a beautiful plain, and there they saw a king's rath,
+and a golden tree at its door, and inside the rath a grand house with a
+roof of white bronze. So they went into the house, and the rider that
+had come to meet them was there before them, in his royal seat, and
+there had never been seen a man like him in Teamhair for comeliness or
+for beauty, or the wonder of his face.
+
+And there was a young woman in the house, having a band of gold on her
+head, and a silver vessel with hoops of gold beside her, and it full of
+red ale, and a golden bowl on its edge, and a golden cup at its mouth.
+She said then to the master of the house: "Who am I to serve drink to?"
+"Serve it to Conn of the Hundred Battles," he said, "for he will gain a
+hundred battles before he dies." And after that he bade her to pour out
+the ale for Art of the Three Shouts, the son of Conn; and after that he
+went through the names of all the kings of Ireland that would come after
+Conn, and he told what would be the length of their lifetime. And the
+young woman left the vessel with Conn, and the cup and the bowl, and she
+gave him along with that the rib of an ox and of a hog; twenty-four feet
+was the length of the ox-rib.
+
+And the master of the house told them the young woman was the Kingship
+of Ireland for ever. "And as for myself," he said, "I am Lugh of the
+Long Hand, son of Ethlinn."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE: THE COMING OF THE GAEL.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE LANDING
+
+
+It is not known, now, for what length of time the Tuatha de Danaan had
+the sway over Ireland, and it is likely it was a long time they had it,
+but they were put from it at last.
+
+It was at Inver Slane, to the north of Leinster, the sons of Gaedhal of
+the Shining Armour, the Very Gentle, that were called afterwards the
+Sons of the Gael, made their first attempt to land in Ireland to avenge
+Ith, one of their race that had come there one time and had met with his
+death.
+
+It is under the leadership of the sons of Miled they were, and it was
+from the south they came, and their Druids had told them there was no
+country for them to settle in till they would come to that island in the
+west. "And if you do not get possession of it yourselves," they said,
+"your children will get possession of it."
+
+But when the Tuatha de Danaan saw the ships coming, they flocked to the
+shore, and by their enchantments they cast such a cloud over the whole
+island that the sons of Miled were confused, and all they could see was
+some large thing that had the appearance of a pig.
+
+And when they were hindered from landing there by enchantments, they
+went sailing along the coast till at last they were able to make a
+landing at Inver Sceine in the west of Munster.
+
+From that they marched in good order as far as Slieve Mis. And there
+they were met by a queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, and a train of
+beautiful women attending on her, and her Druids and wise men following
+her. Amergin, one of the sons of Miled, spoke to her then, and asked her
+name, and she said it was Banba, wife of Mac Cuill, Son of the Hazel.
+
+They went on then till they came to Slieve Eibhline, and there another
+queen of the Tuatha de Danaan met them, and her women and her Druids
+after her, and they asked her name, and she said it was Fodhla, wife of
+Mac Cecht, Son of the Plough.
+
+They went on then till they came to the hill of Uisnech, and there they
+saw another woman coming towards them. And there was wonder on them
+while they were looking at her, for in the one moment she would be a
+wide-eyed most beautiful queen, and in another she would be a
+sharp-beaked, grey-white crow. She came on to where Eremon, one of the
+sons of Miled, was, and sat down before him, and he asked her who was
+she, and she said: "I am Eriu, wife of Mac Greine, Son of the Sun."
+
+And the names of those three queens were often given to Ireland in the
+after time.
+
+The Sons of the Gael went on after that to Teamhair, where the three
+sons of Cermait Honey-Mouth, son of the Dagda, that had the kingship
+between them at that time held their court. And these three were
+quarrelling with one another about the division of the treasures their
+father had left, and the quarrel was so hot it seemed likely it would
+come to a battle in the end.
+
+And the Sons of the Gael wondered to see them quarrelling about such
+things, and they having so fruitful an island, where the air was so
+wholesome, and the sun not too strong, or the cold too bitter, and where
+there was such a plenty of honey and acorns, and of milk, and of fish,
+and of corn, and room enough for them all.
+
+Great grandeur they were living in, and their Druids about them, at the
+palace of Teamhair. And Amergin went to them, and it is what he said,
+that they must give up the kingship there and then, or they must leave
+it to the chance of a battle. And he said he asked this in revenge for
+the death of Ith, of the race of the Gael, that had come to their court
+before that time, and that had been killed by treachery.
+
+When the sons of Cermait Honey-Mouth heard Amergin saying such fierce
+words, there was wonder on them, and it is what they said, that they
+were not willing to fight at that time, for their army was not ready.
+"But let you make an offer to us," they said, "for we see well you have
+good judgment and knowledge. But if you make an offer that is not fair,"
+they said, "we will destroy you with our enchantments."
+
+At that Amergin bade the men that were with him to go back to Inver
+Sceine, and to hurry again into their ships with the rest of the Sons of
+the Gael, and to go out the length of nine waves from the shore. And
+then he made his offer to the Tuatha de Danaan, that if they could
+hinder his men from landing on their island, he and all his ships would
+go back again to their own country, and would never make any attempt to
+come again; but that if the Sons of the Gael could land on the coast in
+spite of them, then the Tuatha de Danaan should give up the kingship and
+be under their sway.
+
+The Tuatha de Danaan were well pleased with that offer, for they thought
+that by the powers of their enchantments over the winds and the sea, and
+by their arts, they would be well able to keep them from ever setting
+foot in the country again.
+
+So the Sons of the Gael did as Amergin bade them and they went back into
+their ship and drew up their anchors, and moved out to the length of
+nine waves from the shore. And as soon as the Men of Dea saw they had
+left the land, they took to their enchantments and spells, and they
+raised a great wind that scattered the ships of the Gael, and drove them
+from one another. But Amergin knew it was not a natural storm was in
+it, and Arranan, son of Miled, knew that as well, and he went up in the
+mast of his ship to look about him. But a great blast of wind came
+against him, and he fell back into the ship and died on the moment. And
+there was great confusion on the Gael, for the ships were tossed to and
+fro, and had like to be lost. And the ship that Donn, son of Miled, was
+in command of was parted from the others by the dint of the storm, and
+was broken in pieces, and he himself and all with him were drowned,
+four-and-twenty men and women in all. And Ir, son of Miled, came to his
+death in the same way, and his body was cast on the shore, and it was
+buried in a small island that is now called Sceilg Michill. A brave man
+Ir was, leading the Sons of the Gael to the front of every battle, and
+their help and their shelter in battle, and his enemies were in dread of
+his name.
+
+And Heremon, another of the sons of Miled, with his share of the ships,
+was driven to the left of the island, and it is hardly he got safe to
+land. And the place where he landed was called Inver Colpa, because
+Colpa of the Sword, another of the sons of Miled, was drowned there, and
+he trying to get to land. Five of the sons of Miled in all were
+destroyed by the storm and the winds the Men of Dea had raised by their
+enchantments, and there were but three of them left, Heber, and Heremon,
+and Amergin.
+
+And one of them, Donn, before he was swept into the sea, called out: "It
+is treachery our knowledgeable men are doing on us, not to put down this
+wind." "There is no treachery," said Amergin, his brother. And he rose
+up then before them, and whatever enchantment he did on the winds and
+the sea, he said these words along with it:
+
+"That they that are tossing in the great wide food-giving sea may reach
+now to the land.
+
+"That they may find a place upon its plains, its mountains, and its
+valleys; in its forests that are full of nuts and of all fruits; on its
+rivers and its streams, on its lakes and its great waters.
+
+"That we may have our gatherings and our races in this land; that there
+may be a king of our own in Teamhair; that it may be the possession of
+our many kings.
+
+"That the sons of Miled may be seen in this land, that their ships and
+their boats may find a place there.
+
+"This land that is now under darkness, it is for it we are asking; let
+our chief men, let their learned wives, ask that we may come to the
+noble woman, great Eriu."
+
+After he had said this, the wind went down and the sea was quiet again
+on the moment.
+
+And those that were left of the sons of Miled and of the Sons of the
+Gael landed then at Inver Sceine.
+
+And Amergin was the first to put his foot on land, and when he stood on
+the shore of Ireland, it is what he said:
+
+    "I am the wind on the sea;
+     I am the wave of the sea;
+     I am the bull of seven battles;
+     I am the eagle on the rock;
+     I am a flash from the sun;
+     I am the most beautiful of plants;
+     I am a strong wild boar;
+     I am a salmon in the water;
+     I am a lake in the plain;
+     I am the word of knowledge;
+     I am the head of the spear in battle;
+     I am the god that puts fire in the head;
+     Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
+     Who can tell the ages of the moon?
+     Who can tell the place where the sun rests?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE BATTLE OF TAILLTIN
+
+
+And three days after the landing of the Gael, they were attacked by
+Eriu, wife of Mac Greine, Son of the Sun, and she having a good share of
+men with her. And they fought a hard battle, and many were killed on
+both sides. And this was the first battle fought between the Sons of the
+Gael and the Men of Dea for the kingship of Ireland.
+
+It was in that battle Fais, wife of Un, was killed in a valley at the
+foot of the mountain, and it was called after her, the Valley of Fais.
+And Scota, wife of Miled, got her death in the battle, and she was
+buried in a valley on the north side of the mountain near the sea. But
+the Sons of the Gael lost no more than three hundred men, and they beat
+back the Men of Dea and killed a thousand of them. And Eriu was beaten
+back to Tailltin, and as many of her men as she could hold together; and
+when she came there she told the people how she had been worsted in the
+battle, and the best of her men had got their death. But the Gael
+stopped on the battle-field, and buried their dead, and they gave a
+great burial to two of their Druids, Aer and Eithis, that were killed in
+the fight.
+
+And after they had rested for a while, they went on to Inver Colpa in
+Leinster, and Heremon and his men joined them there. And then they sent
+messengers to the three kings of Ireland, the three sons of Cermait
+Honey-Mouth, and bade them to come out and fight a battle that would
+settle the ownership of the country once for all.
+
+So they came out, and the best of the fighters of the Tuatha de Danaan
+with them, to Tailltin. And there they attacked one another, and the
+Sons of the Gael remembered the death of Ith, and there was great anger
+on them, and they fell on the Men of Dea to avenge him, and there was a
+fierce battle fought. And for a while neither side got the better of the
+other, but at the last the Gael broke through the army of the Men of Dea
+and put them to the rout, with great slaughter, and drove them out of
+the place. And their three kings were killed in the rout, and the three
+queens of Ireland, Eriu and Fodhla and Banba. And when the Tuatha de
+Danaan saw their leaders were dead they fell back in great disorder, and
+the Sons of the Gael followed after them. But in following them they
+lost two of their best leaders, Cuailgne, son of Breagan, at Slieve
+Cuailgne, and Fuad, his brother, at Slieve Fuad. But they were no way
+daunted by that, but followed the Men of Dea so hotly that they were
+never able to bring their army together again, but had to own themselves
+beaten, and to give up the country to the Gael.
+
+And the leaders, the sons of Miled, divided the provinces of Ireland
+between them. Heber took the two provinces of Munster, and he gave a
+share of it to Amergin; and Heremon got Leinster and Connacht for his
+share, and Ulster was divided between Eimhir, son of Ir, son of Miled,
+and some others of their chief men. And it was of the sons of Eimhir,
+that were called the Children of Rudraighe, and that lived in Emain
+Macha for nine hundred years, some of the best men of Ireland came;
+Fergus, son of Rogh, was of them, and Conall Cearnach, of the Red Branch
+of Ulster.
+
+And from the sons of Ith, the first of the Gael to get his death in
+Ireland, there came in the after time Fathadh Canaan, that got the sway
+over the whole world from the rising to the setting sun, and that took
+hostages of the streams and the birds and the languages.
+
+And it is what the poets of Ireland used to be saying, that every brave
+man, good at fighting, and every man that could do great deeds and not
+be making much talk about them, was of the Sons of the Gael; and that
+every skilled man that had music and that did enchantments secretly,
+was of the Tuatha de Danaan. But they put a bad name on the Firbolgs and
+the men of Domnand and the Gaileoin, for lies and for big talk and
+injustice. But for all that there were good fighters among them, and
+Ferdiad, that made so good a stand against Cuchulain, in the war for the
+Bull of Cuailgne was one of them. And the Gaileoin fought well in the
+same war; but the men of Ireland had no great liking for them, and their
+Druids drove them out of the country afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR: THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES.
+
+CHAPTER I. BODB DEARG
+
+
+But as to the Tuatha de Danaan after they were beaten, they would not go
+under the sway of the sons of Miled, but they went away by themselves.
+And because Manannan, son of Lir, understood all enchantments, they left
+it to him to find places for them where they would be safe from their
+enemies. So he chose out the most beautiful of the hills and valleys of
+Ireland for them to settle in; and he put hidden walls about them, that
+no man could see through, but they themselves could see through them and
+pass through them.
+
+And he made the Feast of Age for them, and what they drank at it was the
+ale of Goibniu the Smith, that kept whoever tasted it from age and from
+sickness and from death. And for food at the feast he gave them his own
+swine, that though they were killed and eaten one day, would be alive
+and fit for eating again the next day, and that would go on in that way
+for ever.
+
+And after a while they said: "It would be better for us one king to be
+over us, than to be scattered the way we are through the whole of
+Ireland."
+
+Now the men among them that had the best chance of getting the kingship
+at that time were Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda; and Ilbrech of Ess
+Ruadh; and Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, the Hill of the White Field, on
+Slieve Fuad; and Midhir the Proud of Bri Leith, and Angus Og, son of the
+Dagda; but he did not covet the kingship at all, but would sooner be
+left as he was. Then all the chief men but those five went into council
+together, and it is what they agreed, to give the kingship to Bodb
+Dearg, for the sake of his father, for his own sake, and because he was
+the eldest among the children of the Dagda.
+
+It was in Sidhe Femen Bodb Dearg had his house, and he put great
+enchantments about it. Cliach, the Harper of the King of the Three
+Rosses in Connacht, went one time to ask one of his daughters in
+marriage, and he stayed outside the place through the whole length of a
+year, playing his harp, and able to get no nearer to Bodb or to his
+daughter. And he went on playing till a lake burst up under his feet,
+the lake that is on the top of a mountain, Loch Bel Sead.
+
+It was Bodb's swineherd went to Da Derga's Inn, and his squealing pig
+along with him, the night Conaire, the High King of Ireland, met with
+his death; and it was said that whatever feast that swineherd would go
+to, there would blood be shed before it was over.
+
+And Bodb had three sons, Angus, and Artrach, and Aedh. And they used
+often to be living among men in the time of the Fianna afterwards.
+Artrach had a house with seven doors, and a free welcome for all that
+came, and the king's son of Ireland, and of Alban, used to be coming to
+Angus to learn the throwing of spears and darts; and troops of poets
+from Alban and from Ireland used to be with Aedh, that was the comeliest
+of Bodb's sons, so that his place used to be called "The Rath of Aedh of
+the Poets." And indeed it was a beautiful rath at that time, with
+golden-yellow apples in it and crimson-pointed nuts of the wood. But
+after the passing away of the Fianna, the three brothers went back to
+the Tuatha de Danaan.
+
+And Bodb Dearg was not always in his own place, but sometimes he was
+with Angus at Brugh na Boinn.
+
+Three sons of Lugaidh Menn, King of Ireland, Eochaid, and Fiacha, and
+Ruide, went there one time, for their father refused them any land till
+they would win it for themselves. And when he said that, they rose with
+the ready rising of one man, and went and sat down on the green of Brugh
+na Boinn, and fasted there on the Tuatha de Danaan, to see if they
+could win some good thing from them.
+
+And they were not long there till they saw a young man, quiet and with
+pleasant looks, coming towards them, and he wished them good health, and
+they answered him the same way. "Where are you come from?" they asked
+him then. "From the rath beyond, with the many lights," he said. "And I
+am Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda," he said, "and come in with me now to
+the rath."
+
+So they went in, and supper was made ready for them, but they did not
+use it. Bodb Dearg asked them then why was it they were using nothing.
+"It is because our father has refused land to us," said they; "and there
+are in Ireland but the two races, the Sons of the Gael and the Men of
+Dea, and when the one failed us we are come to the other."
+
+Then the Men of Dea consulted together. And the chief among them was
+Midhir of the Yellow Hair, and it is what he said: "Let us give a wife
+to every one of these three men, for it is from a wife that good or bad
+fortune comes."
+
+So they agreed to that, and Midhir's three daughters, Doirenn, and Aife,
+and Aillbhe, were given to them. Then Midhir asked Bodb to say what
+marriage portion should be given to them. "I will tell you that," said
+Bodb. "We are three times fifty sons of kings in this hill; let every
+king's son give three times fifty ounces of red gold. And I myself," he
+said, "will give them along with that, three times fifty suits of
+clothing of all colours." "I will give them a gift," said a young man of
+the Tuatha de Danaan, from Rachlainn in the sea. "A horn I will give
+them, and a vat. And there is nothing wanting but to fill the vat with
+pure water, and it will turn into mead, fit to drink, and strong enough
+to make drunken. And into the horn," he said, "you have but to put salt
+water from the sea, and it will turn into wine on the moment." "A gift
+to them from me," said Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh, "three times fifty
+swords, and three times fifty well-riveted long spears." "A gift from
+me," said Angus Og, son of the Dagda, "a rath and a good town with high
+walls, and with bright sunny houses, and with wide houses, in whatever
+place it will please them between Rath Chobtaige and Teamhair." "A gift
+to them from me," said Aine, daughter of Modharn, "a woman-cook that I
+have, and there is _geasa_ on her not to refuse food to any; and
+according as she serves it out, her store fills up of itself again."
+"Another gift to them from me," said Bodb Dearg, "a good musician that I
+have, Fertuinne, son of Trogain; and although there were women in the
+sharpest pains of childbirth, and brave men wounded early in the day, in
+a place where there were saws going through wood, they would sleep at
+the sweetness of the music he makes. And whatever house he may be in,
+the people of the whole country round will hear him."
+
+So they stopped in Brugh na Boinne three days and three nights, and when
+they left it, Angus bade them bring away from the oak-wood three
+apple-trees, one in full bloom, and one shedding its blossom, and the
+third covered with ripe fruit.
+
+They went then to their own dun that was given them, and it is a good
+place they had there, and a troop of young men, and great troops of
+horses and of greyhounds; and they had three sorts of music that comely
+kings liked to be listening to, the music of harps and of lutes, and the
+chanting of Trogain's son; and there were three great sounds, the
+tramping on the green, and the uproar of racing, and the lowing of
+cattle; and three other sounds, the grunting of good pigs with the fat
+thick on them, and the voices of the crowd on the green lawn, and the
+noise of men drinking inside the house. And as to Eochaid, it was said
+of him that he never took a step backwards in flight, and his house was
+never without music or drinking of ale. And it was said of Fiacha that
+there was no man of his time braver than himself, and that he never said
+a word too much. And as to Ruide, he never refused any one, and never
+asked anything at all of any man.
+
+And when their lifetime was over, they went back to the Tuatha de
+Danaan, for they belonged to them through their wives, and there they
+have stopped ever since.
+
+And Bodb Dearg had a daughter, Scathniamh, the Flower of Brightness,
+that gave her love to Caoilte in the time of the Fianna; and they were
+forced to part from one another, and they never met again till the time
+Caoilte was, old and withered, and one of the last that was left of the
+Fianna. And she came to him out of the cave of Cruachan, and asked him
+for the bride-price he had promised her, and that she was never able to
+come and ask for till then. And Caoilte went to a cairn that was near
+and that was full up of gold, that was wages earned by Conan Maol and
+hidden there, and he gave the gold to Bodb Dearg's daughter. And the
+people that were there wondered to see the girl so young and comely, and
+Caoilte so grey and bent and withered. "There is no wonder in that,"
+said Caoilte, "for I am of the sons of Miled that wither and fade away,
+but she is of the Tuatha de Danaan that never change and that never
+die."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE DAGDA
+
+
+And it was at Brugh na Boinne the Dagda, the Red Man of all Knowledge,
+had his house. And the most noticeable things in it were the Hall of the
+Morrigu, and the Bed of the Dagda, and the Birthplace of Cermait
+Honey-Mouth, and the Prison of the Grey of Macha that was Cuchulain's
+horse afterwards. And there was a little hill by the house that was
+called the Comb and the Casket of the Dagda's wife; and another that was
+called the Hill of Dabilla, that was the little hound belonging to
+Boann. And the Valley of the Mata was there, the Sea-Turtle that could
+suck down a man in armour.
+
+And it is likely the Dagda put up his cooking oven there, that Druimne,
+son of Luchair, made for him at Teamhair. And it is the way it was, the
+axle and the wheel were of wood, and the body was iron, and there were
+twice nine wheels in its axle, that it might turn the faster; and it was
+as quick as the quickness of a stream in turning, and there were three
+times nine spits from it, and three times nine pots. And it used to lie
+down with the cinders and to rise to the height of the roof with the
+flame.
+
+The Dagda himself made a great vat one time for Ainge, his daughter, but
+she was not well satisfied with it, for it would not stop from dripping
+while the sea was in flood, though it would not lose a drop during the
+ebb-tide. And she gathered a bundle of twigs to make a new vat for
+herself, but Gaible, son of Nuada of the Silver Hand, stole it from her
+and hurled it away. And in the place where it fell a beautiful wood grew
+up, that was called Gaible's Wood.
+
+And the Dagda had his household at Brugh na Boinne, and his steward was
+Dichu, and Len Linfiaclach was the smith of the Brugh. It was he lived
+in the lake, making the bright vessels of Fand, daughter of Flidhais;
+and every evening when he left off work he would make a cast of the
+anvil eastward to Indeoin na Dese, the Anvil of the Dese, as far as the
+Grave End. Three showers it used to cast, a shower of fire, and a shower
+of water, and a shower of precious stones of pure purple.
+
+But Tuirbe, father of Goibniu the Smith, used to throw better again, for
+he would make a cast of his axe from Tulach na Bela, the Hill of the
+Axe, in the face of the flood tide, and he would put his order on the
+sea, and it would not come over the axe.
+
+And Corann was the best of the harpers of the household; he was harper
+to the Dagda's son, Diancecht. And one time he called with his harp to
+Cailcheir, one of the swine of Debrann. And it ran northward with all
+the strength of its legs, and the champions of Connacht were following
+after it with all their strength of running, and their hounds with them,
+till they got as far as Ceis Corain, and they gave it up there, all
+except Niall that went on the track of the swine till he found it in the
+oak-wood of Tarba, and then it made away over the plain of Ai, and
+through a lake. And Niall and his hound were drowned in following it
+through the lake. And the Dagda gave Corann a great tract of land for
+doing his harping so well.
+
+But however great a house the Dagda had, Angus got it away from him in
+the end, through the help of Manannan, son of Lir. For Manannan bade him
+to ask his father for it for the length of a day and a night, and that
+he by his art would take away his power of refusing. So Angus asked for
+the Brugh, and his father gave it to him for a day and a night. But when
+he asked it back again, it is what Angus said, that it had been given to
+him for ever, for the whole of life and time is made up of a day and a
+night, one following after the other.
+
+So when the Dagda heard that he went away and his people and his
+household with him, for Manannan had put an enchantment on them all.
+
+But Dichu the Steward was away at the time, and his wife and his son,
+for they were gone out to get provisions for a feast for Manannan and
+his friends. And when he came back and knew his master was gone, he took
+service with Angus.
+
+And Angus stopped in Brugh na Boinne, and some say he is there to this
+day, with the hidden walls about him, drinking Goibniu's ale and eating
+the pigs that never fail.
+
+As to the Dagda, he took no revenge, though he had the name of being
+revengeful and quick in his temper. And some say it was at Teamhair he
+made his dwelling-place after that, but wherever it was, a great
+misfortune came on him.
+
+It chanced one time Corrgenn, a great man of Connacht, came to visit
+him, and his wife along with him. And while they were there, Corrgenn
+got it in his mind that there was something that was not right going on
+between his wife and Aedh, one of the sons of the Dagda. And great
+jealousy and anger came on him, and he struck at the young man and
+killed him before his father's face.
+
+Every one thought the Dagda would take Corrgenn's life then and there in
+revenge for his son's life. But he would not do that, for he said if his
+son was guilty, there was no blame to be put on Corrgenn for doing what
+he did. So he spared his life for that time, but if he did, Corrgenn did
+not gain much by it. For the punishment he put on him was to take the
+dead body of the young man on his back, and never to lay it down till he
+would find a stone that would be its very fit in length and in breadth,
+and that would make a gravestone for him; and when he had found that, he
+could bury him in the nearest hill.
+
+So Corrgenn had no choice but to go, and he set out with his load; but
+he had a long way to travel before he could find a stone that would fit,
+and it is where he found one at last, on the shore of Loch Feabhail. So
+then he left the body up on the nearest hill, and he went down and
+raised the stone and brought it up and dug a grave and buried the
+Dagda's son. And it is many an Ochone! he gave when he was putting the
+stone over him, and when he had that done he was spent, and he dropped
+dead there and then.
+
+And the Dagda brought his two builders, Garbhan and Imheall, to the
+place, and he bade them build a rath there round the grave. It was
+Garbhan cut the stones and shaped them, and Imheall set them all round
+the house till the work was finished, and then he closed the top of the
+house with a slab. And the place was called the Hill of Aileac, that is,
+the Hill of Sighs and of a Stone, for it was tears of blood the Dagda
+shed on account of the death of his son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. ANGUS OG
+
+
+And as to Angus Og, son of the Dagda, sometimes he would come from Brugh
+na Boinn and let himself be seen upon the earth.
+
+It was a long time after the coming of the Gael that he was seen by
+Cormac, King of Teamhair, and this is the account he gave of him.
+
+He was by himself one day in his Hall of Judgment, for he used to be
+often reading the laws and thinking how he could best carry them out.
+And on a sudden he saw a stranger, a very comely young man, at the end
+of the hall; and he knew on the moment it was Angus Og, for he had often
+heard his people talking of him, but he himself used to be saying he did
+not believe there was any such person at all. And when his people came
+back to the hall, he told them how he had seen Angus himself, and had
+talked with him, and Angus had told him his name, and had foretold what
+would happen him in the future. "And he was a beautiful young man," he
+said, "with high looks, and his appearance was more beautiful than all
+beauty, and there were ornaments of gold on his dress; in his hand he
+held a silver harp with strings of red gold, and the sound of its
+strings was sweeter than all music under the sky; and over the harp were
+two birds that seemed to be playing on it. He sat beside me pleasantly
+and played his sweet music to me, and in the end he foretold things that
+put drunkenness on my wits."
+
+The birds, now, that used to be with Angus were four of his kisses that
+turned into birds and that used to be coming about the young men of
+Ireland, and crying after them. "Come, come," two of them would say, and
+"I go, I go," the other two would say, and it was hard to get free of
+them. But as to Angus, even when he was in his young youth, he used to
+be called the Frightener, or the Disturber; for the plough teams of the
+world, and every sort of cattle that is used by men, would make away in
+terror before him.
+
+And one time he appeared in the shape of a land-holder to two men, Ribh
+and Eocho, that were looking for a place to settle in. The first place
+they chose was near Bregia on a plain that was belonging to Angus; and
+it was then he came to them, leading his horse in his hand, and told
+them they should not stop there. And they said they could not carry away
+their goods without horses. Then he gave them his horse, and bade them
+to put all they had a mind to on that horse and he would carry it, and
+so he did. But the next place they chose was Magh Find, the Fine Plain,
+that was the playing ground of Angus and of Midhir. And that time Midhir
+came to them in the same way and gave them a horse to put their goods
+on, and he went on with them as far as Magh Dairbthenn.
+
+And there were many women loved Angus, and there was one Enghi, daughter
+of Elcmair, loved him though she had not seen him. And she went one time
+looking for him to the gathering for games between Cletech and Sidhe in
+Broga; and the bright troops of the Sidhe used to come to that gathering
+every Samhain evening, bringing a moderate share of food with them, that
+is, a nut. And the sons of Derc came from the north, out of Sidhe
+Findabrach, and they went round about the young men and women without
+their knowledge and they brought away Elcmair's daughter. There were
+great lamentations made then, and the name the place got was Cnoguba,
+the Nut Lamentation, from the crying there was at that gathering.
+
+And Derbrenn, Eochaid Fedlech's daughter, was another that was loved by
+Angus, and she had six fosterlings, three boys and three girls. But the
+mother of the boys, Dalb Garb, the Rough, put a spell on them she made
+from a gathering of the nuts of Caill Ochuid, that turned them into
+swine.
+
+And Angus gave them into the care of Buichet, the Hospitaller of
+Leinster, and they stopped a year with him. But at the end of that time
+there came a longing On Buichet's wife to eat a bit of the flesh of one
+of them. So she gathered a hundred armed men and a hundred hounds to
+take them. But the pigs made away, and went to Brugh na Boinn, to Angus,
+and he bade them welcome, and they asked him to give them his help. But
+he said he could not do that till they had shaken the Tree of Tarbga,
+and eaten the salmon of Inver Umaill.
+
+So they went to Glascarn, and stopped a year in hiding with Derbrenn.
+And then they shook the Tree of Tarbga, and they went on towards Inver
+Umaill. But Maeve gathered the men of Connacht to hunt them, and they
+all fell but one, and their heads were put in a mound, and it got the
+name of Duma Selga, the Mound of the Hunting.
+
+And it was in the time of Maeve of Cruachan that Angus set his love on
+Caer Ormaith, of the Province of Connacht, and brought her away to Brugh
+na Boinn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE MORRIGU
+
+
+As to the Morrigu, the Great Queen, the Crow of Battle, where she lived
+after the coming of the Gael is not known, but before that time it was
+in Teamhair she lived. And she had a great cooking-spit there, that held
+three sorts of food on it at the one time: a piece of raw meat, and a
+piece of dressed meat, and a piece of butter. And the raw was dressed,
+and the dressed was not burned, and the butter did not melt, and the
+three together on the spit.
+
+Nine men that were outlaws went to her one time and asked for a spit to
+be made for themselves. And they brought it away with them, and it had
+nine ribs in it, and every one of the outlaws would carry a rib in his
+hand wherever he would go, till they would all meet together at the
+close of day. And if they wanted the spit to be high, it could be raised
+to a man's height, and at another time it would not be more than the
+height of a fist over the fire, without breaking and without lessening.
+
+And Mechi, the son the Morrigu had, was killed by Mac Cecht on Magh
+Mechi, that till that time had been called Magh Fertaige. Three hearts
+he had, and it is the way they were, they had the shapes of three
+serpents through them. And if Mechi had not met with his death, those
+serpents in him would have grown, and what they left alive in Ireland
+would have wasted away. And Mac Cecht burned the three hearts on Magh
+Luathad, the Plain of Ashes, and he threw the ashes into the stream; and
+the rushing water of the stream stopped and boiled up, and every
+creature in it died.
+
+And the Morrigu used often to be meddling in Ireland in Cuchulain's
+time, stirring up wars and quarrels. It was she came and roused up
+Cuchulain one time when he was but a lad, and was near giving in to some
+enchantment that was used against him. "There is not the making of a
+hero in you," she said to him, "and you lying there under the feet of
+shadows." And with that Cuchulain rose up and struck off the head of a
+shadow that was standing over him, with his hurling stick. And the time
+Conchubar was sending out Finched to rouse up the men of Ulster at the
+time of the war for the Bull of Cuailgne, he bade him to go to that
+terrible fury, the Morrigu, to get help for Cuchulain. And she had a
+dispute with Cuchulain one time he met her, and she bringing away a cow
+from the Hill of Cruachan; and another time she helped Talchinem, a
+Druid of the household of Conaire Mor, to bring away a bull his wife had
+set her mind on. And indeed she was much given to meddling with cattle,
+and one time she brought away a cow from Odras, that was of the
+household of the cow-chief of Cormac Hua Cuined, and that was going
+after her husband with cattle. And the Morrigu brought the cow away with
+her to the Cave of Cruachan, and the Hill of the Sidhe. And Odras
+followed her there till sleep fell on her in the oak-wood of Falga; and
+the Morrigu awoke her and sang spells over her, and made of her a pool
+of water that went to the river that flows to the west of Slieve Buane.
+
+And in the battle of Magh Rath, she fluttered over Congal Claen in the
+shape of a bird, till he did not know friend from foe. And after that
+again at the battle of Cluantarbh, she was flying over the head of
+Murchadh, son of Brian; for she had many shapes, and it was in the shape
+of a crow she would sometimes fight her battles.
+
+And if it was not the Morrigu, it was Badb that showed herself in the
+battle of Dunbolg, where the men of Ireland were fighting under Aedh,
+son of Niall; and Brigit was seen in the same battle on the side of the
+men of Leinster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. AINE
+
+
+And as to Aine, that some said was a daughter of Manannan, but some said
+was the Morrigu herself, there was a stone belonging to her that was
+called Cathair Aine. And if any one would sit on that stone he would be
+in danger of losing his wits, and any one that would sit on it three
+times would lose them for ever. And people whose wits were astray would
+make their way to it, and mad dogs would come from all parts of the
+country, and would flock around it, and then they would go into the sea
+to Aine's place there. But those that did cures by herbs said she had
+power over the whole body; and she used to give gifts of poetry and of
+music, and she often gave her love to men, and they called her the
+Leanan Sidhe, the Sweet-heart of the Sidhe.
+
+And it was no safe thing to offend Aine, for she was very revengeful.
+Oilioll Oluim, a king of Ireland, killed her brother one time, and it is
+what she did, she made a great yew-tree by enchantment beside the river
+Maigh in Luimnech, and she put a little man in it, playing sweet music
+on a harp. And Oilioll's son was passing the river with his
+step-brother, and they saw the tree and heard the sweet music from it.
+And first they quarrelled as to which of them would have the little
+harper, and then they quarrelled about the tree, and they asked a
+judgment from Oilioll, and he gave it for his own son. And it was the
+bad feeling about that judgment that led to the battle of Magh
+Mucruimhe, and Oilioll and his seven sons were killed there, and so Aine
+got her revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. AOIBHELL
+
+
+And Aoibhell, another woman of the Sidhe, made her dwelling-place in
+Craig Liath, and at the time of the battle of Cluantarbh she set her
+love on a young man of Munster, Dubhlaing ua Artigan, that had been sent
+away in disgrace by the King of Ireland. But before the battle he came
+back to join with Murchadh, the king's son, and to fight for the Gael.
+And Aoibhell came to stop him; and when he would not stop with her she
+put a Druid covering about him, the way no one could see him.
+
+And he went where Murchadh was fighting, and he made a great attack on
+the enemies of Ireland, and struck them down on every side. And Murchadh
+looked around him, and he said; "It seems to me I hear the sound of the
+blows of Dubhlaing ua Artigan, but I do not see himself." Then Dubhlaing
+threw off the Druid covering that was about him, and he said: "I will
+not keep this covering upon me when you cannot see me through it. And
+come now across the plain to where Aoibhell is," he said, "for she can
+give us news of the battle."
+
+So they went where she was, and she bade them both to quit the battle,
+for they would lose their lives in it. But Murchadh said to her, "I will
+tell you a little true story," he said; "that fear for my own body will
+never make me change my face. And if we fall," he said, "the strangers
+will fall with us; and it is many a man will fall by my own hand, and
+the Gael will be sharing their strong places." "Stop with me,
+Dubhlaing," she said then, "and you will have two hundred years of happy
+life with myself." "I will not give up Murchadh," he said, "or my own
+good name, for silver or gold." And there was anger on Aoibhell when he
+said that, and she said: "Murchadh will fall, and you yourself will
+fall, and your proud blood will be on the plain to-morrow." And they
+went back into the battle, and got their death there.
+
+And it was Aoibhell gave a golden harp to the son of Meardha the time
+he was getting his learning at the school of the Sidhe in Connacht and
+that he heard his father had got his death by the King of Lochlann. And
+whoever heard the playing of that harp would not live long after it. And
+Meardha's son went where the three sons of the King of Lochlann were,
+and played on his harp for them, and they died.
+
+It was that harp Cuchulain heard the time his enemies were gathering
+against him at Muirthemne, and he knew by it that his life was near its
+end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. MIDHIR AND ETAIN
+
+
+And Midhir took a hill for himself, and his wife Fuamach was with him
+there, and his daughter, Bri. And Leith, son of Celtchar of Cualu, was
+the most beautiful among the young men of the Sidhe of Ireland at that
+time, and he loved Bri, Midhir's daughter. And Bri went out with her
+young girls to meet him one time at the Grave of the Daughters beside
+Teamhair. And Leith came and his young men along with him till he was on
+the Hill of the After Repentance. And they could not come nearer to one
+another because of the slingers on Midhir's hill that were answering one
+another till their spears were as many as a swarm of bees on a day of
+beauty. And Cochlan, Leith's servant, got a sharp wound from them and he
+died.
+
+Then the girl turned back to Midhir's hill, and her heart broke in her
+and she died. And Leith said: "Although I am not let come to this girl,
+I will leave my name with her." And the hill was called Bri Leith from
+that time.
+
+After a while Midhir took Etain Echraide to be his wife. And there was
+great jealousy on Fuamach, the wife he had before, when she saw the
+love that Midhir gave to Etain, and she called to the Druid, Bresal
+Etarlaim to help her, and he put spells on Etain the way Fuamach was
+able to drive her away.
+
+And when she was driven out of Bri Leith, Angus Og, son of the Dagda,
+took her into his keeping; and when Midhir asked her back, he would not
+give her up, but he brought her about with him to every place he went.
+And wherever they rested, he made a sunny house for her, and put
+sweet-smelling flowers in it, and he made invisible walls about it, that
+no one could see through and that could not be seen.
+
+But when news came to Fuamach that Etain was so well cared by Angus,
+anger and jealousy came on her again, and she searched her mind for a
+way to destroy Etain altogether.
+
+And it is what she did, she persuaded Midhir and Angus to go out and
+meet one another and to make peace, for there had been a quarrel between
+them ever since the time Etain was sent away. And when Angus was away
+from Brugh na Boinn, Fuamach went and found Etain there, in her sunny
+house. And she turned her with Druid spells into a fly, and then she
+sent a blast of wind into the house, that swept her away through the
+window.
+
+But as to Midhir and Angus, they waited a while for Fuamach to come and
+join them. And when she did not come they were uneasy in their minds,
+and Angus hurried back to Brugh na Boinn. And when he found the sunny
+house empty, he went in search of Fuamach, and it was along with
+Etarlaim, the Druid, he found her, and he struck her head off there and
+then.
+
+And for seven years Etain was blown to and fro through Ireland in great
+misery. And at last she came to the house of Etar, of Inver Cechmaine,
+where there was a feast going on, and she fell from a beam of the roof
+into the golden cup that was beside Etar's wife. And Etar's wife drank
+her down with the wine, and at the end of nine months she was born again
+as Etar's daughter.
+
+And she had the same name as before, Etain; and she was reared as a
+king's daughter, and there were fifty young girls, daughters of princes,
+brought up with her to keep her company.
+
+And it happened one day Etain and all the rest of the young girls were
+out bathing in the bay at Inver Cechmaine, and they saw from the water a
+man, with very high looks, coming towards them over the plain, and he
+riding a bay horse with mane and tail curled. A long green cloak he had
+on him, and a shirt woven with threads of red gold, and a brooch of gold
+that reached across to his shoulders on each side. And he had on his
+back a shield of silver with a rim of gold and a boss of gold, and in
+his hand a sharp-pointed spear covered with rings of gold from heel to
+socket. Fair yellow hair he had, coming over his forehead, and it bound
+with a golden band to keep it from loosening.
+
+And when he came near them he got down from his horse, and sat down on
+the bank, and it is what he said:
+
+"It is here Etain is to-day, at the Mound of Fair Women. It is among
+little children is her life on the strand of Inver Cechmaine.
+
+"It is she healed the eye of the king from the well of Loch da Lig; it
+is she was swallowed in a heavy drink by the wife of Etar.
+
+"Many great battles will happen for your sake to Echaid of Midhe;
+destruction will fall upon the Sidhe, and war on thousands of men."
+
+And when he had said that, he vanished, and no one knew where he went.
+And they did not know the man that had come to them was Midhir of Bri
+Leith.
+
+And when Etain was grown to be a beautiful young woman, she was seen by
+Eochaid Feidlech, High King of Ireland, and this is the way that
+happened.
+
+He was going one time over the fair green of Bri Leith, and he saw at
+the side of a well a woman, with a bright comb of gold and silver, and
+she washing in a silver basin having four golden birds on it, and little
+bright purple stones set in the rim of the basin. A beautiful purple
+cloak she had, and silver fringes to it, and a gold brooch; and she had
+on her a dress of green silk with a long hood, embroidered in red gold,
+and wonderful clasps of gold and silver on her breasts and on her
+shoulder. The sunlight was falling on her, so that the gold and the
+green silk were shining out. Two plaits of hair she had, four locks in
+each plait, and a bead at the point of every lock, and the colour of her
+hair was like yellow flags in summer, or like red gold after it is
+rubbed.
+
+There she was, letting down her hair to wash it, and her arms out
+through the sleeve-holes of her shift. Her soft hands were as white as
+the snow of a single night, and her eyes as blue as any blue flower, and
+her lips as red as the berries of the rowan-tree, and her body as white
+as the foam of a wave. The bright light of the moon was in her face, the
+highness of pride in her eyebrows, a dimple of delight in each of her
+cheeks, the light of wooing in her eyes, and when she walked she had a
+step that was steady and even like the walk of a queen.
+
+And Eochaid sent his people to bring her to him, and he asked her name,
+and she told him her name was Etain, daughter of Etar, King of the
+Riders of the Sidhe. And Eochaid gave her his love, and he paid the
+bride-price, and brought her home to Teamhair as his wife, and there was
+a great welcome before her there.
+
+And after a while there was a great feast made at Teamhair, and all the
+chief men of Ireland came to it, and it lasted from the fortnight before
+Samhain to the fortnight after it. And King Eochaid's brother Ailell,
+that was afterwards called Ailell Anglonach, of the Only Fault, came to
+the feast. And when he saw his brother's wife Etain, he fell in love
+with her on the moment, and all through the length of the feast he was
+not content unless he could be looking at her. And a woman, the daughter
+of Luchta Lamdearg, of the Red Hand, took notice of it, and she said:
+"What far thing are you looking at, Ailell? It is what I think, that to
+be looking the way you are doing is a sign of love." Then Ailell checked
+himself, and did not look towards Etain any more.
+
+But when the feast was at an end, and the gathering broken up, great
+desire and envy came on Ailell, so that he fell sick, and they brought
+him to a house in Teffia. And he stopped there through the length of a
+year, and he was wasting away, but he told no one the cause of his
+sickness. And at the end of the year, Eochaid came to visit his brother,
+and he passed his hand over his breast, and Ailell let a groan. "What
+way are you?" said Eochaid then. "Are you getting any easier, for you
+must not let this illness come to a bad end." "By my word," said Ailell,
+"it is not easier I am, but worse and worse every day and every night."
+"What is it ails you?" said Eochaid. "And what is it that is coming
+against you." "By my word, I cannot tell you that," said Ailell. "I will
+bring one here that will know the cause of your sickness," said the
+king.
+
+With that he sent Fachtna, his own physician, to Ailell; and when he
+came he passed his hand over Ailell's heart, and at that he groaned
+again. "This sickness will not be your death," said Fachtna then; "and I
+know well what it comes from. It is either from the pains of jealousy,
+or from love you have given, and that you have not found a way out of."
+But there was shame on Ailell, and he would not confess to the physician
+that what he said was right. So Fachtna went away then and left him.
+
+As to King Eochaid, he went away to visit all the provinces of Ireland
+that were under his kingship, and he left Etain after him, and it is
+what he said: "Good Etain," he said, "take tender care of Ailell so long
+as he is living; and if he should die from us, make a sodded grave for
+him, and raise a pillar stone over it, and write his name on it in
+Ogham." And with that he went away on his journey.
+
+One day, now, Etain went into the house where Ailell was lying in his
+sickness, and they talked together, and then she made a little song for
+him, and it is what she said:
+
+"What is it ails you, young man, for it is a long time you are wasted
+with this sickness, and it is not the hardness of the weather has
+stopped your light footstep."
+
+And Ailell answered her in the same way, and he said: "I have good cause
+for my hurt; the music of my own harp does not please me; there is no
+sort of food is pleasant to me, and so I am wasted away." Then Etain
+said: "Tell me what is it ails you, for I am a woman that is wise. Tell
+me is there anything that would cure you, the way I may help you to it?"
+And Ailell answered her: "O kind, beautiful woman, it is not good to
+tell a secret to a woman, but sometimes it may be known through the
+eyes." And Etain said: "Though it is bad to tell a secret, yet it ought
+to be told now, or how can help be given to you?" And Ailell answered:
+"My blessing on you, fair-haired Etain. It is not fit I am to be spoken
+with; my wits have been no good help to me; my body is a rebel to me.
+All Ireland knows, O king's wife, there is sickness in my head and in my
+body." And Etain said: "If there is a woman of the fair-faced women of
+Ireland tormenting you this way, she must come to you here if it
+pleases you; and it is I myself will woo her for you," she said.
+
+Then Ailell said to her: "Woman, it would be easy for you yourself to
+put my sickness from me. And my desire," he said, "is a desire that is
+as long as a year; but it is love given to an echo, the spending of
+grief on a wave, a lonely fight with a shadow, that is what my love and
+my desire have been to me."
+
+And it is then Etain knew what was the sickness that was on him, and it
+was a heavy trouble to her.
+
+But she came to him every day to tend him, and to make ready his food,
+and to pour water over his hands, and all she could do she did for him,
+for it was a grief to her, he to wither away and to be lost for her
+sake. And at last one day she said to him: "Rise up, Ailell, son of a
+king, man of high deeds, and I will do your healing."
+
+Then he put his arms about her, and she kissed him, and she said: "Come
+at the morning of to-morrow at the break of day to the house outside the
+dun, and I will give you all your desire."
+
+That night Ailell lay without sleep until the morning was at hand. And
+at the very time he should have risen to go to her, it was at that time
+his sleep settled down upon him, and he slept on till the full light of
+day.
+
+But Etain went to the house outside the dun, and she was not long there
+when she saw a man coming towards her having the appearance of Ailell,
+sick and tired and worn. But when he came near and she looked closely at
+him, she saw it was not Ailell that was in it. Then he went away, and
+after she had waited a while, she herself went back into the dun.
+
+And it was then Ailell awoke, and when he knew the morning had passed
+by, he would sooner have had death than life, and he fretted greatly.
+And Etain came in then, and he told her what had happened him. And she
+said: "Come to-morrow to the same place."
+
+But the same thing happened the next day. And when it happened on the
+third day, and the same man came to meet Etain, she said to him: "It is
+not you at all I come to meet here, and why is it that you come to meet
+me? And as to him I came to meet," she said, "indeed it is not for gain
+or through lightness I bade him come to me, but to heal him of the
+sickness he is lying under for my sake." Then the man said: "It would be
+more fitting for you to come to meet me than any other one. For in the
+time long ago," he said, "I was your first husband, and your first man."
+"What is it you are saying," she said, "and who are you yourself?" "It
+is easy to tell that," he said; "I am Midhir of Bri Leith." "And what
+parted us if I was your wife?" said Etain. "It was through Fuamach's
+sharp jealousy and through the spells of Bresal Etarlaim, the Druid, we
+were parted. And will you come away with me now?" he said. But Etain
+said: "It is not for a man whose kindred is unknown I will give up the
+High King of Ireland." And Midhir said: "Surely it was I myself put that
+great desire for you on Ailell, and it was I hindered him from going to
+meet you, the way you might keep your good name."
+
+And when she went back to Ailell's house, she found his sickness was
+gone from him, and his desire. And she told him all that had happened,
+and he said: "It has turned out well for us both: I am well of my
+sickness and your good name is not lessened." "We give thanks to our
+gods for that," said Etain, "for we are well pleased to have it so."
+
+And just at that time Eochaid came back from his journey, and they told
+him the whole story, and he was thankful to his wife for the kindness
+she had showed to Ailell.
+
+It was a good while after that, there was a great fair held at Teamhair,
+and Etain was out on the green looking at the games and the races. And
+she saw a rider coming towards her, but no one could see him but
+herself; and when he came near she saw he had the same appearance as
+the man that came and spoke with her and her young girls the time they
+were out in the sea at Inver Cechmaine. And when he came up to her he
+began to sing words to her that no one could hear but herself. And it is
+what he said:
+
+"O beautiful woman, will you come with me to the wonderful country that
+is mine? It is pleasant to be looking at the people there, beautiful
+people without any blemish; their hair is of the colour of the
+flag-flower, their fair body is as white as snow, the colour of the
+foxglove is on every cheek. The young never grow old there; the fields
+and the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's
+eggs; warm, sweet streams of mead and of wine flow through that country;
+there is no care and no sorrow on any person; we see others, but we
+ourselves are not seen.
+
+"Though the plains of Ireland are beautiful, it is little you would
+think of them after our great plain; though the ale of Ireland is heady,
+the ale of the great country is still more heady. O beautiful woman, if
+you come to my proud people it is the flesh of pigs newly killed I will
+give you for food; it is ale and new milk I will give you for drink; it
+is feasting you will have with me there; it is a crown of gold you will
+have upon your hair, O beautiful woman!
+
+"And will you come there with me, Etain?" he said. But Etain said she
+would not leave Eochaid the High King. "Will you come if Eochaid gives
+you leave?" Midhir said then. "I will do that," said Etain.
+
+One day, after that time, Eochaid the High King was looking out from his
+palace at Teamhair, and he saw a strange man coming across the plain.
+Yellow hair he had, and eyes blue and shining like the flame of a
+candle, and a purple dress on him, and in his hand a five-pronged spear
+and a shield having gold knobs on it.
+
+He came up to the king, and the king bade him welcome. "Who are you
+yourself?" he said; "and what are you come for, for you are a stranger
+to me?" "If I am a stranger to you, you are no stranger to me, for I
+have known you this long time," said the strange man. "What is your
+name?" said the king. "It is nothing very great," said he; "I am called
+Midhir of Bri Leith." "What is it brings you here?" said Eochaid. "I am
+come to play a game of chess with you," said the stranger. "Are you a
+good player?" said the king. "A trial will tell you that," said Midhir.
+"The chessboard is in the queen's house, and she is in her sleep at this
+time," said Eochaid. "That is no matter," said Midhir, "for I have with
+me a chess-board as good as your own." And with that he brought out his
+chessboard, and it made of silver, and precious stones shining in every
+corner of it. And then he brought out the chessmen, and they made of
+gold, from a bag that was of shining gold threads.
+
+"Let us play now," said Midhir. "I will not play without a stake," said
+the king. "What stake shall We play for?" said Midhir. "We can settle
+that after the game is over," said the king.
+
+They played together then, and Midhir was beaten, and it is what the
+king asked of him, fifty brown horses to be given to him. And then they
+played the second time, and Midhir was beaten again, and this time the
+king gave him four hard things to do: to make a road over Moin Lamraide,
+and to clear Midhe of stones, and to cover the district of Tethra with
+rushes, and the district of Darbrech with trees.
+
+So Midhir brought his people from Bri Leith to do those things, and it
+is bard work they had doing them. And Eochaid used to be out watching
+them, and he took notice that when the men of the Sidhe yoked their
+oxen, it was by the neck and the shoulder they used to yoke them, and
+not by the forehead and the head. And it was after Eochaid taught his
+people to yoke them that way, he was given the name of Eochaid Airem,
+that is, of the Plough.
+
+And when all was done, Midhir came to Eochaid again, looking thin and
+wasted enough with the dint of the hard work he had been doing, and he
+asked Eochaid to play the third game with him. Eochaid agreed, and it
+was settled as before, the stake to be settled by the winner. It was
+Midhir won the game that time, and when the king asked him what he
+wanted, "It is Etain, your wife, I want," said he. "I will not give her
+to you," said the king. "All I will ask then," said Midhir, "is to put
+my arms about her and to kiss her once." "You may do that," said the
+king, "if you will wait to the end of a month." So Midhir agreed to
+that, and went away for that time.
+
+At the end of the month he came back again, and stood in the great hall
+at Teamhair, and no one had ever seen him look so comely as he did that
+night. And Eochaid had all his best fighting men gathered in the hall,
+and he shut all the doors of the palace when he saw Midhir come in, for
+fear he would try to bring away Etain by force.
+
+"I am come to be paid what is due to me," said Midhir. "I have not been
+thinking of it up to this time," said Eochaid, and there was anger on
+him. "You promised me Etain, your wife," said Midhir. The redness of
+shame came on Etain when she heard that, but Midhir said: "Let there be
+no shame on you, Etain, for it is through the length of a year I have
+been asking your love, and I have offered you every sort of treasure and
+riches, and you refused to come to me till such a time as your husband
+would give you leave." "It is true I said that," said Etain, "I will go
+if Eochaid gives me up to you." "I will not give you up," said Eochaid;
+"I will let him do no more than put his arms about you in this place, as
+was promised him." "I will do that," said Midhir.
+
+With that he took his sword in his left hand, and he took Etain in his
+right arm and kissed her. All the armed men in the house made a rush at
+him then, but he rose up through the roof bringing Etain with him, and
+when they rushed out of the house to follow him, all they could see was
+two swans high up in the air, linked together by a chain of gold.
+
+There was great anger on Eochaid then, and he went and searched all
+through Ireland, but there were no tidings of them to be had, for they
+were in the houses of the Sidhe.
+
+It was to the Brugh of Angus on the Boinn they went first, and after
+they had stopped there a while they went to a hill of the Sidhe in
+Connacht. And there was a serving-maid with Etain at that time, Cruachan
+Croderg her name was, and she said to Midhir: "Is this your own place we
+are in?" "It is not," said Midhir; "my own place is nearer to the rising
+of the sun." She was not well pleased to stop there when she heard that,
+and Midhir said to quiet her: "It is your own name will be put on this
+place from this out." And the hill was called the Hill of Cruachan from
+that time.
+
+Then they went to Bri Leith; and Etain's daughter Esa came to them
+there, and she brought a hundred of every sort of cattle with her, and
+Midhir fostered her for seven years. And all through that time Eochaid
+the High King was making a search for them.
+
+But at last Codal of the Withered Breast took four rods of yew and wrote
+Oghams on them, and through them and through his enchantments he found
+out that Etain was with Midhir in Bri Leith.
+
+So Eochaid went there, and made an attack on the place, and he was for
+nine years besieging it, and Midhir was driving him away. And then his
+people began digging through the hill; and when they were getting near
+to where Etain was, Midhir sent three times twenty beautiful women,
+having all of them the appearance of Etain, and he bade the king choose
+her out from among them. And the first he chose was his own daughter
+Esa. But then Etain called to him, and he knew her, and he brought her
+home to Teamhair.
+
+And Eochaid gave his daughter Esa her choice of a place for herself. And
+she chose it, and made a rath there, that got the name of Rath Esa. And
+from it she could see three notable places, the Hill of the Sidhe in
+Broga, and the Hill of the Hostages in Teamhair, and Dun Crimthain on
+Beinn Edair.
+
+But there was great anger on Midhir and his people because of their hill
+being attacked and dug into. And it was in revenge for that insult they
+brought Conaire, High King of Ireland, that was grandson of Eochaid and
+of Etain, to his death afterwards at Da Derga's Inn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. MANANNAN
+
+
+Now as to Manannan the Proud, son of Lir, after he had made places for
+the rest of the Tuatha de Danaan to live in, he went away out of Ireland
+himself. And some said he was dead, and that he got his death by Uillenn
+Faebarderg, of the Red Edge, in battle. And it is what they said, that
+the battle was fought at Magh Cuilenn, and that Manannan was buried
+standing on his feet, and no sooner was he buried than a great lake
+burst up under his feet in the place that was a red bog till that time.
+And the lake got the name of Loch Orbson, from one of the names of
+Manannan. And it was said that red Badb was glad and many women were
+sorry at that battle.
+
+But he had many places of living, and he was often heard of in Ireland
+after. It was he sent a messenger to Etain, mother of Conaire the High
+King, the time she was hidden in the cowherd's house. And it was he
+brought up Deirdre's children in Emhain of the Apple Trees, and it was
+said of that place, "a house of peace is the hill of the Sidhe of
+Emhain." And it was he taught Diarmuid of the Fianna the use of weapons,
+and it was he taught Cuchulain the use of the Gae Bulg, and some say it
+was he was Deirdre's father, and that he brought Conchubar, king of
+Ulster, to the place she was hidden, and he running with the appearance
+of a hare before the hounds of the men of Ulster to bring them there.
+
+And it is what they say, that the time Conchubar had brought the sons of
+Usnach to Emain Macha, and could not come at them to kill them because
+of their bravery, it was to Manannan he went for help. And Manannan said
+he would give him no help, for he had told him at the time he brought
+Deirdre away that she would be the cause of the breaking up of his
+kingdom, and he took her away in spite of him. But Conchubar asked him
+to put blindness for a while on the sons of Usnach, or the whole army
+would be destroyed with their blows. So after a while he consented to
+that. And when the sons of Usnach came out again against the army of
+Ulster, the blindness came on them, and it was at one another they
+struck, not seeing who was near them, and it was by one another's hands
+they fell. But more say Manannan had no hand in it, and that it was
+Cathbad, the Druid, put a sea about them and brought them to their death
+by his enchantments.
+
+And some say Culain, the Smith, that gave his name to Cuchulain
+afterwards, was Manannan himself, for he had many shapes.
+
+Anyway, before Culain came to Ulster, he was living in the Island of
+Falga, that was one of Manannan's places. And one time before Conchubar
+came into the kingdom, he went to ask advice of a Druid, and the Druid
+bade him to go to the Island of Falga and to ask Culain, the smith he
+would find there, to make arms for him. So Conchubar did so, and the
+smith promised to make a sword and spear and shield for him.
+
+And while he was working at them Conchubar went out one morning early to
+walk on the strand, and there he saw a sea-woman asleep on the shore.
+And he put bonds on her in her sleep, the way she would not make her
+escape. But when she awoke and saw what had happened, she asked him to
+set her free. "And I am Tiabhal," she said, "one of the queens of the
+sea. And bid Culain," she said, "that is making your shield for you, to
+put my likeness on it and my name about it. And whenever you will go
+into a battle with that shield the strength of your enemies will lessen,
+and your own strength and the strength of your people will increase."
+
+So Conchubar let her go, and bade the smith do as she had told him. And
+when he went back to Ireland he got the victory wherever he brought that
+shield.
+
+And he sent for Culain then, and offered him a place on the plains of
+Muirthemne. And whether he was or was not Manannan, it is likely he gave
+Cuchulain good teaching the time he stopped with him there after killing
+his great dog.
+
+Manannan had good hounds one time, but they went hunting after a pig
+that was destroying the whole country, and making a desert of it. And
+they followed it till they came to a lake, and there it turned on them,
+and no hound of them escaped alive, but they were all drowned or maimed.
+And the pig made for an island then, that got the name of Muc-inis, the
+Pigs Island afterwards; and the lake got the name of Loch Conn, the
+Lake of the Hounds.
+
+And it was through Manannan the wave of Tuaig, one of the three great
+waves of Ireland, got its name, and this is the way that happened.
+
+There was a young girl of the name of Tuag, a fosterling of Conaire the
+High King, was reared in Teamhair, and a great company of the daughters
+of the kings of Ireland were put about her to protect her, the way she
+would be kept for a king's asking. But Manannan sent Fer Ferdiad, of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, that was a pupil of his own and a Druid, in the shape
+of a woman of his own household, and he went where Tuag was, and sang a
+sleep-spell over her, and brought her away to Inver Glas. And there he
+laid her down while he went looking for a boat, that he might bring her
+away in her sleep to the Land of the Ever-Living Women. But a wave of
+the flood-tide came over the girl, and she was drowned, and Manannan
+killed Fer Ferdiad in his anger.
+
+And one time Manannan's cows came up out of the sea at Baile Cronin,
+three of them, a red, and a white, and a black, and the people that were
+there saw them standing on the strand for a while, as if thinking, and
+then they all walked up together, side by side, from the strand. And at
+that time there were no roads in Ireland, and there was great wonder on
+the people when they saw a good wide road ready before the three cows to
+walk on. And when they got about a mile from the sea they parted; the
+white cow went to the north-west, towards Luimnech, and the red cow went
+to the south-west, and on round the coast of Ireland, and the black cow
+went to the north-east, towards Lis Mor, in the district of Portlairge,
+and a road opened before each of them, that is to be seen to this day.
+
+And some say it was Manannan went to Finn and the Fianna in the form of
+the Gilla Decair, the Bad Servant, and brought them away to
+Land-under-Wave. Anyway, he used often to go hunting with them on Cnoc
+Aine, and sometimes he came to their help.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. MANANNAN AT PLAY
+
+
+And it was he went playing tricks through Ireland a long time after that
+again, the time he got the name of O'Donnell's Kern. And it is the way
+it happened, Aodh Dubh O'Donnell was holding a feast one time in
+Bel-atha Senaig, and his people were boasting of the goodness of his
+house and of his musicians.
+
+And while they were talking, they saw a clown coming towards them, old
+striped clothes he had, and puddle water splashing in his shoes, and his
+sword sticking out naked behind him, and his ears through the old cloak
+that was over his head, and in his hand he had three spears of hollywood
+scorched and blackened.
+
+He wished O'Donnell good health, and O'Donnell did the same to him, and
+asked where did he come from. "It is where I am," he said, "I slept last
+night at Dun Monaidhe, of the King of Alban; I am a day in Ile, a day in
+Cionn-tire, a day in Rachlainn, a day in the Watchman's Seat in Slieve
+Fuad; a pleasant, rambling, wandering man I am, and it is with yourself
+I am now, O'Donnell," he said. "Let the gate-keeper be brought to me,"
+said O'Donnell. And when the gate-keeper came, he asked was it he let in
+this man, and the gate-keeper said he did not, and that he never saw him
+before. "Let him off, O'Donnell," said the stranger, "for it was as easy
+for me to come in, as it will be to me to go out again." There was
+wonder on them all then, any man to have come into the house without
+passing the gate.
+
+The musicians began playing their music then, and all the best musicians
+of the country were there at the time, and they played very sweet tunes
+on their harps. But the strange man called out: "By my word, O'Donnell,
+there was never a noise of hammers beating on iron in any bad place was
+so bad to listen to as this noise your people are making."
+
+With that he took a harp, and he made music that would put women in
+their pains and wounded men after a battle into a sweet sleep, and it is
+what O'Donnell said: "Since I first heard talk of the music of the Sidhe
+that is played in the hills and under the earth below us, I never heard
+better music than your own. And it is a very sweet player you are," he
+said. "One day I am sweet, another day I am sour," said the clown.
+
+Then O'Donnell bade his people to bring him up to sit near himself. "I
+have no mind to do that," he said; "I would sooner be as I am, an ugly
+clown, making sport for high-up people." Then O'Donnell sent him down
+clothes, a hat and a striped shirt and a coat, but he would not have
+them. "I have no mind," he said, "to let high-up people be making a
+boast of giving them to me."
+
+They were afraid then he might go from them, and they put twenty armed
+horsemen and twenty men on foot to hold him back from leaving the house,
+and as many more outside at the gate, for they knew him not to be a man
+of this world. "What are these men for?" said he. "They are to keep you
+here," said O'Donnell. "By my word, it is not with you I will be eating
+my supper to-morrow," he said, "but at Cnoc Aine, where Seaghan, Son of
+the Earl is, in Desmumain." "If I find you giving one stir out of
+yourself, between this and morning, I will knock you into a round lump
+there on the ground," said O'Donnell.
+
+But at that the stranger took up the harp again, and he made the same
+sweet music as before. And when they were all listening to him, he
+called out to the men outside: "Here I am coming, and watch me well now
+or you will lose me." When the men that were watching the gate heard
+that, they lifted up their axes to strike at him, but in their haste it
+was at one another they struck, till they were all lying stretched in
+blood. Then the clown said to the gate-keeper: "Let you ask twenty cows
+and a hundred of free land of O'Donnell as a fee for bringing his people
+back to life. And take this herb," he said, "and rub it in the mouth of
+each man of them, and he will rise up whole and well again." So the
+gate-keeper did that, and he got the cows and the land from O'Donnell,
+and he brought all the people to life again.
+
+Now at that time Seaghan, Son of the Earl, was holding a gathering on
+the green in front of his dun, and he saw the same man coming towards
+him, and dressed in the same way, and the water splashing in his shoes.
+But when he asked who was he, he gave himself the name of a very learned
+man, Duartane O'Duartane, and he said it was by Ess Ruadh he was come,
+and by Ceiscorainn and from that to Corrslieve, and to Magh Lorg of the
+Dagda, and into the district of Hy'Conaill Gabhra, "till I came to
+yourself," he said, "by Cruachan of Magh Ai." So they brought him into
+the house, and gave him wine for drinking and water for washing his
+feet, and he slept till the rising of the sun on the morrow. And at that
+time Seaghan, Son of the Earl, came to visit him, and he said: "It is a
+long sleep you had, and there is no wonder in that, and your journey so
+long yesterday. But I often heard of your learning in books and of your
+skill on the harp, and I would like to hear you this morning," he said.
+"I am good in those arts indeed," said the stranger. So they brought him
+a book, but he could not read a word of it, and then they brought him a
+harp, and he could not play any tune. "It is likely your reading and
+your music are gone from you," said Seaghan; and he made a little rann
+on him, saying it was a strange thing Duartane O'Duartane that had such
+a great name not to be able to read a line of a book, or even to
+remember one. But when the stranger heard how he was being mocked at, he
+took up the book, and read from the top to the bottom of the page very
+well and in a sweet-sounding voice. And after that he took the harp and
+played and sang the same way he did at O'Donnell's house the day before.
+"It is a very sweet man of learning you are," said Seaghan. "One day I
+am sweet, another day I am sour," said the stranger.
+
+They walked out together then on Cnoc Aine, but while they were talking
+there, the stranger was gone all of a minute, and Seaghan, Son of the
+Earl, could not see where he went.
+
+And after that he went on, and he reached Sligach just at the time
+O'Conchubar was setting out with the men of Connacht to avenge the
+Connacht hag's basket on the hag of Munster. And this time he gave
+himself the name of the Gilla Decair, the Bad Servant. And he joined
+with the men of Connacht, and they went over the Sionnan westward into
+Munster, and there they hunted and drove every creature that could be
+made travel, cattle and horses and flocks, into one place, till they got
+the hornless bull of the Munster hag and her two speckled cows, and
+O'Conchubar brought them away to give to the Connacht hag in
+satisfaction for her basket.
+
+But the men of Munster made an attack on them as they were going back;
+and the Gilla Decair asked O'Conchubar would he sooner have the cows
+driven, or have the Munster men checked, and he said he would sooner
+have the Munster men checked. So the Gilla Decair turned on them, and
+with his bow and twenty-four arrows he kept them back till O'Conchubar
+and his people were safe out of their reach in Connacht.
+
+But he took some offence then, on account of O'Conchubar taking the
+first drink himself when they came to his house, and not giving it to
+him, that had done so much, and he took his leave and went from them on
+the moment.
+
+After that he went to where Tadg O'Cealaigh was, and having his old
+striped clothes and his old shoes as before. And when they asked him
+what art he had, he said: "I am good at tricks. And if you will give me
+five marks I will show you a trick," he said. "I will give that," said
+Tadg.
+
+With that the stranger put three rushes on the palm of his hand. "I will
+blow away the middle rush now," he said, "and the other two will stop as
+they are." So they told him to do that, and he put the tops of two of
+his fingers on the two outside rushes, and blew the middle one away.
+"There is a trick now for you, Tadg O'Cealaigh," he said then. "By my
+word, that is not a bad trick," said O'Cealaigh. But one of his men
+said: "That there may be no good luck with him that did it. And give me
+the half of that money now, Tadg," he said, "and I will do the same
+trick for you myself." "I will give you the half of what I got if you
+will do it," said the stranger. So the other put the rushes on his hand,
+but if he did, when he tried to do the trick, his two finger-tips went
+through the palm of his hand. "Ob-Ob-Ob!" said the stranger, "that is
+not the way I did the trick. But as you have lost the money," he said,
+"I will heal you again."
+
+"I could do another trick for you," he said; "I could wag the ear on
+one side of my head and the ear on the other side would stay still." "Do
+it then," said O'Cealaigh. So the man of tricks took hold of one of his
+ears and wagged it up and down. "That is a good trick indeed," said
+O'Cealaigh. "I will show you another one now," he said.
+
+With that he took from his bag a thread of silk, and gave a cast of it
+up into the air, that it was made fast to a cloud. And then he took a
+hare out of the same bag, and it ran up the thread; and then took out a
+little dog and laid it on after the hare, and it followed yelping on its
+track; and after that again he brought out a little serving-boy and bade
+him to follow dog and hare up the thread. Then out of another bag he had
+with him he brought out a beautiful, well-dressed young woman, and bade
+her to follow after the hound and the boy, and to take care and not let
+the hare be torn by the dog. She went up then quickly after them, and it
+was a delight to Tadg O'Cealaigh to be looking at them and to be
+listening to the sound of the hunt going on in the air.
+
+All was quiet then for a long time, and then the man of tricks said: "I
+am afraid there is some bad work going on up there." "What is that?"
+said O'Cealaigh. "I am thinking," said he, "the hound might be eating
+the hare, and the serving-boy courting the girl." "It is likely enough
+they are," said O'Cealaigh. With that the stranger drew in the thread,
+and it is what he found, the boy making love to the girl and the hound
+chewing the bones of the hare. There was great anger on the man of
+tricks when he saw that, and he took his sword and struck the head off
+the boy. "I do not like a thing of that sort to be done in my presence,"
+said Tadg O'Cealaigh. "If it did not please you, I can set all right
+again," said the stranger. And with that he took up the head and made a
+cast of it at the body, and it joined to it, and the young man stood
+up, but if he did his face was turned backwards. "It would be better for
+him to be dead than to be living like that," said O'Cealaigh. When the
+man of tricks heard that, he took hold of the boy and twisted his head
+straight, and he was as well as before.
+
+And with that the man of tricks vanished, and no one saw where was he
+gone.
+
+That is the way Manannan used to be going round Ireland, doing tricks
+and wonders. And no one could keep him in any place, and if he was put
+on a gallows itself, he would be found safe in the house after, and some
+other man on the gallows in his place. But he did no harm, and those
+that would be put to death by him, he would bring them to life again
+with a herb out of his bag.
+
+And all the food he would use would be a vessel of sour milk and a few
+crab-apples. And there never was any music sweeter than the music he
+used to be playing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. HIS CALL TO BRAN
+
+
+And there were some that went to Manannan's country beyond the sea, and
+that gave an account of it afterwards.
+
+One time Bran, son of Febal, was out by himself near his dun, and he
+heard music behind him. And it kept always after him, and at last he
+fell asleep with the sweetness of the sound. And when he awoke from his
+sleep he saw beside him a branch of silver, and it having white
+blossoms, and the whiteness of the silver was the same as the whiteness
+of the blossoms.
+
+And he brought the branch in his hand into the royal house, and when all
+his people were with him they saw a woman with strange clothing standing
+in the house.
+
+And she began to make a song for Bran, and all the people were looking
+at her and listening to her, and it is what she said:
+
+"I bring a branch of the apple-tree from Emhain, from the far island
+around which are the shining horses of the Son of Lir. A delight of the
+eyes is the plain where the hosts hold their games; curragh racing
+against chariot in the White Silver Plain to the south.
+
+"There are feet of white bronze under it, shining through life and time;
+a comely level land through the length of the world's age, and many
+blossoms falling on it.
+
+"There is an old tree there with blossoms, and birds calling from among
+them; every colour is shining there, delight is common, and music, in
+the Gentle-Voiced Plain, in the Silver Cloud Plain to the south.
+
+"Keening is not used, or treachery, in the tilled familiar land; there
+is nothing hard or rough, but sweet music striking on the ear.
+
+"To be without grief, without sorrow, without death, without any
+sickness, without weakness; that is the sign of Emhain; it is not common
+wonder that is.
+
+"There is nothing to liken its mists to, the sea washes the wave against
+the land; brightness falls from its hair.
+
+"There are riches, there are treasures of every colour in the Gentle
+Land, the Bountiful Land. Sweet music to be listening to; the best of
+wine to drink.
+
+"Golden chariots in the Plain of the Sea, rising up to the sun with the
+tide; silver chariots and bronze chariots on the Plain of Sports.
+
+"Gold-yellow horses on the strand, and crimson horses, and others with
+wool on their backs, blue like the colour of the sky.
+
+"It is a day of lasting weather, silver is dropping on the land; a pure
+white cliff on the edge of the sea, getting its warmth from the sun.
+
+"The host race over the Plain of Sports; it is beautiful and not weak
+their game is; death or the ebbing of the tide will not come to them in
+the Many-Coloured Land.
+
+"There will come at sunrise a fair man, lighting up the level lands; he
+rides upon the plain that is beaten by the waves, he stirs the sea till
+it is like blood.
+
+"An army will come over the clear sea, rowing to the stone that is in
+sight, that a hundred sounds of music come from.
+
+"It sings a song to the army; it is not sad through the length of time;
+it increases music with hundreds singing together; they do not look for
+death or the ebb-tide.
+
+"There are three times fifty far islands in the ocean to the west of us,
+and every one of them twice or three times more than Ireland.
+
+"It is not to all of you I am speaking, though I have made all these
+wonders known. Let Bran listen from the crowd of the world to all the
+wisdom that has been told him.
+
+"Do not fall upon a bed of sloth; do not be overcome by drunkenness; set
+out on your voyage over the clear sea, and you may chance to come to the
+Land of Women."
+
+With that the woman went from them, and they did not know where she
+went. And she brought away her branch with her, for it leaped into her
+hand from Bran's hand, and he had not the strength to hold it.
+
+Then on the morrow Bran set out upon the sea, and three companies of
+nine along with him; and one of his foster-brothers and comrades was set
+over each company of nine.
+
+And when they had been rowing for two days and two nights, they saw a
+man coming towards them in a chariot, over the sea. And the man made
+himself known to them, and he said that he was Manannan, son of Lir.
+
+And then Manannan spoke to him in a song, and it is what he said:
+
+"It is what Bran thinks, he is going in his curragh over the wonderful,
+beautiful clear sea; but to me, from far off in my chariot, it is a
+flowery plain he is riding on.
+
+"What is a clear sea to the good boat Bran is in, is a happy plain with
+many flowers to me in my two-wheeled chariot.
+
+"It is what Bran sees, many waves beating across the clear sea; it is
+what I myself see, red flowers without any fault.
+
+"The sea-horses are bright in summer-time, as far as Bran's eyes can
+reach; there is a wood of beautiful acorns under the head of your little
+boat.
+
+"A wood with blossom and with fruit, that has the smell of wine; a wood
+without fault, without withering, with leaves of the colour of gold.
+
+"Let Bran row on steadily, it is not far to the Land of Women; before
+the setting of the sun you will reach Emhain, of many-coloured
+hospitality."
+
+With that Bran went from him; and after a while he saw an island, and he
+rowed around it, and there was a crowd on it, wondering at them, and
+laughing; and they were all looking at Bran and at his people, but they
+would not stop to talk with them, but went on giving out gusts of
+laughter. Bran put one of his men on the island then, but he joined with
+the others, and began to stare the same way as the men of the island.
+And Bran went on rowing round about the island; and whenever they went
+past his own man, his comrades would speak to him, but he would not
+answer them, but would only stare and wonder at them. So they went away
+and left him on that island that is called the Island of Joy.
+
+It was not long after that they reached to the Land of Women. And they
+saw the chief one of the women at the landing-place, and it is what she
+said: "Come hither to land, Bran, son of Febal, it is welcome your
+coming is." But Bran did not dare to go on shore. Then the woman threw a
+ball of thread straight to him, and he caught it in his hand, and it
+held fast to his palm, and the woman kept the thread in her own hand,
+and she pulled the curragh to the landing-place.
+
+On that they went into a grand house, where there was a bed for every
+couple, three times nine beds. And the food that was put on every dish
+never came to an end, and they had every sort of food and of drink they
+wished for.
+
+And it seemed to them they were only a year there when the desire of
+home took hold on one of them, Nechtan, son of Collbrain, and his
+kinsmen were begging and praying Bran to go back with him to Ireland.
+The woman said there would be repentance on them if they went; but in
+spite of that they set out in the end. And the woman said to them not to
+touch the land when they would come to Ireland, and she bade them to
+visit and to bring with them the man they left in the Island of Joy.
+
+So they went on towards Ireland till they came to a place called Srub
+Bruin. And there were people on the strand that asked them who they were
+that were coming over the sea. And Bran said: "I am Bran, son of Febal."
+But the people said: "We know of no such man, though the voyage of Bran
+is in our very old stories."
+
+Then Nechtan, son of Collbrain, made a leap out of the curragh, and no
+sooner did he touch the shore of Ireland than he was a heap of ashes,
+the same as if he had been in the earth through hundreds of years.
+
+And then Bran told the whole story of his wanderings to the people,
+from the beginning. And after that he bade them farewell, and his
+wanderings from that time are not known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. HIS THREE CALLS TO CORMAC
+
+
+And another that went to Manannan's country was Cormac, grandson of
+Conn, King of Teamhair, and this is the way it happened. He was by
+himself in Teamhair one time, and he saw an armed man coming towards
+him, quiet, with high looks, and having grey hair; a shirt ribbed with
+gold thread next his skin, broad shoes of white bronze between his feet
+and the ground, a shining branch, having nine apples of red gold, on his
+shoulder. And it is delightful the sound of that branch was, and no one
+on earth would keep in mind any want, or trouble, or tiredness, when
+that branch was shaken for him; and whatever trouble there might be on
+him, he would forget it at the sound.
+
+Then Cormac and the armed man saluted one another, and Cormac asked
+where did he come from. "I come," he said, "from a country where there
+is nothing but truth, and where there is neither age nor withering away,
+nor heaviness, nor sadness, nor jealousy nor envy, nor pride." "That is
+not so with us," said Cormac, "and I would be well pleased to have your
+friendship," he said. "I am well pleased to give it," said the stranger.
+"Give me your branch along with it," said Cormac. "I will give it," said
+the stranger, "if you will give me the three gifts I ask in return." "I
+will give them to you indeed," said Cormac.
+
+Then the strange man left the branch and went away, and Cormac did not
+know where was he gone to.
+
+He went back then into the royal house, and there was wonder on all the
+people when they saw the branch. And he shook it at them, and it put
+them all asleep from that day to the same time on the morrow.
+
+At the end of a year the strange man came back again, and he asked for
+the first of his three requests. "You will get it," said Cormac. "I will
+take your daughter, Aille, to-day," said the stranger.
+
+So he brought away the girl with him, and the women of Ireland gave
+three loud cries after the king's daughter. But Cormac shook the branch
+at them, until it put away sorrow from them, and put them all into their
+sleep.
+
+That day month the stranger came again, and he brought Cormac's son,
+Carpre Lifecar, away with him. There was crying and lamenting without
+end in Teamhair after the boy, and on that night no one ate or slept,
+and they were all under grief and very downhearted. But when Cormac
+shook the branch their sorrow went from them.
+
+Then the stranger came the third time, and Cormac asked him what did he
+want. "It is your wife, Ethne, I am asking this time," he said. And he
+went away then, bringing Ethne, the queen, along with him.
+
+But Cormac would not bear that, and he went after them, and all his
+people were following him. But in the middle of the Plain of the Wall, a
+thick mist came on them, and when it was gone, Cormac found himself
+alone on a great plain. And he saw a great dun in the middle of the
+plain, with a wall of bronze around it, and in the dun a house of white
+silver, and it half thatched with the white wings of birds. And there
+was a great troop of the Riders of the Sidhe all about the house, and
+their arms full of white birds' wings for thatching. But as soon as they
+would put on the thatch, a blast of wind would come and carry it away
+again.
+
+Then he saw a man kindling a fire, and he used to throw a thick
+oak-tree upon it. And when he would come back with a second tree, the
+first one would be burned out. "I will be looking at you no longer,"
+Cormac said then, "for there is no one here to tell me your story, and I
+think I could find good sense in your meanings if I understood them," he
+said.
+
+Then he went on to where there was another dun, very large and royal,
+and another wall of bronze around it, and four houses within it. And he
+went in and saw a great king's house, having beams of bronze and walls
+of silver, and its thatch of the wings of white birds. And then he saw
+on the green a shining well, and five streams flowing from it, and the
+armies drinking water in turn, and the nine lasting purple hazels of
+Buan growing over it. And they were dropping their nuts into the water,
+and the five salmon would catch them and send their husks floating down
+the streams. And the sound of the flowing of those streams is sweeter
+than any music that men sing.
+
+Then he went into the palace, and he found there waiting for him a man
+and a woman, very tall, and having clothes of many colours. The man was
+beautiful as to shape, and his face wonderful to look at; and as to the
+young woman that was with him, she was the loveliest of all the women of
+the world, and she having yellow hair and a golden helmet. And there was
+a bath there, and heated stones going in and out of the water of
+themselves, and Cormac bathed himself in it.
+
+"Rise up, man of the house," the woman said after that, "for this is a
+comely traveller is come to us; and if you have one kind of food or meat
+better than another, let it be brought in." The man rose up then and he
+said: "I have but seven pigs, but I could feed the whole world with
+them, for the pig that is killed and eaten to-day, you will find it
+alive again to-morrow."
+
+Another man came into the house then, having an axe in his right hand,
+and a log in his left hand, and a pig behind him.
+
+"It is time to make ready," said the man of the house, "for we have a
+high guest with us to-day."
+
+Then the man struck the pig and killed it, and he cut the logs and made
+a fire and put the pig on it in a cauldron. "It is time for you to turn
+it," said the master of the house after a while. "There would be no use
+doing that," said the man, "for never and never will the pig be boiled
+until a truth is told for every quarter of it." "Then let you tell yours
+first," said the master of the house. "One day," said the man, "I found
+another man's cows in my land, and I brought them with me into a cattle
+pound. The owner of the cows followed me, and he said he would give me a
+reward to let the cows go free. So I gave them back to him, and he gave
+me an axe, and when a pig is to be killed, it is with the axe it is
+killed, and the log is cut with it, and there is enough wood to boil the
+pig, and enough for the palace besides. And that is not all, for the log
+is found whole again in the morning. And from that time till now, that
+is the way they are."
+
+"It is true indeed that story is," said the man of the house.
+
+They turned the pig in the cauldron then, and but one quarter of it was
+found to be cooked. "Let us tell another true story," they said. "I will
+tell one," said the master of the house. "Ploughing time had come, and
+when we had a mind to plough that field outside, it is the way we found
+it, ploughed, and harrowed, and sowed with wheat. When we had a mind to
+reap it, the wheat was found in the haggard, all in one thatched rick.
+We have been using it from that day to this, and it is no bigger and no
+less."
+
+Then they turned the pig, and another quarter was found to be ready. "It
+is my turn now," said the woman. "I have seven cows," she said, "and
+seven sheep. And the milk of the seven cows would satisfy the whole of
+the men of the world, if they were in the plain drinking it, and it is
+enough for all the people of the Land of Promise, and it is from the
+wool of the seven sheep all the clothes they wear are made." And at that
+story the third quarter of the pig was boiled.
+
+"If these stories are true," said Cormac to the man of the house, "you
+are Manannan, and this is Manannan's wife; for no one on the whole ridge
+of the world owns these treasures but himself. It was to the Land of
+Promise he went to look for that woman, and he got those seven cows with
+her."
+
+They said to Cormac that it was his turn now. So Cormac told them how
+his wife, and his son, and his daughter, had been brought away from him,
+and how he himself had followed them till he came to that place.
+
+And with that the whole pig was boiled, and they cut it up, and Cormac's
+share was put before him. "I never used a meal yet," said he, "having
+two persons only in my company." The man of the house began singing to
+him then, and put him asleep. And when he awoke, he saw fifty armed men,
+and his son, and his wife, and his daughter, along with them. There was
+great gladness and courage on him then, and ale and food were given out
+to them all. And there was a gold cup put in the hand of the master of
+the house, and Cormac was wondering at it, for the number of the shapes
+on it, and for the strangeness of the work. "There is a stranger thing
+yet about it," the man said; "let three lying words be spoken under it,
+and it will break into three, and then let three true words be spoken
+under it, and it will be as good as before." So he said three lying
+words under it, and it broke in three pieces. "It is best to speak truth
+now under it," he said, "and to mend it. And I give my word, Cormac," he
+said, "that until to-day neither your wife or your daughter has seen the
+face of a man since they were brought away from you out of Teamhair, and
+that your son has never seen the face of a woman." And with that the cup
+was whole again on the moment. "Bring away your wife and your children
+with you now," he said, "and this cup along with them, the way you will
+have it for judging between truth and untruth. And I will leave the
+branch with you for music and delight, but on the day of your death they
+will be taken from you again." "And I myself," he said, "am Manannan, son
+of Lir, King of the Land of Promise, and I brought you here by
+enchantments that you might be with me to-night in friendship.
+
+"And the Riders you saw thatching the house," he said, "are the men of
+art and poets, and all that look for a fortune in Ireland, putting
+together cattle and riches. For when they go out, all that they leave in
+their houses goes to nothing, and so they go on for ever.
+
+"And the man you saw kindling the fire," he said, "is a young lord that
+is more liberal than he can afford, and every one else is served while
+he is getting the feast ready, and every one else profiting by it.
+
+"And the well you saw is the Well of Knowledge, and the streams are the
+five streams through which all knowledge goes. And no one will have
+knowledge who does not drink a draught out of the well itself or out of
+the streams. And the people of many arts are those who drink from them
+all."
+
+And on the morning of the morrow, when Cormac rose up, he found himself
+on the green of Teamhair, and his wife, and his son, and his daughter,
+along with him, and he having his branch and his cup. And it was given
+the name of Cormac's Cup, and it used to judge between truth and
+falsehood among the Gael. But it was not left in Ireland after the night
+of Cormac's death, as Manannan had foretold him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. CLIODNA'S WAVE
+
+And it was in the time of the Fianna of Ireland that Ciabhan of the
+Curling Hair, the king of Ulster's son, went to Manannan's country.
+
+Ciabhan now was the most beautiful of the young men of the world at that
+time, and he was as far beyond all other kings' sons as the moon is
+beyond the stars. And Finn liked him well, but the rest of the Fianna
+got to be tired of him because there was not a woman of their women, wed
+or unwed, but gave him her love. And Finn had to send him away at the
+last, for he was in dread of the men of the Fianna because of the
+greatness of their jealousy.
+
+So Ciabhan went on till he came to the Strand of the Cairn, that is
+called now the Strand of the Strong Man, between Dun Sobairce and the
+sea. And there he saw a curragh, and it having a narrow stern of copper.
+And Ciabhan got into the curragh, and his people said: "Is it to leave
+Ireland you have a mind, Ciabhan?" "It is indeed," he said, "for in
+Ireland I get neither shelter or protection." He bade farewell to his
+people then, and he left them very sorrowful after him, for to part with
+him was like the parting of life from the body.
+
+And Ciabhan went on in the curragh, and great white shouting waves rose
+up about him, every one of them the size of a mountain; and the
+beautiful speckled salmon that are used to stop in the sand and the
+shingle rose up to the sides of the curragh, till great dread came on
+Ciabhan, and he said: "By my word, if it was on land I was I could make
+a better fight for myself"
+
+And he was in this danger till he saw a rider coming towards him on a
+dark grey horse having a golden bridle, and he would be under the sea
+for the length of nine waves, and he would rise with the tenth wave, and
+no wet on him at all. And he said: "What reward would you give to
+whoever would bring you out of this great danger?" "Is there anything in
+my hand worth offering you?" said Ciabhan. "There is," said the rider,
+"that you would give your service to whoever would give you his help."
+Ciabhan agreed to that, and he put his hand into the rider's hand.
+
+With that the rider drew him on to the horse, and the curragh came on
+beside them till they reached to the shore of Tir Tairngaire, the Land
+of Promise. They got off the horse there, and came to Loch Luchra, the
+Lake of the Dwarfs, and to Manannan's city, and a feast was after being
+made ready there, and comely serving-boys were going round with smooth
+horns, and playing on sweet-sounding harps till the whole house was
+filled with the music.
+
+Then there came in clowns, long-snouted, long-heeled, lean and bald and
+red, that used to be doing tricks in Manannan's house. And one of these
+tricks was, a man of them to take nine straight willow rods, and to
+throw them up to the rafters of the house, and to catch them again as
+they came down, and he standing on one leg, and having but one hand
+free. And they thought no one could do that trick but themselves, and
+they were used to ask strangers to do it, the way they could see them
+fail.
+
+So this night when one of them had done the trick, he came up to
+Ciabhan, that was beyond all the Men of Dea or the Sons of the Gael that
+were in the house, in shape and in walk and in name, and he put the nine
+rods in his hand. And Ciabhan stood up and he did the feat before them
+all, the same as if he had never learned to do any other thing.
+
+Now Gebann, that was a chief Druid in Manannan's country, had a
+daughter, Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that had never given her love to any
+man. But when she saw Ciabhan she gave him her love, and she agreed to
+go away with him on the morrow.
+
+And they went down to the landing-place and got into a curragh, and they
+went on till they came to Teite's Strand in the southern part of
+Ireland. It was from Teite Brec the Freckled the strand got its name,
+that went there one time for a wave game, and three times fifty young
+girls with her, and they were all drowned in that place.
+
+And as to Ciabhan, he came on shore, and went looking for deer, as was
+right, under the thick branches of the wood; and he left the young girl
+in the boat on the strand.
+
+But the people of Manannan's house came after them, having forty ships.
+And Iuchnu, that was in the curragh with Cliodna, did treachery, and he
+played music to her till she lay down in the boat and fell asleep. And
+then a great wave came up on the strand and swept her away.
+
+And the wave got its name from Cliodna of the Fair Hair, that will be
+long remembered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. HIS CALL TO CONNLA
+
+
+And it is likely it was Manannan sent his messenger for Connla of the
+Red Hair the time he went away out of Ireland, for it is to his country
+Connla was brought; and this is the way he got the call.
+
+It chanced one day he was with his father Conn, King of Teamhair, on the
+Hill of Uisnach, and he saw a woman having wonderful clothing coming
+towards him. "Where is it you come from?" he asked her. "I come," she
+said, "from Tir-nam-Beo, the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, where no
+death comes. We use feasts that are lasting," she said, "and we do every
+kind thing without quarrelling, and we are called the people of the
+Sidhe." "Who are you speaking to, boy?" said Conn to him then, for no
+one saw the strange woman but only Connla. "He is speaking to a high
+woman that death or old age will never come to," she said. "I am asking
+him to come to Magh Mell, the Pleasant Plain where the triumphant king
+is living, and there he will be a king for ever without sorrow or fret.
+Come with me, Connla of the Red Hair," she said, "of the fair freckled
+neck and of the ruddy cheek; come with me, and your body will not wither
+from its youth and its comeliness for ever."
+
+They could all hear the woman's words then, though they could not see
+her, and it is what Conn said to Coran his Druid: "Help me, Coran, you
+that sing spells of the great arts. There is an attack made on me that
+is beyond my wisdom and beyond my power, I never knew so strong an
+attack since the first day I was a king. There is an unseen figure
+fighting with me; she is using her strength against me to bring away my
+beautiful son; the call of a woman is bringing him away from the hands
+of the king."
+
+Then Coran, the Druid, began singing spells against the woman of the
+Sidhe, the way no one would hear her voice, and Connla could not see her
+any more. But when she was being driven away by the spells of the Druid,
+she threw an apple to Connla.
+
+And through the length of a month from that time, Connla used no other
+food nor drink but that apple, for he thought no other food or drink
+worth the using. And for all he ate of it, the apple grew no smaller,
+but was whole all the while. And there was great trouble on Connla on
+account of the woman he had seen.
+
+And at the end of a month Connla was at his father's side in Magh
+Archomnim, and he saw the same woman coming towards him, and it is what
+she said: "It is a high place indeed Connla has among dying people, and
+death before him. But the Ever-Living Living Ones," she said, "are
+asking you to take the sway over the people of Tethra, for they are
+looking at you every day in the gatherings of your country among your
+dear friends."
+
+When Conn, the king, heard her voice, he said to his people: "Call
+Coran, the Druid to me, for I hear the sound of the woman's voice
+again." But on that she said: "O Conn, fighter of a hundred, it is
+little love and little respect the wonderful tribes of Traig Mor, the
+Great Strand, have for Druids; and where its law comes, it scatters the
+spells on their lips."
+
+Then Conn looked to his son Connla to see what he would say, and Connla
+said: "My own people are dearer to me than any other thing, yet sorrow
+has taken hold of me because of this woman." Then the woman spoke to him
+again, and it is what she said: "Come now into my shining ship, if you
+will come to the Plain of Victory. There is another country it would not
+be worse for you to look for; though the bright sun is going down, we
+shall reach to that country before night. That is the country that
+delights the mind of every one that turns to me. There is no living race
+in it but women and girls only."
+
+And when the woman had ended her song, Connla made a leap from his
+people into the shining boat, and they saw him sailing away from them
+far off and as if in a mist, as far as their eyes could see. It is away
+across the sea they went, and they have never come back again, and only
+the gods know where was it they went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. TADG IN MANANNAN'S ISLANDS
+
+
+And another that went to the Land of the Ever-Living Ones, but that came
+back again, was Tadg, son of Cian, son of Olioll; and this is the way
+that happened.
+
+It was one time Tadg was going his next heir's round, into the west of
+Munster, and his two brothers, Airnelach and Eoghan, along with him. And
+Cathmann, son of Tabarn, that was king of the beautiful country of
+Fresen that lay to the south-east of the Great Plain, was searching the
+sea for what he could find just at that time, and nine of his ships with
+him. And they landed at Beire do Bhunadas, to the west of Munster, and
+the country had no stir in it, and so they slipped ashore, and no one
+took notice of them till all were surrounded, both men and cattle. And
+Tadg's wife Liban, daughter of Conchubar Abratrudh of the Red Brows, and
+his two brothers, and a great many of the people of Munster, were taken
+by the foreigners and brought away to the coasts of Fresen. And Cathmann
+took Liban to be his own wife, and he put hardship on Tadg's two
+brothers: Eoghan he put to work a common ferry across a channel of the
+coast, and Airnelach to cut firing and to keep up fires for all the
+people; and all the food they got was barley seed and muddy water.
+
+And as to Tadg himself, it was only by his courage and the use of his
+sword he made his escape, but there was great grief and discouragement
+on him, his wife and his brothers to have been brought away. But he had
+forty of his fighting men left that had each killed a man of the
+foreigners, and they had brought one in alive. And this man told them
+news of the country he came from. And when Tadg heard that, he made a
+plan in his own head, and he gave orders for a curragh to be built that
+would be fit for a long voyage. Very strong it was, and forty ox-hides
+on it of hard red leather, that was after being soaked in bark. And it
+was well fitted with masts, and oars, and pitch, and everything that was
+wanting. And they put every sort of meat, and drink, and of clothes in
+it, that would last them through the length of a year.
+
+When all was ready, and the curragh out in the tide, Tadg said to his
+people: "Let us set out now on the high sea, looking for our own people
+that are away from us this long time."
+
+They set out then over the stormy, heavy flood, till at last they saw no
+land before them or behind them, but only the hillsides of the great
+sea. And farther on again they heard the singing of a great flock of
+unknown birds; and pleasant white-bellied salmon were leaping about the
+curragh on every side, and seals, very big and dark, were coming after
+them, breaking through the shining wash of the oars; and great whales
+after them again, so that the young men liked to be looking at them, for
+they were not used to see the like before.
+
+They went on rowing through twenty days and twenty nights, and at the
+end of that time they got sight of a high land, having a smooth coast.
+And when they reached it they all landed, and they pulled up the curragh
+and lit their fires, and food was given out to them, and they were not
+long making an end of it. They made beds for themselves then on the
+beautiful green grass, and enjoyed their sleep till the rising of the
+sun on the morrow.
+
+Tadg rose up then and put on his arms, and went out, and thirty of his
+men along with him, to search the whole island.
+
+They went all through it, but they found no living thing on it, man or
+beast, but only flocks of sheep. And the size of the sheep was past all
+telling, as big as horses they were, and the whole island was filled
+with their wool. And there was one great flock beyond all the others,
+all of very big rams, and one of them was biggest of all, nine horns he
+had, and he charged on Tadg's chief men, attacking them and butting at
+them.
+
+There was vexation on them then, and they attacked him again, and there
+was a struggle between them. And at the first the ram broke through five
+of their shields. But Tadg took his spear that there was no escape from,
+and made a lucky cast at the ram and killed him. And they brought the
+ram to the curragh and made it ready for the young men to eat, and they
+stopped three nights on the island, and every night it was a sheep they
+had for their food. And they gathered a good share of the wool and put
+it in the curragh because of the wonder and the beauty of it. And they
+found the bones of very big men on the island, but whether they died of
+sickness or were killed by the rams they did not know.
+
+They left that island then and went forward till they found two strange
+islands where there were great flocks of wonderful birds, like
+blackbirds, and some of them the size of eagles or of cranes, and they
+red with green heads on them, and the eggs they had were blue and pure
+crimson. And some of the men began eating the eggs, and on the moment
+feathers began to grow out on them. But they went bathing after that,
+and the feathers dropped off them again as quick as they came.
+
+It was the foreigner they had with them gave them the course up to this
+time, for he had been on the same track before. But now they went on
+through the length of six weeks and never saw land, and he said then,
+"We are astray on the great ocean that has no boundaries." Then the wind
+with its sharp voice began to rise, and there was a noise like the
+tramping of feet in the sea, and it rose up into great mountains hard to
+climb, and there was great fear on Tadg's people, for they had never
+seen the like. But he began to stir them up and to rouse them, and he
+bade them to meet the sea like men. "Do bravery," he said, "young men of
+Munster, and fight for your lives against the waves that are rising up
+and coming at the sides of the curragh." Tadg took one side of the
+curragh then and his men took the other side, and he was able to pull it
+round against the whole twenty-nine of them, and to bale it out and keep
+it dry along with that. And after a while they got a fair wind and put
+up their sail, the way less water came into the curragh, and then the
+sea went down and lay flat and calm, and there were strange birds of
+many shapes singing around them in every part. They saw land before them
+then, with a good coast, and with that courage and gladness came on
+them.
+
+And when they came nearer to the land they found a beautiful inver, a
+river's mouth, with green hills about it, and the bottom of it sandy and
+as bright as silver, and red-speckled salmon in it, and pleasant woods
+with purple tree-tops edging the stream. "It is a beautiful country
+this is," said Tadg, "and it would be happy for him that would be always
+in it; and let you pull up the ship now," he said, "and dry it out."
+
+A score of them went forward then into the country, and a score stopped
+to mind the curragh. And for all the cold and discouragement and bad
+weather they had gone through, they felt no wish at all for food or for
+fire, but the sweet smell of the crimson branches in the place they were
+come to satisfied them. They went on through the wood, and after a while
+they came to an apple garden having red apples in it, and leafy
+oak-trees, and hazels yellow with nuts. "It is a wonder to me," said
+Tadg, "to find summer here, and it winter time in our own country."
+
+It was a delightful place they were in, but they went on into another
+wood, very sweet smelling, and round purple berries in it, every one of
+them bigger than a man's head, and beautiful shining birds eating the
+berries, strange birds they were, having white bodies and purple heads
+and golden beaks. And while they were eating the berries they were
+singing sweet music, that would have put sick men and wounded men into
+their sleep.
+
+Tadg and his men went farther on again till they came to a great smooth
+flowery plain with a dew of honey over it, and three steep hills on the
+plain, having a very strong dun on every one of them. And when they got
+to the nearest hill they found a white-bodied woman, the best of the
+women of the whole world, and it is what she said: "Your coming is
+welcome, Tadg, son of Cian, and there will be food and provision for you
+as you want it."
+
+"I am glad of that welcome," said Tadg; "and tell me now, woman of sweet
+words," he said, "what is that royal dun on the hill, having walls of
+white marble around it?" "That is the dun of the royal line of the kings
+of Ireland, from Heremon, son of Miled, to Conn of the Hundred Battles,
+that was the last to go into it." "What is the name of this country?"
+Tadg said then. "It is Inislocha, the Lake Island," she said, "and there
+are two kings over it, Rudrach and Dergcroche, sons of Bodb." And then
+she told Tadg the whole story of Ireland, to the time of the coming of
+the Sons of the Gael. "That is well," said Tadg then, "and you have good
+knowledge and learning. And tell me now," he said, "who is living in
+that middle dun that has the colour of gold?" "It is not myself will
+tell you that," she said, "but go on to it yourself and you will get
+knowledge of it." And with that she went from them into the dun of white
+marble.
+
+Tadg and his men went on then till they came to the middle dun, and
+there they found a queen of beautiful shape, and she wearing a golden
+dress. "Health to you, Tadg," she said. "I thank you for that," said
+Tadg. "It is a long time your coming on this journey was foretold," she
+said. "What is your name?" he asked then. "I am Cesair," she said, "the
+first that ever reached Ireland. But since I and the men that were with
+me came out of that dark, unquiet land, we are living for ever in this
+country."
+
+"Tell me, woman," said Tadg, "who is it lives in that dun having a wall
+of gold about it?" "It is not hard to tell that," she said, "every king,
+and every chief man, and every noble person that was in a high place of
+all those that had power in Ireland, it is in that dun beyond they are;
+Parthalon and Nemed, Firbolgs and Tuatha de Danaan." "It is good
+knowledge and learning you have," said Tadg. "Indeed I have good
+knowledge of the history of the world," she said, "and this island," she
+said, "is the fourth paradise of the world; and as to the others, they
+are Inis Daleb to the south, and Inis Ercandra to the north, and Adam's
+Paradise in the east of the world." "Who is there living in that dun
+with the silver walls?" said Tadg then. "I will not tell you that,
+although I have knowledge of it," said the woman; "but go to the
+beautiful hill where it is, and you will get knowledge of it."
+
+They went on then to the third hill, and on the top of the hill was a
+very beautiful resting-place, and two sweethearts there, a boy and a
+girl, comely and gentle. Smooth hair they had, shining like gold, and
+beautiful green clothes of the one sort, and any one would think them to
+have had the same father and mother. Gold chains they had around their
+necks, and bands of gold above those again. And Tadg spoke to them: "O
+bright, comely children," he said, "it is a pleasant place you have
+here." And they answered him back, and they were praising his courage
+and his strength and his wisdom, and they gave him their blessing.
+
+And it is how the young man was, he had a sweet-smelling apple, having
+the colour of gold, in his hand, and he would eat a third part of it,
+and with all he would eat, it would never be less. And that was the food
+that nourished the two of them, and neither age or sorrow could touch
+them when once they had tasted it.
+
+"Who are you yourself?" Tadg asked him then. "I am son to Conn of the
+Hundred Battles," he said. "Is it Connla you are?" said Tadg. "I am
+indeed," said the young man, "and it is this girl of many shapes that
+brought me here." And the girl said: "I have given him my love and my
+affection, and it is because of that I brought him to this place, the
+way we might be looking at one another for ever, and beyond that we have
+never gone."
+
+"That is a beautiful thing and a strange thing," said Tadg, "and a thing
+to wonder at. And who is there in that grand dun with the silver
+walls?" he said. "There is no one at all in it," said the girl. "What is
+the reason of that?" said Tadg. "It is for the kings that are to rule
+Ireland yet," she said; "and there will be a place in it for yourself,
+Tadg. And come now," she said, "till you see it."
+
+The lovers went on to the dun, and it is hardly the green grass was bent
+under their white feet. And Tadg and his people went along with them.
+
+They came then to the great wonderful house that was ready for the
+company of the kings; it is a pleasant house that was, and any one would
+like to be in it. Walls of white bronze it had, set with crystal and
+with carbuncles, that were shining through the night as well as through
+the day.
+
+Tadg looked out from the house then, and he saw to one side of him a
+great sheltering apple-tree, and blossoms and ripe fruit on it. "What is
+that apple tree beyond?" said Tadg. "It is the fruit of that tree is
+food for the host in this house," said the woman. "And it was an apple
+of that apple-tree brought Connla here to me; a good tree it is, with
+its white-blossomed branches, and its golden apples that would satisfy
+the whole house."
+
+And then Connla and the young girl left them, and they saw coming
+towards them a troop of beautiful women. And there was one among them
+was most beautiful of all, and when she was come to them she said: "A
+welcome to you, Tadg." "I thank you for that welcome," said Tadg; "and
+tell me," he said, "who are you yourself?" "I am Cliodna of the Fair
+Hair," she said, "daughter of Gebann, son of Treon, of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, a sweetheart of Ciabhan of the Curling Hair; and it is from me
+Cliodna's wave on the coast of Munster got its name; and I am a long
+time now in this island, and it is the apples of that tree you saw that
+we use for food." And Tadg was well pleased to be listening to her talk,
+but after a while he said: "It is best for us to go on now to look for
+our people." "We will be well pleased if you stop longer with us," said
+the woman.
+
+And while she was saying those words they saw three beautiful birds
+coming to them, one of them blue and his head crimson, and one was
+crimson and his head green, and the third was speckled and his head the
+colour of gold, and they lit on the great apple-tree, and every bird of
+them ate an apple, and they sang sweet music then, that would put sick
+men into their sleep.
+
+"Those birds will go with you," Cliodna said then; "they will give you
+guidance on your way, and they will make music for you, and there will
+be neither sorrow or sadness on you, by land or by sea, till you come to
+Ireland. And bring away this beautiful green cup with you," she said,
+"for there is power in it, and if you do but pour water into it, it will
+be turned to wine on the moment. And do not let it out of your hand,"
+she said, "but keep it with you; for at whatever time it will escape
+from you, your death will not be far away. And it is where you will meet
+your death, in the green valley at the side of the Boinn; and it is a
+wandering wild deer will give you a wound, and after that, it is
+strangers will put an end to you. And I myself will bury your body, and
+there will be a hill over it, and the name it will get is Croidhe Essu."
+
+They went out of the shining house then, and Cliodna of the Fair Hair
+went with them to the place they had left their ship, and she bade their
+comrades a kindly welcome; and she asked them how long had they been in
+that country. "It seems to us," they said, "we are not in it but one day
+only." "You are in it through the whole length of a year," said she,
+"and through all that time you used neither food nor drink. But however
+long you would stop here," she said, "cold or hunger would never come on
+you." "It would be a good thing to live this way always," said Tadg's
+people when they heard that. But he himself said: "It is best for us to
+go on and to look for our people. And we must leave this country,
+although it is displeasing to us to leave it."
+
+Then Cliodna and Tadg bade farewell to one another, and she gave her
+blessing to him and to his people. And they set out then over the ridges
+of the sea; and they were downhearted after leaving that country until
+the birds began to sing for them, and then their courage rose up, and
+they were glad and light-hearted.
+
+And when they looked back they could not see the island they had come
+from, because of a Druid mist that came on it and hid it from them.
+
+Then by the leading of the birds they came to the country of Fresen, and
+they were in a deep sleep through the whole voyage. And then they
+attacked the foreigners and got the better of them, and Tadg killed
+Cathmann, the king, after a hard fight; and Liban his wife made no
+delay, and came to meet her husband and her sweetheart, and it is glad
+she was to see him.
+
+And after they had rested a while they faced the sea again, and Tadg and
+his wife Liban, and his two brothers, and a great many other treasures
+along with them, and they came home to Ireland safely at the last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. LAEGAIRE IN THE HAPPY PLAIN
+
+
+And another that went to visit Magh Mell, the Happy Plain, was Laegaire,
+son of the King of Connacht, Crimthan Cass.
+
+He was out one day with the king, his father, near Loch na-n Ean, the
+Lake of Birds, and the men of Connacht with them, and they saw a man
+coming to them through the mist. Long golden-yellow hair he had, and it
+streaming after him, and at his belt a gold-hilted sword, and in his
+hand two five-barbed darts, a gold-rimmed shield on his back, a
+five-folded crimson cloak about his shoulders.
+
+"Give a welcome to the man that is coming towards you," said Laegaire,
+that had the best name of all the men of Connacht, to his people. And to
+the stranger he said: "A welcome to the champion we do not know."
+
+"I am thankful to you all," said he.
+
+"What is it you are come for, and where are you going?" said Laegaire
+then.
+
+"I am come to look for the help of fighting men," said the stranger.
+"And my name," he said, "is Fiachna, son of Betach, of the men of the
+Sidhe; and it is what ails me, my wife was taken from my pillow and
+brought away by Eochaid, son of Sal. And we fought together, and I
+killed him, and now she is gone to a brother's son of his, Goll, son of
+Dalbh, king of a people of Magh Mell. Seven battles I gave him, but they
+all went against me; and on this very day there is another to be fought,
+and I am come to ask help. And to every one that deserves it, I will
+give a good reward of gold and of silver for that help."
+
+And it is what he said:
+
+"The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the Two Mists; it is not
+far from this; it is a host of the men of the Sidhe full of courage are
+stirring up pools of blood upon it.
+
+"We have drawn red blood from the bodies of high nobles; many women are
+keening them with cries and with tears.
+
+"The men of the host in good order go out ahead of their beautiful king;
+they march among blue spears, white troops of fighters with curled hair.
+
+"They scatter the troops of their enemies, they destroy every country
+they make an attack on; they are beautiful in battle, a host with high
+looks, rushing, avenging.
+
+"It is no wonder they to have such strength: every one of them is the
+son of a king and a queen; manes of hair they have of the colour of
+gold.
+
+"Their bodies smooth and comely; their eyes blue and far-seeing; their
+teeth bright like crystal, within their thin red lips.
+
+"White shields they have in their hands, with patterns on them of white
+silver; blue shining swords, red horns set with gold.
+
+"They are good at killing men in battle; good at song-making, good at
+chess-playing.
+
+"The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the Two Mists; the men of
+the Sidhe are stirring up pools of blood on it; it is not far from this
+place."
+
+"It would be a shameful thing not to give our help to this man," said
+Laegaire.
+
+Fiachna, son of Betach, went down into the lake then, for it was out of
+it he had come, and Laegaire went down into it after him, and fifty
+fighting men along with him.
+
+They saw a strong place before them then, and a company of armed men,
+and Goll, son of Dalbh, at the head of them.
+
+"That is well," said Laegaire, "I and my fifty men will go out against
+this troop." "I will answer you," said Goll, son of Dalbh.
+
+The two fifties attacked one another then, and Goll fell, but Laegaire
+and his fifty escaped with their lives and made a great slaughter of
+their enemies, that not one of them made his escape.
+
+"Where is the woman now?" said Laegaire. "She is within the dun of Magh
+Mell, and a troop of armed men keeping guard about it," said Fiachna.
+"Let you stop here, and I and my fifty will go there," said Laegaire.
+
+So he and his men went on to the dun, and Laegaire called out to the men
+that were about it: "Your king has got his death, your chief men have
+fallen, let the woman come out, and I will give you your own lives." The
+men agreed to that, and they brought the woman out. And when she came
+out she made this complaint:
+
+"It is a sorrowful day that swords are reddened for the sake of the dear
+dead body of Goll, son of Dalbh. It was he that loved me, it was himself
+I loved, it is little Laegaire Liban cares for that.
+
+"Weapons were hacked and were split by Goll; it is to Fiachna, son of
+Betach, I must go; it is Goll son of Dalbh, I loved."
+
+And that complaint got the name of "The Lament of the Daughter of
+Eochaid the Dumb."
+
+Laegaire went back with her then till he put her hand in Fiachna's hand.
+And that night Fiachna's daughter, Deorgreine, a Tear of the Sun, was
+given to Laegaire as his wife, and fifty other women were given to his
+fifty fighting men, and they stopped with them there to the end of a
+year.
+
+And at the end of that time, Laegaire said: "Let us go and ask news of
+our own country." "If you have a mind to go," said Fiachna, "bring
+horses with you; but whatever happens," he said, "do not get off from
+them."
+
+So they set out then; and when they got back to Ireland, they found a
+great gathering of the whole of the men of Connacht that were keening
+them.
+
+And when the men of Connacht saw them coming they rose up to meet them,
+and to bid them welcome. But Laegaire called out: "Do not come to us,
+for it is to bid you farewell we are here." "Do not go from us again,"
+said Crimthan, his father, "and I will give you the sway over the three
+Connachts, their silver and their gold, their horses and their bridles,
+and their beautiful women, if you will not go from us."
+
+And it is what Laegaire said: "In the place we are gone to, the armies
+move from kingdom to kingdom, they listen to the sweet-sounding music of
+the Sidhe, they drink from shining cups, we talk with those we love, it
+is beer that falls instead of rain.
+
+"We have brought from the dun of the Pleasant Plain thirty cauldrons,
+thirty drinking horns; we have brought the complaint that was sung by
+the Sea, by the daughter of Eochaid the Dumb.
+
+"There is a wife for every man of the fifty; my own wife to me is the
+Tear of the Sun; I am made master of a blue sword; I would not give for
+all your whole kingdom one night of the nights of the Sidhe."
+
+With that Laegaire turned from them, and went back to the kingdom. And
+he was made king there along with Fiachna, son of Betach, and his
+daughter, and he did not come out of it yet.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIVE: THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR
+
+
+Now at the time when the Tuatha de Danaan chose a king for themselves
+after the battle of Tailltin, and Lir heard the kingship was given to
+Bodb Dearg, it did not please him, and he left the gathering without
+leave and with no word to any one; for he thought it was he himself had
+a right to be made king. But if he went away himself, Bodb was given the
+kingship none the less, for not one of the five begrudged it to him but
+only Lir, And it is what they determined, to follow after Lir, and to
+burn down his house, and to attack himself with spear and sword, on
+account of his not giving obedience to the king they had chosen. "We
+will not do that," said Bodb Dearg, "for that man would defend any place
+he is in; and besides that," he said, "I am none the less king over the
+Tuatha de Danaan, although he does not submit to me."
+
+All went on like that for a good while, but at last a great misfortune
+came on Lir, for his wife died from him after a sickness of three
+nights. And that came very hard on Lir, and there was heaviness on his
+mind after her. And there was great talk of the death of that woman in
+her own time.
+
+And the news of it was told all through Ireland, and it came to the
+house of Bodb, and the best of the Men of Dea were with him at that
+time. And Bodb said: "If Lir had a mind for it," he said, "my help and
+my friendship would be good for him now, since his wife is not living to
+him. For I have here with me the three young girls of the best shape,
+and the best appearance, and the best name in all Ireland, Aobh, Aoife,
+and Ailbhe, the three daughters of Oilell of Aran, my own three
+nurselings." The Men of Dea said then it was a good thought he had, and
+that what he said was true.
+
+Messages and messengers were sent then from Bodb Dearg to the place Lir
+was, to say that if he had a mind to join with the Son of the Dagda and
+to acknowledge his lordship, he would give him a foster-child of his
+foster-children. And Lir thought well of the offer, and he set out on
+the morrow with fifty chariots from Sidhe Fionnachaidh; and he went by
+every short way till he came to Bodb's dwelling-place at Loch Dearg, and
+there was a welcome before him there, and all the people were merry and
+pleasant before him, and he and his people got good attendance that
+night.
+
+And the three daughters of Oilell of Aran were sitting on the one seat
+with Bodb Dearg's wife, the queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was
+their foster-mother. And Bodb said: "You may have your choice of the
+three young girls, Lir." "I cannot say," said Lir, "which one of them is
+my choice, but whichever of them is the eldest, she is the noblest, and
+it is best for me to take her." "If that is so," said Bodb, "it is Aobh
+is the eldest, and she will be given to you, if it is your wish." "It is
+my wish," he said. And he took Aobh for his wife that night, and he
+stopped there for a fortnight, and then he brought her away to his own
+house, till he would make a great wedding-feast.
+
+And in the course of time Aobh brought forth two children, a daughter
+and a son, Fionnuala and Aodh their names were. And after a while she
+was brought to bed again, and this time she gave birth to two sons, and
+they called them Fiachra and Conn. And she herself died at their birth.
+And that weighed very heavy on Lir, and only for the way his mind was
+set on his four children he would have gone near to die of grief.
+
+The news came to Bodb Dearg's place, and all the people gave out three
+loud, high cries, keening their nursling. And after they had keened her
+it is what Bodb Dearg said: "It is a fret to us our daughter to have
+died, for her own sake and for the sake of the good man we gave her to,
+for we are thankful for his friendship and his faithfulness. However,"
+he said, "our friendship with one another will not be broken, for I will
+give him for a wife her sister Aoife."
+
+When Lir heard that, he came for the girl and married her, and brought
+her home to his house. And there was honour and affection with Aoife for
+her sister's children; and indeed no person at all could see those four
+children without giving them the heart's love.
+
+And Bodb Dearg used often to be going to Lir's house for the sake of
+those children; and he used to bring them to his own place for a good
+length of time, and then he would let them go back to their own place
+again. And the Men of Dea were at that time using the Feast of Age in
+every hill of the Sidhe in turn; and when they came to Lir's hill those
+four children were their joy and delight, for the beauty of their
+appearance; and it is where they used to sleep, in beds in sight of
+their father Lir. And he used to rise up at the break of every morning,
+and to lie down among his children.
+
+But it is what came of all this, that a fire of jealousy was kindled in
+Aoife, and she got to have a dislike and a hatred of her sister's
+children.
+
+Then she let on to have a sickness, that lasted through nearly the
+length of a year. And the end of that time she did a deed of jealousy
+and cruel treachery against the children of Lir.
+
+And one day she got her chariot yoked, and she took the four children
+in it, and they went forward towards the house of Bodb Dearg; but
+Fionnuala had no mind to go with her, for she knew by her she had some
+plan for their death or their destruction, and she had seen in a dream
+that there was treachery against them in Aoife's mind. But all the same
+she was not able to escape from what was before her.
+
+And when they were on their way Aoife said to her people: "Let you kill
+now," she said, "the four children of Lir, for whose sake their father
+has given up my love, and I will give you your own choice of a reward
+out of all the good things of the world." "We will not do that indeed,"
+said they; "and it is a bad deed you have thought of, and harm will come
+to you out of it."
+
+And when they would not do as she bade them, she took out a sword
+herself to put an end to the children with; but she being a woman and
+with no good courage, and with no great strength in her mind, she was
+not able to do it.
+
+They went on then west to Loch Dairbhreach, the Lake of the Oaks, and
+the horses were stopped there. And Aoife bade the children of Lir to go
+out and bathe in the lake, and they did as she bade them. And as soon as
+Aoife saw them out in the lake she struck them with a Druid rod, and put
+on them the shape of four swans, white and beautiful. And it is what she
+said: "Out with you, children of the king, your luck is taken away from
+you for ever; it is sorrowful the story will be to your friends; it is
+with flocks of birds your cries will be heard for ever."
+
+And Fionnuala said: "Witch, we know now what your name is, you have
+struck us down with no hope of relief; but although you put us from wave
+to wave, there are times when we will touch the land. We shall get help
+when we are seen; help, and all that is best for us; even though we
+have to sleep upon the lake, it is our minds will be going abroad
+early."
+
+And then the four children of Lir turned towards Aoife, and it is what
+Fionnuala said: "It is a bad deed you have done, Aoife, and it is a bad
+fulfilling of friendship, you to destroy us without cause; and vengeance
+for it will come upon you, and you will fall in satisfaction for it, for
+your power for our destruction is not greater than the power of our
+friends to avenge it on you; and put some bounds now," she said, "to the
+time this enchantment is to stop on us." "I will do that," said Aoife,
+"and it is worse for you, you to have asked it of me. And the bounds I
+set to your time are this, till the Woman from the South and the Man
+from the North will come together. And since you ask to hear it of me,"
+she said, "no friends and no power that you have will be able to bring
+you out of these shapes you are in through the length of your lives,
+until you have been three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach, and three
+hundred years on Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban, and three
+hundred years at Irrus Domnann and Inis Gluaire; and these are to be
+your journeys from this out," she said.
+
+But then repentance came on Aoife, and she said: "Since there is no
+other help for me to give you now, you may keep your own speech; and you
+will be singing sweet music of the Sidhe, that would put the men of the
+earth to sleep, and there will be no music in the world equal to it; and
+your own sense and your own nobility will stay with you, the way it will
+not weigh so heavy on you to be in the shape of birds. And go away out
+of my sight now, children of Lir," she said, "with your white faces,
+with your stammering Irish. It is a great curse on tender lads, they to
+be driven out on the rough wind. Nine hundred years to be on the water,
+it is a long time for any one to be in pain; it is I put this on you
+through treachery, it is best for you to do as I tell you now.
+
+"Lir, that got victory with so many a good cast, his heart is a kernel
+of death in him now; the groaning of the great hero is a sickness to me,
+though it is I that have well earned his anger."
+
+And then the horses were caught for Aoife, and the chariot yoked for
+her, and she went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a
+welcome before her from the chief people of the place. And the son of
+the Dagda asked her why she did not bring the children of Lir with her.
+"I will tell you that," she said. "It is because Lir has no liking for
+you, and he will not trust you with his children, for fear you might
+keep them from him altogether."
+
+"I wonder at that," said Bodb Dearg, "for those children are dearer to
+me than my own children." And he thought in his own mind it was deceit
+the woman was doing on him, and it is what he did, he sent messengers to
+the north to Sidhe Fionnachaidh. And Lir asked them what did they come
+for. "On the head of your children," said they. "Are they not gone to
+you along with Aoife?" he said. "They are not," said they; "and Aoife
+said it was yourself would not let them come."
+
+It is downhearted and sorrowful Lir was at that news, for he understood
+well it was Aoife had destroyed or made an end of his children. And
+early in the morning of the morrow his horses were caught, and he set
+out on the road to the south-west. And when he was as far as the shore
+of Loch Dairbhreach, the four children saw the horses coming towards
+them, and it is what Fionnuala said: "A welcome to the troop of horses I
+see coming near to the lake; the people they are bringing are strong,
+there is sadness on them; it is us they are following, it is for us they
+are looking; let us move over to the shore, Aodh, Fiachra, and comely
+Conn. Those that are coming can be no others in the world but only Lir
+and his household."
+
+Then Lir came to the edge of the lake, and he took notice of the swans
+having the voice of living people, and he asked them why was it they had
+that voice.
+
+"I will tell you that, Lir," said Fionnuala. "We are your own four
+children, that are after being destroyed by your wife, and by the sister
+of our own mother, through the dint of her jealousy." "Is there any way
+to put you into your own shapes again?" said Lir. "There is no way,"
+said Fionnuala, "for all the men of the world could not help us till we
+have gone through our time, and that will not be," she said, "till the
+end of nine hundred years."
+
+When Lir and his people heard that, they gave out three great heavy
+shouts of grief and sorrow and crying.
+
+"Is there a mind with you," said Lir, "to come to us on the land, since
+you have your own sense and your memory yet?" "We have not the power,"
+said Fionnuala, "to live with any person at all from this time; but we
+have our own language, the Irish, and we have the power to sing sweet
+music, and it is enough to satisfy the whole race of men to be listening
+to that music. And let you stop here to-night," she said, "and we will
+be making music for you."
+
+So Lir and his people stopped there listening to the music of the swans,
+and they slept there quietly that night. And Lir rose up early on the
+morning of the morrow and he made this complaint:--
+
+"It is time to go out from this place. I do not sleep though I am in my
+lying down. To be parted from my dear children, it is that is tormenting
+my heart.
+
+"It is a bad net I put over you, bringing Aoife, daughter of Oilell of
+Aran, to the house. I would never have followed that advice if I had
+known what it would bring upon me.
+
+"O Fionnuala, and comely Conn, O Aodh, O Fiachra of the beautiful arms;
+it is not ready I am to go away from you, from the border of the harbour
+where you are."
+
+Then Lir went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome
+before him there; and he got a reproach from Bodb Dearg for not bringing
+his children along with him. "My grief!" said Lir. "It is not I that
+would not bring my children along with me; it was Aoife there beyond,
+your own foster-child and the sister of their mother, that put them in
+the shape of four white swans on Loch Dairbhreach, in the sight of the
+whole of the men of Ireland; but they have their sense with them yet,
+and their reason, and their voice, and their Irish."
+
+Bodb Dearg gave a great start when he heard that, and he knew what Lir
+said was true, and he gave a very sharp reproach to Aoife, and he said:
+"This treachery will be worse for yourself in the end, Aoife, than to
+the children of Lir. And what shape would you yourself think worst of
+being in?" he said.
+
+"I would think worst of being a witch of the air," she said. "It is into
+that shape I will put you now," said Bodb. And with that he struck her
+with a Druid wand, and she was turned into a witch of the air there and
+then, and she went away on the wind in that shape, and she is in it yet,
+and will be in it to the end of life and time.
+
+As to Bodb Dearg and the Tuatha de Danaan they came to the shore of Loch
+Dairbhreach, and they made their camp there to be listening to the music
+of the swans.
+
+And the Sons of the Gael used to be coming no less than the Men of Dea
+to hear them from every part of Ireland, for there never was any music
+or any delight heard in Ireland to compare with that music of the swans.
+And they used to be telling stories, and to be talking with the men of
+Ireland every day, and with their teachers and their fellow-pupils and
+their friends. And every night they used to sing very sweet music of the
+Sidhe; and every one that heard that music would sleep sound and quiet
+whatever trouble or long sickness might be on him; for every one that
+heard the music of the birds, it is happy and contented he would be
+after it.
+
+These two gatherings now of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Sons of the
+Gael stopped there around Loch Dairbhreach through the length of three
+hundred years. And it is then Fionnuala said to her brothers: "Do you
+know," she said, "we have spent all we have to spend of our time here,
+but this one night only."
+
+And there was great sorrow on the sons of Lir when they heard that, for
+they thought it the same as to be living people again, to be talking
+with their friends and their companions on Loch Dairbhreach, in
+comparison with going on the cold, fretful sea of the Maoil in the
+north.
+
+And they came early on the morrow to speak with their father and with
+their foster-father, and they bade them farewell, and Fionnuala made
+this complaint:--
+
+"Farewell to you, Bodb Dearg, the man with whom all knowledge is in
+pledge. And farewell to our father along with you, Lir of the Hill of
+the White Field.
+
+"The time is come, as I think, for us to part from you, O pleasant
+company; my grief it is not on a visit we are going to you.
+
+"From this day out, O friends of our heart, our comrades, it is on the
+tormented course of the Maoil we will be, without the voice of any
+person near us.
+
+"Three hundred years there, and three hundred years in the bay of the
+men of Domnann, it is a pity for the four comely children of Lir, the
+salt waves of the sea to be their covering by night.
+
+"O three brothers, with the ruddy faces gone from you, let them all
+leave the lake now, the great troop that loved us, it is sorrowful our
+parting is."
+
+After that complaint they took to flight, lightly, airily, till they
+came to Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban. And that was a grief
+to the men of Ireland, and they gave out an order no swan was to be
+killed from that out, whatever chance there might be of killing one, all
+through Ireland.
+
+It was a bad dwelling-place for the children of Lir they to be on Sruth
+na Maoile. When they saw the wide coast about them, they were filled
+with cold and with sorrow, and they thought nothing of all they had gone
+through before, in comparison to what they were going through on that
+sea.
+
+Now one night while they were there a great storm came on them, and it
+is what Fionnuala said: "My dear brothers," she said, "it is a pity for
+us not to be making ready for this night, for it is certain the storm
+will separate us from one another. And let us," she said, "settle on
+some place where we can meet afterwards, if we are driven from one
+another in the night."
+
+"Let us settle," said the others, "to meet one another at Carraig na
+Ron, the Rock of the Seals, for we all have knowledge of it."
+
+And when midnight came, the wind came on them with it, and the noise of
+the waves increased, and the lightning was flashing, and a rough storm
+came sweeping down, the way the children of Lir were scattered over the
+great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of
+them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great
+quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and
+when she took notice that her brothers were wanting she was lamenting
+after them greatly, and she made this complaint:--
+
+"It is a pity for me to be alive in the state I am; it is frozen to my
+sides my wings are; it is little that the wind has not broken my heart
+in my body, with the loss of Aodh.
+
+"To be three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach without going into my own
+shape, it is worse to me the time I am on Sruth na Maoile.
+
+"The three I loved, Och! the three I loved, that slept under the shelter
+of my feathers; till the dead come back to the living I will see them no
+more for ever.
+
+"It is a pity I to stay after Fiachra, and after Aodh, and after comely
+Conn, and with no account of them; my grief I to be here to face every
+hardship this night."
+
+She stopped all night there upon the Rock of the Seals until the rising
+of the sun, looking out over the sea on every side till at last she saw
+Conn coming to her, his feathers wet through and his head hanging, and
+her heart gave him a great welcome; and then Fiachra came wet and
+perished and worn out, and he could not say a word they could understand
+with the dint of the cold and the hardship he had gone through. And
+Fionnuala put him under her wings, and she said: "We would be well off
+now if Aodh would but come to us."
+
+It was not long after that, they saw Aodh coming, his head dry and his
+feathers beautiful, and Fionnuala gave him a great welcome, and she put
+him in under the feathers of her breast, and Fiachra under her right
+wing and Conn under her left wing, the way she could put her feathers
+over them all. "And Och! my brothers," she said, "this was a bad night
+to us, and it is many of its like are before us from this out."
+
+They stayed there a long time after that, suffering cold and misery on
+the Maoil, till at last a night came on them they had never known the
+like of before, for frost and snow and wind and cold. And they were
+crying and lamenting the hardship of their life, and the cold of the
+night and the greatness of the snow and the hardness of the wind. And
+after they had suffered cold to the end of a year, a worse night again
+came on them, in the middle of winter. And they were on Carraig na Ron,
+and the water froze about them, and as they rested on the rock, their
+feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they
+were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get
+away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the
+tops of their wings on the rock after them.
+
+"My grief, children of Lir," said Fionnuala, "it is bad our state is
+now, for we cannot bear the salt water to touch us, and there are bonds
+on us not to leave it; and if the salt water goes into our sores," she
+said, "we will get our death." And she made this complaint:--
+
+"It is keening we are to-night; without feathers to cover our bodies; it
+is cold the rough, uneven rocks are under our bare feet.
+
+"It is bad our stepmother was to us the time she played enchantments on
+us, sending us out like swans upon the sea.
+
+"Our washing place is on the ridge of the bay, in the foam of flying
+manes of the sea; our share of the ale feast is the salt water of the
+blue tide.
+
+"One daughter and three sons; it is in the clefts of the rocks we are;
+it is on the hard rocks we are, it is a pity the way we are."
+
+However, they came on to the course of the Maoil again, and the salt
+water was sharp and rough and bitter to them, but if it was itself, they
+were not able to avoid it or to get shelter from it. And they were there
+by the shore under that hardship till such time as their feathers grew
+again, and their wings, and till their sores were entirely healed. And
+then they used to go every day to the shore of Ireland or of Alban, but
+they had to come back to Sruth na Maoile every night.
+
+Now they came one day to the mouth of the Banna, to the north of
+Ireland, and they saw a troop of riders, beautiful, of the one colour,
+with well-trained pure white horses under them, and they travelling the
+road straight from the south-west.
+
+"Do you know who those riders are, sons of Lir?" said Fionnuala.
+
+"We do not," they said; "but it is likely they might be some troop of
+the Sons of the Gael, or of the Tuatha de Danaan."
+
+They moved over closer to the shore then, that they might know who they
+were, and when the riders saw them they came to meet them until they
+were able to hold talk together.
+
+And the chief men among them were two sons of Bodb Dearg, Aodh
+Aithfhiosach, of the quick wits, and Fergus Fithchiollach, of the chess,
+and a third part of the Riders of the Sidhe along with them, and it was
+for the swans they had been looking for a long while before that, and
+when they came together they wished one another a kind and loving
+welcome.
+
+And the children of Lir asked for news of all the Men of Dea, and above
+all of Lir, and Bodb Dearg and their people.
+
+"They are well, and they are in the one place together," said they, "in
+your father's house at Sidhe Fionnachaidh, using the Feast of Age
+pleasantly and happily, and with no uneasiness on them, only for being
+without yourselves, and without knowledge of what happened you from the
+day you left Loch Dairbhreach."
+
+"That has not been the way with us," said Fionnuala, "for we have gone
+through great hardship and uneasiness and misery on the tides of the sea
+until this day."
+
+And she made this complaint:--
+
+"There is delight to-night with the household of Lir! Plenty of ale with
+them and of wine, although it is in a cold dwelling-place this night are
+the four children of the king.
+
+"It is without a spot our bedclothes are, our bodies covered over with
+curved feathers; but it is often we were dressed in purple, and we
+drinking pleasant mead.
+
+"It is what our food is and our drink, the white sand and the bitter
+water of the sea; it is often we drank mead of hazel-nuts from round
+four-lipped drinking cups.
+
+"It is what our beds are, bare rocks out of the power of the waves; it
+is often there used to be spread out for us beds of the breast-feathers
+of birds.
+
+"Though it is our work now to be swimming through the frost and through
+the noise of the waves, it is often a company of the sons of kings were
+riding after us to the Hill of Bodb.
+
+"It is what wasted my strength, to be going and coming over the current
+of the Maoil the way I never was used to, and never to be in the
+sunshine on the soft grass.
+
+"Fiachra's bed and Conn's bed is to come under the cover of my wings on
+the sea. Aodh has his place under the feathers of my breast, the four of
+us side by side.
+
+"The teaching of Manannan without deceit, the talk of Bodb Dearg on the
+pleasant ridge; the voice of Angus, his sweet kisses; it is by their
+side I used to be without grief."
+
+After that the riders went on to Lir's house, and they told the chief
+men of the Tuatha de Danaan all the birds had gone through, and the
+state they were in. "We have no power over them," the chief men said,
+"but we are glad they are living yet, for they will get help in the end
+of time."
+
+As to the children of Lir, they went back towards their old place in the
+Maoil, and they stopped there till the time they had to spend in it was
+spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to leave this
+place. And it is to Irrus Domnann we must go now," she said, "after our
+three hundred years here. And indeed there will be no rest for us there,
+or any standing ground, or any shelter from the storms. But since it is
+time for us to go, let us set out on the cold wind, the way we will not
+go astray."
+
+So they set out in that way, and left Sruth na Maoile behind them, and
+went to the point of Irrus Domnann, and there they stopped, and it is a
+life of misery and a cold life they led there. And one time the sea
+froze about them that they could not move at all, and the brothers were
+lamenting, and Fionnuala was comforting them, for she knew there would
+help come to them in the end.
+
+And they stayed at Irrus Domnann till the time they had to spend there
+was spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to go back
+to Sidhe Fionnachaidh, where our father is with his household and with
+all our own people."
+
+"It pleases us well to hear that," they said.
+
+So they set out flying through the air lightly till they came to Sidhe
+Fionnachaidh; and it is how they found the place, empty before them, and
+nothing in it but green hillocks and thickets of nettles, without a
+house, without a fire, without a hearthstone. And the four pressed close
+to one another then, and they gave out three sorrowful cries, and
+Fionnuala made this complaint:--
+
+"It is a wonder to me this place is, and it without a house, without a
+dwelling-place. To see it the way it is now, Ochone! it is bitterness to
+my heart.
+
+"Without dogs, without hounds for hunting, without women, without great
+kings; we never knew it to be like this when our father was in it.
+
+"Without horns, without cups, without drinking in the lighted house;
+without young men, without riders; the way it is to-night is a
+foretelling of sorrow.
+
+"The people of the place to be as they are now, Ochone! it is grief to
+my heart! It is plain to my mind to-night the lord of the house is not
+living.
+
+"Och, house where we used to see music and playing and the gathering of
+people! I think it a great change to see it lonely the way it is
+to-night.
+
+"The greatness of the hardships we have gone through going from one wave
+to another of the sea, we never heard of the like of them coming on any
+other person.
+
+"It is seldom this place had its part with grass and bushes; the man is
+not living that would know us, it would be a wonder to him to see us
+here."
+
+However, the children of Lir stopped that night in their father's place
+and their grandfather's, where they had been reared, and they were
+singing very sweet music of the Sidhe. And they rose up early on the
+morning of the morrow and went to Inis Gluaire, and all the birds of the
+country gathered near them on Loch na-n Ean, the Lake of the Birds. And
+they used to go out to feed every day to the far parts of the country,
+to Inis Geadh and to Accuill, the place Donn, son of Miled, and his
+people that were drowned were buried, and to all the western islands of
+Connacht, and they used to go back to Inis Gluaire every night.
+
+It was about that time it happened them to meet with a young man of good
+race, and his name was Aibric; and he often took notice of the birds,
+and their singing was sweet to him and he loved them greatly, and they
+loved him. And it is this young man that told the whole story of all
+that had happened them, and put it in order.
+
+And the story he told of what happened them in the end is this.
+
+It was after the faith of Christ and blessed Patrick came into Ireland,
+that Saint Mochaomhog came to Inis Gluaire. And the first night he came
+to the island, the children of Lir heard the voice of his bell, ringing
+near them. And the brothers started up with fright when they heard it
+"We do not know," they said, "what is that weak, unpleasing voice we
+hear."
+
+"That is the voice of the bell of Mochaomhog," said Fionnuala; "and it
+is through that bell," she said, "you will be set free from pain and
+from misery."
+
+They listened to that music of the bell till the matins were done, and
+then they began to sing the low, sweet music of the Sidhe.
+
+And Mochaomhog was listening to them, and he prayed to God to show him
+who was singing that music, and it was showed to him that the children
+of Lir were singing it. And on the morning of the morrow he went forward
+to the Lake of the Birds, and he saw the swans before him on the lake,
+and he went down to them at the brink of the shore. "Are you the
+children of Lir?" he said.
+
+"We are indeed," said they.
+
+"I give thanks to God for that," said he, "for it is for your sakes I am
+come to this island beyond any other island, and let you come to land
+now," he said, "and give your trust to me, that you may do good deeds
+and part from your sins."
+
+They came to the land after that, and they put trust in Mochaomhog, and
+he brought them to his own dwelling-place, and they used to be hearing
+Mass with him. And he got a good smith and bade him make chains of
+bright silver for them, and he put a chain between Aodh and Fionnuala,
+and a chain between Conn and Fiachra. And the four of them were raising
+his heart and gladdening his mind, and no danger and no distress that
+was on the swans before put any trouble on them now.
+
+Now the king of Connacht at that time was Lairgnen, son of Colman, son
+of Cobthach, and Deoch, daughter of Finghin, was his wife. And that was
+the coming together of the Man from the North and the Woman from the
+South, that Aoife had spoken of.
+
+And the woman heard talk of the birds, and a great desire came on her to
+get them, and she bade Lairgnen to bring them to her, and he said he
+would ask them of Mochaomhog.
+
+And she gave her word she would not stop another night with him unless
+he would bring them to her. And she set out from the house there and
+then. And Lairgnen sent messengers after her to bring her back, and they
+did not overtake her till she was at Cill Dun. She went back home with
+them then, and Lairgnen sent messengers to ask the birds of Mochaomhog,
+and he did not get them.
+
+There was great anger on Lairgnen then, and he went himself to the place
+Mochaomhog was, and he asked was it true he had refused him the birds.
+"It is true indeed," said he. At that Lairgnen rose up, and he took hold
+of the swans, and pulled them off the altar, two birds in each hand, to
+bring them away to Deoch. But no sooner had he laid his hand on them
+than their bird skins fell off, and what was in their place was three
+lean, withered old men and a thin withered old woman, without blood or
+flesh.
+
+And Lairgnen gave a great start at that, and he went out from the
+place. It is then Fionnuala said to Mochaomhog: "Come and baptize us
+now, for it is short till our death comes; and it is certain you do not
+think worse of parting with us than we do of parting with you. And make
+our grave afterwards," she said, "and lay Conn at my right side and
+Fiachra on my left side, and Aodh before my face, between my two arms.
+And pray to the God of Heaven," she said, "that you may be able to
+baptize us."
+
+The children of Lir were baptized then, and they died and were buried as
+Fionnuala had desired; Fiachra and Conn one at each side of her, and
+Aodh before her face. And a stone was put over them, and their names
+were written in Ogham, and they were keened there, and heaven was gained
+for their souls.
+
+And that is the fate of the children of Lir so far.
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO: THE FIANNA.
+
+BOOK ONE: FINN, SON OF CUMHAL.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE COMING OF FINN
+
+
+At the time Finn was born his father Cumhal, of the sons of Baiscne,
+Head of the Fianna of Ireland, had been killed in battle by the sons of
+Morna that were fighting with him for the leadership. And his mother,
+that was beautiful long-haired Muirne, daughter of Tadg, son of Nuada of
+the Tuatha de Danaan and of Ethlinn, mother of Lugh of the Long Hand,
+did not dare to keep him with her; and two women, Bodhmall, the woman
+Druid, and Liath Luachra, came and brought him away to care him.
+
+It was to the woods of Slieve Bladhma they brought him, and they nursed
+him secretly, because of his father's enemies, the sons of Morna, and
+they kept him there a long time.
+
+And Muirne, his mother, took another husband that was king of Carraighe;
+but at the end of six years she came to see Finn, going through every
+lonely place till she came to the wood, and there she found the little
+hunting cabin, and the boy asleep in it, and she lifted him up in her
+arms and kissed him, and she sang a little sleepy song to him; and then
+she said farewell to the women, and she went away again.
+
+And the two women went on caring him till he came to sensible years; and
+one day when he went out he saw a wild duck on the lake with her clutch,
+and he made a cast at her that cut the wings off her that she could not
+fly, and he brought her back to the cabin, and that was his first hunt.
+
+And they gave him good training in running and leaping and swimming. One
+of them would run round a tree, and she having a thorn switch, and Finn
+after her with another switch, and each one trying to hit at the other;
+and they would leave him in a field, and hares along with him, and would
+bid him not to let the hares quit the field, but to keep before them
+whichever way they would go; and to teach him swimming they would throw
+him into the water and let him make his way out.
+
+But after a while he went away with a troop of poets, to hide from the
+sons of Morna, and they hid him in the mountain of Crotta Cliach; but
+there was a robber in Leinster at that time, Fiacuil, son of Codhna, and
+he came where the poets were in Fidh Gaible and killed them all. But he
+spared the child and brought him to his own house, that was in a cold
+marsh. But the two women, Bodhmall and Liath, came looking for him after
+a while, and Fiacuil gave him up to them, and they brought him back to
+the same place he was before.
+
+He grew up there, straight and strong and fair-haired and beautiful. And
+one day he was out in Slieve Bladhma, and the two women along with him,
+and they saw before them a herd of the wild deer of the mountain. "It is
+a pity," said the old women, "we not to be able to get a deer of those
+deer." "I will get one for you," said Finn; and with that he followed
+after them, and caught two stags of them and brought them home to the
+hunting cabin. And after that he used to be hunting for them every day.
+But at last they said to him: "It is best for you to leave us now, for
+the sons of Morna are watching again to kill you."
+
+So he went away then by himself, and never stopped till he came to Magh
+Life, and there he saw young lads swimming in a lake, and they called to
+him to swim against them. So he went into the lake, and he beat them at
+swimming. "Fair he is and well shaped," they said when they saw him
+swimming, and it was from that time he got the name of Finn, that is,
+Fair. But they got to be jealous of his strength, and he went away and
+left them.
+
+He went on then till he came to Loch Lein, and he took service there
+with the King of Finntraigh; and there was no hunter like him, and the
+king said: "If Cumhal had left a son, you would be that son."
+
+He went from that king after, and he went into Carraighe, and there he
+took service with the king, that had taken his mother Muirne for his
+wife. And one day they were playing chess together, and he won seven
+games one after another. "Who are you at all?" said the king then. "I am
+a son of a countryman of the Luigne of Teamhair," said Finn. "That is
+not so," said the king, "but you are the son that Muirne my wife bore to
+Cumhal. And do not stop here any longer," he said, "that you may not be
+killed under my protection."
+
+From that he went into Connacht looking for his father's brother,
+Crimall, son of Trenmor; and as he was going on his way he heard the
+crying of a lone woman. He went to her, and looked at her, and tears of
+blood were on her face. "Your face is red with blood, woman," he said.
+"I have reason for it," said she, "for my only son is after being killed
+by a great fighting man that came on us." And Finn followed after the
+big champion and fought with him and killed him. And the man he killed
+was the same man that had given Cumhal his first wound in the battle
+where he got his death, and had brought away his treasure-bag with him.
+
+Now as to that treasure-bag, it is of a crane skin it was made, that was
+one time the skin of Aoife, the beautiful sweetheart of Ilbrec, son of
+Manannan, that was put into the shape of a crane through jealousy. And
+it was in Manannan's house it used to be, and there were treasures kept
+in it, Manannan's shirt and his knife, and the belt and the smith's hook
+of Goibniu, and the shears of the King of Alban, and the helmet of the
+King of Lochlann, and a belt of the skin of a great fish, and the bones
+of Asal's pig that had been brought to Ireland by the sons of Tuireann.
+All those treasures would be in the bag at full tide, but at the ebbing
+of the tide it would be empty. And it went from Manannan to Lugh, son of
+Ethlinn, and after that to Cumhal, that was husband to Muirne, Ethlinn's
+daughter.
+
+And Finn took the bag and brought it with him till he found Crimall,
+that was now an old man, living in a lonely place, and some of the old
+men of the Fianna were with him, and used to go hunting for him. And
+Finn gave him the bag, and told him his whole story.
+
+And then he said farewell to Crimall, and went on to learn poetry from
+Finegas, a poet that was living at the Boinn, for the poets thought it
+was always on the brink of water poetry was revealed to them. And he did
+not give him his own name, but he took the name of Deimne. Seven years,
+now, Finegas had stopped at the Boinn, watching the salmon, for it was
+in the prophecy that he would eat the salmon of knowledge that would
+come there, and that he would have all knowledge after. And when at the
+last the salmon of knowledge came, he brought it to where Finn was, and
+bade him to roast it, but he bade him not to eat any of it. And when
+Finn brought him the salmon after a while he said: "Did you eat any of
+it at all, boy?" "I did not," said Finn; "but I burned my thumb putting
+down a blister that rose on the skin, and after doing that, I put my
+thumb in my mouth." "What is your name, boy?" said Finegas. "Deimne,"
+said he. "It is not, but it is Finn your name is, and it is to you and
+not to myself the salmon was given in the prophecy." With that he gave
+Finn the whole of the salmon, and from that time Finn had the knowledge
+that came from the nuts of the nine hazels of wisdom that grow beside
+the well that is below the sea.
+
+And besides the wisdom he got then, there was a second wisdom came to
+him another time, and this is the way it happened. There was a well of
+the moon belonging to Beag, son of Buan, of the Tuatha de Danaan, and
+whoever would drink out of it would get wisdom, and after a second drink
+he would get the gift of foretelling. And the three daughters of Beag,
+son of Buan, had charge of the well, and they would not part with a
+vessel of it for anything less than red gold. And one day Finn chanced
+to be hunting in the rushes near the well, and the three women ran out
+to hinder him from coming to it, and one of them that had a vessel of
+the water in her hand, threw it at him to stop him, and a share of the
+water went into his mouth. And from that out he had all the knowledge
+that the water of that well could give.
+
+And he learned the three ways of poetry; and this is the poem he made to
+show he had got his learning well:--
+
+"It is the month of May is the pleasant time; its face is beautiful; the
+blackbird sings his full song, the living wood is his holding, the
+cuckoos are singing and ever singing; there is a welcome before the
+brightness of the summer.
+
+"Summer is lessening the rivers, the swift horses are looking for the
+pool; the heath spreads out its long hair, the weak white bog-down
+grows. A wildness comes on the heart of the deer; the sad restless sea
+is asleep.
+
+"Bees with their little strength carry a load reaped from the flowers;
+the cattle go up muddy to the mountains; the ant has a good full feast.
+
+"The harp of the woods is playing music; there is colour on the hills,
+and a haze on the full lakes, and entire peace upon every sail.
+
+"The corncrake is speaking, a loud-voiced poet; the high lonely
+waterfall is singing a welcome to the warm pool, the talking of the
+rushes has begun.
+
+"The light swallows are darting; the loudness of music is around the
+hill; the fat soft mast is budding; there is grass on the trembling
+bogs.
+
+"The bog is as dark as the feathers of the raven; the cuckoo makes a
+loud welcome; the speckled salmon is leaping; as strong is the leaping
+of the swift fighting man.
+
+"The man is gaining; the girl is in her comely growing power; every wood
+is without fault from the top to the ground, and every wide good plain.
+
+"It is pleasant is the colour of the time; rough winter is gone; every
+plentiful wood is white; summer is a joyful peace.
+
+"A flock of birds pitches in the meadow; there are sounds in the green
+fields, there is in them a clear rushing stream.
+
+"There is a hot desire on you for the racing of horses; twisted holly
+makes a leash for the hound; a bright spear has been shot into the
+earth, and the flag-flower is golden under it.
+
+"A weak lasting little bird is singing at the top of his voice; the lark
+is singing clear tidings; May without fault, of beautiful colours.
+
+"I have another story for you; the ox is lowing, the winter is creeping
+in, the summer is gone. High and cold the wind, low the sun, cries are
+about us; the sea is quarrelling.
+
+"The ferns are reddened and their shape is hidden; the cry of the wild
+goose is heard; the cold has caught the wings of the birds; it is the
+time of ice-frost, hard, unhappy."
+
+And after that, Finn being but a young lad yet, made himself ready and
+went up at Samhain time to the gathering of the High King at Teamhair.
+And it was the law at that gathering, no one to raise a quarrel or
+bring out any grudge against another through the whole of the time it
+lasted. And the king and his chief men, and Goll, son of Morna, that was
+now Head of the Fianna, and Caoilte, son of Ronan, and Conan, son of
+Morna, of the sharp words, were sitting at a feast in the great house of
+the Middle Court; and the young lad came in and took his place among
+them, and none of them knew who he was.
+
+The High King looked at him then, and the horn of meetings was brought
+to him, and he put it into the boy's hand, and asked him who was he.
+
+"I am Finn, son of Cumhal," he said, "son of the man that used to be
+head over the Fianna, and king of Ireland; and I am come now to get your
+friendship, and to give you my service."
+
+"You are son of a friend, boy," said the king, "and son of a man I
+trusted."
+
+Then Finn rose up and made his agreement of service and of faithfulness
+to the king; and the king took him by the hand and put him sitting
+beside his own son, and they gave themselves to drinking and to pleasure
+for a while.
+
+Every year, now, at Samhain time, for nine years, there had come a man
+of the Tuatha de Danaan out of Sidhe Finnachaidh in the north, and had
+burned up Teamhair. Aillen, son of Midhna, his name was, and it is the
+way he used to come, playing music of the Sidhe, and all the people that
+heard it would fall asleep. And when they were all in their sleep, he
+would let a flame of fire out of his mouth, and would blow the flame
+till all Teamhair was burned.
+
+The king rose up at the feast after a while, and his smooth horn in his
+hand, and it is what he said: "If I could find among you, men of
+Ireland, any man that would keep Teamhair till the break of day
+to-morrow without being burned by Aillen, son of Midhna, I would give
+him whatever inheritance is right for him to have, whether it be much or
+little."
+
+But the men of Ireland made no answer, for they knew well that at the
+sound of the sweet pitiful music made by that comely man of the Sidhe,
+even women in their pains and men that were wounded would fall asleep.
+
+It is then Finn rose up and spoke to the King of Ireland. "Who will be
+your sureties that you will fulfil this?" he said. "The kings of the
+provinces of Ireland," said the king, "and Cithruadh with his Druids."
+So they gave their pledges, and Finn took in hand to keep Teamhair safe
+till the breaking of day on the morrow.
+
+Now there was a fighting man among the followers of the King of Ireland,
+Fiacha, son of Conga, that Cumhal, Finn's father, used to have a great
+liking for, and he said to Finn: "Well, boy," he said, "what reward
+would you give me if I would bring you a deadly spear, that no false
+cast was ever made with?" "What reward are you asking of me?" said Finn.
+"Whatever your right hand wins at any time, the third of it to be mine,"
+said Fiacha, "and a third of your trust and your friendship to be mine."
+"I will give you that," said Finn. Then Fiacha brought him
+the spear, unknown to the sons of Morna or to any other person, and he
+said: "When you will hear the music of the Sidhe, let you strip the
+covering off the head of the spear and put it to your forehead, and the
+power of the spear will not let sleep come upon you."
+
+Then Finn rose up before all the men of Ireland, and he made a round of
+the whole of Teamhair. And it was not long till he heard the sorrowful
+music, and he stripped the covering from the head of the spear, and he
+held the power of it to his forehead. And Aillen went on playing his
+little harp, till he had put every one in their sleep as he was used;
+and then he let a flame of fire out from his mouth to burn Teamhair.
+And Finn held up his fringed crimson cloak against the flame, and it
+fell down through the air and went into the ground, bringing the
+four-folded cloak with it deep into the earth.
+
+And when Aillen saw his spells were destroyed, he went back to Sidhe
+Finnachaidh on the top of Slieve Fuad; but Finn followed after him
+there, and as Aillen was going in at the door he made a cast of the
+spear that went through his heart. And he struck his head off then, and
+brought it back to Teamhair, and fixed it on a crooked pole and left it
+there till the rising of the sun over the heights and invers of the
+country.
+
+And Aillen's mother came to where his body was lying, and there was
+great grief on her, and she made this complaint:--
+
+"Ochone! Aillen is fallen, chief of the Sidhe of Beinn Boirche; the slow
+clouds of death are come on him. Och! he was pleasant, Och! he was kind.
+Aillen, son of Midhna of Slieve Fuad.
+
+"Nine times he burned Teamhair. It is a great name he was always looking
+for, Ochone, Ochone, Aillen!"
+
+And at the breaking of day, the king and all the men of Ireland came out
+upon the lawn at Teamhair where Finn was. "King," said Finn, "there is
+the head of the man that burned Teamhair, and the pipe and the harp that
+made his music. And it is what I think," he said, "that Teamhair and all
+that is in it is saved."
+
+Then they all came together into the place of counsel, and it is what
+they agreed, the headship of the Fianna of Ireland to be given to Finn.
+And the king said to Goll, son of Morna: "Well, Goll," he said, "is it
+your choice to quit Ireland or to put your hand in Finn's hand?" "By my
+word, I will give Finn my hand," said Goll.
+
+And when the charms that used to bring good luck had done their work,
+the chief men of the Fianna rose up and struck their hands in Finn's
+hand, and Goll, son of Morna, was the first to give him his hand the way
+there would be less shame on the rest for doing it.
+
+And Finn kept the headship of the Fianna until the end; and the place he
+lived in was Almhuin of Leinster, where the white dun was made by Nuada
+of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was as white as if all the lime in Ireland
+was put on it, and that got its name from the great herd of cattle that
+died fighting one time around the well, and that left their horns there,
+speckled horns and white.
+
+And as to Finn himself, he was a king and a seer and a poet; a Druid and
+a knowledgeable man; and everything he said was sweet-sounding to his
+people. And a better fighting man than Finn never struck his hand into a
+king's hand, and whatever any one ever said of him, he was three times
+better. And of his justice it used to be said, that if his enemy and his
+own son had come before him to be judged, it is a fair judgment he would
+have given between them. And as to his generosity it used to be said, he
+never denied any man as long as he had a mouth to eat with, and legs to
+bring away what he gave him; and he left no woman without her
+bride-price, and no man without his pay; and he never promised at night
+what he would not fulfil on the morrow, and he never promised in the day
+what he would not fulfil at night, and he never forsook his right-hand
+friend. And if he was quiet in peace he was angry in battle, and Oisin
+his son and Osgar his son's son followed him in that. There was a young
+man of Ulster came and claimed kinship with them one time, saying they
+were of the one blood. "If that is so," said Oisin, "it is from the men
+of Ulster we took the madness and the angry heart we have in battle."
+"That is so indeed," said Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. FINN'S HOUSEHOLD
+
+
+And the number of the Fianna of Ireland at that time was seven score and
+ten chief men, every one of them having three times nine righting men
+under him. And every man of them was bound to three things, to take no
+cattle by oppression, not to refuse any man, as to cattle or riches; no
+one of them to fall back before nine fighting men. And there was no man
+taken into the Fianna until his tribe and his kindred would give
+securities for him, that even if they themselves were all killed he
+would not look for satisfaction for their death. But if he himself would
+harm others, that harm was not to be avenged on his people. And there
+was no man taken into the Fianna till he knew the twelve books of
+poetry. And before any man was taken, he would be put into a deep hole
+in the ground up to his middle, and he having his shield and a hazel rod
+in his hand. And nine men would go the length of ten furrows from him
+and would cast their spears at him at the one time. And if he got a
+wound from one of them, he was not thought fit to join with the Fianna.
+And after that again, his hair would be fastened up, and he put to run
+through the woods of Ireland, and the Fianna following after him to try
+could they wound him, and only the length of a branch between themselves
+and himself when they started. And if they came up with him and wounded
+him, he was not let join them; or if his spears had trembled in his
+hand, or if a branch of a tree had undone the plaiting of his hair, or
+if he had cracked a dry stick under his foot, and he running. And they
+would not take him among them till he had made a leap over a stick the
+height of himself, and till he had stooped under one the height of his
+knee, and till he had taken a thorn out from his foot with his nail,
+and he running his fastest. But if he had done all these things, he was
+of Finn's people.
+
+It was good wages Finn and the Fianna got at that time; in every
+district a townland, in every house the fostering of a pup or a whelp
+from Samhain to Beltaine, and a great many things along with that. But
+good as the pay was, the hardships and the dangers they went through for
+it were greater. For they had to hinder the strangers and robbers from
+beyond the seas, and every bad thing, from coming into Ireland. And they
+had hard work enough in doing that.
+
+And besides the fighting men, Finn had with him his five Druids, the
+best that ever came into the west, Cainnelsciath, of the Shining Shield,
+one of them was, that used to bring down knowledge from the clouds in
+the sky before Finn, and that could foretell battles. And he had his
+five wonderful physicians, four of them belonging to Ireland, and one
+that came over the sea from the east. And he had his five high poets and
+his twelve musicians, that had among them Daighre, son of Morna, and
+Suanach, son of Senshenn, that was Finn's teller of old stories, the
+sweetest that ever took a harp in his hand in Ireland or in Alban. And
+he had his three cup-bearers and his six door-keepers and his
+horn-players and the stewards of his house and his huntsman, Comhrag of
+the five hundred hounds, and his serving-men that were under
+Garbhcronan, of the Rough Buzzing; and a great troop of others along
+with them.
+
+And there were fifty of the best sewing-women in Ireland brought
+together in a rath on Magh Feman, under the charge of a daughter of the
+King of Britain, and they used to be making clothing for the Fianna
+through the whole of the year. And three of them, that were a king's
+daughters, used to be making music for the rest on a little silver
+harp; and there was a very great candlestick of stone in the middle of
+the rath, for they were not willing to kindle a fire more than three
+times in the year for fear the smoke and the ashes might harm the
+needlework.
+
+And of all his musicians the one Finn thought most of was Cnu Deireoil,
+the Little Nut, that came to him from the Sidhe.
+
+It was at Slieve-nam-ban, for hunting, Finn was the time he came to him.
+Sitting down he was on the turf-built grave that is there; and when he
+looked around him he saw a small little man about four feet in height
+standing on the grass. Light yellow hair he had, hanging down to his
+waist, and he playing music on his harp. And the music he was making had
+no fault in it at all, and it is much that the whole of the Fianna did
+not fall asleep with the sweetness of its sound. He came up then, and
+put his hand in Finn's hand. "Where do you come from, little one,
+yourself and your sweet music?" said Finn. "I am come," he said, "out of
+the place of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban, where ale is drunk and made;
+and it is to be in your company for a while I am come here." "You will
+get good rewards from me, and riches and red gold," said Finn, "and my
+full friendship, for I like you well." "That is the best luck ever came
+to you, Finn," said all the rest of the Fianna, for they were well
+pleased to have him in their company. And they gave him the name of the
+Little Nut; and he was good in speaking, and he had so good a memory he
+never forgot anything he heard east or west; and there was no one but
+must listen to his music, and all the Fianna liked him well. And there
+were some said he was a son of Lugh Lamh-Fada, of the Long Hand.
+
+And the five musicians of the Fianna were brought to him, to learn the
+music of the Sidhe he had brought from that other place; for there was
+never any music heard on earth but his was better. These were the three
+best things Finn ever got, Bran and Sceolan that were without fault, and
+the Little Nut from the House of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. BIRTH OF BRAN.
+
+
+This, now, is the story of the birth of Bran.
+
+Finn's mother, Muirne, came one time to Almhuin, and she brought with
+her Tuiren, her sister. And Iollan Eachtach, a chief man of the Fianna
+of Ulster, was at Almhuin at the time, and he gave his love to Tuiren,
+and asked her in marriage, and brought her to his own house. But before
+they went, Finn made him gave his word he would bring her back safe and
+sound if ever he asked for her, and he bade him find sureties for
+himself among the chief men of the Fianna. And Iollan did that, and the
+sureties he got were Caoilte and Goll and Lugaidh Lamha, and it was
+Lugaidh gave her into the hand of Iollan Eachtach.
+
+But before Iollan made that marriage, he had a sweetheart of the Sidhe,
+Uchtdealb of the Fair Breast; and there came great jealousy on her when
+she knew he had taken a wife. And she took the appearance of Finn's
+woman-messenger, and she came to the house where Tuiren was, and she
+said: "Finn sends health and long life to you, queen, and he bids you to
+make a great feast; and come with me now," she said, "till I speak a few
+words with you, for there is hurry on me."
+
+So Tuiren went out with her, and when they were away from the house the
+woman of the Sidhe took out her dark Druid rod from under her cloak and
+gave her a blow of it that changed her into a hound, the most beautiful
+that was ever seen. And then she went on, bringing the hound with her,
+to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, king of the harbour of Gallimh. And
+it is the way Fergus was, he was the most unfriendly man to dogs in the
+whole world, and he would not let one stop in the same house with him.
+But it is what Uchtdealb said to him: "Finn wishes you life and health,
+Fergus, and he says to you to take good care of his hound till he comes
+himself; and mind her well," she said, "for she is with young, and do
+not let her go hunting when her time is near, or Finn will be no way
+thankful to you." "I wonder at that message," said Fergus, "for Finn
+knows well there is not in the world a man has less liking for dogs than
+myself. But for all that," he said, "I will not refuse Finn the first
+time he sent a hound to me."
+
+And when he brought the hound out to try her, she was the best he ever
+knew, and she never saw the wild creature she would not run down; and
+Fergus took a great liking for hounds from that out.
+
+And when her time came near, they did not let her go hunting any more,
+and she gave birth to two whelps.
+
+And as to Finn, when he heard his mother's sister was not living with
+Iollan Eachtach, he called to him for the fulfilment of the pledge that
+was given to the Fianna. And Iollan asked time to go looking for Tuiren,
+and he gave his word that if he did not find her, he would give himself
+up in satisfaction for her. So they agreed to that, and Iollan went to
+the hill where Uchtdealb was, his sweetheart of the Sidhe, and told her
+the way things were with him, and the promise he had made to give
+himself up to the Fianna. "If that is so," said she, "and if you will
+give me your pledge to keep me as your sweetheart to the end of your
+life, I will free you from that danger." So Iollan gave her his promise,
+and she went to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, and she brought Tuiren
+away and put her own shape on her again, and gave her up to Finn. And
+Finn gave her to Lugaidh Lamha that asked her in marriage.
+
+And as to the two whelps, they stopped always with Finn, and the names
+he gave them were Bran and Sceolan.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S MOTHER.
+
+
+It happened one time Finn and his men were coming back from the hunting,
+a beautiful fawn started up before them, and they followed after it, men
+and dogs, till at last they were all tired and fell back, all but Finn
+himself and Bran and Sceolan. And suddenly as they were going through a
+valley, the fawn stopped and lay down on the smooth grass, and Bran and
+Sceolan came up with it, and they did not harm it at all, but went
+playing about it, licking its neck and its face.
+
+There was wonder on Finn when he saw that, and he went on home to
+Almhuin, and the fawn followed after him playing with the hounds, and it
+came with them into the house at Almhuin. And when Finn was alone late
+that evening, a beautiful young woman having a rich dress came before
+him, and she told him it was she herself was the fawn he was after
+hunting that day. "And it is for refusing the love of Fear Doirche, the
+Dark Druid of the Men of Dea," she said, "I was put in this shape. And
+through the length of three years," she said, "I have lived the life of
+a wild deer in a far part of Ireland, and I am hunted like a wild deer.
+And a serving-man of the Dark Druid took pity on me," she said, "and he
+said that if I was once within the dun of the Fianna of Ireland, the
+Druid would have no more power over me. So I made away, and I never
+stopped through the whole length of a day till I came into the district
+of Almhuin. And I never stopped then till there was no one after me but
+only Bran and Sceolan, that have human wits; and I was safe with them,
+for they knew my nature to be like their own."
+
+Then Finn gave her his love, and took her as his wife, and she stopped
+in Almhuin. And so great was his love for her, he gave up his hunting
+and all the things he used to take pleasure in, and gave his mind to no
+other thing but herself.
+
+But at last the men of Lochlann came against Ireland, and their ships
+were in the bay below Beinn Edair, and they landed there.
+
+And Finn and the battalions of the Fianna went out against them, and
+drove them back. And at the end of seven days Finn came back home, and
+he went quickly over the plain of Almhuin, thinking to see Sadbh his
+wife looking out from the dun, but there was no sign of her. And when he
+came to the dun, all his people came out to meet him, but they had a
+very downcast look. "Where is the flower of Almhuin, beautiful gentle
+Sadbh?" he asked them. And it is what they said: "While you were away
+fighting, your likeness, and the likeness of Bran and of Sceolan
+appeared before the dun, and we thought we heard the sweet call of the
+Dord Fiann. And Sadbh, that was so good and so beautiful, came out of
+the house," they said, "and she went out of the gates, and she would not
+listen to us, and we could not stop her." "Let me go meet my love," she
+said, "my husband, the father of the child that is not born." And with
+that she went running out towards the shadow of yourself that was before
+her, and that had its arms stretched out to her. But no sooner did she
+touch it than she gave a great cry, and the shadow lifted up a hazel
+rod, and on the moment it was a fawn was standing on the grass. Three
+times she turned and made for the gate of the dun, but the two hounds
+the shadow had with him went after her and took her by the throat and
+dragged her back to him. "And by your hand of valour, Finn," they said,
+"we ourselves made no delay till we went out on the plain after her. But
+it is our grief, they had all vanished, and there was not to be seen
+woman, or fawn or Druid, but we could hear the quick tread of feet on
+the hard plain, and the howling of dogs. And if you would ask every one
+of us in what quarter he heard those sounds, he would tell you a
+different one."
+
+When Finn heard that, he said no word at all, but he struck his breast
+over and over again with his shut hands. And he went then to his own
+inside room, and his people saw him no more for that day, or till the
+sun rose over Magh Life on the morrow.
+
+And through the length of seven years from that time, whenever he was
+not out fighting against the enemies of Ireland, he went searching and
+ever searching in every far corner for beautiful Sadbh. And there was
+great trouble on him all the time, unless he might throw it off for a
+while in hunting or in battle. And through all that time he never
+brought out to any hunting but the five hounds he had most trust in,
+Bran and Sceolan and Lomaire and Brod and Lomluath, the way there would
+be no danger for Sadbh if ever he came on her track.
+
+But after the end of seven years, Finn and some of his chief men were
+hunting on the sides of Beinn Gulbain, and they heard a great outcry
+among the hounds, that were gone into some narrow place. And when they
+followed them there, they saw the five hounds of Finn in a ring, and
+they keeping back the other hounds, and in the middle of the ring was a
+young boy, with high looks, and he naked and having long hair. And he
+was no way daunted by the noise of the hounds, and did not look at them
+at all, but at the men that were coming up. And as soon as the fight was
+stopped Bran and Sceolan went up to the little lad, and whined and
+licked him, that any one would think they had forgotten their master.
+Finn and the others came up to him then, and put their hands on his
+head, and made much of him. And they brought him to their own hunting
+cabin, and he ate and drank with them, and before long he lost his
+wildness and was the same as themselves. And as to Bran and Sceolan,
+they were never tired playing about him.
+
+And it is what Finn thought, there was some look of Sadbh in his face,
+and that it might be he was her son, and he kept him always beside him.
+And little by little when the boy had learned their talk, he told them
+all he could remember. He used to be with a deer he loved very much, he
+said, and that cared and sheltered him, and it was in a wide place they
+used to be, having hills and valleys and streams and woods in it, but
+that was shut in with high cliffs on every side, that there was no way
+of escape from it. And he used to be eating fruits and roots in the
+summer, and in the winter there was food left for him in the shelter of
+a cave. And a dark-looking man used to be coming to the place, and
+sometimes he would speak to the deer softly and gently, and sometimes
+with a loud angry voice. But whatever way he spoke, she would always
+draw away from him with the appearance of great dread on her, and the
+man would go away in great anger. And the last time he saw the deer, his
+mother, the dark man was speaking to her for a long time, from softness
+to anger. And at the end he struck her with a hazel rod, and with that
+she was forced to follow him, and she looking back all the while at the
+child, and crying after him that any one would pity her. And he tried
+hard to follow after her, and made every attempt, and cried out with
+grief and rage, but he had no power to move, and when he could hear his
+mother no more he fell on the grass and his wits went from him. And when
+he awoke it is on the side of the hill he was, where the hounds found
+him. And he searched a long time for the place where he was brought up,
+but he could not find it.
+
+And the name the Fianna gave him was Oisin, and it is he was their maker
+of poems, and their good fighter afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE BEST MEN OF THE FIANNA
+
+
+And while Oisin was in his young youth, Finn had other good men along
+with him, and the best of them were Goll, son of Morna, and Caoilte, son
+of Ronan, and Lugaidh's Son.
+
+As to Goll, that was of Connacht, he was very tall and light-haired, and
+some say he was the strongest of all the Fianna. Finn made a poem in
+praise of him one time when some stranger was asking what sort he was,
+saying how hardy he was and brave in battle, and as strong as a hound or
+as the waves, and with all that so kind and so gentle, and open-handed
+and sweet-voiced, and faithful to his friends.
+
+And the chessboard he had was called the Solustairtech, the Shining
+Thing, and some of the chessmen were made of gold, and some of them of
+silver, and each one of them was as big as the fist of the biggest man
+of the Fianna; and after the death of Goll it was buried in Slieve
+Baune.
+
+And as to Caoilte, that was a grey thin man, he was the best runner of
+them all. And he did a good many great deeds; a big man of the Fomor he
+killed one time, and he killed a five-headed giant in a wheeling door,
+and another time he made an end of an enchanted boar that no one else
+could get near, and he killed a grey stag that had got away from the
+Fianna through twenty-seven years. And another time he brought Finn out
+of Teamhair, where he was kept by force by the High King, because of
+some rebellion the Fianna had stirred up. And when Caoilte heard Finn
+had been brought away to Teamhair, he went out to avenge him. And the
+first he killed was Cuireach, a king of Leinster that had a great name,
+and he brought his head up to the hill that is above Buadhmaic. And
+after that he made a great rout through Ireland, bringing sorrow into
+every house for the sake of Finn, killing a man in every place, and
+killing the calves with the cows.
+
+And every door the red wind from the east blew on, he would throw it
+open, and go in and destroy all before him, setting fire to the fields,
+and giving the wife of one man to another.
+
+And when he came to Teamhair, he came to the palace, and took the
+clothes off the door-keeper, and he left his own sword that was worn
+thin in the king's sheath, and took the king's sword that had great
+power in it. And he went into the palace then in the disguise of a
+servant, to see how he could best free Finn.
+
+And when evening came Caoilte held the candle at the king's feast in the
+great hall, and after a while the king said: "You will wonder at what I
+tell you, Finn, that the two eyes of Caoilte are in my candlestick." "Do
+not say that," said Finn, "and do not put reproach on my people although
+I myself am your prisoner; for as to Caoilte," he said, "that is not the
+way with him, for it is a high mind he has, and he only does high
+deeds, and he would not stand serving with a candle for all the gold of
+the whole world."
+
+After that Caoilte was serving the King of Ireland with drink, and when
+he was standing beside him he gave out a high sorrowful lament. "There
+is the smell of Caoilte's skin on that lament," said the king. And when
+Caoilte saw he knew him he spoke out and he said: "Tell me what way I
+can get freedom for my master." "There is no way to get freedom for him
+but by doing one thing," said the king, "and that is a thing you can
+never do. If you can bring me together a couple of all the wild
+creatures of Ireland," he said, "I will give up your master to you
+then."
+
+When Caoilte heard him say that he made no delay, but he set out from
+Teamhair, and went through the whole of Ireland to do that work for the
+sake of Finn. It is with the flocks of birds he began, though they were
+scattered in every part, and from them he went on to the beasts. And he
+gathered together two of every sort, two ravens from Fiodh da Bheann;
+two wild ducks from Loch na Seillein; two foxes from Slieve Cuilinn; two
+wild oxen from Burren; two swans from blue Dobhran; two owls from the
+wood of Faradhruim; two polecats from the branchy wood on the side of
+Druim da Raoin, the Ridge of the Victories; two gulls from the strand of
+Loch Leith; four woodpeckers from white Brosna; two plovers from
+Carraigh Dhain; two thrushes from Leith Lomard; two wrens from Dun
+Aoibh; two herons from Corrain Cleibh; two eagles from Carraig of the
+stones; two hawks from Fiodh Chonnach; two sows from Loch Meilghe; two
+water-hens from Loch Erne; two moor-hens from Monadh Maith; two
+sparrow-hawks from Dubhloch; two stonechats from Magh Cuillean; two
+tomtits from Magh Tuallainn; two swallows from Sean Abhla; two
+cormorants from Ath Cliath; two wolves from Broit Cliathach; two
+blackbirds from the Strand of the Two Women; two roebucks from Luachair
+Ire; two pigeons from Ceas Chuir; two nightingales from Leiter Ruadh;
+two starlings from green-sided Teamhair; two rabbits from Sith Dubh
+Donn; two wild pigs from Cluaidh Chuir; two cuckoos from Drom Daibh; two
+lapwings from Leanain na Furraich; two woodcocks from Craobh Ruadh; two
+hawks from the Bright Mountain; two grey mice from Luimneach; two otters
+from the Boinn; two larks from the Great Bog; two bats from the Cave of
+the Nuts; two badgers from the province of Ulster; two landrail from the
+banks of the Sionnan; two wagtails from Port Lairrge; two curlews from
+the harbour of Gallimh; two hares from Muirthemne; two deer from Sith
+Buidhe; two peacocks from Magh Mell; two cormorants from Ath Cliath; two
+eels from Duth Dur; two goldfinches from Slieve na-n Eun; two birds of
+slaughter from Magh Bhuilg; two bright swallows from Granard; two
+redbreasts from the Great Wood; two rock-cod from Cala Chairge; two
+sea-pigs from the great sea; two wrens from Mios an Chuil; two salmon
+from Eas Mhic Muirne; two clean deer from Gleann na Smoil; two cows from
+Magh Mor; two cats from the Cave of Cruachan; two sheep from bright
+Sidhe Diobhlain; two pigs of the pigs of the son of Lir; a ram and a
+crimson sheep from Innis.
+
+And along with all these he brought ten hounds of the hounds of the
+Fianna, and a horse and a mare of the beautiful horses of Manannan.
+
+And when Caoilte had gathered all these, he brought them to the one
+place. But when he tried to keep them together, they scattered here and
+there from him; the raven went away southward, and that vexed him
+greatly, but he overtook it again in Gleann da Bheann, beside Loch
+Lurcan. And then his wild duck went away from him, and it was not easy
+to get it again, but he followed it through every stream to grey Accuill
+till he took it by the neck and brought it back, and it no way willing.
+
+And indeed through the length of his life Caoilte remembered well all he
+went through that time with the birds, big and little, travelling over
+hills and ditches and striving to bring them with him, that he might set
+Finn his master free.
+
+And when he came to Teamhair he had more to go through yet, for the king
+would not let him bring them in before morning, but gave him a house
+having nine doors in it to put them up in for the night. And no sooner
+were they put in than they raised a loud screech all together, for a
+little ray of light was coming to them through fifty openings, and they
+were trying to make their escape. And if they were not easy in the
+house, Caoilte was not easy outside it, watching every door till the
+rising of the sun on the morrow.
+
+And when he brought out his troop, the name the people gave them was
+"Caoilte's Rabble," and there was no wonder at all in that.
+
+But all the profit the King of Ireland got from them was to see them
+together for that one time. For no sooner did Finn get his freedom than
+the whole of them scattered here and there, and no two of them went by
+the same road out of Teamhair.
+
+And that was one of the best things Caoilte, son of Ronan, ever did. And
+another time he ran from the wave of Cliodna in the south to the wave of
+Rudraige in the north. And Colla his son was a very good runner too, and
+one time he ran a race backwards against the three battalions of the
+Fianna for a chessboard. And he won the race, but if he did, he went
+backward over Beinn Edair into the sea.
+
+And very good hearing Caoilte had. One time he heard the King of the
+Luigne of Connacht at his hunting, and Blathmec that was with him said,
+"What is that hunt, Caoilte?" "A hunt of three packs of hounds," he
+said, "and three sorts of wild creatures before them. The first hunt,"
+he said, "is after stags and large deer and the second hunt is after
+swift small hares, and the third is a furious hunt after heavy boars."
+"And what is the fourth hunt, Caoilte?" said Blathmec. "It is the
+hunting of heavy-sided, low-bellied badgers." And then they heard coming
+after the hunt the shouts of the lads and of the readiest of the men and
+the serving-men that were best at carrying burdens. And Blathmec went
+out to see the hunting, and just as Caoilte had told him, that was the
+way it was.
+
+And he understood the use of herbs, and one time he met with two women
+that were very downhearted because their husbands had gone from them to
+take other wives. And Caoilte gave them Druid herbs, and they put them
+in the water of a bath and washed in it, and the love of their husbands
+came back to them, and they sent away the new wives they had taken.
+
+And as to Lugaidh's Son, that was of Finn's blood, and another of the
+best men of the Fianna, he was put into Finn's arms as a child, and he
+was reared up by Duban's daughter, that had reared eight hundred
+fighting men of the Fianna, till his twelfth year, and then she gave him
+all he wanted of arms and of armour, and he went to Chorraig Conluain
+and the mountains of Slieve Bladhma, where Finn and the Fianna were at
+that time.
+
+And Finn gave him a very gentle welcome, and he struck his hand in
+Finn's hand, and made his agreement of service with him. And he stopped
+through the length of a year with the Fianna; but he was someway
+sluggish through all that time, so that under his leading not more than
+nine of the Fianna got to kill so much as a boar or a deer. And along
+with that, he used to beat both his servants and his hounds.
+
+And at last the three battalions of the Fianna went to where Finn was,
+at the Point of the Fianna on the edge of Loch Lein, and they made their
+complaint against Lugaidh's Son, and it is what they said: "Make your
+choice now, will you have us with you, or will you have Lugaidh's Son by
+himself."
+
+Then Lugaidh's Son came to Finn, and Finn asked him, "What is it has put
+the whole of the Fianna against you?" "By my word," said the lad, "I do
+not know the reason, unless it might be they do not like me to be doing
+my feats and casting my spears among them."
+
+Then Finn gave him an advice, and it is what he said: "If you have a
+mind to be a good champion, be quiet in a great man's house; be surly in
+the narrow pass. Do not beat your hound without a cause; do not bring a
+charge against your wife without having knowledge of her guilt; do not
+hurt a fool in fighting, for he is without his wits. Do not find fault
+with high-up persons; do not stand up to take part in a quarrel; have no
+dealings with a bad man or a foolish man. Let two-thirds of your
+gentleness be showed to women and to little children that are creeping
+on the floor, and to men of learning that make the poems, and do not be
+rough with the common people. Do not give your reverence to all; do not
+be ready to have one bed with your companions. Do not threaten or speak
+big words, for it is a shameful thing to speak stiffly unless you can
+carry it out afterwards. Do not forsake your lord so long as you live;
+do not give up any man that puts himself under your protection for all
+the treasures of the world. Do not speak against others to their lord,
+that is not work for a good man. Do not be a bearer of lying stories, or
+a tale-bearer that is always chattering. Do not be talking too much; do
+not find fault hastily; however brave you may be, do not raise factions
+against you. Do not be going to drinking-houses, or finding fault with
+old men; do not meddle with low people; this is right conduct I am
+telling you. Do not refuse to share your meat; do not have a niggard for
+your friend; do not force yourself on a great man or give him occasion
+to speak against you. Hold fast to your arms till the hard fight is well
+ended. Do not give up your opportunity, but with that follow after
+gentleness."
+
+That was good advice Finn gave, and he was well able to do that; for it
+was said of him that he had all the wisdom of a little child that is
+busy about the house, and the mother herself not understanding what he
+is doing; and that is the time she has most pride in him.
+
+And as to Lugaidh's Son, that advice stayed always with him, and he
+changed his ways, and after a while he got a great name among the poets
+of Ireland and of Alban, and whenever they would praise Finn in their
+poems, they would praise him as well.
+
+And Aoife, daughter of the King of Lochlann, that was married to Mal,
+son of Aiel, King of Alban, heard the great praise the poets were giving
+to Lugaidh's Son, and she set her love on him for the sake of those
+stories.
+
+And one time Mal her husband and his young men went hunting to
+Slieve-mor-Monaidh in the north of Alban. And when he was gone Aoife
+made a plan in her sunny house where she was, to go over to Ireland,
+herself and her nine foster-sisters. And they set out and went over the
+manes of the sea till they came to Beinn Edair, and there they landed.
+
+And it chanced on that day there was a hunting going on, from Slieve
+Bladhma to Beinn Edair. And Finn was in his hunting seat, and his
+fosterling, brown-haired Duibhruinn, beside him. And the little lad was
+looking about him on every side, and he saw a ship coming to the
+strand, and a queen with modest looks in the ship, and nine women along
+with her. They landed then, and they came up to where Finn was, bringing
+every sort of present with them, and Aoife sat down beside him. And Finn
+asked news of her, and she told him the whole story, and how she had
+given her love to Lugaidh's Son, and was come over the sea looking for
+him; and Finn made her welcome.
+
+And when the hunting was over, the chief men of the Fianna came back to
+where Finn was, and every one asked who was the queen that was with him.
+And Finn told them her name, and what it was brought her to Ireland. "We
+welcome her that made that journey," said they all; "for there is not in
+Ireland or in Alban a better man than the man she is come looking for,
+unless Finn himself."
+
+And as to Lugaidh's Son, it was on the far side of Slieve Bladhma he was
+hunting that day, and he was the last to come in. And he went into
+Finn's tent, and when he saw the woman beside him he questioned Finn the
+same as the others had done, and Finn told him the whole story. "And it
+is to you she is come," he said; "and here she is to you out of my hand,
+and all the war and the battles she brings with her; but it will not
+fall heavier on you," he said, "than on the rest of the Fianna."
+
+And she was with Lugaidh's Son a month and a year without being asked
+for. But one day the three battalions of the Fianna were on the Hill of
+the Poet in Leinster, and they saw three armed battalions equal to
+themselves coming, against them, and they asked who was bringing them.
+"It is Mal, son of Aiel, is bringing them," said Finn, "to avenge his
+wife on the Fianna. And it is a good time they are come," he said, "when
+we are gathered together at the one spot."
+
+Then the two armies went towards one another, and Mal, son of Aiel,
+took hold of his arms, and three times he broke through the Fianna, and
+every time a hundred fell by him. And in the middle of the battle he and
+Lugaidh's Son met, and they fought against one another with spear and
+sword. And whether the fight was short or long, it was Mal fell by
+Lugaidh's Son at the last.
+
+And Aoife stood on a hill near by, as long as the battle lasted. And
+from that out she belonged to Lugaidh's Son, and was a mother of
+children to him.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO: FINN'S HELPERS
+
+CHAPTER I. THE LAD OF THE SKINS
+
+
+Besides all the men Finn had in his household, there were some that
+would come and join him from one place or another. One time a young man
+wearing a dress of skins came to Finn's house at Almhuin, and his wife
+along with him, and he asked to take service with Finn.
+
+And in the morning, as they were going to their hunting, the Lad of the
+Skins said to Finn: "Let me have no one with me but myself, and let me
+go into one part of the country by myself, and you yourself with all
+your men go to another part." "Is it on the dry ridges you will go,"
+said Finn, "or is it in the deep bogs and marshes, where there is danger
+of drowning?" "I will go in the deep boggy places," said he.
+
+So they all went out from Almhuin, Finn and the Fianna to one part, and
+the Lad of the Skins to another part, and they hunted through the day.
+And when they came back at evening, the Lad of the Skins had killed more
+than Finn and all his men together.
+
+When Finn saw that, he was glad to have so good a servant. But Conan
+said to him: "The Lad of the Skins will destroy ourselves and the whole
+of the Fianna of Ireland unless you will find some way to rid yourself
+of him." "I never had a good man with me yet, Conan," said Finn, "but
+you wanted me to put him away; and how could I put away a man like
+that?" he said. "The way to put him away," said Conan, "is to send him
+to the King of the Floods to take from him the great cauldron that is
+never without meat, but that has always enough in it to feed the whole
+world. And let him bring that cauldron back here with him to Almhuin,"
+he said.
+
+So Finn called to the Lad of the Skins, and he said: "Go from me now to
+the King of the Floods and get the great cauldron that is never empty
+from him, and bring it here to me." "So long as I am in your service I
+must do your work," said the Lad of the Skins. With that he set out,
+leaping over the hills and valleys till he came to the shore of the sea.
+And then he took up two sticks and put one of them across the other, and
+a great ship rose out of the two sticks. The Lad of the Skins went into
+the ship then, and put up the sails and set out over the sea, and he
+heard nothing but the whistling of eels in the sea and the calling of
+gulls in the air till he came to the house of the King of the Floods.
+And at that time there were hundreds of ships waiting near the shore;
+and he left his ship outside them all, and then he stepped from ship to
+ship till he stood on land.
+
+There was a great feast going on at that time in the king's house, and
+the Lad of the Skins went up to the door, but he could get no farther
+because of the crowd. So he stood outside the door for a while, and no
+one looked at him, and he called out at last: "This is a hospitable
+house indeed, and these are mannerly ways, not to ask a stranger if
+there is hunger on him or thirst." "That is true," said the king; "and
+give the cauldron of plenty now to this stranger," he said, "till he
+eats his fill."
+
+So his people did that, and no sooner did the Lad of the Skins get a
+hold of the cauldron than he made away to the ship and put it safe into
+it. But when he had done that he said: "There is no use in taking the
+pot by my swiftness, if I do not take it by my strength." And with that
+he turned and went to land again. And the whole of the men of the army
+of the King of the Floods were ready to fight; but if they were, so was
+the Lad of the Skins, and he went through them and over them all till
+the whole place was quiet.
+
+He went back to his ship then and raised the sails and set out again
+for Ireland, and the ship went rushing back to the place where he made
+it. And when he came there, he gave a touch of his hand to the ship, and
+there was nothing left of it but the two sticks he made it from, and
+they lying on the strand before him, and the cauldron of plenty with
+them. And he took up the cauldron on his back, and brought it to Finn,
+son of Cumhal, at Almhuin. And Finn gave him his thanks for the work he
+had done.
+
+One day, now, Finn was washing himself at the well, and a voice spoke
+out of the water, and it said: "You must give back the cauldron, Finn,
+to the King of the Floods, or you must give him battle in place of it."
+
+Finn told that to the Lad of the Skins, but the answer he got from him
+was that his time was up, and that he could not serve on time that was
+past. "But if you want me to go with you," he said, "let you watch my
+wife, that is Manannan's daughter, through the night; and in the middle
+of the night, when she will be combing her hair, any request you make of
+her, she cannot refuse it. And the request you will make is that she
+will let me go with you to the King of the Floods, to bring the cauldron
+to his house and to bring it back again."
+
+So Finn watched Manannan's daughter through the night, and when he saw
+her combing her hair, he made his request of her. "I have no power to
+refuse you," she said; "but you must promise me one thing, to bring my
+husband back to me, alive or dead. And if he is alive," she said, "put
+up a grey-green flag on the ship coming back; but if he is dead, put up
+a red flag."
+
+So Finn promised to do that, and he himself and the Lad of the Skins set
+out together for the dun of the King of the Floods, bringing the
+cauldron with them.
+
+No sooner did the king see them than he gave word to all his armies to
+make ready. But the Lad of the Skins made for them and overthrew them,
+and he went into the king's dun, and Finn with him, and they overcame
+him and brought away again the cauldron that was never empty.
+
+But as they were going back to Ireland, they saw a great ship coming
+towards them. And when the Lad of the Skins looked at the ship, he said:
+"I think it is an old enemy of my own is in that ship, that is trying to
+bring me to my death, because of my wife that refused him her love." And
+when the ship came alongside, the man that was in it called out: "I know
+you well, and it is not by your dress I know you, son of the King of the
+Hills." And with that he made a leap on to the ship, and the two fought
+a great battle together, and they took every shape; they began young
+like two little boys, and fought till they were two old men; they fought
+from being two young pups until they were two old dogs; from being two
+young horses till they were two old horses. And then they began to fight
+in the shape of birds, and it is in that shape they killed one another
+at the last. And Finn threw the one bird into the water, but the other,
+that was the Lad of the Skins, he brought with him in the ship. And when
+he came in sight of Ireland, he raised a red flag as he had promised the
+woman.
+
+And when he came to the strand, she was there before him, and when she
+saw Finn, she said: "It is dead you have brought him back to me." And
+Finn gave her the bird, and she asked was that what she was to get in
+the place of her husband. And she was crying over the bird, and she
+brought it into a little boat with her, and she bade Finn to push out
+the boat to sea.
+
+And he pushed it out, and it was driven by wind and waves till at last
+she saw two birds flying, having a dead one between them. And the two
+living birds let down the dead one on an island; and it was not long
+till it rose up living, and the three went away together.
+
+And when Manannan's daughter saw that, she said: "There might be some
+cure for my man on the island, the way there was for that dead bird."
+
+And the sea brought the boat to the island, and she went searching
+around, but all she could find was a tree having green leaves. "It might
+be in these leaves the cure is," she said; and she took some of the
+leaves and brought them to where the Lad of the Skins was, and put them
+about him. And on that moment he stood up as well and as sound as ever
+he was.
+
+They went back then to Ireland, and they came to Almhuin at midnight,
+and the Lad of the Skins knocked at the door, and he said: "Put me out
+my wages." "There is no man, living or dead, has wages on me but the Lad
+of the Skins," said Finn; "and I would sooner see him here to-night," he
+said, "than the wages of three men." "If that is so, rise up and you
+will see him," said he.
+
+So Finn rose up and saw him, and gave him a great welcome, and paid him
+his wages.
+
+And after that he went away and his wife with him to wherever his own
+country was; but there were some said he was gone to the country of his
+wife's father, Manannan, Son of the Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. BLACK, BROWN, AND GREY
+
+
+Finn was hunting one time near Teamhair of the Kings, and he saw three
+strange men coming towards him, and he asked what were their names.
+"Dubh and Dun and Glasan, Black, Brown, and Grey, are our names," they
+said, "and we are come to find Finn, son of Cumhal, Head of the Fianna,
+and to take service with him."
+
+So Finn took them into his service, and when evening came he said: "Let
+each one of you watch through a third part of the night." And there was
+a trunk of a tree there, and he bade them make three equal parts of it,
+and he gave a part to each of the three men, and he said: "When each one
+of you begins his watch, let him set fire to his own log, and as long as
+the wood burns let him watch."
+
+Then they drew lots, and the lot fell to Dubh to go on the first watch.
+So he set fire to his log, and he went out around the place, and Bran
+with him. He went farther and farther till at last he saw a bright
+light, and when he came to the place where it was, he saw a large house.
+He went inside, and there was a great company of very strange-looking
+men in it, and they drinking out of a single cup. One of the men, that
+seemed to be the highest, gave the cup to the man nearest him; and after
+he had drunk his fill he passed it on to the next, and so on to the
+last. And while it was going round, he said: "This is the great cup that
+was taken from Finn, son of Cumhal, a hundred years ago, and however
+many men may be together, every man of them can drink his fill from it,
+of whatever sort of drink he has a mind for."
+
+Dubh was sitting near the door, on the edge of the crowd, and when the
+cup came to him he took a drink from it, and then he slipped away in the
+dark, bringing it with him. And when he came to the place where Finn
+was, his log was burned out.
+
+Then it was the turn of Dun to go out, for the second lot had fallen on
+him, and he put a light to his log, and went out, and Bran with him.
+
+He walked on through the night till he saw a fire that was shining from
+a large house, and when he went in he saw a crowd of men, and they
+fighting. And a very old man that was in a high place above the rest
+called out: "Stop fighting now, for I have a better gift for you than
+the one you lost to-night." And with that he drew a knife out of his
+belt and held it up, and said: "This is the wonderful knife, the small
+knife of division, that was stolen from Finn, son of Cumhal, a hundred
+years ago; and you have but to cut on a bone with that knife and you
+will get your fill of the best meat in the world." Then he gave the
+knife to the man nearest him, and a bare bone with it, and the man began
+to cut, and there came off the bone slices of the best meat in the
+world.
+
+The knife and the bone were sent round then from man to man till they
+came to Dun, and as soon as he had the knife in his hand he slipped out
+unknown and hurried back, and he had just got to the well where Finn
+was, when his part of the log burned out.
+
+Then Glasan lighted his log and went out on his watch till he came to
+the house, the same way the others did. And he looked in and he saw the
+floor full of dead bodies, and he thought to himself: "There must be
+some great wonder here. And if I lie down on the floor and put some of
+the bodies over me," he said, "I will be able to see all that happens."
+
+So he lay down and pulled some of the bodies over him, and he was not
+long there till he saw an old hag coming into the house, having one leg
+and one arm and one upper tooth, that was long enough to serve her in
+place of a crutch. And when she came inside the door she took up the
+first dead body she met with, and threw it aside, for it was lean. And
+as she went on, she took two bites out of every fat body she met with,
+and threw away every lean one.
+
+She had her fill of flesh and blood before she came to Glasan, and she
+dropped down on the floor and fell asleep, and Glasan thought that every
+breath she drew would bring down the roof on his head. He rose up then
+and looked at her, and wondered at the bulk of her body. And at last he
+drew his sword and hit her a slash that killed her; but if he did, three
+young men leaped out of her body. And Glasan made a stroke that killed
+the first of them, and Bran killed the second, but the third made his
+escape.
+
+Glasan made his way back then, and just when he got to where Finn was,
+his log of wood was burned out, and the day was beginning to break.
+
+And when Finn rose up in the morning he asked news of the three
+watchers, and they gave him the cup and the knife and told him all they
+had seen, and he gave great praise to Dubh and to Dun; but to Glasan he
+said: "It might have been as well for you to have left that old hag
+alone, for I am in dread the third young man may bring trouble on us
+all."
+
+It happened at the end of twenty-one years, Finn and the Fianna were at
+their hunting in the hills, and they saw a Red-Haired Man coming
+towards them, and he spoke to no one, but came and stood before Finn.
+"What is it you are looking for?" said Finn. "I am looking for a master
+for the next twenty-one years," he said. "What wages are you asking?"
+said Finn. "No wages at all, but only if I die before the twenty-one
+years are up, to bury me on Inis Caol, the Narrow Island." "I will do
+that for you," said Finn.
+
+So the Red-Haired Man served Finn well through the length of twenty
+years. But in the twenty-first year he began to waste and to wither
+away, and he died.
+
+And when he was dead, the Fianna were no way inclined to go to Inis Caol
+to bury him. But Finn said he would break his word for no man, and that
+he himself would bring his body there. And he took an old white horse
+that had been turned loose on the hills, and that had got younger and
+not older since it was put out, and he put the body of the Red-Haired
+Man on its back, and let it take its own way, and he himself followed
+it, and twelve men of the Fianna.
+
+And when they came to Inis Caol they saw no trace of the horse or of the
+body. And there was an open house on the island, and they went in. And
+there were seats for every man of them inside, and they sat down to rest
+for a while.
+
+But when they tried to rise up it failed them to do it, for there was
+enchantment on them. And they saw the Red-Haired Man standing before
+them in that moment.
+
+"The time is come now," he said, "for me to get satisfaction from you
+for the death of my mother and my two brothers that were killed by
+Glasan in the house of the dead bodies." He began to make an attack on
+them then, and he would have made an end of them all, but Finn took
+hold of the Dord Fiann, and blew a great blast on it.
+
+And before the Red-Haired Man was able to kill more than three of them,
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, that had heard the sound of the Dord
+Fiann, came into the house and made an end of him, and put an end to the
+enchantment. And Finn, with the nine that were left of the Fianna, came
+back again to Almhuin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE HOUND
+
+
+One day the three battalions of the Fianna came to Magh Femen, and there
+they saw three young men waiting for them, having a hound with them; and
+there was not a colour in the world but was on that hound, and it was
+bigger than any other hound.
+
+"Where do you come from, young men?" said Finn. "Out of the greater
+Iruath in the east," said they; "and our names are Dubh, the Dark, and
+Agh, the Battle, and Ilar, the Eagle." "What is it you came for?" "To
+enter into service, and your friendship," said they. "What good will it
+do us, you to be with us?" said Finn. "We are three," said they, "and
+you can make a different use of each one of us." "What uses are those?"
+said Finn. "I will do the watching for all the Fianna of Ireland and of
+Alban," said one of them. "I will take the weight of every fight and
+every battle that will come to them, the way they can keep themselves in
+quiet," said the second. "I will meet every troublesome thing that might
+come to my master," said the third; "and let all the wants of the world
+be told to me and I will satisfy them. And I have a pipe with me," he
+said; "and all the men of the world would sleep at the sound of it, and
+they in their sickness. And as to the hound," he said, "as long as there
+are deer in Ireland he will get provision for the Fianna every second
+night. And I myself," he said, "will get it on the other nights." "What
+will you ask of us to be with us like that?" said Finn. "We will ask
+three things," they said: "no one to come near to the place where we
+have our lodging after the fall of night; nothing to be given out to us,
+but we to provide for ourselves; and the worst places to be given to us
+in the hunting." "Tell me by your oath now," said Finn, "why is it you
+will let no one see you after nightfall?" "We have a reason," said they;
+"but do not ask it of us, whether we are short or long on the one path
+with you. But we will tell you this much," they said, "every third
+night, one of us three is dead and the other two are watching him, and
+we have no mind for any one to be looking at us."
+
+So Finn promised that; but if he did there were some of the Fianna were
+not well pleased because of the ways of those three men, living as they
+did by themselves, and having a wall of fire about them, and they would
+have made an end of them but for Finn protecting them.
+
+About that time there came seven men of poetry belonging to the people
+of Cithruadh, asking the fee for a poem, three times fifty ounces of
+gold and the same of silver to bring back to Cithruadh at Teamhair.
+"Whatever way we get it, we must find some way to get that," said a man
+of the Fianna. Then the three young men from Iruath said: "Well, men of
+learning," they said, "would you sooner get the fee for your poem
+to-night or to-morrow?" "To-morrow will be time enough," said they.
+
+And the three young men went to the place where the hound had his bed a
+little way off from the rath, and the hound threw out of his mouth
+before them the three times fifty ounces of gold and three times fifty
+of silver, and they gave them to the men of poetry, and they went away.
+
+Another time Finn said: "What can the three battalions of the Fianna do
+to-night, having no water?" And one of the men of Iruath said: "How many
+drinking-horns are with you?" "Three hundred and twelve," said Caoilte.
+"Give me the horns into my hand," said the young man, "and whatever you
+will find in them after that, you may drink it." He filled the horns
+then with beer and they drank it, and he did that a second and a third
+time; and with the third time of filling they were talkative and their
+wits confused. "This is a wonderful mending of the feast," said Finn.
+And they gave the place where all that happened the name of the Little
+Rath of Wonders.
+
+And one time after that again there came to Finn three bald red clowns,
+holding three red hounds in their hands, and three deadly spears. And
+there was poison on their clothes and on their hands and their feet, and
+on everything they touched. And Finn asked them who were they. And they
+said they were three sons of Uar, son of Indast of the Tuatha de Danaan;
+and it was by a man of the Fianna, Caoilte son of Ronan, their father
+was killed in the battle of the Tuatha de Danaan on Slieve nan Ean, the
+Mountain of Birds, in the east. "And let Caoilte son of Ronan give us
+the blood-fine for him now," they said. "What are your names?" said
+Finn. "Aincel and Digbail and Espaid; Ill-wishing and Harm and Want are
+our names. And what answer do you give us now, Finn?" they said. "No one
+before me ever gave a blood-fine for a man killed in battle, and I will
+not give it," said Finn. "We will do revenge and robbery on you so,"
+said they. "What revenge is that?" said Finn. "It is what I will do,"
+said Aincel, "if I meet with two or three or four of the Fianna, I will
+take their feet and their hands from them." "It is what I will do,"
+said Digbail, "I will not leave a day without loss of a hound or a
+serving-boy or a fighting man to the Fianna of Ireland." "And I myself
+will be always leaving them in want of people, or of a hand, or of an
+eye," said Espaid. "Without we get some help against them," said
+Caoilte, "there will not be one of us living at the end of a year."
+"Well," said Finn, "we will make a dun and stop here for a while, for I
+will not be going through Ireland and these men following after me, till
+I find who are the strongest, themselves or ourselves."
+
+So the Fianna made little raths for themselves all about Slieve Mis, and
+they stopped there through a month and a quarter and a year. And through
+all that time the three red bald-headed men were doing every sort of
+hurt and harm upon them.
+
+But the three sons of the King of Iruath came to speak with Finn, and it
+is what they said: "It is our wish, Finn, to send the hound that is with
+us to go around you three times in every day, and however many may be
+trying to hurt or to rob you, they will not have power to do it after
+that. But let there be neither fire nor arms nor any other dog in the
+house he goes into," they said. "I will let none of these things go into
+the one house with him," said Finn, "and he will go safe back to you."
+So every day the hound would be sent to Finn, having his chain of ridges
+of red gold around his neck, and he would go three times around Finn,
+and three times he would put his tongue upon him. And to the people that
+were nearest to the hound when he came into the house it would seem like
+as if a vat of mead was being strained, and to others there would come
+the sweet smell of an apple garden.
+
+And every harm and sickness the three sons of Uar would bring on the
+Fianna, the three sons of the King of Iruath would take it off them
+with their herbs and their help and their healing.
+
+And after a while the High King of Ireland came to Slieve Mis with a
+great, troop of his men, to join with Finn and the Fianna. And they told
+the High King the whole story, and how the sons of Uar were destroying
+them, and the three sons of the King of Iruath were helping them against
+them. "Why would not the men that can do all that find some good spell
+that would drive the sons of Uar out of Ireland?" said the High King.
+
+With that Caoilte went looking for the three young men from Iruath and
+brought them to the High King. "These are comely men," said the High
+King, "good in their shape and having a good name. And could you find
+any charm, my sons," he said, "that will drive out these three enemies
+that are destroying the Fianna of Ireland?" "We would do that if we
+could find those men near us," said they; "and it is where they are
+now," they said, "at Daire's Cairn at the end of the raths." "Where are
+Garb-Cronan, the Rough Buzzing One, and Saltran of the Long Heel?" said
+Finn. "Here we are, King of the Fianna," said they. "Go out to those men
+beyond, and tell them I will give according to the judgment of the King
+of Ireland in satisfaction for their father." The messengers went out
+then and brought them in, and they sat down on the bank of the rath.
+
+Then the High King said: "Rise up, Dubh, son of the King of Iruath, and
+command these sons of Uar with a spell to quit Ireland." And Dubh rose
+up, and he said: "Go out through the strength of this spell and this
+charm, you three enemies of the Fianna, one-eyed, lame-thighed,
+left-handed, of the bad race. And go out on the deep bitter sea," he
+said, "and let each one of you strike a blow of his sword on the head
+of his brothers. For it is long enough you are doing harm and
+destruction on the King of the Fianna, Finn, son of Cumhal."
+
+With that the hound sent a blast of wind under them that brought them
+out into the fierce green sea, and each of them struck a blow on the
+head of the others. And that was the last that was seen of the three
+destroying sons of Uar, Aincel and Digbail and Espaid.
+
+But after the time of the Fianna, there came three times in the one
+year, into West Munster, three flocks of birds from the western sea
+having beaks of bone and fiery breath, and the wind from their wings was
+as cold as a wind of spring. And the first time they came was at reaping
+time, and every one of them brought away an ear of corn from the field.
+And the next time they came they did not leave apple on tree, or nut on
+bush, or berry on the rowan; and the third time they spared no live
+thing they could lift from the ground, young bird or fawn or silly
+little child. And the first day they came was the same day of the year
+the three sons of Uar were put out in the sea.
+
+And when Caoilte, that was one of the last of the Fianna, and that was
+living yet, heard of them, he remembered the sons of Uar, and he made a
+spell that drove them out into the sea again, and they perished there by
+one another.
+
+It was about the length of a year the three sons of the King of Iruath
+stopped with Finn. And at the end of that time Donn and Dubhan, two sons
+of the King of Ulster, came out of the north to Munster. And one night
+they kept watch for the Fianna, and three times they made a round of the
+camp. And it is the way the young men from Iruath used to be, in a place
+by themselves apart from the Fianna, and their hound in the middle
+between them; and at the fall of night there used a wall of fire to be
+around them, the way no one could look at them.
+
+And the third time the sons of the King of Ulster made the round of the
+camp, they saw the fiery wall, and Donn said: "It is a wonder the way
+those three young men are through the length of a year now, and their
+hound along with them, and no one getting leave to look at them."
+
+With that he himself and his brother took their arms in their hands, and
+went inside the wall of fire, and they began looking at the three men
+and at the hound. And the great hound they used to see every day at the
+hunting was at this time no bigger than a lap-dog that would be with a
+queen or a high person. And one of the young men was watching over the
+dog, and his sword in his hand, and another of them was holding a vessel
+of white silver to the mouth of the dog; and any drink any one of the
+three would ask for, the dog would put it out of his mouth into the
+vessel.
+
+Then one of the young men said to the hound: "Well, noble one and brave
+one and just one, take notice of the treachery that is done to you by
+Finn." When the dog heard that he turned to the King of Ulster's sons,
+and there rose a dark Druid wind that blew away the shields from their
+shoulders and the swords from their sides into the wall of fire. And
+then the three men came out and made an end of them; and when that was
+done the dog came and breathed on them, and they turned to ashes on the
+moment, and there was never blood or flesh or bone of them found after.
+
+And the three battalions of the Fianna divided themselves into companies
+of nine, and went searching through every part of Ireland for the King
+of Ulster's two sons.
+
+And as to Finn, he went to Teamhair Luachra, and no one with him but the
+serving-lads and the followers of the army. And the companies of nine
+that were looking for the King of Ulster's sons came back to him there
+in the one night; but they brought no word of them, if they were dead or
+living.
+
+But as to the three sons of the King of Iruath and the hound that was
+with them, they were seen no more by Finn and the Fianna.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. RED RIDGE
+
+
+There was another young man came and served Finn for a while; out of
+Connacht he came, and he was very daring, and the Red Ridge was the name
+they gave him. And he all but went from Finn one time, because of his
+wages that were too long in coming to him. And the three battalions of
+the Fianna came trying to quiet him, but he would not stay for them. And
+at the last Finn himself came, for it is a power he had, if he would
+make but three verses he would quiet any one. And it is what he said:
+"Daring Red Ridge," he said, "good in battle, if you go from me to-day
+with your great name it is a good parting for us. But once at Rath Cro,"
+he said, "I gave you three times fifty ounces in the one day; and at Cam
+Ruidhe I gave you the full of my cup of silver and of yellow gold. And
+do you remember," he said, "the time we were at Rath Ai, when we found
+the two women, and when we ate the nuts, myself and yourself were there
+together."
+
+And after that the young man said no more about going from him.
+
+And another helper came to Finn one time he was fighting at a ford, and
+all his weapons were used or worn with the dint of the fight. And there
+came to him a daughter of Mongan of the Sidhe, bringing him a flat stone
+having a chain of gold to it. And he took the stone and did great deeds
+with it. And after the fight the stone fell into the ford, that got the
+name of Ath Liag Finn.
+
+And that stone will never be found till the Woman of the Waves will find
+it, and will bring it to land on a Sunday morning; and on that day seven
+years the world will come to an end.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE: THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE ENEMIES OF IRELAND
+
+
+Of all the great battles the Fianna fought to keep the foreigners out of
+Ireland, the greatest was the one that was fought at Finntraigh the
+White Strand, in Munster; and this is the whole story of it, and of the
+way the Fianna came to have so great a name.
+
+One time the enemies of Ireland gathered together under Daire Donn, High
+King of the Great World, thinking to take Ireland and to put it under
+tribute.
+
+The King of Greece was of them, and the King of France, and the King of
+the Eastern World, and Lughman of the Broad Arms, King of the Saxons,
+and Fiacha of the Long Hair, King of the Gairean, and Tor the son of
+Breogan, King of the Great Plain, and Sligech, son of the King of the
+Men of Cepda, and Comur of the Crooked Sword, King of the Men of the
+Dog-Heads, and Caitchenn, King of the Men of the Cat-Heads, and Caisel
+of the Feathers, King of Lochlann, and Madan of the Bent Neck, son of
+the King of the Marshes, and three kings from the rising of the sun in
+the east, and Ogarmach, daughter of the King of Greece, the best
+woman-warrior that ever came into the world, and a great many other
+kings and great lords.
+
+The King of the World asked then: "Who is there can give me knowledge of
+the harbours of Ireland?" "I will do that for you, and I will bring you
+to a good harbour," said Glas, son of Bremen, that had been put out of
+Ireland by Finn for doing some treachery.
+
+Then the armies set out in their ships, and they were not gone far when
+the wind rose and the waves, and they could hear nothing but the wild
+playing of the sea-women, and the screams of frightened birds, and the
+breaking of ropes and of sails. But after a while, when the wind found
+no weakness in the heroes, it rose from them and went up into its own
+high place. And then the sea grew quiet and the waves grew tame and the
+harbours friendly, and they stopped for a while at an island that was
+called the Green Rock. But the King of the World said then: "It is not a
+harbour like this you promised me, Glas, son of Dremen, but a shore of
+white sand where my armies could have their fairs and their gatherings
+the time they would not be fighting." "I know a harbour of that sort in
+the west of Ireland," said Glas, "the Harbour of the White Strand in
+Corca Duibhne." So they went into their ships again, and went on over
+the sea towards Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. CAEL AND CREDHE
+
+
+Now as to Finn, when it was shown to him that the enemies of Ireland
+were coming, he called together the seven battalions of the Fianna. And
+the place where they gathered was on the hill that was called
+Fionntulach, the White Hill, in Munster. They often stopped on that hill
+for a while, and spear-shafts with spells on them were brought to them
+there, and they had every sort of thing for food, beautiful
+blackberries, haws of the hawthorn, nuts of the hazels of Cenntire,
+tender twigs of the bramble bush, sprigs of wholesome gentian,
+watercress at the beginning of summer. And there would be brought to
+their cooking-pots birds out of the oak-woods, and squirrels from
+Berramain, and speckled eggs from the cliffs, and salmon out of
+Luimnech, and eels of the Sionnan, and woodcocks of Fidhrinne, and
+otters from the hidden places of the Doile, and fish from the coasts of
+Buie and Beare, and dulse from the bays of Cleire.
+
+And as they were going to set out southwards, they saw one of their
+young men, Gael, grandson of Nemhnain, coming towards them. "Where are
+you come from, Cael?" Finn asked him. "From Brugh na Boinne," said he.
+"What were you asking there?" said Finn. "I was asking to speak with
+Muirenn, daughter of Derg, that was my own nurse," said he. "For what
+cause?" said Finn. "It was about a high marriage and a woman of the
+Sidhe that was showed to me in a dream; Credhe it was I saw, daughter of
+the King of Ciarraighe Luachra." "Do you know this, Cael," said Finn,
+"that she is the greatest deceiver of all the women of Ireland; and
+there is hardly a precious thing in Ireland but she has coaxed it away
+to her own great dun." "Do you know what she asks of every man that
+comes asking for her?" said Cael. "I know it," said Finn; "she will let
+no one come unless he is able to make a poem setting out the report of
+her bowls and her horns and her cups, her grand vessels and all her
+palaces." "I have all that ready," said Cael; "it was given to me by my
+nurse, Muirenn, daughter of Derg."
+
+They gave up the battle then for that time, and they went on over every
+hilly place and every stony place till they came to Loch Cuire in the
+west; and they came to the door of the hill of the Sidhe and knocked at
+it with the shafts of their long gold-socketted spears. And there came
+young girls having yellow hair to the windows of the sunny houses; and
+Credhe herself, having three times fifty women with her, came out to
+speak with them. "It is to ask you in marriage we are come," said Finn.
+"Who is it is asking for me?" said she. "It is Cael, the hundred-killer,
+grandson of Nemhnain, son of the King of Leinster in the east." "I have
+heard talk of him, but I have never seen him," said Credhe. "And has he
+any poem for me?" she said. "I have that," said Cael, and he rose up
+then and sang his poem:
+
+"A journey I have to make, and it is no easy journey, to the house of
+Credhe against the breast of the mountain, at the Paps of Dana; it is
+there I must be going through hardships for the length of seven days. It
+is pleasant her house is, with men and boys and women, with Druids and
+musicians, with cup-bearer and door-keeper, with horse-boy that does not
+leave his work, with distributer to share food; and Credhe of the Fair
+Hair having command over them all.
+
+"It would be delightful to me in her dun, with coverings and with down,
+if she has but a mind to listen to me.
+
+"A bowl she has with juice of berries in it to make her eyebrows black;
+crystal vats of fermenting grain; beautiful cups and vessels. Her house
+is of the colour of lime; there are rushes for beds, and many silken
+coverings and blue cloaks; red gold is there, and bright drinking-horns.
+Her sunny house is beside Loch Cuire, made of silver and yellow gold;
+its ridge is thatched without any fault, with the crimson wings of
+birds. The doorposts are green, the lintel is of silver taken in battle.
+Credhe's chair on the left is the delight of delights, covered with gold
+of Elga; at the foot of the pleasant bed it is, the bed that was made of
+precious stones by Tuile in the east. Another bed there is on the right,
+of gold and silver, it is made without any fault, curtains it has of the
+colour of the foxglove, hanging on rods of copper.
+
+"The people of her house, it is they have delight, their cloaks are not
+faded white, they are not worn smooth; their hair is fair and curling.
+Wounded men in their blood would sleep hearing the birds of the Sidhe
+singing in the eaves of the sunny house.
+
+"If I have any thanks to give to Credhe, for whom the cuckoo calls, she
+will get better praise than this; if this love-service I have done is
+pleasing to her, let her not delay, let her say, 'Your coming is
+welcome to me.'
+
+"A hundred feet there are in her house, from one corner to another;
+twenty feet fully measured is the width of her great door; her roof has
+its thatch of the wings of blue and yellow birds, the border of her well
+is of crystals and carbuncles.
+
+"There is a vat there of royal bronze; the juice of pleasant malt is
+running from it; over the vat is an apple-tree with its heavy fruit;
+when Credhe's horn is filled from the vat, four apples fall into it
+together.
+
+"She that owns all these things both at low water and at flood, Credhe
+from the Hill of the Three Peaks, she is beyond all the women of Ireland
+by the length of a spear-cast.
+
+"Here is this song for her, it is no sudden bride-gift it is, no hurried
+asking; I bring it to Credhe of the beautiful shape, that my coming may
+be very bright to her."
+
+Then Credhe took him for her husband, and the wedding-feast was made,
+and the whole of the Fianna stopped there through seven days, at
+drinking and pleasure, and having every good thing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. CONN CRITHER
+
+
+Finn now, when he had turned from his road to go to Credhe's house, had
+sent out watchmen to every landing-place to give warning when the ships
+of the strangers would be in sight. And the man that was keeping watch
+at the White Strand was Conn Crither, son of Bran, from Teamhair
+Luachra.
+
+And after he had been a long time watching, he was one night west from
+the Round Hill of the Fianna that is called Cruachan Adrann, and there
+he fell asleep. And while he was in his sleep the ships came; and what
+roused him was the noise of the breaking of shields and the clashing of
+swords and of spears, and the cries of women and children and of dogs
+and horses that were under flames, and that the strangers were making an
+attack on.
+
+Conn Crither started up when he heard that, and he said: "It is great
+trouble has come on the people through my sleep; and I will not stay
+living after this," he said, "for Finn and the Fianna of Ireland to see
+me, but I will rush into the middle of the strangers," he said, "and
+they will fall by me till I fall by them."
+
+He put on his suit of battle then and ran down towards the strand. And
+on the way he saw three women dressed in battle clothes before him, and
+fast as he ran he could not overtake them. He took his spear then to
+make a cast of it at the woman was nearest him, but she stopped on the
+moment, and she said: "Hold your hand and do not harm us, for we are not
+come to harm you but to help you." "Who are you yourselves?" said Conn
+Crither. "We are three sisters," she said, "and we are come from Tir nan
+Og, the Country of the Young, and we have all three given you our love,
+and no one of us loves you less than the other, and it is to give you
+our help we are come." "What way will you help me?" said Conn. "We will
+give you good help," she said, "for we will make Druid armies about you
+from stalks of grass and from the tops of the watercress, and they will
+cry out to the strangers and will strike their arms from their hands,
+and take from them their strength and their eyesight. And we will put a
+Druid mist about you now," she said, "that will hide you from the armies
+of the strangers, and they will not see you when you make an attack on
+them. And we have a well of healing at the foot of Slieve Iolair, the
+Eagle's Mountain," she said, "and its waters will cure every wound made
+in battle. And after bathing in that well you will be as whole and as
+sound as the day you were born. And bring whatever man you like best
+with you," she said, "and we will heal him along with you."
+
+Conn Crither gave them his thanks for that, and he hurried on to the
+strand. And it was at that time the armies of the King of the Great
+Plain were taking spoils from Traigh Moduirn in the north to Finntraighe
+in the south. And Conn Crither came on them, and the Druid army with
+him, and he took their spoils from them, and the Druid army took their
+sight and their strength from them, and they were routed, and they made
+away to where the King of the Great Plain was, and Conn Crither
+followed, killing and destroying. "Stop with me, king-hero," said the
+King of the Great Plain, "that I may fight with you on account of my
+people, since there is not one of them that turns to stand against you."
+
+So the two set their banners in the earth and attacked one another, and
+fought a good part of the day until Conn Crither struck off the king's
+head. And he lifted up the head, and he was boasting of what he had
+done. "By my word," he said, "I will not let myself be parted from this
+body till some of the Fianna, few or many, will come to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. GLAS, SON OF BREMEN
+
+
+The King of the World heard that, and he said: "It is a big word that
+man is saying," he said; "and rise up now, Glas, son of Dremen, and see
+which of the Fianna of Ireland it is that is saying it."
+
+Glas left the ship then, and he went to where Conn
+
+Crither was, and he asked who was he. "I am Conn Crither, son of Bran,
+from Teamhair Luachra," said he. "If that is so," said Glas, "you are of
+the one blood with myself, for I am Glas, son of Bremen from Teamhair
+Luachra." "It is not right for you to come fighting against me from
+those foreigners, so," said Conn. "It is a pity indeed," said Glas; "and
+but for Finn and the Fianna driving me from them, I would not fight
+against you or against one of themselves for all the treasures of the
+whole world." "Do not say that," said Conn, "for I swear by my hand of
+valour," he said, "if you had killed Finn's own son and the sons of his
+people along with him, you need not be in dread of him if only you came
+under his word and his protection." "I think indeed the day is come for
+me to fight beside you," said Glas, "and I will go back and tell that to
+the King of the World."
+
+He went back then to where the king was, and the king asked him which of
+the men of the Fianna was in it. "It is a kinsman of my own is in it,
+High King," said Glas; "and it is weak my heart is, he to be alone, and
+I have a great desire to go and help him." "If you go," said the King of
+the World, "it is what I ask you, to come and to tell me every day how
+many of the Fianna of Ireland have fallen by me; and if a few of my own
+men should fall," he said, "come and tell me who it was they fell by."
+"It is what I ask you," said Glas, "not to let your armies land till the
+Fianna come to us, but to let one man only come to fight with each of us
+until that time," he said.
+
+So two of the strangers were sent against them that day, and they got
+their death by Glas and by Conn Crither. Then they asked to have two men
+sent against each of them, and that was done; and three times nine fell
+by them before night. And Conn Crither was covered with wounds after
+the day, and he said to Glas: "Three women came to me from the Country
+of the Young, and they promised to put me in a well of healing for my
+wounds. And let you watch the harbour to-night," he said, "and I will go
+look for them." So he went to them, and they bathed him in the well of
+healing, and he was whole of his wounds.
+
+And as to Glas, son of Dremen, he went down to the harbour, and he said:
+"O King of the World," he said, "there is a friend of mine in the ships,
+Madan of the Bent Neck, son of the King of the Marshes; and it is what
+he said in the great world in the east, that he himself would be enough
+to take Ireland for you, and that he would bring it under tribute to you
+by one way or another. And I ask you to let him come alone against me
+to-night, till we see which of us will fight best for Ireland."
+
+So Madan came to the land, and the two attacked one another, and made a
+very hard fight; but as it was not in the prophecy that Glas would find
+his death there, it was the son of the King of the Marshes that got his
+death by him.
+
+And not long after that Conn Crither came back to Glas, and he gave Glas
+great praise for all he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE HELP OF THE MEN OF DEA
+
+
+Then Taistellach that was one of Finn's messengers came to the White
+Strand asking news; and Conn bade him go back to where Finn was and tell
+him the way things were. But Taistellach would not go until he had
+wetted his sword in the blood of one of the enemies of Ireland, the same
+as the others had done. And he sent a challenge to the ships, and
+Coimhleathan, a champion that was very big and tall, came and fought
+with him on the strand, and took him in his arms to bring him back
+living to the ship of the High King; but Taistellach struck his head off
+in the sea and brought it back to land.
+
+"Victory and blessing be with you!" said Conn Crither. "And go now
+to-night," he said, "to the house of Bran, son of Febal my father at
+Teamhair Luachra, and bid him to gather all the Tuatha de Danaan to help
+us; and go on to-morrow to the Fianna of Ireland." So Taistellach went
+on to Bran's house, and he told him the whole story and gave him the
+message.
+
+Then Bran, son of Febal, went out to gather the Tuatha de Danaan, and he
+went to Dun Sesnain in Ui Conall Gabra, where they were holding a feast
+at that time. And there he found three of the best young men of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, Ilbrec the Many Coloured, son of Manannan, and
+Nemanach the Pearly, son of Angus Og, and Sigmall, grandson of Midhir,
+and they made him welcome and bade him to stop with them. "There is a
+greater thing than this for you to do, Men of Dea," said Bran; and he
+told them the whole story, and the way Conn Crither his son was. "Stop
+with me to-night," said Sesnan, "and my son Dolb will go to Bodb Dearg,
+son of the Dagda, and gather in the Tuatha de Danaan to us."
+
+So he stopped there, and Dolb, son of Sesnan, went to Sidhe Bean Finn
+above Magh Femen, and Bodb Dearg was there at that time, and Dolb gave
+him his message. "Young man," said Bodb Dearg, "we are no way bound to
+help the men of Ireland out of that strait." "Do not say that," said
+Dolb, "for there is not a king's son or a prince or a leader of the
+Fianna of Ireland without having a wife or a mother or a foster-mother
+or a sweetheart of the Tuatha de Danaan; and it is good help they have
+given you every time you were in want of it." "I give my word," said
+Bodb Dearg, "it is right to give a good answer to so good a messenger."
+With that he sent word to the Tuatha de Danaan in every place where they
+were, and they gathered to him. And from that they went on to Dun
+Sesnain, and they stopped there through the night And they rose up in
+the morning and put on their shirts of the dearest silk and their
+embroidered coats of rejoicing, and they took their green shields and
+their swords and their spears. And their leaders at that time besides
+Bodb Dearg were Midhir of Bri Leith, and Lir of Sidhe Finnachaidh, and
+Abarthach, son of Ildathach, and Ilbrec, son of Manannan, and Fionnbhar
+of Magh Suil, and Argat Lamh, the Silver Hand, from the Sionnan, and the
+Man of Sweet Speech from the Boinn.
+
+And the whole army of them came into Ciarraighe Luachra, and to
+red-haired Slieve Mis, and from that to the harbour of the White Strand.
+"O Men of Dea," said Abarthach then, "let a high mind and high courage
+rise within you now in the face of the battle. For the doings of every
+one among you," he said, "will be told till the end of the world; and
+let you fulfil now the big words you have spoken in the
+drinking-houses." "Rise up, Glas, son of Dremen," said Bodb Dearg then,
+"and tell out to the King of the World that I am come to do battle."
+Glas went then to the King of the World. "Are those the Fianna of
+Ireland I see?" said the king. "They are not," said Glas, "but another
+part of the men of Ireland that do not dare to be on the face of the
+earth, but that live in hidden houses under the earth, and it is to give
+warning of battle from them I am come." "Who will answer the Tuatha de
+Danaan for me?" said the King of the World. "We will go against them,"
+said two of the kings that were with him, Comur Cromchenn, King of the
+Men of the Dog-Heads, and Caitchenn, King of the Men of the Cat-Heads.
+And they had five red-armed battalions with them, and they went to the
+shore like great red waves. "Who is there to match with the King of the
+Dog-Heads for me?" said Bodb Dearg. "I will go against him," said Lir of
+Sidhe Finnachaidh, "though I heard there is not in the world a man with
+stronger hands than himself." "Who will be a match for the King of the
+Cat-Heads?" said Bodb Dearg. "I will be a match for him," said
+Abarthach, son of Ildathach.
+
+So Lir and the King of the Dog-Heads attacked one another, and they made
+a hard fight; but after a while Lir was getting the worst of it. "It is
+a pity the way Lir is," said Bodb Dearg; "and let some of you rise up
+and help him," he said. Then Ilbrec, son of Manannan, went to his help;
+but if he did, he got a wound himself and could do nothing. Then Sigmal,
+grandson of Midhir, went to his help, and after him the five sons of
+Finnaistucan, and others of the Men of Dea, but they were all driven off
+by the King of the Dog-Heads. But at that time Abarthach had made an end
+of the King of the Cat-Heads, and he rose on his spear, and made a leap,
+and came down between Lir and his enemy. "Leave off now and look on at
+the fight," he said to Lir, "and leave it to me and the foreigner." With
+that he took his sword in his left hand and made a thrust with his spear
+in through the king's armour. And as the king was raising up his shield,
+he struck at him with the sword that was in his left hand, and cut off
+both his legs at the knees, and the king let fall his shield then, and
+Abarthach struck off his head. And the two kings being dead, their
+people broke away and ran, but the Men of Dea followed them and made an
+end of them all; but if they did, they lost a good many of their own
+men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE MARCH OF THE FIANNA
+
+
+Ana Finn and the Fianna were at the house of Credhe yet, and they saw
+Taistellach coming towards them. It was the custom, now, with Finn when
+he sent any one looking for news, that it was to himself it was to be
+told first, the way that if he got bad news he would let on not to mind
+it; and if it was good news he got, he would have the satisfaction of
+telling it himself. So Taistellach told him how the foreigners were come
+to the harbour of the White Strand.
+
+Then Finn turned to his chief men, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland,
+there never came harm or danger to Ireland to be put aside this great
+danger that is come against us now. And you get great tribute and great
+service from the chief men of Ireland," he said, "and if you take that
+from them it is right for you to defend them now."
+
+And the Fianna all said they would not go back one step from the defence
+of Ireland. And as to Credhe, she gave every one of them a battle dress,
+and they were taking leave of her, and Finn said: "Let the woman come
+along with us till we know is it good or bad the end of this journey
+will be." So she came with them, bringing a great herd of cattle; and
+through the whole length of the battle, that lasted a year and a day,
+she had new milk for them, and it was to her house the wounded were
+brought for healing.
+
+Then the Fianna set out, and they went to the borders of Ciarraighe
+Luachra and across by the shores of the Bannlid with their left hand to
+Slieve Mis, and they made shelters for themselves that night, and
+kindled fires.
+
+But Caoilte and Oisin and Lugaidh's Son said to one another they would
+go on to the harbour, the way they would have time to redden their hands
+in the blood of the foreigners before the rest of the Fianna would come.
+
+And at that time the King of the World bade some of his chief men to go
+on shore and to bring him back some spoils. So they went to land and
+they gave out a great shout, and the people of the ships gave out a
+great shout at the same time. "I swear by the oath my people swear by,"
+said Caoilte, "I have gone round the whole world, but I never heard so
+many voices together in the one place." And with that he himself and
+Oisin and Lugaidh's Son made an attack on the strangers, and struck
+great blows at them. And when Conn Crither and Glas, son of Bremen,
+heard the noise of those blows, they knew they were struck by some of
+the Fianna of Ireland, and they came and joined with them, and did great
+destruction on the strangers, till there was not one left of all that
+had come to land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST FIGHTERS
+
+
+And in the morning they saw Finn and all his people coming to the rath
+that is above the harbour. "My father Finn," said Oisin than, "let us
+fight now with the whole of the foreigners altogether." "That is not my
+advice," said Finn, "for the number of their armies is too great for us,
+and we could not stand against them. But we will send out every day,"
+he said, "some son of a king or of a leader against some king of the
+kings of the world that is equal in blood to ourselves. And let none of
+you redden your arms," he said, "but against a king or a chief man at
+first, for when a king is fallen, his people will be more inclined to
+give way. And who will give out a challenge of battle from me now?" he
+said. "I will do that," said the son of Cuban, leader of the Fianna of
+Munster. "Do not go, my son," said Finn, "for it is not showed to me
+that you will have good luck in the battle, and I never sent out any man
+to fight without I knew he would come back safe to me." "Do not say
+that," said Cuban's son, "for I would not for the treasure of the whole
+world go back from a fight on account of a bad foretelling. And as it is
+my own country they have done their robbery in first," he said, "I will
+defend it for you." "It is sorrowful I am for that," said Finn, "for
+whichever of the kings of the world will meet you to-day, yourself and
+himself will fall together."
+
+Then Glas, son of Dremen, gave out a challenge of fight from Cuban's
+son, and the King of Greece answered it. And the two fought hand to
+hand, and the King of Greece made a great cast of his thick spear at
+Cuban's son, that went through his body and broke his back in two. But
+he did not take that blow as a gift, but he paid for it with a strong
+cast of his own golden spear that went through the ringed armour of the
+King of Greece. And those two fell together, sole to sole, and lip to
+lip. "There is grief on me, Cuban's son to have fallen," said Finn, "for
+no one ever went from his house unsatisfied; and a man that I would not
+keep, or the High King of Ireland would not keep for a week, he would
+keep him in his house through the length of a year. And let Follamain,
+his son, be called to me now," he said, "and I will give him his
+father's name and place."
+
+They stopped there then till the next morning. "Who will go and fight
+to-day?" said Finn then. "I will do that," said Goll Garb, son of the
+King of Alban and of the daughter of Goll, son of Morna.
+
+So he put on his battle dress, and there came against him the three
+kings from the rising of the sun in the east, and their three battalions
+with them. And Goll Garb rushed among their men, and wounded and maimed
+and destroyed them, and blinded their eyes for ever, so that their wits
+went from them, and they called to him to stop his deadly sword for a
+while. So he did that; and it is what they agreed to take their three
+kings and to give them over to Goll Garb that he might stop doing
+destruction with his sword.
+
+"Who will go out and fight to-day?" said Finn, on the morning of the
+morrow. "I will go," said Oisin, "and the chief men of the sons of
+Baiscne with me; for we get the best share of all the pleasant things of
+Ireland, and we should be first to defend her." "I will answer that
+challenge," said the King of France, "for it is against Finn I am come
+to Ireland, on account of my wife that he brought away from me; and
+these men will fall by me now," he said, "and Finn himself at the last;
+for when the branches of a tree are cut off, it is not hard to cut down
+the tree itself."
+
+So the King of France and Oisin met one another at the eastern end of
+the strand, and they struck their banners of soft silk into the green
+hill, and bared their swords and made a quick attack on one another. And
+at one time the king struck such a great blow that he knocked a groan
+out of Oisin. But for all that he was worsted in the end, and great fear
+came on him, like the fear of a hundred horses at the sound of thunder,
+and he ran from Oisin, and he rose like a swallow, that his feet never
+touched the earth at all; and he never stopped till he came to Gleann
+na-n Gealt, the Valley of Wild Men. And ever since that time, people
+that have lost their wits make for that valley; and every mad person in
+Ireland, if he had his way, would go there within twenty-four hours.
+
+And there rose great cries of lamentation from the armies of the World
+when they saw him going from them, and the Fianna of Ireland raised
+great shouts of joy.
+
+And when the night was coming on, it is what Finn said: "It is sad and
+gloomy the King of the World is to-night; and it is likely he will make
+an attack on us. And which of you will keep watch over the harbour
+through the night?" he said. "I will," said Oisin, "with the same number
+that was fighting along with me to-day; for it is not too much for you
+to fight for the Fianna of Ireland through a day and a night," he said.
+
+So they went down to the harbour, and it was just at that time the King
+of the World was saying, "It seems to me, men of the World, that our
+luck of battle was not good to-day. And let a share of you rise up now,"
+he said, "and make an attack on the Fianna of Ireland." Then there rose
+up the nine sons of Garb, King of the Sea of Icht, that were smiths, and
+sixteen hundred of their people along with them, and they all went on
+shore but Dolar Durba that was the eldest of them. And the sons of
+Baiscne were ready for them, and they fought a great battle till the
+early light of the morrow. And not one of them was left alive on either
+side that could hold a weapon but only Oisin and one of the sons of
+Garb. And they made rushes at one another, and threw their swords out of
+their hands, and closed their arms about one another, and wrestled
+together, so that it was worth coming from the east to the west of the
+world to see the fight of those two. Then the foreigner gave a sudden
+great fall to Oisin, to bring him into the sea, for he was a great
+swimmer, and he thought to get the better of him there. And Oisin
+thought it would not be worthy of him to refuse any man his place of
+fighting. So they went into the water together, and they were trying to
+drown one another till they came to the sand and the gravel of the clear
+sea. And it was a torment to the heart of the Fianna, Oisin to be in
+that strait. "Rise up, Fergus of the Sweet Lips," said Finn then, "and
+go praise my son and encourage him." So Fergus went down to the edge of
+the sea, and he said: "It is a good fight you are making, Oisin, and
+there are many to see it, for the armies of the whole world are looking
+at you, and the Fianna of Ireland. And show now," he said, "your ways
+and your greatness, for you never went into any place but some woman of
+high beauty or some king's daughter set her love on you." Then Oisin's
+courage increased, and anger came on him and he linked his hands behind
+the back of the foreigner and put him down on the sand under the sea
+with his face upwards, and did not let him rise till the life was gone
+from him. And he brought the body to shore then, and struck off his head
+and brought it to the Fianna.
+
+But there was great grief and anger on Dolar Durba, the eldest of the
+sons of Garb, that had stopped in the ship, and he made a great oath
+that he would have satisfaction for his brothers. And he went to the
+High King, and he said: "I will go alone to the strand, and I will kill
+a hundred men every day till I have made an end of the whole of the
+armies of Ireland; and if any one of your own men comes to interfere
+with me," he said, "I will kill him along with them."
+
+The next morning Finn asked who would lead the battle that day. "I
+will," said Dubhan, son of Donn. "Do not," said Finn, "but let some
+other one go."
+
+But Dubhan went to the strand, and a hundred men along with him; and
+there was no one there before him but Dolar Durba, and he said he was
+there to fight with the whole of them. And Dubhan's men gave a great
+shout of laughter when they heard that; but Dolar Durba rushed on them,
+and he made an end of the whole hundred, without a man of them being
+able to put a scratch on him. And then he took a hurling stick and a
+ball, and he threw up the ball and kept it in the air with the hurl from
+the west to the east of the strand without letting it touch the ground
+at all. And then he put the ball on his right foot and kicked it high
+into the air, and when it was coming down he gave it a kick of his left
+foot and kept it in the air like that, and he rushing like a blast of
+March wind from one end of the strand to the other. And when he had done
+that he walked up and down on the strand making great boasts, and
+challenging the men of Ireland to do the like of those feats. And every
+day he killed a hundred of the men that were sent against him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE KING OF ULSTER'S SON
+
+
+Now it chanced at that time that news of the great battle that was going
+on reached to the court of the King of Ulster. And the king's son, that
+was only twelve years of age, and that was the comeliest of all the
+young men of Ireland, said to his father: "Let me go to help Finn, son
+of Cumhal, and his men." "You are not old enough, or strong enough, boy;
+your bones are too soft," said the king. And when the boy went on
+asking, his father shut him up in some close place, and put twelve
+young men, his foster-brothers, in charge of him.
+
+There was great anger on the young lad then, and he said to his
+foster-brothers: "It is through courage and daring my father won a great
+name for himself in his young youth, and why does he keep me from
+winning a name for myself? And let you help me now," he said, "and I
+will be a friend to you for ever." And he went on talking to them and
+persuading them till he got round them all, and they agreed to go with
+him to join Finn and the Fianna. And when the king was asleep, they went
+into the house where the arms were kept, and every lad of them brought
+away with him a shield and a sword and a helmet and two spears and two
+greyhound whelps. And they went across Ess Ruadh in the north, and
+through Connacht of many tribes, and through Caille an Chosanma, the
+Woods of Defence, that were called the choice of every king and the true
+honour of every poet, and into Ciarraighe, and so on to the White
+Strand.
+
+And when they came there Dolar Durba was on the strand, boasting before
+the men of Ireland. And Oisin was rising up to go against him, for he
+said he would sooner die fighting with him than see the destruction he
+was doing every day on his people. And all the wise men and the fighting
+men and the poets and the musicians of the Fianna gave a great cry of
+sorrow when they heard Oisin saying that.
+
+And the King of Ulster's son went to Finn and stood before him and
+saluted him, and Finn asked who was he, and where did he come from. "I
+am the son of the King of Ulster," he said; "and I am come here, myself
+and my twelve foster-brothers, to give you what help we can." "I give
+you a welcome," said Finn.
+
+Just then they heard the voice of Dolar Durba, very loud and boastful.
+"Who is that I hear?" said the king's son. "It is a man of the
+foreigners asking for a hundred of my men to go and meet him," said
+Finn.
+
+Now, when the twelve foster-brothers heard that, they said no word but
+went down to the strand, unknown to the king's son and to Finn.
+
+"You are not a grown man," said Conan; "and neither yourself or your
+comrades are fit to face any fighting man at all." "I never saw the
+Fianna of Ireland till this day," said the young lad; "but I know well
+that you are Conan Maol, that never says a good word of any man. And you
+will see now," he said, "if I am in dread of that man on the strand, or
+of any man in the world, for I will go out against him by myself."
+
+But Finn kept him back and was talking with him; but then Conan began
+again, and he said: "It is many men Dolar Durba has made an end of, and
+there was not a man of all those that could not have killed a hundred of
+the like of you every day."
+
+When the king's son heard that, there was great anger on him, and he
+leaped up, and just then Dolar Durba gave a great shout on the strand.
+"What is he giving, that shout for?" said the king's son. "He is shouting
+for more men to come against him," said Conan, "for he is just after
+killing your twelve comrades." "That is a sorrowful story," said the
+king's son.
+
+And with that he took hold of his arms, and no one could hold him or
+hinder him, and he rushed down to the strand where Dolar Durba was. And
+all the armies of the strangers gave a great shout of laughter, for they
+thought all Finn's men had been made an end of, when he sent a young lad
+like that against their best champion. And when the boy heard that, his
+courage grew the greater, and he fell on Dolar Durba and gave him many
+wounds before he knew he was attacked at all. And they fought a very
+hard fight together, till their shields and their swords were broken in
+pieces. And that did not stop the battle, but they grappled together
+and fought and wrestled that way, till the tide went over them and
+drowned them both. And when the sea went over them the armies on each
+side gave out a great sorrowful cry.
+
+And after the ebb-tide on the morrow, the two bodies were found cold and
+quiet, each one held fast by the other. But Dolar Durba was beneath the
+king's son, so they knew it was the young lad was the best and had got
+the victory. And they buried him, and put a flag-stone over his grave,
+and keened him there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE HIGH KING'S SON
+
+
+Then Finn said he would send a challenge himself to Daire Bonn, the King
+of the Great World. But Caoilte asked leave to do that day's fighting
+himself. And Finn said he would agree to that if he could find enough of
+men to go with him. And he himself gave him a hundred men, and Oisin did
+the same, and so on with the rest. And he gave out his challenge, and it
+was the son of the King of the Great Plain that answered it. And while
+they were in the heat of the fight, a fleet of ships came into the
+harbour, and Finn thought they were come to help the foreigners. But
+Oisin looked at them, and he said: "It is seldom your knowledge fails
+you, Finn, but those are friends of our own: Fiachra, son of the King of
+the Fianna of the Bretons, and Duaban Donn, son of the King of
+Tuathmumain with his own people."
+
+And when those that were in the ships came on shore, they saw Caoilte's
+banner going down before the son of the King of the Great Plain. And
+they all went hurrying on to his help, and between them they made an
+end of the king's son and of all his people.
+
+"Who will keep watch to-night?" said Finn then. "We will," said the nine
+Garbhs of the Fianna, of Slieve Mis, and Slieve Cua, and Slieve Clair,
+and Slieve Crot, and Slieve Muice, and Slieve Fuad, and Slieve Atha
+Moir, and Dun Sobairce and Dundealgan.
+
+And they were not long watching till they saw the King of the Men of
+Dregan coming towards them, and they fought a fierce battle; and at the
+end of the night there were left standing but three of the Garbhs, and
+the King of the Men of Dregan. And they fought till their wits were gone
+from them; and those four fell together, sole against sole, and lip
+against lip.
+
+And the fight went on from day to day, and from week to week, and there
+were great losses on both sides. And when Fergus of the Sweet Lips saw
+that so many of the Fianna were fallen, he asked no leave but went to
+Teamhair of the Kings, where the High King of Ireland was, and he told
+him the way it was with Finn and his people. "That is good," said the
+High King, "Finn to be in that strait; for there is no labouring man
+dares touch a pig or a deer or a salmon if he finds it dead before him
+on account of the Fianna; and there is no man but is in dread to go from
+one place to another without leave from Finn, or to take a wife till he
+knows if she has a sweetheart among the Fianna of Ireland. And it is
+often Finn has given bad judgments against us," he said, "and it would
+be better for us the foreigners to gain the day than himself."
+
+Then Fergus went out to the lawn where the High King's son was playing
+at ball. "It is no good help you are giving to Ireland," said Fergus
+then, "to be playing a game without lasting profit, and strangers taking
+away your country from you." And he was urging him and blaming him, and
+great shame came on the young man, and he threw away the stick and went
+through the people of Teamhair and brought together all the young men, a
+thousand and twenty of them that were in it. And they asked no leave and
+no advice from the High King, but they set out and went on till they
+came to Finntraigh. And Fergus went to where Finn was, and told him the
+son of the High King of Ireland was come with him; and all the Fianna
+rose up before the young man and bade him welcome. And Finn said: "Young
+man," he said, "we would sooner see you coming at a time when there
+would be musicians and singers and poets and high-up women to make
+pleasure for you than at the time we are in the straits of battle the
+way we are now." "It is not for playing I am come," said the young man,
+"but to give you my service in battle." "I never brought a lad new to
+the work into the breast of battle," said Finn, "for it is often a lad
+coming like that finds his death, and I would not wish him to fall
+through me." "I give my word," said the young man, "I will do battle
+with them on my own account if I may not do it on yours." Then Fergus of
+the Fair Lips went out to give a challenge of battle from the son of the
+High King of Ireland to the King of the World.
+
+"Who will answer the King of Ireland's son for me?" said the King of the
+World. "I will go against him," said Sligech, King of the Men of Cepda;
+and he went on shore, and his three red battalions with him. And the
+High King's son went against them, and his comrades were near him, and
+they were saying to him: "Take a good heart now into the fight, for the
+Fianna will be no better pleased if it goes well with you than if it
+goes well with the foreigner." And when the High King's son heard that,
+he made a rush through the army of the foreigners, and began killing and
+overthrowing them, till their chief men were all made an end of. Then
+Sligech their king came to meet him, very angry and destroying, and
+they struck at one another and made a great fight, but at the last the
+King of Ireland's son got the upper hand, and he killed the King of the
+Men of Cepda and struck off his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE KING OF LOCHLANN AND HIS SONS
+
+
+And the fighting went on from day to day, and at last Finn said to
+Fergus of the Sweet Lips: "Go out, Fergus, and see how many of the
+Fianna are left for the fight to-day." And Fergus counted them, and he
+said: "There is one battalion only of the Fianna left in good order; but
+there are some of the men of it," he said, "are able to fight against
+three, and some that are able to fight against nine or thirty or a
+hundred." "If that is so," said Finn, "rise up and go to where the King
+of the World is, and bid him to come out to the great battle."
+
+So Fergus went to the King of the World, and it is the way he was, on
+his bed listening to the music of harps and pipes. "King of the World,"
+said Fergus, "it is long you are in that sleep; and that is no shame for
+you," he said, "for it will be your last sleep. And the whole of the
+Fianna are gone out to their place of battle," he said, "and let you go
+out and answer them." "In my opinion," said the King of the World,
+"there is not a man of them is able to fight against me; and how many
+are there left of the Fianna of Ireland?" "One battalion only that is in
+good order," said Fergus. "And how many of the armies of the World are
+there left?" he said. "Thirty battalions came with me to Ireland; and
+there are twenty of them fallen by the Fianna, and what is left of them
+is ten red battalions in good order. And there are eight good fighters
+of them," he said, "that would put down the men of the whole world if
+they were against me; that is, myself, and Conmail my son, and Ogarmach,
+the daughter of the King of Greece, that is the best hand in battle of
+the whole world after myself, and Finnachta of the Teeth, the chief of
+my household, and the King of Lochlann, Caisel Clumach of the Feathers,
+and his three sons, Tocha, and Forne of the Broad Shoulders, and Mongach
+of the Sea."
+
+"I swear by the oath of my people," said the King of Lochlann then, "if
+any man of the armies goes out against the Fianna before myself and my
+three sons, we will not go at all, for we would not get the satisfaction
+we are used to, unless our swords get their fill of blood." "I will go
+out against them alone," said Forne, the youngest son of the King of
+Lochlann. With that he put on his battle suit, and he went among the
+Fianna of Ireland, and a red-edged sword in each of his hands. And he
+destroyed those of their young men that were sent against him, and he
+made the strand narrow with their bodies.
+
+And Finn saw that, and it was torment to his heart, and danger of death
+and loss of wits to him, and he was encouraging the men of Ireland
+against Forne. And Fergus of the True Lips stood up, and it is what he
+said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "it is a pity the way you are under
+hardship and you defending Ireland. And one man is taking her from you
+to-day," he said, "and you are like no other thing but a flock of little
+birds looking for shelter in a bush from a hawk that is after them. And
+it is going into the shelter of Finn and Oisin and Caoilte you are," he
+said; "and not one of you is better than another, and none of you sets
+his face against the foreigner." "By my oath," said Oisin, "all that is
+true, and no one of us tries to do better than another keeping him off."
+"There is not one of you is better than another," said Fergus. Then
+Oisin gave out a great shout against the King of Lochlann's son. "Stop
+here with me, king's son," he said, "until I fight with you for the
+Fianna." "I give my word it is short the delay will be," said Forne.
+
+Then he himself and Oisin made an attack on one another, and it seemed
+for a while that the battle was going against Oisin. "By my word, Man of
+Poetry," said Finn then to Fergus of the True Lips, "it is a pity the
+way you sent my son against the foreigner. And rise up and praise him
+and hearten him now," he said. So Fergus went down to where the fight
+was, and he said: "There is great shame on the Fianna, Oisin, seeing you
+so low in this fight; and there is many a foot messenger and many a
+horsemen from the daughters of the kings and princes of Ireland looking
+at you now," he said. And great courage rose in Oisin then, and he drove
+his spear through the body of Forne, the King of Lochlann's son. And he
+himself came back to the Fianna of Ireland.
+
+Then the armies of the World gave out a great cry, keening Forne; and
+there was anger and not fear on his brothers, for they thought it no
+right thing he to have fallen by a man of the Fianna. And Tocha, the
+second son of the King of Lochlann, went on shore to avenge his brother.
+And he went straight into the middle of the Fianna, and gave his sword
+good feeding on their bodies, till they broke away before him and made
+no stand till Lugaidh's Son turned round against him. And those two
+fought a great fight, till their swords were bent and their spears
+crumbled away, and they lost their golden shields. And at the last
+Lugaidh's Son made a stroke of his sword that cut through the
+foreigner's sword, and then he made another stroke that cut his heart
+in two halves. And he came back high and proud to the Fianna.
+
+Then the third son of the King of Lochlann, Mongach of the Sea, rose up,
+and all the armies rose up along with him. "Stop here, Men of the
+World," he said, "for it is not you but myself that has to go and ask
+satisfaction for the bodies of my brothers." So he went on shore; and it
+is the way he was, with a strong iron flail in his hand having seven
+balls of pure iron on it, and fifty iron chains, and fifty apples on
+every chain, and fifty deadly thorns on every apple. And he made a rush
+through the Fianna to break them up entirely and to tear them into
+strings, and they gave way before him. And great shame came on Fidach,
+son of the King of the Bretons, and he said: "Come here and praise me,
+Fergus of the True Lips, till I go out and fight with the foreigner."
+"It is easy to praise you, son," said Fergus, and he was praising him
+for a long time.
+
+Then the two looked at one another and used fierce, proud words. And
+then Mongach of the Sea raised his iron flail and made a great blow at
+the King of the Bretons' son. But he made a quick leap to one side and
+gave him a blow of his sword that cut off his two hands at the joint;
+and he did not stop at that, but made a blow at his middle that cut him
+into two halves. But as he fell, an apple of the flail with its deadly
+thorns went into Fidach's comely mouth and through his brain, and it was
+foot to foot those two fell, and lip to lip.
+
+And the next that came to fight on the strand was the King of Lochlann
+himself, Caisel of the Feathers. And he came to the battle having his
+shield on his arm; and it is the way the shield was, that was made for
+him by the smith of the Fomor, there were red flames coming from it; and
+if it was put under the sea itself, not one of its flames would stop
+blazing. And when he had that shield on his arm no man could come near
+him.
+
+And there was never such destruction done on the men of Ireland as on
+that day, for the flames of fire that he sent from his shield went
+through the bodies of men till they blazed up like a splinter of oak
+that was after hanging through the length of a year in the smoke of a
+chimney; and any one that would touch the man that was burning would
+catch fire himself. And every other harm that ever came into Ireland
+before was small beside this.
+
+Then Finn said: "Lift up your hands, Fianna of Ireland, and give three
+shouts of blessing to whoever will hinder this foreigner." And the
+Fianna gave those three shouts; and the King of Lochlann gave a great
+laugh when he heard them. And Druimderg, grandson of the Head of the
+Fianna of Ulster, was near him, and he had with him a deadly spear, the
+Croderg, the Red-Socketed, that came down from one to another of the
+sons of Rudraighe. And he looked at the King of Lochlann, and he could
+see no part of him without armour but his mouth that was opened wide,
+and he laughing at the Fianna. Then Druimderg made a cast with the
+Croderg that hit him in the open mouth, and he fell, and his shield fell
+along with its master, and its flame went out. And Druimderg struck the
+head from his body, and made great boasts of the things he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. LABRAN'S JOURNEY
+
+
+It is then Fergus of the True Lips set out again and went through the
+length of Ireland till he came to the house of Tadg, son of Nuada, that
+was grandfather to Finn.
+
+And there was great grief on Muirne, Finn's mother, and on Labran of the
+Long Hand her brother, and on all her people, when they knew the great
+danger he was in. And Tadg asked his wife who did she think would escape
+with their lives from the great fighting at the White Strand. "It is a
+pity the way they are there," said she; "for if all the living men of
+the world were on one side, Daire Donn, the King of the World, would put
+them all down; for there are no weapons in the world that will ever be
+reddened on him. And on the night he was born, the smith of the Fomor
+made a shield and a sword, and it is in the prophecy that he will fall
+by no other arms but those. And it is to the King of the Country of the
+Fair Men he gave them to keep, and it is with him they are now." "If
+that is so," said Tadg, "you might be able to get help for Finn, son of
+Cumhal, the only son of your daughter. And bid Labran Lamfada to go and
+ask those weapons of him," he said. "Do not be asking me," said she, "to
+go against Daire Donn that was brought up in my father's house." But
+after they had talked for a while, they went out on the lawn, and they
+sent Labran looking for the weapons in the shape of a great eagle.
+
+And he went on from sea to sea, till at noon on the morrow he came to
+the dun of the King of the Country of the Fair Men; and he went in his
+own shape to the dun and saluted the king, and the king bade him
+welcome, and asked him to stop with him for a while. "There is a thing I
+want more than that," said Labran, "for the wife of a champion of the
+Fianna has given me her love, and I cannot get her without fighting for
+her; and it is the loan of that sword and that shield you have in your
+keeping I am come asking now," he said.
+
+There were seven rooms, now, in the king's house that opened into one
+another, and on the first door was one lock, and on the second two
+locks, and so on to the door of the last room that had seven locks; and
+it was in that the sword and the shield that were made by the smith of
+the Fomor were kept. And they were brought out and were given to Labran,
+and stalks of luck were put with them, and they were bound together with
+shield straps.
+
+Then Labran of the Long Hand went back across the seas again, and he
+reached his father's dun between the crowing of the cock and the full
+light of day; and the weakness of death came on him. "It is a good
+message you are after doing, my son," said Tadg, "and no one ever went
+that far in so short a time as yourself." "It is little profit that is
+to me," said Labran, "for I am not able to bring them to Finn in time
+for the fight to-morrow."
+
+But just at that time one of Tadg's people saw Aedh, son of Aebinn, that
+was as quick as the wind over a plain till the middle of every day, and
+after that, there was no man quicker than he was. "You are come at a
+good time," said Tadg. And with that he gave him the sword and the
+shield to bring to Finn for the battle.
+
+So Aedh, son of Aebinn, went with the swiftness of a hare or of a fawn
+or a swallow, till at the rising of the day on the morrow he came to the
+White Strand. And just at that time Fergus of the True Lips was rousing
+up the Fianna for the great fight, and it is what he said: "Fianna of
+Ireland," he said, "if there was the length of seven days in one day,
+you would have work to fill it now; for there never was and there never
+will be done in Ireland a day's work like the work of to-day."
+
+Then the Fianna of Ireland rose up, and they saw Aedh, son of Aebinn,
+coming towards them with his quick running, and Finn asked news from
+him. "It is from the dun of Tadg, son of Nuada, I am come," he said,
+"and it is to yourself I am sent, to ask how it is you did not redden
+your weapons yet upon the King of the World." "I swear by the oath of my
+people," said Finn, "if I do not redden my weapons on him, I will crush
+his body within his armour." "I have here for you, King of the Fianna,"
+said Aedh then, "the deadly weapons that will bring him to his death;
+and it was Labran of the Long Hand got them for you through his Druid
+arts." He put them in Finn's hand then, and Finn took the coverings off
+them, and there rose from them flashes of fire and deadly bubbles; and
+not one of the Fianna could stay looking at them, but it put great
+courage into them to know they were with Finn. "Rise up now," said Finn
+to Fergus of the True Lips, "and go where the King of the World is, and
+bid him to come out to the place of the great fight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT FIGHT
+
+
+Then the King of the World came to the strand, and all his armies with
+him; and all that were left of the Fianna went out against them, and
+they were like thick woods meeting one another, and they made great
+strokes, and there were swords crashing against bones, and bodies that
+were hacked, and eyes that were blinded, and many a mother was left
+without her son, and many a comely wife without her comrade.
+
+Then the creatures of the high air answered to the battle, foretelling
+the destruction that would be done that day; and the sea chattered of
+the losses, and the waves gave heavy shouts keening them, and the
+water-beasts roared to one another, and the rough hills creaked with the
+danger of the battle, and the woods trembled mourning the heroes, and
+the grey stones cried out at their deeds, and the wind sobbed telling
+them, and the earth shook, foretelling the slaughter; and the cries of
+the grey armies put a blue cloak over the sun, and the clouds were dark;
+and the hounds and the whelps and the crows, and the witches of the
+valley, and the powers of the air, and the wolves of the forests, howled
+from every quarter and on every side of the armies, urging them against
+one another.
+
+It was then Conan, son of Morna, brought to mind that himself and his
+kindred had done great harm to the sons of Baiscne, and he had a wish to
+do some good thing for them on account of that, and he raised up his
+sword and did great deeds.
+
+And Finn was over the battle, encouraging the Fianna; and the King of
+the World was on the other side encouraging the foreigners. "Rise up
+now, Fergus," said Finn, "and praise Conan for me that his courage may
+be the greater, for it is good work he is doing on my enemies." So
+Fergus went where Conan was, and at that time he was heated with the
+dust of the fight, and he was gone outside to let the wind go about him.
+
+"It is well you remember the old quarrel between the sons of Morna and
+the sons of Baiscne, Conan," said Fergus; "and you would be ready to go
+to your own death if it would bring harm on the sons of Baiscne," he
+said. "For the love of your good name, Man of Poetry," said Conan, "do
+not be speaking against me without cause, and I will do good work on the
+foreigners when I get to the battle again." "By my word," said Fergus,
+"that would be a good thing for you to do." He sang a verse of praise
+for him then, and Conan went back into the battle, and his deeds were
+not worse this time than they were before. And Fergus went back to where
+Finn was.
+
+"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn. "Duban, son of Cas, a
+champion of your own people," said Fergus, "for he never gives but the
+one stroke to any man, and no man escapes with his life from that
+stroke, and three times nine and eighty men have fallen by him up to
+this time." And Duban Donn, great-grandson of the King of Tuathmumhain,
+was there listening to him, and it is what he said: "By my oath,
+Fergus," he said, "all you are saying is true, for there is not a son of
+a king or of a lord is better in the battle than Duban, son of Cas; and
+I will go to my own death if I do not go beyond him." With that he went
+rushing through the battle like flames over a high hill that is thick
+with furze. Nine times he made a round of the battle, and he killed nine
+times nine in every round.
+
+"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn, after a while. "It is Duban
+Donn that is after going from us," said Fergus. "For there has been no
+one ahead of him since he was in his seventh year, and there is no one
+ahead of him now." "Rise up and praise him that his courage may be the
+greater," said Finn. "It is right to praise him," said Fergus, "and the
+foreigners running before him on every side as they would run from a
+heavy drenching of the sea." So Fergus praised him for a while, and he
+went back then to Finn.
+
+"Who is best in the battle now?" said Finn. "It is Osgar is best in it
+now," said Fergus, "and he is fighting alone against two hundred Franks
+and two hundred of the men of Gairian, and the King of the Men of
+Gairian himself. And all these are beating at his shield," he said, "and
+not one of them has given him a wound but he gave him a wound back for
+it." "What way is Caoilte, son of Ronan?" said Finn. "He is in no great
+strait after the red slaughter he has made," said Fergus. "Go to him
+then," said Finn, "and bid him to keep off a share of the foreigners
+from Osgar." So Fergus went to him. "Caoilte," he said, "it is great
+danger your friend Osgar is in under the blows of the foreigners, and
+let you rise up and give him some help," he said.
+
+Caoilte went then to the place where Osgar was, and he gave a straight
+blow of his sword at the man who was nearest him, that made two halves
+of him. Osgar raised his head then and looked at him. "It is likely,
+Caoilte," he said, "you did not dare redden your sword on any one till
+you struck down a man that was before my sword. And it is a shame for
+you," he said, "all the men of the great world and the Fianna of Ireland
+to be in the one battle, and you not able to make out a fight for
+yourself without coming to take a share of my share of the battle. And I
+give my oath," he said, "I would be glad to see you put down in your bed
+of blood on account of that thing." Caoilte's mind changed when he heard
+that, and he turned again to the army of the foreigners with the redness
+of anger on his white face; and eighty fighting men fell in that rout.
+
+"What way is the battle now?" said Finn. "It is a pity," said Fergus,
+"there never came and there never will come any one that can tell the
+way it is now. For by my word," he said, "the tree-tops of the thickest
+forest in the whole of the western world are not closer together than
+the armies are now. For the bosses of their shields are in one another's
+hands. And there is fire coming from the edges of their swords," he
+said, "and blood is raining down like a shower on a day of harvest; and
+there were never so many leaves torn by the wind from a great forest as
+there are locks of long golden hair, and of black curled hair, cut off
+by sharp weapons, blowing into the clouds at this time. And there is no
+person could tell one man from another, now," he said, "unless it might
+be by their voices." With that he went into the very middle of the fight
+to praise and to hearten the men of the Fianna.
+
+"Who is first in the battle now, Fergus?" said Finn, when he came back
+to him. "By my oath, it is no friend of your own is first in it," said
+Fergus, "for it is Daire Donn, the King of the World; and it is for you
+he is searching through the battle," he said, "and three times fifty of
+his own people were with him. But two of the men of your Fianna fell on
+them," he said, "Cairell the Battle Striker, and Aelchinn of Cruachan,
+and made an end of them. But they were not able to wound the King of the
+World," he said, "but the two of them fell together by him."
+
+Then the King of the World came towards Finn, and there was no one near
+him but Arcallach of the Black Axe, the first that ever brought a wide
+axe into Ireland. "I give my word," said Arcallach, "I would never let
+Finn go before me into any battle." He rose up then and made a terrible
+great blow of his axe at the king, that went through his royal crown to
+the hair of his head, but that did not take a drop of blood out of him,
+for the edge of the axe turned and there went balls of fire over the
+plain from that blow. And the King of the World struck back at
+Arcallach, and made two halves of him.
+
+Then Finn and the King of the World turned on one another. And when the
+king saw the sword and the shield in Finn's hand, he knew those were the
+weapons that were to bring him to his death, and great dread came on
+him, and his comeliness left him, and his fingers were shaking, and his
+feet were unsteady, and the sight of his eyes was weakened.
+
+And then the two fought a great fight, striking at one another like two
+days of judgment for the possession of the world.
+
+But the king, that had never met with a wound before, began to be
+greatly weakened in the fight. And Finn gave great strokes that broke
+his shield and his sword, and that cut off his left foot, and at the
+last he struck off his head. But if he did, he himself fell into a faint
+of weakness with the dint of the wounds he had got.
+
+Then Finnachta of the Teeth, the first man of the household of the King
+of the World, took hold of the royal crown of the king, and brought it
+where Conmail his son was, and put it on his head.
+
+"That this may bring you success in many battles, my son," he said. And
+he gave him his father's weapons along with it; and the young man went
+through the battle looking for Finn, and three fifties of the men of the
+Fianna fell by him. Then Goll Garbh the Rough, son of the King of Alban,
+saw him and attacked him, and they fought a hard fight. But the King of
+Albain's son gave him a blow under the shelter of the shield, in his
+left side, that made an end of him.
+
+Finnachta of the Teeth saw that, and he made another rush at the royal
+crown, and brought it to where Ogarmach was, the daughter of the King of
+Greece. "Put on that crown, Ogarmach," he said, "as it is in the
+prophecy the world will be owned by a woman; and it will never be owned
+by any woman higher than yourself," he said.
+
+She went then to look for Finn in the battle, and Fergus of the True
+Lips saw her, and he went where Finn was. "O King of the Fianna," he
+said then, "bring to mind the good fight you made against the King of
+the World and all your victories before that; for it is a great danger
+is coming to you now," he said, "and that is Ogarmach, daughter of the
+King of Greece."
+
+With that the woman-fighter came towards him. "O Finn," she said, "it is
+little satisfaction you are to me for all the kings and lords that have
+fallen by you and by your people; but for all that," she said, "there is
+nothing better for me to get than your own self and whatever is left of
+your people." "You will not get that," said Finn, "for I will lay your
+head in its bed of blood the same as I did to every other one." Then
+those two attacked one another like as if there had risen to smother
+one another the flooded wave of Cliodna, and the seeking wave of Tuaigh,
+and the big brave wave of Rudraighe. And though the woman-warrior fought
+for a long time, a blow from Finn reached to her at last and cut through
+the royal crown, and with a second blow he struck her head off. And then
+he fell himself in his bed of blood, and was the same as dead, but that
+he rose again.
+
+And the armies of the World and the Fianna of Ireland were fallen side
+by side there, and there were none left fit to stand but Cael, son of
+Crimthan of the Harbours, and the chief man of the household of the King
+of the World, Finnachta of the Teeth. And Finnachta went among the dead
+bodies and lifted up the body of the King of the World and brought it
+with him to his ship, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said,
+"although it is bad this battle was for the armies of the World, it was
+worse for yourselves; and I am going back to tell that in the East of
+the World," he said. Finn heard him saying that, and he lying on the
+ground in his blood, and the best men of the sons of Baiscne about him,
+and he said: "It is a pity I not to have found death before I heard the
+foreigner saying those words. And nothing I myself have done, or the
+Fianna of Ireland, is worth anything since there is left a man of the
+foreigners alive to go back into the great world again to tell that
+story. And is there any one left living near me?" he said. "I am," said
+Fergus of the True Lips. "What way is the battle now?" said Finn. "It is
+a pity the way it is," said Fergus, "for, by my word," he said, "since
+the armies met together to-day, no man of the foreigners or of the men
+of Ireland took a step backward from one another till they all fell foot
+to foot, and sole to sole. And there is not so much as a blade of grass
+or a grain of sand to be seen," he said, "with the bodies of fighting
+men that are stretched on them; and there is no man of the two armies
+that is not stretched in that bed of blood, but only the chief man of
+the household of the King of the World, and your own foster-son, Cael,
+son of Crimthan of the Harbours." "Rise up and go to him," said Finn. So
+Fergus went where Cael was, and asked what way was he. "It is a pity the
+way I am," said Cael, "for I swear by my word that if my helmet and my
+armour were taken from me, there is no part of my body but would fall
+from the other; and by my oath," he said, "it is worse to me to see that
+man beyond going away alive than I myself to be the way I am. And I
+leave my blessing to you, Fergus," he said; "and take me on your back to
+the sea till I swim after the foreigner, and it is glad I would be the
+foreigner to fall by me before the life goes out from my body." Fergus
+lifted him up then and brought him to the sea, and put him swimming
+after the foreigner. And Finnachta waited for him to reach the ship, for
+he thought he was one of his own people. And Cael raised himself up when
+he came beside the ship, and Finnachta stretched out his hand to him.
+And Cael took hold of it at the wrist, and clasped his fingers round it,
+and gave a very strong pull at him, that brought him over the side. Then
+their hands shut across one another's bodies, and they went down to the
+sand and the gravel of the clear sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. CREDHE'S LAMENT
+
+
+Then there came the women and the musicians and the singers and the
+physicians of the Fianna of Ireland to search out the kings and the
+princes of the Fianna, and to bury them; and every one that might be
+healed was brought to a place of healing.
+
+And Credhe, wife of Cael, came with the others, and went looking
+through the bodies for her comely comrade, and crying as she went. And
+as she was searching, she saw a crane of the meadows and her two
+nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watching the nestlings; and
+when the crane covered one of the birds to save it, he would make a rush
+at the other bird, the way she had to stretch herself out over the
+birds; and she would sooner have got her own death by the fox than her
+nestlings to be killed by him. And Credhe was looking at that, and she
+said: "It is no wonder I to have such love for my comely sweetheart, and
+the bird in that distress about her nestlings."
+
+Then she heard a stag in Druim Ruighlenn above the harbour, that was
+making great lamentations for his hind from place to place, for they had
+been nine years together, and had lived in the wood at the foot of the
+harbour, Fidh Leis, and Finn had killed the hind, and the stag was
+nineteen days without tasting grass or water, lamenting after the hind.
+"It is no shame for me," said Credhe, "I to die for grief after Cael,
+since the stag is shortening his life sorrowing after the hind."
+
+Then she met with Fergus of the True Lips. "Have you news of Cael for
+me, Fergus?" she said. "I have news," said Fergus, "for he and the last
+man that was left of the foreigners, Finnachta Fiaclach, are after
+drowning one another in the sea."
+
+And at that time the waves had put Cael back on the strand, and the
+women and the men of the Fianna that were looking for him raised him up,
+and brought him to the south of the White Strand.
+
+And Credhe came to where he was, and she keened him and cried over him,
+and she made this complaint:--
+
+"The harbour roars, O the harbour roars, over the rushing race of the
+Headland of the Two Storms, the drowning of the hero of the Lake of the
+Two Dogs, that is what the waves are keening on the strand.
+
+"Sweet-voiced is the crane, O sweet-voiced is the crane in the marshes
+of the Ridge of the Two Strong Men; it is she cannot save her nestlings,
+the wild dog of two colours is taking her little ones.
+
+"Pitiful the cry, pitiful the cry the thrush is making in the Pleasant
+Ridge, sorrowful is the cry of the blackbird in Leiter Laeig.
+
+"Sorrowful the call, O sorrowful the call of the deer in the Ridge of
+Two Lights; the doe is lying dead in Druim Silenn, the mighty stag cries
+after her.
+
+"Sorrowful to me, O sorrowful to me the death of the hero that lay
+beside me; the son of the woman of the Wood of the Two Thickets, to be
+with a bunch of grass under his head.
+
+"Sore to me, O sore to me Cael to be a dead man beside me, the waves to
+have gone over his white body; it is his pleasantness that has put my
+wits astray.
+
+"A woeful shout, O a woeful shout the waves are making on the strand;
+they that took hold of comely Cael, a pity it is he went to meet them.
+
+"A woeful crash, O a woeful crash the waves are making on the strand to
+the north, breaking against the smooth rock, crying after Cael now he is
+gone.
+
+"A sorrowful fight, O a sorrowful fight, the sea is making with the
+strand to the north; my beauty is lessened; the end of my life is
+measured.
+
+"A song of grief, O a song of grief is made by the waves of Tulcha Leis;
+all I had is gone since this story came to me. Since the son of
+Crimthann is drowned I will love no one after him for ever; many a king
+fell by his hand; his shield never cried out in the battle."
+
+After she had made that complaint, Credhe laid herself down beside Cael
+and died for grief after him. And they were put in the one grave, and
+it was Caoilte raised the stone over them.
+
+And after that great battle of the White Strand, that lasted a year and
+a day, there was many a sword and shield left broken, and many a dead
+body lying on the ground, and many a fighting man left with a foolish
+smile on his face.
+
+And the great name that was on the armies of the World went from them to
+the Fianna of Ireland; and they took the ships and the gold and the
+silver and all the spoils of the armies of the World. And from that time
+the Fianna had charge of the whole of Ireland, to keep it from the Fomor
+and from any that might come against it.
+
+And they never lost power from that time until the time of their last
+battle, the sorrowful battle of Gabhra.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR: HUNTINGS AND ENCHANTMENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE KING OF BRITAIN'S SON
+
+
+Arthur, son of the King of Britain, came one time to take service with
+Finn, and three times nine men along with him. And they went hunting one
+day on Beinn Edair, and Finn took his place on the Cairn of the Fianna
+between the hill and the sea, and Arthur took his stand between the hunt
+and the sea, the way the deer would not escape by swimming.
+
+And while Arthur was there he took notice of three of Finn's hounds,
+Bran, and Sceolan and Adhnuall, and he made a plan in his mind to go
+away across the sea, himself and his three nines, bringing those three
+hounds along with him. So he did that, and he himself and his men
+brought away the hounds and crossed the sea, and the place where they
+landed was Inver Mara Gamiach on the coast of Britain. And after they
+landed, they went to the mountain of Lodan, son of Lir, to hunt on it.
+
+And as to the Fianna, after their hunting was done they gathered
+together on the hill; and as the custom was, all Finn's hounds were
+counted. Three hundred full-grown hounds he had, and two hundred whelps;
+and it is what the poets used to say, that to be counting them was like
+counting the branches on a tree.
+
+Now on this day when they were counted, Bran and Sceolan and Adhnuall
+were missing; and that was told to Finn. He bade his people to search
+again through the three battalions of the Fianna, but search as they
+would, the hounds were not to be found.
+
+Then Finn sent for a long-shaped basin of pale gold, and water in it,
+and he put his face in the water, and his hand over his face, and it was
+showed him what had happened, and he said: "The King of Britain's son
+has brought away the hound. And let nine men be chosen out to follow
+after them," he said. So nine men were chosen out, Diarmuid, grandson of
+Duibhne; Goll, son of Morna; Oisin, son of Finn; Faolan, the friend of
+the hounds, son of a woman that had come over the sea to give her love
+to Finn; Ferdoman, son of Bodb Dearg; two sons of Finn, Raighne Wide Eye
+and Cainche the Crimson-Red; Glas, son of Enchered Bera, with Caoilte
+and Lugaidh's Son. And their nine put their helmets on their heads, and
+took their long spears in their hands, and they felt sure they were a
+match for any four hundred men from the east to the west of the world.
+
+They set out then, till they came to the mountain of Lodan, son of Lir;
+and they were not long there till they heard talk of men that were
+hunting in that place.
+
+Arthur of Britain and his people were sitting on a hunting mound just at
+that time, and the nine men of the Fianna made an attack on them and
+killed all of them but Arthur, that Goll, son of Morna, put his two arms
+about and saved from death. Then they turned to go back to Ireland,
+bringing Arthur with them, and the three hounds. And as they were going,
+Goll chanced to look around him and he saw a dark-grey horse, having a
+bridle with fittings of worked gold. And then he looked to the left and
+saw a bay mare that was not easy to get hold of, and it having a bridle
+of silver rings and a golden bit. And Goll took hold of the two, and he
+gave them into Oisin's hand, and he gave them on to Diarmuid.
+
+They went back to Finn then, bringing his three hounds with them, and
+the King of Britain's son as a prisoner; and Arthur made bonds with
+Finn, and was his follower till he died.
+
+And as to the horse and the mare, they gave them to Finn; and the mare
+bred eight times, at every birth eight foals, and it is of that seed
+came all the horses of the fair Fianna of the Gael, for they had used
+no horses up to that time.
+
+And that was not the only time Finn was robbed of some of his hounds.
+For there was a daughter of Roman was woman-Druid to the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and she set her love on Finn. But Finn said, so long as there
+was another woman to be found in the world, he would not marry a witch.
+And one time, three times fifty of Finn's hounds passed by the hill
+where she was; and she breathed on the hounds and shut them up in the
+hill, and they never came out again. It was to spite Finn she did that,
+and the place got the name of Duma na Conn, the Mound of the Hounds.
+
+And as to Adhnuall, one of the hounds Finn thought most of, and that was
+brought back from the King of Britain's son, this is the way he came to
+his death afterwards.
+
+There was a great fight one time between the Fianna and Macoon, son of
+Macnia, at some place in the province of Leinster, and a great many of
+the Fianna were killed. And the hound Adhnuall went wandering northward
+from the battle and went astray; and three times he went round the whole
+of Ireland, and then he came back to the place of the battle, and to a
+hill where three young men of the Fianna that had fallen there were
+buried after their death, and three daughters of a King of Alban that
+had died for love of them. And when Adhnuall came to that hill, he gave
+three loud howls and he stretched himself out and died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN
+
+
+Finn called for a great hunt one time on the plains of Magh Chonaill and
+in the forest parts of Cairbre of the Nuts. And he himself went up to
+the top of Ceiscoran, and his two dogs Bran and Sceolan with him.
+
+And the Fianna were shouting through the whole country where they were
+hunting, the way the deer were roused in their wild places and the
+badgers in their holes, and foxes in their wanderings, and birds on the
+wing.
+
+And Conaran, son of Imidd, of the Tuatha de Danaan, had the sway in
+Ceiscoran at that time, and when he heard the shouting and the cry of
+the hounds all around, he bade his three daughters that had a great
+share of enchantments, to do vengeance on Finn for his hunting.
+
+The three women went then to the opening of a cave that was in the
+hills, and there they sat down together, and they put three strong
+enchanted hanks of yarn on crooked holly-sticks, and began to reel them
+off outside the cave.
+
+They were not long there till Finn and Conan came towards them, and saw
+the three ugly old hags at their work, their coarse hair tossed, their
+eyes red and bleary, their teeth sharp and crooked, their arms very
+long, their nails like the tips of cows' horns, and the three spindles
+in their hands.
+
+Finn and Conan passed through the hanks of yarn to get a better look at
+the hags. And no sooner had they done that, than a deadly trembling came
+on them and a weakness, and the bold hags took hold of them and put them
+in tight bonds.
+
+Two other men of the Fianna came up then, and the sons of Menhann along
+with them, and they went through the spindles to where Finn and Conan
+were, and their strength went from them in the same way, and the hags
+tied them fast and carried them into the cave.
+
+They were not long there till Caoilte and Lugaidh's Son came to the
+place, and along with them the best men of the sons of Baiscne. The sons
+of Morna came as well, and no sooner did they see the hanks than their
+strength and their bravery went out of them the same as it went from the
+others.
+
+And in the end the whole number of them, gentle and simple, were put in
+bonds by the hags, and brought into the cave. And there began at the
+mouth of the cave a great outcry of hounds calling for their masters
+that had left them there. And there was lying on the hillside a great
+heap of deer, and wild pigs, and hares, and badgers, dead and torn, that
+were brought as far as that by the hunters that were tied up now in the
+cave.
+
+Then the three women came in, having swords in their hands, to the place
+where they were lying, to make an end of them. But first they looked out
+to see was there ever another man of the Fianna to bring in and to make
+an end of with the rest.
+
+And they saw coming towards them a very tall man that was Goll, son of
+Morna, the Flame of Battle. And when the three hags saw him they went to
+meet him, and they fought a hard battle with him. And great anger came
+on Goll, and he made great strokes at the witches, and at the last he
+raised up his sword, and with one blow he cut the two that were nearest
+him through and through.
+
+And then the oldest of the three women wound her arms about Goll, and he
+beheading the two others, and he turned to face her and they wrestled
+together, till at last Goll gave her a great twist and threw her on the
+ground. He tied her fast then with the straps of a shield, and took his
+sword to make an end of her. But the hag said: "O champion that was
+never worsted, strong man that never went back in battle, I put my body
+and my life under the protection of your bravery. And it is better for
+you," she said, "to get Finn and the Fianna safe and whole than to have
+my blood; and I swear by the gods my people swear by," she said, "I will
+give them back to you again."
+
+With that Goll set her free, and they went together into the hill where
+the Fianna were lying. And Goll said: "Loose off the fastenings first
+from Fergus of the True Lips and from the other learned men of the
+Fianna; and after that from Finn, and Oisin, and the twenty-nine sons of
+Morna, and from all the rest."
+
+She took off the fastenings then, and the Fianna made no delay, but rose
+up and went out and sat down on the side of the hill. And Fergus of the
+Sweet Lips looked at Goll, son of Morna, and made great praises of him,
+and of all that he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DONN SON OF MIDHIR
+
+
+One time the Fianna were at their hunting at the island of Toraig to the
+north of Ireland, and they roused a fawn that was very wild and
+beautiful, and it made for the coast, and Finn and six of his men
+followed after it through the whole country, till they came to
+Slieve-nam-Ban. And there the fawn put down its head and vanished into
+the earth, and none of them knew where was it gone to.
+
+A heavy snow began to fall then that bent down the tops of the trees
+like a willow-gad, and the courage and the strength went from the Fianna
+with the dint of the bad weather, and Finn said to Caoilte: "Is there
+any place we can find shelter to-night?" Caoilte made himself supple
+then, and went over the elbow of the hill southward.
+
+And when he looked around him he saw a house full of light, with cups
+and horns and bowls of different sorts in it. He stood a good while
+before the door of the house, that he knew to be a house of the Sidhe,
+thinking would it be best go in and get news of it, or to go back to
+Finn and the few men that were with him. And he made up his mind to go
+into the house, and there he sat down on a shining chair in the middle
+of the floor; and he looked around him, and he saw, on the one side,
+eight-and-twenty armed men, each of them having a well-shaped woman
+beside him. And on the other side he saw six nice young girls,
+yellow-haired, having shaggy gowns from their shoulders. And in the
+middle there was another young girl sitting in a chair, and a harp in
+her hand, and she playing on it and singing. And every time she stopped,
+a man of them would give her a horn to drink from, and she would give it
+back to him again, and they were all making mirth around her.
+
+She spoke to Caoilte then. "Caoilte, my life," she said, "give us leave
+to attend on you now." "Do not," said Caoilte, "for there is a better
+man than myself outside, Finn, son of Cumhal, and he has a mind to eat
+in this house to-night." "Rise up, Caoilte, and go for Finn," said a man
+of the house then; "for he never refused any man in his own house, and
+he will get no refusal from us."
+
+Caoilte went back then to Finn, and when Finn saw him he said: "It is
+long you are away from us, Caoilte, for from the time I took arms in my
+hands I never had a night that put so much hardship on me as this one."
+
+The six of them went then into the lighted house and their shields and
+their arms with them. And they sat down on the edge of a seat, and a
+girl having yellow hair came and brought them to a shining seat in the
+middle of the house, and the newest of every food, and the oldest of
+every drink was put before them. And when the sharpness of their hunger
+and their thirst was lessened, Finn said: "Which of you can I question?"
+"Question whoever you have a mind to," said the tallest of the men that
+was near him. "Who are you yourself then?" said Finn, "for I did not
+think there were so many champions in Ireland, and I not knowing them."
+
+"Those eight-and-twenty armed men you see beyond," said the tall man,
+"had the one father and mother with myself; and we are the sons of
+Midhir of the Yellow Hair, and our mother is Fionnchaem, the fair,
+beautiful daughter of the King of the Sidhe of Monaid in the east. And
+at one time the Tuatha de Danaan had a gathering, and gave the kingship
+to Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, at his bright hospitable place, and he
+began to ask hostages of myself and of my brothers; but we said that
+till all the rest of the Men of Dea had given them, we would not give
+them. Bodb Dearg said then to our father: 'Unless you will put away your
+sons, we will wall up your dwelling-place on you.' So the
+eight-and-twenty brothers of us came out to look for a place for
+ourselves; and we searched all Ireland till we found this secret hidden
+place, and we are here ever since. And my own name," he said, "is Donn,
+son of Midhir. And we had every one of us ten hundred armed men
+belonging to himself, but they are all worn away now, and only the
+eight-and-twenty of us left." "What is it is wearing you away?" said
+Finn. "The Men of Dea," said Donn, "that come three times in every year
+to give battle to us on the green outside." "What is the long new grave
+we saw on the green outside?" said Finn. "It is the grave of Diangalach,
+a man of enchantments of the Men of Dea; and that is the greatest loss
+came on them yet," said Donn; "and it was I myself killed him," he
+said. "What loss came next to that?" said Finn. "All the Tuatha de
+Danaan had of jewels and riches and treasures, horns and vessels and
+cups of pale gold, we took from them at the one time." "What was the
+third greatest loss they had?" said Finn. "It was Fethnaid, daughter of
+Feclach, the woman-harper of the Tuatha de Danaan, their music and the
+delight of their minds," said Donn.
+
+"And to-morrow," he said, "they will be coming to make an attack on us,
+and there is no one but myself and my brothers left; and we knew we
+would be in danger, and that we could make no stand against them. And we
+sent that bare-headed girl beyond to Toraig in the North in the shape of
+a foolish fawn, and you followed her here. It is that girl washing
+herself, and having a green cloak about her, went looking for you.
+
+"And the empty side of the house," he said, "belonged to our people that
+the Men of Dea have killed."
+
+They spent that night in drinking and in pleasure. And when they rose up
+in the morning of the morrow, Donn, son of Midhir, said to Finn, "Come
+out with me now on the lawn till you see the place where we fight the
+battles every year." They went out then and they looked at the graves
+and the flag-stones, and Donn said: "It is as far as this the Men of Dea
+come to meet us." "Which of them come here?" said Finn.
+
+"Bodb Dearg with his seven sons," said Donn; "and Angus Og, son of the
+Dagda, with his seven sons; and Finnbharr of Cnoc Medha with his
+seventeen sons; Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh with his twenty-seven sons and
+their sons; Tadg, son of Nuada, out of the beautiful hill of Almhuin;
+Donn of the Island and Donn of the Vat; the two called Glas from the
+district of Osraige; Dobhran Dubthaire from the hill of Liamhain of the
+Smooth Shirt; Aedh of the Island of Rachrainn in the north; Ferai and
+Aillinn and Lir and Fainnle, sons of Eogobal, from Cnoc Aine in Munster;
+Cian and Coban and Conn, three sons of the King of Sidhe Monaid in
+Alban; Aedh Minbhreac of Ess Ruadh with his seven sons; the children of
+the Morrigu, the Great Queen, her six-and-twenty women warriors, the two
+Luaths from Magh Life; Derg and Drecan out of the hill of Beinn Edair in
+the east; Bodb Dearg himself with his great household, ten hundred ten
+score and ten. Those are the chief leaders of the Tuatha de Danaan that
+come to destroy our hill every year."
+
+Finn went back into the hill then, and told all that to his people.
+
+"My people," he said, "it is in great need and under great oppression
+the sons of Midhir are, and it is into great danger we are come
+ourselves. And unless we make a good fight now," he said, "it is likely
+we will never see the Fianna again."
+
+"Good Finn," every one of them said then, "did you ever see any
+drawing-back in any of us that you give us that warning?" "I give my
+word," said Finn, "if I would go through the whole world having only
+this many of the Fianna of Ireland along with me, I would not know fear
+nor fright. And good Donn," he said, "is it by day or by night the Men
+of Dea come against you?" "It is at the fall of night they come," said
+Donn, "the way they can do us the most harm."
+
+So they waited till night came on, and then Finn said: "Let one of you
+go out now on the green to keep watch for us, the way the Men of Dea
+will not come on us without word or warning."
+
+And the man they set to watch was not gone far when he saw five strong
+battalions of the Men of Dea coming towards him. He went back then to
+the hill and he said: "It is what I think, that the troops that are come
+against us this time and are standing now around the grave of the Man
+of Enchantments are a match for any other fighting men."
+
+Finn called to his people then, and he said: "These are good fighters
+are come against you, having strong red spears. And let you all do well
+now in the battle. And it is what you have to do," he said, "to keep the
+little troop of brothers, the sons of Midhir, safe in the fight; for it
+would be a treachery to friendship any harm to come on them, and we
+after joining them; and myself and Caoilte are the oldest among you, and
+leave the rest of the battle to us."
+
+Then from the covering time of evening to the edge of the morning they
+fought the battle. And the loss of the Tuatha de Danaan was no less a
+number than ten hundred ten score and ten men. Then Bodb Dearg and
+Midhir and Fionnbhar said to one another: "What are we to do with all
+these? And let Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh give us an advice," they said,
+"since he is the oldest of us." And Lir said: "It is what I advise, let
+every one carry away his friends and his fosterlings, his sons and his
+brothers, to his own place. And as for us that stop here," he said, "let
+a wall of fire be made about us on the one side, and a wall of water on
+the other side." Then the Men of Dea put up a great heap of stones, and
+brought away their dead; and of all the great slaughter that Finn and
+his men and the sons of Midhir had made, there was not left enough for a
+crow to perch upon.
+
+And as to Finn and his men, they went back into the hill, hurt and
+wounded and worn-out.
+
+And they stopped in the hill with the sons of Midhir through the whole
+length of a year, and three times in the year the Men of Dea made an
+attack on the hill, and a battle was fought.
+
+And Conn, son of Midhir, was killed in one of the battles; and as to the
+Fianna, there were so many wounds on them that the clothing was held
+off from their bodies with bent hazel sticks, and they lying in their
+beds, and two of them were like to die. And Finn and Caoilte and
+Lugaidh's Son went out on the green, and Caoilte said: "It was a bad
+journey we made coming to this hill, to leave two of our comrades after
+us." "It is a pity for whoever will face the Fianna of Ireland," said
+Lugaidh's Son, "and he after leaving his comrades after him." "Whoever
+will go back and leave them, it will not be myself," said Finn. Then
+Bonn, son of Midhir, came to them. "Good Donn," said Finn, "have you
+knowledge of any physician that can cure our men?" "I only know one
+physician could do that," said Donn; "a physician the Tuatha de Danaan
+have with them. And unless a wounded man has the marrow of his back cut
+through, he will get relief from that physician, the way he will be
+sound at the end of nine days." "How can we bring that man here," said
+Finn, "for those he is with are no good friends to us?" "He goes out
+every morning at break of day," said Donn, "to gather healing herbs
+while the dew is on them." "Find some one, Donn," said Caoilte, "that
+will show me that physician, and, living or dead, I will bring him with
+me."
+
+Then Aedh and Flann, two of the sons of Midhir, rose up. "Come with us,
+Caoilte," they said, and they went on before him to a green lawn with
+the dew on it; and when they came to it they saw a strong young man
+armed and having a cloak of the wool of the seven sheep of the Land of
+Promise, and it full of herbs of healing he was after gathering for the
+Men of Dea that were wounded in the battle. "Who is that man?" said
+Caoilte. "That is the man we came looking for," said Aedh. "And mind him
+well now," he said, "that he will not make his escape from us back to
+his own people."
+
+They ran at him together then, and Caoilte took him by the shoulders
+and they brought him away with them to the ford of the Slaine in the
+great plain of Leinster, where the most of the Fianna were at that time;
+and a Druid mist rose up about them that they could not be seen.
+
+And they went up on a little hill over the ford, and they saw before
+them four young men having crimson fringed cloaks and swords with gold
+hilts, and four good hunting hounds along with them. And the young man
+could not see them because of the mist, but Caoilte saw they were his
+own two sons, Colla and Faolan, and two other young men of the Fianna,
+and he could hear them talking together, and saying it was a year now
+that Finn, son of Cumhal, was gone from them. "And what will the Fianna
+of Ireland do from this out," said one of them, "without their lord and
+their leader?" "There is nothing for them to do," said another, "but to
+go to Teamhair and to break up there, or to find another leader for
+themselves." And there was heavy sorrow on them for the loss of their
+lord; and it was grief to Caoilte to be looking at them.
+
+And he and the two sons of Midhir went back then by the Lake of the Two
+Birds to Slieve-nam Ban, and they went into the hill.
+
+And Finn and Donn gave a great welcome to Luibra, the physician, and
+they showed him their two comrades that were lying in their wounds.
+"Those men are brothers to me," said Donn, "and tell me how can they be
+cured?" Luibra looked then at their wounds, and he said: "They can be
+cured if I get a good reward." "You will get that indeed," said Caoilte;
+"and tell me now," he said, "how long will it take to cure them?" "It
+will take nine days," said Luibra. "It is a good reward you will get,"
+said Caoilte, "and this is what it is, your own life to be left to you.
+But if these young men are not healed," he said, "it is my own hand will
+strike off your head."
+
+And within nine days the physician had done a cure on them, and they
+were as well and as sound as before.
+
+And it was after that time the High King sent a messenger to bring the
+Fianna to the Feast of Teamhair. And they all gathered to it, men and
+women, boys and heroes and musicians. And Goll, son of Morna, was
+sitting at the feast beside the king. "It is a great loss you have had,
+Fianna of Ireland," said the king, "losing your lord and your leader,
+Finn, son of Cumhal." "It is a great loss indeed," said Goll.
+
+"There has no greater loss fallen on Ireland since the loss of Lugh, son
+of Ethne," said the king. "What orders will you give to the Fianna now,
+king?" said Goll. "To yourself, Goll," said the king, "I will give the
+right of hunting over all Ireland till we know if the loss of Finn is
+lasting." "I will not take Finn's place," said Goll, "till he has been
+wanting to us through the length of three years, and till no person in
+Ireland has any hope of seeing him again."
+
+Then Ailbe of the Freckled Face said to the king: "What should these
+seventeen queens belonging to Finn's household do?" "Let a safe, secret
+sunny house be given to every one of them," said the king; "and let her
+stop there and her women with her, and let provision be given to her for
+a month and a quarter and a year till we have knowledge if Finn is alive
+or dead."
+
+Then the king stood up, and a smooth drinking-horn in his hand, and he
+said: "It would be a good thing, men of Ireland, if any one among you
+could get us news of Finn in hills or in secret places, or in rivers or
+invers, or in any house of the Sidhe in Ireland or in Alban."
+
+With that Berngal, the cow-owner from the borders of Slieve Fuad, that
+was divider to the King of Ireland, said: "The day Finn came out from
+the north, following after a deer of the Sidhe, and his five comrades
+with him, he put a sharp spear having a shining head in my hand, and a
+hound's collar along with it, and he bade me to keep them till he would
+meet me again in the same place." Berngal showed the spear and the
+collar then to the king and to Goll, and they looked at them and the
+king said: "It is a great loss to the men of Ireland the man is that
+owned this collar and this spear. And were his hounds along with him?"
+he said. "They were," said Berngal; "Bran and Sceolan were with Finn,
+and Breac and Lainbhui with Caoilte, and Conuall and Comrith with
+Lugaidh's Son."
+
+The High King called then for Fergus of the True Lips, and he said: "Do
+you know how long is Finn away from us?" "I know that well," said
+Fergus; "it is a month and a quarter and a year since we lost him. And
+indeed it is a great loss he is to the Fianna of Ireland," he
+said, "himself and the men that were with him." "It is a great loss
+indeed," said the king, "and I have no hope at all of finding those six
+that were the best men of Ireland or of Alban."
+
+And then he called to Cithruadh, the Druid, and he said: "It is much
+riches and many treasures Finn gave you, and tell us now is he living or
+is he dead?" "He is living," said Cithruadh then. "But as to where he
+is, I will give no news of that," he said, "for he himself would not
+like me to give news of it." There was great joy among them when they
+heard that, for everything Cithruadh had ever foretold had come true.
+"Tell us when will he come back?" said the king. "Before the Feast of
+Teamhair is over," said the Druid, "you will see the Leader of the
+Fianna drinking at it."
+
+And as to Finn and his men, they stopped in the House of the Two Birds
+till they had taken hostages for Donn, son of Midhir, from the Tuatha de
+Danaan. And on the last day of the Feast of Teamhair they came back to
+their people again.
+
+And from that time out the Fianna of Ireland had not more dealings with
+the people living in houses than they had with the People of the Gods of
+Dana.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE HOSPITALITY OF CUANNA'S HOUSE
+
+
+It happened one day Finn and Oisin and Caoilte and Diarmuid and
+Lugaidh's Son went up on the top of Cairn Feargall, and their five
+hounds with them, Bran and Sceolan, Sear Dubh, Luath Luachar and
+Adhnuall. And they were not long there till they saw a giant coming
+towards them, very tall and rough and having an iron fork on his back
+and a squealing pig between the prongs of the fork. And there was a
+beautiful eager young girl behind the giant, shoving him on before her.
+"Let some one go speak with those people," said Finn. So Diarmuid went
+towards them, but they turned away before he came to them. Then Finn and
+the rest rose up and went after them, but before they came to the giant
+and the girl, a dark Druid mist rose up that hid the road. And when the
+mist cleared away, Finn and the rest looked about them, and they saw a
+good light-roofed house at the edge of a ford near at hand. They went on
+to the house, and there was a green lawn before it, and in the lawn two
+wells, and on the edge of one well there was a rough iron vessel, and on
+the edge of the other a copper vessel. They went into the house then,
+and they found there a very old white-haired man, standing to the right
+hand of the door, and the beautiful young girl they saw before, sitting
+near him, and the great rough giant beside the fire, and he boiling a
+pig. And on the other side of the fire there was an old countryman,
+having dark-grey hair and twelve eyes in his head, and his twelve eyes
+were twelve sons of battle. And there was a ram in the house having a
+white belly and a very black head, and dark-blue horns and green feet.
+And there was a hag in the end of the house and a worn grey gown on her,
+and there was no one in the house but those.
+
+And the man at the door gave them a welcome, and then the five of them
+sat down on the floor of the house, and their hounds along with them.
+
+"Let great respect be shown to Finn, son of Cumhal, and to his people,"
+said the man at the door. "It is the way I am," said the giant, "to be
+asking always and getting nothing." But for all that he rose up and
+showed respect to Finn.
+
+Presently there came a great thirst on Finn, and no one took notice of
+it but Caoilte, and he began complaining greatly. "Why are you
+complaining, Caoilte?" said the man at the door; "you have but to go out
+and get a drink for Finn at whichever of the wells you will choose."
+Caoilte went out then, and he brought the full of the copper vessel to
+Finn, and Finn took a drink from it, and there was the taste of honey on
+it while he was drinking, and the taste of gall on it after, so that
+fierce windy pains and signs of death came on him, and his appearance
+changed, that he would hardly be known. And Caoilte made greater
+complaints than he did before on account of the way he was, till the man
+at the door bade him to go out and to bring him a drink from the other
+well. So Caoilte did that, and brought in the full of the iron vessel.
+And Finn never went through such great hardship in any battle as he did
+drinking that draught, from the bitterness of it; but no sooner did he
+drink it than his own colour and appearance came back to him and he was
+as well as before, and his people were very glad when they saw that.
+
+Then the man of the house asked was the pig ready that was in the
+cauldron. "It is ready," said the giant; "and leave the dividing of it
+to me," he said. "What way will you divide it?" said the man of the
+house. "I will give one hind quarter to Finn and his dogs," said the
+giant, "and the other hind quarter to Finn's four comrades; and the fore
+quarter to myself, and the chine and the rump to the old man there by
+the fire and the hag in the corner; and the entrails to yourself and to
+the young girl that is beside you." "I give my word," said the man of
+the house, "you have shared it well." "I give my word," said the ram,
+"it is a bad division to me, for you have forgotten my share in it."
+With that he took hold of the quarter that was before the Fianna, and
+brought it into a corner and began to eat it. On that the four of them
+attacked him with their swords, but with all the hard strokes they gave
+they could not harm him at all, for the swords slipped from his back the
+same as they would from a rock. "On my word it is a pity for any one
+that has the like of you for comrades," said the man with the twelve
+eyes, "and you letting a sheep bring away your food from you." With that
+he went up to the ram and took him by the feet and threw him out from
+the door that he fell on his back, and they saw him no more.
+
+It was not long after that, the hag rose up and threw her pale grey gown
+over Finn's four comrades, and they turned to four old men, weak and
+withered, their heads hanging. When Finn saw that there came great dread
+on him, and the man at the door saw it, and he bade him to come over to
+him, and to put his head in his breast and to sleep. Finn did that, and
+the hag took her covering off the four men, the way that when Finn awoke
+they were in their own shape again, and it is well pleased he was to see
+that.
+
+"Is there wonder on you, Finn?" said the man at the door, "at the ways
+of this house?" "I never wondered more at anything I ever saw," said
+Finn. "I will tell you the meaning of them, so," said the man. "As to
+the giant you saw first," he said, "having the squealing pig in the
+prongs of his fork, Sluggishness is his name; and the girl here beside
+me that was shoving him along is Liveliness, for liveliness pushes on
+sluggishness, and liveliness goes farther in the winking of an eye than
+the foot can travel in a year. The old man there beyond with the twelve
+bright eyes betokens the World, and he is stronger than any other, and
+he showed that when he made nothing of the ram. The ram you saw betokens
+the Desires of Men. The hag is Old Age, and her gown withered up your
+four comrades. And the two wells you drank the two draughts out of," he
+said, "betoken Lying and Truth; for it is sweet to people to be telling
+a lie, but it is bitter in the end. And as to myself," he said, "Cuanna
+from Innistuil is my name, and it is not here I am used to be, but I
+took a very great love for you, Finn, because of your wisdom and your
+great name, and so I put these things in your way that I might see you.
+And the hospitality of Cuanna's house to Finn will be the name of this
+story to the end of the world. And let you and your men come together
+now," he said, "and sleep till morning."
+
+So they did that, and when they awoke in the morning, it is where they
+were, on the top of Cairn Feargall, and their dogs and their arms beside
+them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. CAT-HEADS AND DOG-HEADS
+
+
+Nine of the Fianna set out one time, looking for a pup they wanted, and
+they searched through many places before they found it. All through Magh
+Leine they searched, and through the Valley of the Swords, and through
+the storm of Druim Cleibh, and it is pleasant the Plain of the Life
+looked after it; but not a pup could they find. Then they went searching
+through Durlass of the generous men, and great Teamhair and Dun Dobhran
+and Ceanntsaile, men and dogs searching the whole of Ireland, but not a
+pup could they find.
+
+And while they were going from place to place, and their people with
+them, they saw the three armies of the sons of the King of Ruadhleath
+coming towards them. Cat-headed one army was, and the one alongside of
+it was Dog-headed, and the men of the third army were White-backed.
+
+And when the Fianna saw them coming, Finn held up his shining spear, and
+light-hearted Caoilte gave out a great shout that was heard in Almhuin,
+and in Magh Leine, and in Teamhair, and in Dun Reithlein. And that shout
+was answered by Goll, son of Morna, and by Faolan, Finn's son that was
+with him, and by the Stutterers from Burren, and by the two sons of
+Maith Breac, and by Iolunn of the Sharp Edge, and by Cael of the Sharp
+Sword, that never gave his ear to tale-bearers.
+
+It is pleasant the sound was then of the spears and the armies and of
+the silken banners that were raised up in the gusty wind of the morning.
+And as to the banners, Finn's banner, the Dealb-Greine, the Sun-Shape,
+had the likeness of the sun on it; and Coil's banner was the Fulang
+Duaraidh, that was the first and last to move in a battle; and Faolan's
+banner was the Coinneal Catha, the Candle of Battle; and Oisin's banner
+was the Donn Nimhe, the Dark Deadly One; and Caoilte's was the Lamh
+Dearg, the Red Hand; and Osgar's was the Sguab Gabhaidh that had a Broom
+of rowan branches on it, and the only thing asked when the fight was at
+the hottest was where that Broom was; and merry Diarmuid's banner was
+the Liath Loinneach, the Shining Grey; and the Craobh Fuileach, the
+Bloody Branch, was the banner of Lugaidh's Son. And as to Conan, it is a
+briar he had on his banner, because he was always for quarrels and for
+trouble. And it used to be said of him he never saw a man frown without
+striking him, or a door left open without going in through it.
+
+And when the Fianna had raised their banners they attacked the three
+armies; and first of all they killed the whole of the Cat-Heads, and
+then they took the Dog-Heads in hand and made an end of them, and of the
+White-Backs along with them.
+
+And after that they went to a little hill to the south, having a double
+dun on it, and it is there they found a hound they were able to get a
+pup from.
+
+And by that time they had searched through the whole of Ireland, and
+they did not find in the whole of it a hundred men that could match
+their nine.
+
+And as well as their banners, some of the Fianna had swords that had
+names to them, Mac an Luin, Son of the Waves, that belonged to Finn; and
+Ceard-nan Gallan, the Smith of the Branches, that was Oisin's; and
+Caoilte's Cruadh-Chosgarach, the Hard Destroying One; and Diarmuid's
+Liomhadoir, the Burnisher; and Osgar's Cosgarach Mhor, the Great
+Triumphant One.
+
+And it is the way they got those swords: there came one time to where
+Finn and Caoilte and some others of the Fianna were, a young man, very
+big and ugly, having but one foot and one eye; a cloak of black skins he
+had over his shoulders, and in his hand a blunt ploughshare that was
+turning to red. And he told them he was Lon, son of Liobhan, one of the
+three smiths of the King of Lochlann. And whether he thought to go away
+from the Fianna, or to bring them to his smithy, he started running, and
+they followed after him all through Ireland, to Slieve-na-Righ, and to
+Luimnech, and to Ath Luain, and by the right side of Cruachan of
+Connacht, and to Ess Ruadh and to Beinn Edair, and so to the sea.
+
+And wherever it was they found the smithy, they went into it, and there
+they found four smiths working, and every one of them having seven
+hands. And Finn and Caoilte and the rest stopped there watching them
+till the swords were made, and they brought them away with them then,
+and it is good use they made of them afterwards.
+
+And besides his sword, Mac an Luin, Finn had a shield was called Sgiath
+Gailbhinn, the Storm Shield; and when it called out it could be heard
+all through Ireland.
+
+And whether or not it was the Storm Shield, Finn had a wonderful shield
+that he did great deeds with, and the story of it is this:
+
+At the time of the battle of the Great Battle of Magh Tuireadh, Lugh,
+after he had struck the head off Balor of the Evil Eye, hung it in the
+fork of a hazel-tree. And the tree split, and the leaves fell from it
+with the dint of the poison that dropped from the head. And through the
+length of fifty years that tree was a dwelling-place of crows and of
+ravens. And at the end of that time Manannan, son of Lir, was passing
+by, and he took notice of the tree that it was split and withered, and
+he bade his men to dig it up. And when they began to dig, a mist of
+poison rose up from the roots, and nine of the men got their death from
+it, and another nine after them, and the third nine were blinded. And
+Luchtaine the Carpenter made a shield of the wood of that hazel for
+Manannan. And after a while Manannan gave it, and a set of chessmen
+along with it, to Tadg, son of Nuada; and from him it came to his
+grandson, Finn, son of Muirne and of Cumhal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. LOMNA'S HEAD
+
+FINN took a wife one time of the Luigne of Midhe. And at the same time
+there was in his household one Lomna, a fool.
+
+Finn now went into Tethra, hunting with the Fianna, but Lomna stopped at
+the house. And after a while he saw Coirpre, a man of the Luigne, go in
+secretly to where Finn's wife was.
+
+And when the woman knew he had seen that, she begged and prayed of Lomna
+to hide it from Finn. And Lomna agreed to that, but it preyed on him to
+have a hand in doing treachery on Finn. And after a while he took a
+four-square rod and wrote an Ogham on it, and these were the words he
+wrote:--"An alder stake in a paling of silver; deadly night-shade in a
+bunch of cresses; a husband of a lewd woman; a fool among the
+well-taught Fianna; heather on bare Ualann of Luigne."
+
+Finn saw the message, and there was anger on him against the woman; and
+she knew well it was from Lomna he had heard the story, and she sent a
+message to Coirpre bidding him to come and kill the fool.
+
+So Coirpre came and struck his head off, and brought it away with him.
+
+And when Finn came back in the evening he saw the body, and it without a
+head. "Let us know whose body is this," said the Fianna. And then Finn
+did the divination of rhymes, and it is what he said: "It is the body of
+Lomna; it is not by a wild boar he was killed; it is not by a fall he
+was killed; it is not in his bed he died; it is by his enemies he died;
+it is not a secret to the Luigne the way he died. And let out the hounds
+now on their track," he said.
+
+So they let out the hounds, and put them on the track of Coirpre, and
+Finn followed them, and they came to a house, and Coirpre in it, and
+three times nine of his men and he cooking fish on a spit; and Lomna's
+head was on a spike beside the fire.
+
+And the first of the fish that was cooked Coirpre divided between his
+men, but he put no bit into the mouth of the head. And then he made a
+second division in the same way. Now that was against the law of the
+Fianna, and the head spoke, and it said: "A speckled white-bellied
+salmon that grows from a small fish under the sea; you have shared a
+share that is not right; the Fianna will avenge it upon you, Coirpre."
+"Put the head outside," said Coirpre, "for that is an evil word for us."
+Then the head said from outside: "It is in many pieces you will be; it
+is great fires will be lighted by Finn in Luigne."
+
+And as it said that, Finn came in, and he made an end of Coirpre, and of
+his men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. ILBREC OF ESS RUADH
+
+One time Caoilte was hunting on Beinn Gulbain, and he went on to Ess
+Ruadh. And when he came near the hill of the Sidhe that is there, he saw
+a young man waiting for him, having a crimson fringed cloak about him,
+and on his breast a silver brooch, and a white shield, ornamented with
+linked beasts of red gold, and his hair rolled in a ball at the back,
+and covered with a golden cup. And he had heavy green weapons, and he
+was holding two hounds in a silver chain.
+
+And when Caoilte came up to him he gave him three loving kisses, and sat
+down beside him on the grass. "Who are you, young champion?" said
+Caoilte. "I am Derg, son of Eoghan of the people of Usnach," he said,
+"and foster-brother of your own." Caoilte knew him then, and he said:
+"And what is your life with your mother's people, the Tuatha de Danaan
+in Sidhe Aedha?" "There is nothing wanting to us there of food or of
+clothing," said the young man. "But for all that," he said, "I would
+sooner live the life of the worst treated of the serving-boys of the
+Fianna than the life I am living in the hill of the Sidhe." "Lonely as
+you are at your hunting to-day," said Caoilte, "it is often I saw you
+coming to the Valley of the Three Waters in the south, where the Siuir
+and the Beoir and the Berba come together, with a great company about
+you; fifteen hundred young men, fifteen hundred serving-boys, and
+fifteen hundred women." "That was so," said Derg; "and although myself
+and my gentle hound are living in the hill of the Sidhe, my mind is
+always on the Fianna. And I remember well the time," he said, "when you
+yourself won the race against Finn's lasting black horse. And come now
+into the hill," he said, "for the darkness of the night is coming on."
+
+So he brought Caoilte into the hill with him, and they were set down in
+their right places.
+
+It was at that time, now, there was great war between Lir of Sidhe
+Fionnachaidh and Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh. There used a bird with an iron
+beak and a tail of fire to come every evening to a golden window of
+Ilbrec's house, and there he would shake himself till he would not leave
+sword on pillow, or shield on peg, or spear in rack, but they would come
+down on the heads of the people of the house; and whatever they would
+throw at the bird, it is on the heads of some of themselves it would
+fall. And the night Caoilte came in, the hall was made ready for a
+feast, and the bird came in again, and did the same destruction as
+before, and nothing they threw at him would touch him at all. "Is it
+long the bird has been doing this?" said Caoilte. "Through the length of
+a year now," said Derg, "since we went to war with Sidhe Fionnachaidh."
+
+Then Caoilte put his hand within the rim of his shield, and he took out
+of it a copper rod he had, and he made a cast of it at the bird, that
+brought it down on the floor of the hall. "Did any one ever make a
+better cast than that?" said Ilbrec. "By my word," said Caoilte, "there
+is no one of us in the Fianna has any right to boast against another."
+Then Ilbrec took down a sharp spear, having thirty rivets of gold in it,
+from its place, and he said: "That is the Spear of Fiacha, son of
+Congha, and it is with that Finn made an end of Aillen, son of Midhna,
+that used to burn Teamhair. And keep it beside you now, Caoilte," he
+said, "till we see will Lir come to avenge his bird on us."
+
+Then they took up their horns and their cups, and they were at drinking
+and pleasure, and Ilbrec said: "Well, Caoilte," he said, "if Lir comes
+to avenge his bird on us, who will you put in command of the battle?" "I
+will give the command to Derg there beyond," said he. "Will you take it
+in hand, Derg?" said the people of the hill. "I will take it," said
+Derg, "with its loss and its gain."
+
+So that is how they spent the night, and it was not long in the morning
+till they heard blowing of horns, and rattling of chariots, and clashing
+of shields, and the uproar of a great army that came all about the hill.
+They sent some of their people out then to see were there many in it,
+and they saw three brave armies of the one size. "It would be a great
+vexation to me," said Aedh Nimbrec, the Speckled, then, "we to get our
+death and Lir's people to take the hill." "Did you never hear, Aedh,"
+said Caoilte, "that the wild boar escapes sometimes from both hounds and
+from wolves, and the stag in the same way goes away from the hounds with
+a sudden start; and what man is it you are most in dread of in the
+battle?" he said. "The man that is the best fighter of all the Men of
+Dea," said they all, "and that is Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh." "The
+thing I have done in every battle I will not give up to-day," said
+Caoilte, "to meet the best man that is in it hand to hand." "The two
+that are next to him in fighting," they said then, "are Donn and Dubh."
+"I will put down those two," said Derg.
+
+Then the host of the Sidhe went out to the battle, and the armies
+attacked one another with wide green spears and with little casting
+spears, and with great stones; and the fight went on from the rising of
+the day till midday. And then Caoilte and Lir met with one another, and
+they made a very fierce fight, and at the last Lir of Sidhe Fionnachaidh
+fell by the hand of Caoilte.
+
+Then the two good champions Dubh and Donn, sons of Eirrge, determined to
+go on with the battle, and it is how they fought, Dubh in the front of
+the whole army, and Donn behind all, guarding the rear. But Derg saw
+that, and he put his finger into the thong of his spear and made a cast
+at the one that was nearest him, and it broke his back and went on into
+the body of the other, so that the one cast made an end of the two. And
+that ended the battle, and all that was left of the great army of Lir
+went wearing away to the north. And there was great rejoicing in the
+hill at Ess Ruadh, and Ilbrec took the spoils of the beaten army for his
+people, and to Caoilte he gave the enchanted spear of Fiacha, together
+with nine rich cloaks and nine long swords with hilts and guards of
+gold, and nine hounds for hunting. And they said farewell to one
+another, and Caoilte left his blessing to the people of the hill, and he
+brought their thanks with him. And as hard as the battle had been, it
+was harder again for Derg to part from his comrade, and the day he was
+parted from Finn and from all the Fianna was no sadder to him than this
+day.
+
+It was a long time after that Caoilte went again to the hill of Ilbrec
+at Ess Ruadh, and this is the way it happened.
+
+It was in a battle at Beinn Edair in the east that Mane, son of the King
+of Lochlann, made a cast at him in the middle of the battle with a
+deadly spear. And he heard the whistling of the spear, and it rushing to
+him; and he lifted his shield to protect his head and his body, but that
+did not save him, for it struck into his thigh, and left its poison in
+it, so that he had to go in search of healing. And it is where he went,
+to the hill of the Sidhe at Ess Ruadh, to ask help of Bebind, daughter
+of Elcmar of Brugh na Boinne, that had the drink of healing of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, and all that was left of the ale of Goibniu that she
+used to be giving out to them.
+
+And Caoilte called to Cascorach the Musician, son of Caincenn, and bade
+him bring his harp and come along with him. And they stopped for a night
+in the hill of the Sidhe of Druim Nemed in Luigne of Connacht, and from
+that they went forward by Ess Dara, the Fall of the Oaks, and Druim
+Dearg na Feinne, the Red Ridge of the Fianna, and Ath Daim Glas, the
+Ford of the Grey Stag, and to Beinn Gulbain, and northward into the
+plain of Ceitne, where the Men of Dea used to pay their tribute to the
+Fomor; and up to the Footstep of Ess Ruadh, and the High Place of the
+Boys, where the boys of the Tuatha de Danaan used to be playing their
+hurling. And Aedh of Ess Ruadh and Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh were at the door
+of the hill, and they gave Caoilte a true welcome. "I am glad of that
+welcome," said Caoilte. And then Bebind, daughter of Elcmar of Brugh na
+Boinne, came out, and three times fifty comely women about her, and she
+sat down on the green grass and gave three loving kisses to the three,
+to Caoilte and to Cascorach and to Fermaise, that had come with them out
+of the hill of the Sidhe in Luigne of Connacht. And all the people of
+the hill welcomed them, and they said: "It is little your friendship
+would be worth if you would not come to help us and we in need of help."
+"It was not for bravery I was bade come," said Cascorach; "but when the
+right time comes I will make music for you if you have a mind to hear
+it." "It is not for deeds of bravery we are come," said Fermaise, "but
+we will give you our help if you are in need of it." Then Caoilte told
+them the cause of his journey. "We will heal you well," said they. And
+then they all went into the hill and stayed there three days and three
+nights at drinking and pleasure.
+
+And indeed it was good help Caoilte and Cascorach gave them after that.
+For there was a woman-warrior used to come every year with the ships of
+the men of Lochlann to make an attack on the Tuatha de Danaan. And she
+had been reared by a woman that knew all enchantments, and there was no
+precious thing in all the hills of the Sidhe but she had knowledge of
+it, and would bring it away. And just at this time there came a
+messenger to the door of the hill with news that the harbour was full of
+ships, and that a great army had landed, and the woman-warrior along
+with it.
+
+And it was Cascorach the Musician went out against her, having a shield
+he got the loan of from Donn, son of Midhir; and she used high words
+when she saw so young a man coming to fight with her, and he alone. But
+he made an end of her for all her high talk, and left her lying on the
+strand with the sea foam washing up to her.
+
+And as to Caoilte, he went out in a chariot belonging to Midhir of the
+Yellow Hair, son of the Dagda, and a spear was given him that was called
+Ben-badb, the War-Woman, and he made a cast of the spear that struck the
+King of Lochlann, that he fell in the middle of his army, and the life
+went from him. And Fermaise went looking for the king's brother, Eolus,
+that was the comeliest of all the men of the world; and he knew him by
+the band of gold around his head, and his green armour, and his red
+shield, and he killed him with a cast of a five-pronged spear. And when
+the men of Lochlann saw their three leaders were gone, they went into
+their ships and back to their own country. And there was great joy
+through the whole country, both among the men of Ireland and the Tuatha
+de Danaan, the men of Lochlann to have been driven away by the deeds of
+Caoilte and Fermaise and Cascorach.
+
+And that was not all they did, for it was at that time there came three
+flocks of beautiful red birds from Slieve Fuad in the north, and began
+eating the green grass before the hill of the Sidhe. "What birds are
+those?" said Caoilte. "Three flocks they are that come and destroy the
+green every year, eating it down to the bare flag-stones, till they
+leave us no place for our races," said Ilbrec. Then Caoilte and his
+comrades took up three stones and threw them at the flocks and drove
+them away. "Power and blessings to you," said the people of the Sidhe
+then, "that is a good work you have done. And there is another thing you
+can do for us," they said, "for there are three ravens come to us every
+year out of the north, and the time the young lads of the hill are
+playing their hurling, each one of the ravens carries off a boy of them.
+And it is to-morrow the hurling will be," they said.
+
+So when the full light of day was come on the morrow, the whole of the
+Tuatha de Danaan went out to look at the hurling; and to every six men
+of them was given a chess-board, and a board for some other game to
+every five, and to every ten men a little harp, and a harp to every
+hundred men, and pipes that were sharp and powerful to every nine.
+
+Then they saw the three ravens from the north coming over the sea, and
+they pitched on the great tree of power that was on the green, and they
+gave three gloomy screeches, that if such a thing could be, would have
+brought the dead out of the earth or the hair off the head of the
+listeners; and as it was, they took the courage out of the whole
+gathering.
+
+Then Cascorach, son of Caincenn, took a man of the chessmen and made a
+cast at one of the ravens that struck his beak and his throat, and made
+an end of him; and Fermaise killed the second of them, and Caoilte the
+third of them in the same way.
+
+"Let my cure be done now," said Caoilte, "for I have paid my fee for it,
+and it is time." "You have paid it indeed," said Ilbrec. "And where is
+Bebind, daughter of Elcmar?" he said. "I am here," said she.
+
+"Bring Caoilte, son of Ronan, with you into some hidden place," he said,
+"and do his cure, and let him be well served, for he has driven every
+danger from the Men of Dea and from the Sons of the Gael. And let
+Cascorach make music for him, and let Fermaise, son of Eogabil, be
+watching him and guarding him and attending him."
+
+So Elcmar's daughter went to the House of Arms, and her two sons with
+her, and a bed of healing was made ready for Caoilte, and a bowl of pale
+gold was brought to her, and it full of water. And she took a crystal
+vessel and put herbs into it, and she bruised them and put them in the
+water, and gave the bowl to Caoilte, and he drank a great drink out of
+it, that made him cast up the poison of the spear that was in him. Five
+drinks of it he took, and after that she gave him new milk to drink; but
+with the dint of the reaching he was left without strength through the
+length of three days and three nights.
+
+"Caoilte, my life," she said then, "in my opinion you have got relief."
+"I have got it indeed," he said, "but that the weakness of my head is
+troubling me." "The washing of Flann, daughter of Flidais, will be done
+for you now," she said, "and the head that washing is done for will
+never be troubled with pain, or baldness, or weakness of sight." So that
+cure was done to him for a while; and the people of the hill divided
+themselves into three parts; the one part of their best men and great
+nobles, and another of their young men, and another of their women and
+poets, to be visiting him and making mirth with him as long as he would
+be on his bed of healing. And everything that was best from their
+hunting, it was to him they would bring it.
+
+And one day, when Elcmar's daughter and her two sons and Cascorach and
+Fermaise were with Caoilte, there was heard a sound of music coming
+towards them from the waters of Ess Ruadh, and any one would leave the
+music of the whole world for that music. And they put their harps on the
+corners of the pillars and went out, and there was wonder on Caoilte
+that they left him. And he took notice that his strength and the
+strength of his hands was not come to him yet, and he said: "It is many
+a rough battle and many a hard fight I went into, and now there is not
+enough strength in me so much as to go out along with the rest," and he
+cried tears down.
+
+And the others came back to him then, and he asked news of them. "What
+was that sound of music we heard?" he said. "It was Uaine out of the
+hill of the Sidhe, at the Wave of Cliodna in the south," said they; "and
+with her the birds of the Land of Promise; and she is musician to the
+whole of that country. And every year she goes to visit one of the hills
+of the Sidhe, and it is our turn this time." Then the woman from the
+Land of Promise came into the house, and the birds came in along with
+her, and they pitched on the pillars and the beams, and thirty of them
+came in where Caoilte was, began singing together. And Cascorach took
+his harp, and whatever he would play, the birds would sing to it. "It is
+much music I have heard," said Caoilte, "but music so good as that I
+never heard before."
+
+And after that Caoilte asked to have the healing of his thigh done, and
+the daughter of Elcmar gave herself to that, and all that was bad was
+sucked from the wound by her serving people till it was healed. And
+Caoilte stopped on where he was for three nights after that.
+
+And then the people of the hill rose up and went into the stream to
+swim. And Caoilte said: "What ails me now not to go swim, since my
+health has come back to me?" And with that he went into the water. And
+afterwards they went back into the hill, and there was a great feast
+made that night.
+
+And Caoilte bade them farewell after that, and Cascorach, but Fermaise
+stopped with them for a while. And the people of the hill gave good
+gifts to Caoilte; a fringed crimson cloak of wool from the seven sheep
+of the Land of Promise; and a fish-hook that was called Aicil mac Mogha,
+and that could not be set in any river or inver but it would take fish;
+and along with that they gave him a drink of remembrance, and after that
+drink there would be no place he ever saw, or no battle or fight he ever
+was in, but it would stay in his memory. "That is a good help from
+kinsmen and from friends," said Caoilte.
+
+Then Caoilte and Cascorach went out from the hill, and the people of it
+made a great lamentation after them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE CAVE OF CRUACHAN
+
+
+CAOLITE was one time at Cruachan of Connacht, and Cascorach was with
+him, and there he saw sitting on a heap of stones a man with very rough
+grey hair, having a dark brown cloak fastened with a pin of bronze, and
+a long stick of white hazel in his hand; and there was a herd of cattle
+before him in a fenced field.
+
+Caoilte asked news of him. "I am steward to the King of Ireland," said
+the old man, "and it is from him I hold this land. And we have great
+troubles on us in this district," he said. "What troubles are those?"
+said Caoilte. "I have many herds of cattle," he said, "and every year at
+Samhain time, a woman comes out of the hill of the Sidhe of Cruachan and
+brings away nine of the best out of every herd. And as to my name, I am
+Bairnech, son of Carbh of Collamair of Bregia."
+
+"Who was the best man that ever came out of Collamair?" said Caoilte. "I
+know, and the men of Ireland and of Alban know," said he, "it was
+Caoilte, son of Ronan. And do you know where is that man now?" he said.
+"I myself am that man and your own kinsman," said Caoilte.
+
+When Bairnech heard that, he gave him a great welcome, and Caoilte gave
+him three kisses. "It seems to me that to-night is Samhain night," said
+Caoilte. "If that is so, it is to-night the woman will come to rob us,"
+said Bernech. "Let me go to-night to the door of the hill of the Sidhe,"
+said Cascorach. "You may do that, and bring your arms with you," said
+Caoilte.
+
+So Cascorach went then, and it was not long till he saw the girl going
+past him out of the hill of Cruachan, having a beautiful cloak of one
+colour about her; a gown of yellow silk tied up with a knot between her
+thighs, two spears in her hands, and she not in dread of anything before
+her or after her.
+
+Then Cascorach blew a blast against her, and put his finger into the
+thong of his spear, and made a cast at the girl that went through her,
+and that is the way she was made an end of by Cascorach of the Music.
+
+And then Bernech said to Caoilte: "Caoilte," he said, "do you know the
+other oppression that is on me in this place?" "What oppression is
+that?" said Caoilte. "Three she-wolves that come out of the Cave of
+Cruachan every year and destroy our sheep and our wethers, and we can do
+nothing against them, and they go back into the cave again. And it will
+be a good friend that will rid us of them," he said. "Well, Cascorach,"
+said Caoilte, "do you know what are the three wolves that are robbing
+this man?" "I know well," said Cascorach, "they are the three daughters
+of Airetach, of the last of the people of oppression of the Cave of
+Cruachan, and it is easier for them to do their robbery as wolves than
+as women." "And will they come near to any one?" said Caoilte. "They
+will only come near to one sort," said Cascorach; "if they see the
+world's men having harps for music, they will come near to them." "And
+how would it be for me," he said, "to go to-morrow to the cairn beyond,
+and to bring my harp with me?"
+
+So in the morning he rose up and went to the cairn and stopped on it,
+playing his harp till the coming of the mists of the evening. And while
+he was there he saw the three wolves coming towards him, and they lay
+down before him, listening to the music. But Cascerach found no way to
+make an attack on them, and they went back into the cave at the end of
+the day.
+
+Cascorach went back then to Caoilte and told him what had happened. "Go
+up to-morrow to the same place," said Caoilte, "and say to them it would
+be better for them to be in the shape of women for listening to music
+than in the shape of wolves."
+
+So on the morrow Cascorach went out to the same cairn, and set his
+people about it, and the wolves came there and stretched themselves to
+listen to the music. And Cascorach was saying to them: "If you were ever
+women," he said, "it would be better for you to be listening to the
+music as women than as wolves." And they heard that, and they threw off
+the dark trailing coverings that were about them, for they liked well
+the sweet music of the Sidhe.
+
+And when Caoilte saw them there side by side, and elbow by elbow, he
+made a cast of his spear, and it went through the three women, that they
+were like a skein of thread drawn together on the spear. And that is the
+way he made an end of the strange, unknown three. And that place got the
+name of the Valley of the Shapes of the Wolves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE
+
+Finn and the Fianna made a great hunting one time on the hill of Torc
+that is over Loch Lein and Feara Mor. And they went on with their
+hunting till they came to pleasant green Slieve Echtge, and from that it
+spread over other green-topped hills, and through thick tangled woods,
+and rough red-headed hills, and over the wide plains of the country. And
+every chief man among them chose the place that was to his liking, and
+the gap of danger he was used to before. And the shouts they gave in the
+turns of the hunt were heard in the woods all around, so that they
+started the deer in the wood, and sent the foxes wandering, and the
+little red beasts climbing rocks, and badgers from their holes, and
+birds flying, and fawns running their best. Then they let out their
+angry small-headed hounds and set them hunting. And it is red the hands
+of the Fianna were that day, and it is proud they were of their hounds
+that were torn and wounded before evening.
+
+It happened that day no one stopped with Finn but only Diorraing, son of
+Domhar. "Well, Diorraing," said Finn, "let you watch for me while I go
+asleep, for it is early I rose to-day, and it is an early rising a man
+makes when he cannot see the shadow of his five fingers between himself
+and the light of day, or know the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of
+the oak." With that he fell into a quiet sleep that lasted till the
+yellow light of the evening. And the rest of the Fianna, not knowing
+where he was gone, gave over the hunt.
+
+And the time was long to Diorraing while Finn was asleep, and he roused
+him and told him the Fianna must have given up the hunt, for he could
+not hear a cry or a whistle from them. "The end of day is come," said
+Finn then, "and we will not follow them to-night. And go now to the
+wood," he said, "and bring timber and dead branches for a shelter, and I
+will go looking for food for the night." So Diorraing went to the wood,
+but he was not gone far till he saw a fine well-lighted house of the
+Sidhe before him on the edge of the wood near at hand, and he went back
+to Finn with the news. "Let us go to it," said Finn, "for we ought not
+to be working in this place, and people living so near at hand." They
+went then to the door of the house and knocked at it, and the
+door-keeper came to it. "Whose house is this?" said Diorraing. "It
+belongs to Conan of Ceann Slieve," said the door-keeper. "Tell him,"
+said Diorraing, "there are two of the Fianna of the Gael at the door."
+
+The door-keeper went in then and told Conan there were two men of the
+Fianna at the door. "The one of them," he said, "is young and strong,
+and quiet and fair-haired, and more beautiful than the rest of the men
+of the world, and he has in his hand a small-headed, white-breasted
+hound, having a collar of rubbed gold and a chain of old silver. And the
+other of them," he said, "is brown and ruddy and white-toothed, and he
+is leading a yellow-spotted hound by a chain of bright bronze." "It is
+well you have made your report of them," said Conan, "and I know them by
+it; for the man you spoke of first is Finn, son of Cumhal, Head of the
+Fianna of Ireland, and Bran in his hand; and the other is Diorraing, and
+Sceolan in his hand. And go now quickly and let them in," he said.
+
+Finn and Diorraing were brought in then, and they got good attendance,
+and their arms were taken from them, and a grand feast was made ready
+that pleased them well. And the wife of Conan was at the one side of
+Finn, and his daughter, Finndealbh, of the Fair Shape, was at his other
+side. And they had a great deal of talk together, and at last, seeing
+her so beautiful, the colour of gold on her curled hair, and her eyes as
+blue as flowers, and a soft four-cornered cloak fastened at her breast
+with a silver pin, he asked her of Conan for his wife. "Leave asking
+that, Finn," said Conan, "for your own courage is not greater than the
+courage of the man she is promised to." "Who is that?" said Finn. "He is
+Fatha, son of the King of Ess Ruadh," said Conan. "Your wounds and your
+danger on yourself," said Diorraing; "and it would be right," he said,
+"that stammering tongue that gave out those words to be tied and to be
+shortened for ever, and a drink of death to be given to you; for if the
+whole of the Men of Dea," he said, "could be put into the one body, Finn
+would be better than them all." "Leave off, Diorraing," said Finn, "for
+it is not fighting I am here, but asking a wife, and I will get her
+whether the Men of Dea think good or bad of it." "I will not be making a
+quarrel with you," said Conan, "but I put you under bonds as a true
+hero to answer me everything I am going to ask you." "I will do that,"
+said Finn.
+
+With that Conan put questions to Finn as to his birth and his rearing,
+and the deeds he had done since he came to the Fianna, and Finn gave
+full answers to them all. And at last he said: "Let us go on with this
+no longer, but if you have musicians with you, let them be brought to us
+now; for it is not my custom," he said, "to be for a single night
+without music." "Tell me this first," said Conan, "who was it made the
+Dord Fiann, the Mutterer of the Fianna, and when was it made?" "I will
+tell you the truth of that," said Finn; "it was made in Ireland by the
+three sons of Cearmait Honey-Mouth; and nine men used to be sounding it,
+and since it came to me I have fifty men sounding it." "And tell me
+this," said Conan, "what is the music pleased you best of all you ever
+heard?" "I will tell you that," said Finn; "the time the seven
+battalions of the Fianna are gathered in the one place and raise their
+spear-shafts over their heads, and the sharp whining of the clear, cold
+wind goes through them, that is very sweet to me. And when the
+drinking-hall is set out in Almhuin, and the cup-bearers give out the
+bright cups to the chief men of the Fianna, that is very sweet to me;
+and it is sweet to me to be listening to the voice of the sea-gull and
+the heron, and the noise of the waves of Traig Liath, the song of the
+three sons of Meardha, the whistle of Lugaidh's Son, and the voice of
+the cuckoo in the beginning of summer, and the grunting of the pigs on
+the Plain of Eithne, and the shouting of laughter in Doire." And it is
+what he said: "The Dord in the green-topped woods, the lasting wash of
+the waves against the shore, the noise of the waves at Traig Liath
+meeting with the river of the White Trout; the three men that came to
+the Fianna, a man of them gentle and a man of them rough, another man of
+them ploughing the clouds, they were sweeter than any other thing.
+
+"The grey mane of the sea, the time a man cannot follow its track; the
+swell that brings the fish to the land, it is sleep-music, its sound is
+sweet.
+
+"Feargall, son of Fionn, a man that was ready-handed, it is long his
+leap was, it is well marked his track is; he never gave a story that did
+not do away with secrets; it is his voice was music of sleep to me."
+
+And when Finn had answered all the questions so well, Conan said he
+would give him his daughter, and that he would have a wedding-feast
+ready at the end of a month.
+
+They spent the rest of the night then in sleep; but Finn saw a dreadful
+vision through his sleep that made him start three times from his bed.
+"What makes you start from your bed, Finn?" said Diorraing. "It was the
+Tuatha de Danaan I saw," said he, "taking up a quarrel against me, and
+making a great slaughter of the Fianna."
+
+Now as to the Fianna, they rested at Fotharladh of Moghna that night,
+and they were downhearted, having no tidings of Finn. And early on the
+morrow two of them, Bran Beag and Bran Mor, rose up and went to
+Mac-an-Reith, son of the Ram, that had the gift of true knowledge, and
+they asked him where did Finn spend the night. And Mac-an-Reith was
+someway unwilling to tell them, but at the last he said it was at the
+house of Conan of Ceann Slieve.
+
+The two Brans went on then to Conan's house, and Finn made them welcome;
+but they blamed him when they heard he was taking a wife, and none of
+his people with him. "Bid all the Fianna to come to the feast at the end
+of a month," said Conan then. So Finn and Diorraing and the two Brans
+went back to where the Fianna were and told them all that had happened,
+and they went on to Almhuin.
+
+And when they were in the drinking-hall at Almhuin that night, they saw
+the son of the King of Ireland coming to where they were. "It is a pity
+the king's son to have come," said Finn; "for he will not be satisfied
+without ordering everything in the hall in his own way." "We will not
+take his orders," said Oisin, "but we will leave the half of the hall to
+him, and keep the other half ourselves."
+
+So they did that; but it happened that in the half of the house that was
+given up to the King of Ireland's son, there were sitting two of the Men
+of Dea, Failbhe Mor and Failbhe Beag; and it is what they said, that it
+is because they were in that side of the hall it was given up. "It is a
+pity," said Failbhe Beag, "this shame and this great insult to have been
+put on us to-night; and it is likely Finn has a mind to do more than
+that again to us," he said, "for he is going to bring away the woman
+that is promised to the third best man of the Tuatha de Danaan, and
+against the will of her father and mother." And these two went away
+early in the morning to Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail, and told him of the
+insults Finn and the Fianna of Ireland had a mind to put on the Tuatha
+de Danaan.
+
+And when Fionnbhar that was king over the Tuatha de Danaan heard that,
+he sent out messengers through the length of Ireland to gather them all
+to him. And there came six good battalions to him on the edge of Loch
+Derg Dheirc at the end of a month; and it was the same day Conan had the
+wedding-feast made ready for Finn and his people.
+
+And Finn was at Teamhair Luachra at that time, and when he heard the
+feast was ready, he set out to go to it. And it chanced that the most of
+the men he had with him at that time were of the sons of Morna. And when
+they were on their way, Finn said to Goll, "O Goll," he said, "I never
+felt any fear till now going to a feast. And there are but few of my
+people with me," he said; "and I know there is no good thing before me,
+but the Men of Dea are going to raise a quarrel against me and to kill
+my people." "I will defend you against anything they may do," said Goll.
+
+They went on then to Conan's house, and there was a welcome before them,
+and they were brought into the drinking-hall, and Finn was put in the
+place beside the door, and Goll on his right and Finndeilb, of the Fair
+Shape, on his left, and all the rest in the places they were used to.
+
+And as to Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail and the Tuatha de Danaan, they put
+a Druid mist about themselves and went on, hidden and armed, in sixteen
+battalions, to the lawn before Conan's house. "It is little profit we
+have being here," they said then, "and Goll being with Finn against us."
+"Goll will not protect him this time," said Ethne, the woman-Druid, "for
+I will entice Finn out of the house, however well he is watched."
+
+She went on to the house then, and took her stand before Finn outside.
+"Who is that before me?" she said then. "It is I myself," said Finn. "I
+put you under the bonds a true hero never broke," she said, "to come out
+to me here." When Finn heard that, he made no delay and went out to her;
+and for all there were so many in the house, not one of them took notice
+of him going, only Caoilte, and he followed him out. And at the same
+time the Tuatha de Danaan let out a flock of blackbirds having fiery
+beaks, that pitched on the breasts of all the people in the house, and
+burned them and destroyed them, till the young lads and the women and
+children of the place ran out on all sides, and the woman of the house,
+Conan's wife, was drowned in the river outside the dun.
+
+But as to Ethne, the woman-Druid, she asked Finn would he run against
+her. "For it is to run a race against you I called you out," she said.
+"What length of a race?" said Finn. "From Doire da Torc, the Wood of the
+Two Boars, to Ath Mor, the Great Ford," she said. So they set out, but
+Finn got first over the ford. And Caoilte was following after them, and
+Finn was urging him, and he said: "It is ashamed of your running you
+should be, Caoilte, a woman to be going past you." On that Caoilte made
+a leap forward, and when he was in front of the witch he turned about
+and gave a blow of his sword that made two equal halves of her.
+
+"Power and good luck to you, Caoilte!" said Finn; "for though it is many
+a good blow you have struck, you never struck a better one than this."
+
+They went back then to the lawn before Conan's dun, and there they found
+the whole company of the Tuatha de Danaan, that had put the Druid mist
+off them. "It seems to me, Caoilte," said Finn, "that we are come into
+the middle of our enemies."
+
+With that they turned their backs to one another, and they were attacked
+on all sides till groans of weakness from the unequal fight were forced
+from Finn. And when Goll, that was in the house, heard that, he said:
+"It is a pity the Tuatha de Danaan to have enticed Finn and Caoilte away
+from us; and let us go to their help and make no delay," he said.
+
+Then he rushed out, and all that were there of the Fianna with him, and
+Conan of Ceann Slieve and his sons. And great anger came on Goll, that
+he looked like a tall mountain under his grey shield in the battle. And
+he broke through the Tuatha de Danaan till he reached to Fionnbhar their
+leader, and they attacked one another, cutting and wounding, till at the
+last Fionnbhar of Magh Feabhail fell by the strokes of Goll. And a great
+many others fell in that battle, and there never was a harder battle
+fought in Ireland, for there was no man on one side or the other had a
+mind to go back one step before whoever he was fighting against. For
+they were the two hardest fighting troops to be found in the four parts
+of the world, the strong, hardy Fianna of the Gael, and the beautiful
+Men of Dea; and they went near to being all destroyed in that battle.
+
+But after a while they saw the rest of the Fianna that were not in the
+battle coming from all parts of Ireland. And when the Tuatha de Danaan
+saw them coming, they put the Druid mist about themselves again and made
+away. And clouds of weakness came on Finn himself, and on them that were
+with him, with the dint of the fight. And there were many men of the
+Fianna lost in that battle; and as to the rest, it is a long time they
+stopped in Almhuin of Leinster, till their wounds were entirely healed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE SHADOWY ONE
+
+
+And indeed Finn had no great luck in going to look for a wife that time;
+and he had no better luck another time he asked a wife from among the
+Sidhe. And this is the way that happened.
+
+It was on the mountain of Bearnas Mor he was hunting, and a great wild
+pig turned on the hounds of the Fianna and killed the most of them, but
+Bran made an attack on it then and got the best of it. And the pig began
+to scream, and with that a very tall man came out of the hill and he
+asked Finn to let the pig go free. And when he agreed to that, the man
+brought them into the hill of the Sidhe at Glandeirgdeis; and when they
+came to the door of the house he struck the pig with his Druid rod, and
+on the moment it changed into a beautiful young woman, and the name he
+called her by was Scathach, the Shadowy One.
+
+And he made a great feast for the Fianna, and Finn asked the young girl
+in marriage, and the tall man, her father, said he would give her to him
+on that very night.
+
+But when night came on, Scathach asked the loan of a harp, and it was
+brought to her. One string it had of iron, and one of bronze, and one of
+silver. And when the iron string would be played, it would set all the
+hosts of the world crying and ever crying; and when the bright bronze
+string would be played, it would set them all laughing from the one day
+to the same hour on the morrow; and when the silver string would be
+played, all the men of the whole world would fall into a long sleep.
+
+And it is the sleepy silver string the Shadowy One played upon, till
+Finn and Bran and all his people were in their heavy sleep.
+
+And when they awoke at the rising of the sun on the morrow, it is
+outside on the mountain of Bearnas they were, where they first saw the
+wild pig.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. FINN'S MADNESS
+
+
+One time Finn and the Fianna were come to a ford of the Slaine, and they
+sat down for a while. And as they were sitting there they saw on the
+round rock up over the ford a young woman, having a dress of silk and a
+green cloak about her, and a golden brooch in the cloak, and the golden
+crown that is the sign of a queen on her head. "Fianna of Ireland," she
+said, "let one of you come now and speak with me."
+
+Then Sciathbreac, of the Speckled Shield, went towards her. "Who is it
+you are wanting?" he said, "Finn, son of Cumhal," said she. Finn went
+over then to talk with her. "Who are you?" he said, "and what is it you
+are wanting?" "I am Daireann, daughter of Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda,"
+she said; "and I am come to be your wife if you will give me the
+bride-gift I ask." "What bride-gift is that?" said Finn. "It is your
+promise," said she, "I to be your only wife through the length of a
+year, and to have the half of your time after that." "I will not give
+that promise," said Finn, "to any woman of the world, and I will not
+give it to you," he said.
+
+On that the young woman took a cup of white silver from under a
+covering, and filled it with strong drink, and she gave it to Finn.
+"What is this?" said Finn. "It is very strong mead," said she. Now there
+were bonds on Finn not to refuse anything belonging to a feast, so he
+took the cup and drank what was in it, and on the moment he was like one
+gone mad. And he turned his face towards the Fianna, and every harm and
+every fault and every misfortune in battle that he knew against any one
+of them, he sprang it on them, through the mad drunkenness the young
+woman had put on him.
+
+Then the chief men of the Fianna of Ireland rose up and left the place
+to him, every one of them setting out for his own country, till there
+was no one left upon the hill but Finn and Caoilte. And Caoilte rose up
+and followed after them, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "do
+not leave your lord and your leader through the arts and the tricks of a
+woman of the Sidhe." Thirteen times he went after them, bringing them
+back to the hill in that way. And with the end of the day and the fall
+of night the bitterness went from Finn's tongue; and by the time Caoilte
+had brought back the whole of the Fianna, his sense and his memory were
+come back to him, and he would sooner have fallen on his sword and got
+his death, than have stayed living.
+
+And that was the hardest day's work Caoilte ever did, unless the day he
+brought the flock of beasts and birds to Teamhair, to ransom Finn from
+the High King of Ireland.
+
+Another time Maer, wife of Bersa of Berramain, fell in love with Finn,
+and she made nine nuts of Segair with love charms, and sent them to
+Finn, and bade him eat them. "I will not," said Finn; "for they are not
+nuts of knowledge, but nuts of ignorance; and it is not known what they
+are, unless they might be an enchantment for drinking love." So he
+buried them a foot deep in the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE RED WOMAN
+
+
+One time the Fianna were in Almhuin with no great work to do, and there
+came a very misty morning, and Finn was in dread that sluggishness would
+come on his men, and he rose up, and he said: "Make yourselves ready,
+and we will go hunting to Gleann-na-Smol."
+
+They all said the day was too misty to go hunting; but there was no use
+in talking: they had to do as Finn bade them. So they made themselves
+ready and went on towards Gleann-na-Smol; and they were not gone far
+when the mist lifted and the sun came shining out.
+
+And when they were on the edge of a little wood, they saw a strange
+beast coming towards them with the quickness of the wind, and a Red
+Woman on its track. Narrow feet the beast had, and a head like the head
+of a boar, and long horns on it; but the rest of it was like a deer, and
+there was a shining moon on each of its sides.
+
+Finn stopped, and he said: "Fianna of Ireland," he said, "did you ever
+see a beast like that one until now?" "We never did indeed," said they;
+"and it would be right for us to let out the hounds after it." "Wait a
+while," said Finn, "till I speak with the Red Woman; but do not let the
+beast go past you," he said. They thought to keep back the beast then,
+going before it; but they were hardly able to hinder it at all, and it
+went away through them.
+
+And when the Red Woman was come up to them, Finn asked her what was the
+name of the beast she was following. "I do not know that," she said,
+"though I am on its track since I left the borders of Loch Dearg a month
+ago, and I never lost sight of it since then; and the two moons that are
+on its two sides shine through the country all around in the night time.
+And I must follow it till it falls," she said, "or I will lose my own
+life and the lives of my three sons that are the best fighting men in
+the whole world." "We will take the beast for you if you have a mind,"
+said Finn. "Do not try to do that," she said, "for I myself am swifter
+than you are, and I cannot come up with it." "We will not let it go till
+we know what sort of a beast is it," said Finn. "If you yourself or your
+share of men go after it, I will bind you hand and foot," said she. "It
+is too stiff your talk is," said Finn. "And do you not know," he said,
+"I am Finn, son of Cumhal; and there are fourscore fighting men along
+with me that were never beaten yet." "It is little heed I give to
+yourself or your share of men," said the Red Woman; "and if my three
+sons were here, they would stand up against you." "Indeed it will be a
+bad day," said Finn, "when the threat of a woman will put fear on myself
+or on the Fianna of Ireland." With that he sounded his horn, and he
+said: "Let us all follow now, men and dogs, after that beast that we
+saw."
+
+He had no sooner said that word than the woman made a great water-worm
+of herself, and made an attack on Finn, and she would have killed him
+then and there but for Bran being with him. Bran took a grip of the worm
+and shook it, and then it wound itself round Bran's body, and would
+have crushed the life out of her, but Finn thrust his sharp sword into
+its throat. "Keep back your hand," said the worm then, "and you will not
+have the curse of a lonely woman upon you." "It is what I think," said
+Finn, "that you would not leave me my life if you could take it from me;
+but go out of my sight now," he said, "and that I may never see you
+again."
+
+Then she made herself into a Red Woman again, and went away into the
+wood.
+
+All the Fianna were gone on the track of the beast while Finn was
+talking and fighting with the Red Woman; and he did not know in what
+place they were, but he went following after them, himself and Bran. It
+was late in the evening when he came up with a share of them, and they
+still on the track of the beast. The darkness of the night was coming
+on, but the two moons in the sides of the beast gave a bright light, and
+they never lost it from sight. They followed it on always; and about
+midnight they were pressing on it, and it began to scatter blood after
+it, and it was not long till Finn and his men were red from head to
+foot. But that did not hinder them, and they followed him on till they
+saw him going in at the foot of Cnoc-na-righ at the breaking of day.
+
+When they came to the foot of the hill the Red Woman was standing there
+before them. "You did not take the beast," she said. "We did not take
+it, but we know where it is," said Finn.
+
+She took a Druid rod then, and she struck a blow on the side of the
+hill, and on the moment a great door opened, and they heard sweet music
+coming from within. "Come in now," said the Red Woman, "till you see the
+wonderful beast." "Our clothing is not clean," said Finn, "and we would
+not like to go in among a company the way we are," he said.
+
+She put a horn to her mouth and blew it, and on the moment there came
+ten young men to her. "Bring water for washing," she said, "and four
+times twenty suits of clothes, and a beautiful suit and a crown of
+shining stones for Finn, son of Cumhal." The young men went away then,
+and they came back at the end of a minute with water and with clothing.
+
+When the Fianna were washed and dressed, the Red Woman brought them into
+a great hall, where there was the brightness of the sun and of the moon
+on every side. From that she brought them into another great room; and
+although Finn and his men had seen many grand things up to that time,
+they had never seen any sight so grand as what they saw in this place.
+There was a king sitting in a golden chair, having clothes of gold and
+of green, and his chief people were sitting around him, and his
+musicians were playing. And no one could know what colour were the
+dresses of the musicians, for every colour of the rainbow was in them.
+And there was a great table in the middle of the room, having every sort
+of thing on it, one better than another.
+
+The king rose up and gave a welcome to Finn and to his men, and he bade
+them to sit down at the table; and they ate and drank their fill, and
+that was wanting to them after the hunt they had made. And then the Red
+Woman rose up, and she said: "King of the Hill, if it is your will, Finn
+and his men have a mind to see the wonderful beast, for they spent a
+long time following after it, and that is what brought them here."
+
+The king struck a blow then on his golden chair, and a door opened
+behind him, and the beast came through it and stood before the king. And
+it stooped down before him, and it said: "I am going on towards my own
+country now; and there is not in the world a runner so good as myself,
+and the sea is the same to me as the land. And let whoever can come up
+with me come now," it said, "for I am going."
+
+With that the beast went out from the hill as quick as a blast of wind,
+and all the people that were in it went following after it. It was not
+long till Finn and his men were before the rest, in the front of the
+hunt, gaining on the beast.
+
+And about midday Bran made the beast turn, and then she forced it to
+turn a second time, and it began to put out cries, and it was not long
+until its strength began to flag; and at last, just at the setting of
+the sun, it fell dead, and Bran was at its side when it fell.
+
+Then Finn and his men came up, but in place of a beast it was a tall man
+they saw lying dead before them. And the Red Woman came up at the same
+time, and she said: "High King of the Fianna, that is the King of the
+Firbolgs you have killed; and his people will put great troubles on this
+country in the time to come, when you yourself, Finn, and your people
+will be under the sod. And I myself am going now to the Country of the
+Young," she said, "and I will bring you with me if you have a mind to
+come." "We give you our thanks for that," said Finn, "but we would not
+give up our own country if we were to get the whole world as an estate,
+and the Country of the Young along with it." "That is well," said the
+Red Woman; "but you are going home empty after your hunt." "It is likely
+we will find a deer in Gleann-na-Smol," said Finn. "There is a fine deer
+at the foot of that tree beyond," said the Red Woman, "and I will rouse
+it for you." With that she gave a cry, and the deer started out and
+away, and Finn and his men after it, and it never stopped till it came
+to Gleann-na-Smol, but they could not come up with it. Then the Red
+Woman came to them, and she said: "I think you are tired now with
+following after the deer; and call your hounds off now," she said, "and
+I will let out my own little dog after it." So Finn sounded a little
+horn he had at his side, and on the moment the hounds came back to him.
+And then the Red Woman brought out a little hound as white as the snow
+of the mountains, and put it after the deer; and it was not long till it
+had come up with the deer and killed it, and then it came back and made
+a leap in under the cloak of the Red Woman. There was great wonder on
+Finn; but before he could ask a question of the Red Woman, she was gone
+out of sight. And as to the deer, Finn knew there was enchantment on it,
+and so he left it there after him. And it is tired and empty the Fianna
+were, going back to Almhuin that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. FINN AND THE PHANTOMS
+
+
+Finn went to a gathering one time at Aonach Clochair, and a great many
+of the men of Munster crowded to it. And the horses of the Fianna were
+brought there, and the horses of the men of Munster, and they ran races
+against one another.
+
+And Fiachu, son of Eoghan, was in it; and when the games were over he
+gave good presents to Finn, a lasting black horse that won the three
+prizes of the gathering, and a chariot, and a horse for the
+chariot-driver, and a spear, having a deadly spell, and weapons of
+silver, and three comely hounds, Feirne and Derchaem and Dialath, having
+collars of yellow gold and chains of white bronze.
+
+And Finn rose up and gave his thanks to Fiachu, son of Eoghan, and he
+and his people set out to the house of Cacher at Cluain-da-loch. And
+they stopped three days feasting in Cacher's house, and then Finn gave
+him the price of his feast and of his ale, fifty rings, and fifty horses
+and fifty cows.
+
+And he himself and the Fianna went on from that over Luachair to the
+strand at Berramain. And Finn went trying his black horse on the strand,
+and Caoilte and Oisin went racing against him; but it was only folly for
+them to do that, for he gave a blow to his horse, and away with him to
+Traigh Liath and over the Plain of Health to the Old Yew of the Old
+Valley, and to the inver of the Flesc and the inver of the Lemain to
+Loch Lein, till he came to the hill of Bairnech, and Caoilte and Oisin
+after him.
+
+"Night is coming on us," said Finn then; "and go look for some place
+where we can sleep," he said. He looked round then at the rocks on his
+left hand and he saw a house, and a fire shining out from it in the
+valley below. "I never knew of a house in this valley," he said.
+
+"It is best for us to go see it," said Caoilte, "for there are many
+things we have no knowledge of."
+
+The three went on then to the house, and they heard screams and crying
+from it; and when they came to the house, the people of it were very
+fierce and rough; and a big grey man took hold of their horses and
+brought them in and shut the door of the house with iron hooks. "My
+welcome to you, Finn of the great name," he said then; "it is a long
+time you were in coming here."
+
+They sat down then on the hard boards of a bed, and the grey man kindled
+a fire, and he threw logs of elder-wood on it, till they went near being
+smothered with the smoke. They saw a hag in the house then having three
+heads on her lean neck; and there was on the other side a man without a
+head, having one eye, and it in his breast. "Rise up, you that are in
+the house, and make music for the King of the Fianna," said the grey man
+then.
+
+With that nine bodies rose up out of the corner nearest the Fianna, and
+nine heads rose up on the other side of the bed, and they raised nine
+harsh screeches together, that no one would like to be listening to. And
+then the hag answered to them, and the headless man answered; and if all
+of that music was harsh, there was none of it that you would not wish to
+hear sooner than the music of the one-eyed man. And the music that was
+sung went near to breaking the bones of their heads; and indeed it is no
+sweet music that was.
+
+Then the big grey man rose up and took the axe that was for cutting
+logs, and he began striking at the horses, flaying and destroying them.
+Then there were brought fifty pointed spits of the rowan-tree, and he
+put a piece of the horse's flesh on each one of the spits, and settled
+them on the hearth. But when he took the spits from the fire and put
+them before Finn, it is raw the flesh was on them yet. "Take your food
+away," said Finn then, "for I have never eaten meat that was raw, and I
+never will eat it because of being without food for one day." "If you
+are come into our house to refuse our food," said the grey man, "we will
+surely go against yourselves, Finn and Caoilte and Oisin."
+
+With that all in the house made an attack on the three; and they were
+driven back into the corner, and the fire was quenched, and the fight
+went on through the whole night in the darkness, and but for Finn and
+the way he fought, they would have been put down.
+
+And when the sun rose and lighted up the house on the morrow, a mist
+came into the head of each of the three, so that they fell as if dead on
+the floor.
+
+But after awhile they rose up again, and there was nothing to be seen of
+the house or of the people of the house, but they had all vanished. And
+their horses were there, and they took them and went on, very weak and
+tired, for a long way, till they came to the strand of Berramain.
+
+And those three that fought against them were the three Shapes out of
+the Valley of the Yew Tree that came to avenge their sister, Cuillen of
+the Wide Mouth.
+
+Now as to Cuillen, she was a daughter of the King of Munster, and her
+husband was the King of Ulster's son. And they had a son that was called
+Fear Og, the Young Man; and there was hardly in Ireland a man so good as
+himself in shape and in courage and in casting a spear. And one time he
+joined in a game with the Fianna, and he did better than them all, and
+Finn gave him a great reward. And after that he went out to a hunt they
+made, and it was by him and by none of the Fianna the first blood was
+got of pig or of deer. And when they came back, a heavy sickness fell on
+the young man through the eyes and the envy of the Fianna, and it left
+him without life at the end of nine days. And he was buried under a
+green hill, and the shining stone he used to hold in his hand, and he
+doing his feats, was put over his head.
+
+And his mother, Cuillen, came to his grave keening him every day through
+the length of a year. And one day she died there for grief after her
+son, and they put her into the same green hill.
+
+But as to Finn, he was afraid of no earthly thing, and he killed many
+great serpents in Loch Cuilinn and Loch Neathach, and at Beinn Edair;
+and Shadow-Shapes at Loch Lein and Drom Cleib and Loch Liath, and a
+serpent and a cat in Ath Cliath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE PIGS OF ANGUS
+
+
+Angus Og, son of the Dagda, made a feast one time at Brugh na Boinne for
+Finn and the Fianna of the Gael. Ten hundred of them were in it, and
+they wearing green clothing and crimson cloaks; and as to the people of
+Angus' house, it is clothing of red silk they had.
+
+And Finn was sitting beside Angus in the beautiful house, and it is
+long since the like of those two were seen in Ireland. And any stranger
+would wonder to see the way the golden cups were going from hand to
+hand.
+
+And Angus said out in a loud voice that every one could hear: "It is a
+better life this is than to be hunting." There was anger on Finn then,
+and he said: "It is a worse life than hunting to be here, without
+hounds, without horses, without battalions, without the shouting of
+armies." "Why are you talking like that, Finn?" said Angus, "for as to
+the hounds you have," he said, "they would not kill so much as one pig."
+"You have not yourself," said Finn, "and the whole host of the Tuatha de
+Danaan have not a pig that ever went on dry land that Bran and Sceolan
+would not kill." "I will send you a pig," said Angus, "that will go from
+you and your hounds, and that will kill them in the end."
+
+The steward of the house called out then in a loud voice: "Let every one
+go now to his bed, before the lightness of drunkenness comes on you."
+But Finn said to his people: "Let us make ready and leave this; for we
+are but a few," he said, "among the Men of Dea." So they set out and
+went westward till they came to Slieve Fuad where the Fianna were at
+that time.
+
+And through the whole length of a year after that, the Tuatha de Danaan
+were boasting how they would get the better of the Fianna, and the
+Fianna were thinking how they could do best in the hunt. And at the end
+of that time Angus sent messengers to Finn, asking him with great
+respect if he was ready to keep his word. And Finn said he was, and the
+hounds were brought out, and he himself was holding Bran and Sceolan,
+one in each hand, and Caoilte had Adhnuall, and Oisin had Ablach, and
+merry Bran Beag had Lonn, and Diarmuid was holding Eachtach, and Osgar
+was holding Mac an Truim, and Garraidh was held by Faolan, and Rith
+Fada, of the Long Run, by hungry Conan.
+
+And they were not long there with their hounds till they saw on the
+plain to the east a terrible herd of great pigs, every one of them the
+height of a deer. And there was one pig out in front of the rest was
+blacker than a smith's coal, and the bristles on its head were like a
+thicket of thorn-trees.
+
+Then Caoilte let out Adhnuall, and she was the first to kill a pig of
+the herd. And then Bran made away from the leash that Finn was holding,
+and the pigs ran their best, but she came up with them, and took hold of
+a pig of them. And at that Angus said: "O Bran, fosterling of
+fair-haired Fergus, it is not a right thing you are doing, to kill my
+own son." But when Bran heard that, her ways changed and it was like an
+enemy she took hold of the pig, and did not let it go, and held her
+breath back and kept it for the Fianna.
+
+And it was over Slieve Cua the hunt went, and Slieve Crot, and from Magh
+Cobha to Cruachan, and to Fionnabraic and to Finnias. And at evening
+when the hunt was over, there was not one pig of the whole herd without
+a hurt, and there were but a hundred and ten pigs left living. But if
+the hunt brought destruction on Angus, it brought losses on the Fianna
+as well, for there were ten hundred of their men missing besides
+serving-lads and dogs.
+
+"Let us go to Brugh na Boinne and get satisfaction for our people," said
+Oisin then. "That is the advice of a man without sense," said Finn; "for
+if we leave these pigs the way they are, they will come to life again.
+And let us burn them," he said, "and throw their ashes in the sea."
+
+Then the seven battalions of the Fianna made seven fires to every
+battalion; but for all they could do, they could not set fire to one
+pig. Then Bran, that had great sense and knowledge, went away, and she
+came back bringing three logs along with her, but no one knows what wood
+it was they came from. And when the logs were put on the fire they lit
+up like a candle, and it is with them the pigs were burned; and after
+that their ashes were thrown into the sea.
+
+Then Oisin said again: "Let us go now to Brugh na Boinne and avenge the
+death of our people." So the whole of the Fianna set out for Brugh na
+Boinne, and every step they made could surely be heard through the whole
+of the skies.
+
+And Angus sent out messengers to where Finn was, offering any one thing
+to him if he would spare his people. "I will take no gift at all from
+you, Angus of the slender body," said Finn, "so long as there is a room
+left in your house, north or east, without being burned." But Angus
+said: "Although you think bad of the loss of your fine people that you
+have the sway over, yet, O Finn, father of Oisin, it is sorrowful to me
+the loss of my own good son is. For as to the black pig that came before
+you on the plain," he said, "it was no common pig was in it, but my own
+son. And there fell along with him," he said, "the son of the King of
+the Narrow Sea, and the son of the King of the Sea of Gulls, and the son
+of Ilbhrec, son of Manannan, and seven score of the comely sons of kings
+and queens. And it is what destroyed my strength and my respect
+entirely, they to have been burned away from me in a far place. And it
+is a pity for you, sweet daring Bran," he said, "fosterling of Fergus of
+the thirty woods and plains, that you did not do something worth praise
+before killing your own foster-brother. And I will put a curse on you,
+Bran," he said, "beyond every hound in Ireland, that you will never see
+with your eyes any deer you may ever kill."
+
+There was anger on Finn when he heard that, and he said: "If you put a
+curse on Bran, Angus, there will not be a room left, east or west, in
+the whole of your great house without being burned." "If you do that,"
+said Angus, "I will put trees and stones in front of you in every
+battle; and I will know what number of men you have in your armies," he
+said, "looking at them through my ring."
+
+Then Oisin, that was wise, said: "It is best for you to agree between
+yourselves now; and let us be helpful to one another," he said, "and pay
+whatever fines are due."
+
+So they agreed to that, and they made peace, and gave children to be
+fostered by one another: a son of Finn's to Angus, and son of Angus Og
+to the Fianna.
+
+But for all that, it is not very friendly to Finn Angus was afterwards,
+at the time he was following after Diarmuid and Grania through the whole
+length of Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN
+
+
+Finn was one time out on the green of Almhuin, and he saw what had the
+appearance of a grey fawn running across the plain. He called and
+whistled to his hounds then, but neither hound nor man heard him or came
+to him, but only Bran and Sceolan. He set them after the fawn, and near
+as they kept to her, he himself kept nearer to them, till at last they
+reached to Slieve Cuilinn in the province of Ulster.
+
+But they were no sooner at the hill than the fawn vanished from them,
+and they did not know where was she gone, and Finn went looking for her
+eastward, and the two hounds went towards the west.
+
+It was not long till Finn came to a lake, and there was sitting on the
+brink of it a young girl, the most beautiful he had ever seen, having
+hair of the colour of gold, and a skin as white as lime, and eyes like
+the stars in time of frost; but she seemed to be some way sorrowful and
+downhearted. Finn asked her did she see his hounds pass that way. "I did
+not see them," she said; "and it is little I am thinking of your hounds
+or your hunting, but of the cause of my own trouble." "What is it ails
+you, woman of the white hands?" said Finn; "and is there any help I can
+give you?" he said. "It is what I am fretting after," said she, "a ring
+of red gold I lost off my finger in the lake. And I put you under bonds,
+Finn of the Fianna," she said, "to bring it back to me out of the lake."
+
+With that Finn stripped off his clothes and went into the lake at the
+bidding of the woman, and he went three times round the whole lake and
+did not leave any part of it without searching, till he brought back the
+ring. He handed it up to her then out of the water, and no sooner had he
+done that than she gave a leap into the water and vanished.
+
+And when Finn came up on the bank of the lake, he could not so much as
+reach to where his clothes were; for on the moment he, the head and the
+leader of the Fianna of Ireland, was but a grey old man, weak and
+withered.
+
+Bran and Sceolan came up to him then, but they did not know him, and
+they went on round the lake, searching after their master.
+
+
+In Almhuin, now, when he was missed, Caoilte began asking after him.
+"Where is Finn," he said, "of the gentle rule and of the spears?" But no
+one knew where was he gone, and there was grief on the Fianna when they
+could not find him. But it is what Conan said: "I never heard music
+pleased me better than to hear the son of Cumhal is missing. And that he
+may be so through the whole year," he said, "and I myself will be king
+over you all." And downhearted as they were, it is hardly they could
+keep from laughing when they heard Conan saying that.
+
+Caoilte and the rest of the chief men of the Fianna set out then looking
+for Finn, and they got word of him; and at last they came to Slieve
+Cuilinn, and there they saw a withered old man sitting beside the lake,
+and they thought him to be a fisherman. "Tell us, old man," said
+Caoilte, "did you see a fawn go by, and two hounds after her, and a tall
+fair-faced man along with them?" "I did see them," he said, "and it is
+not long since they left me." "Tell us where are they now?" said
+Caoilte. But Finn made no answer, for he had not the courage to say to
+them that he himself was Finn their leader, being as he was an ailing,
+downhearted old man, without leaping, without running, without walk,
+grey and sorrowful.
+
+Caoilte took out his sword from the sheath then, and he said: "It is
+short till you will have knowledge of death unless you will tell us what
+happened those three."
+
+Then Finn told them the whole story; and when the seven battalions of
+the Fianna heard him, and knew it was Finn that was in it, they gave
+three loud sorrowful cries. And to the lake they gave the name of Loch
+Doghra, the Lake of Sorrow.
+
+But Conan of the sharp tongue began abusing Finn and all the Fianna by
+turns. "You never gave me right praise for my deeds, Finn, son of
+Cumhal," he said, "and you were always the enemy of the sons of Morna;
+but we are living in spite of you," he said, "and I have but the one
+fault to find with your shape, and that is, that it was not put on the
+whole of the Fianna the same as on yourself." Caoilte made at him then;
+"Bald, senseless Conan," he said, "I will break your mouth to the bone."
+But Conan ran in then among the rest of the Fianna and asked protection
+from them, and peace was made again.
+
+And as to Finn, they asked him was there any cure to be found for him.
+"There is," he said; "for I know well the enchantment was put on me by a
+woman of the Sidhe, Miluchradh, daughter of Cuilinn, through jealousy of
+her sister Aine. And bring me to the hill that belongs to Cuilinn of
+Cuailgne," he said, "for he is the only one can give me my shape again."
+
+They came around him then, and raised him up gently on their shields,
+and brought him on their shoulders to the hill of the Sidhe in Cuailgne,
+but no one came out to meet them. Then the seven battalions began
+digging and rooting up the whole hill, and they went on digging through
+the length of three nights and three days. And at the end of that time
+Cuilinn of Cuailgne, that some say was Manannan, son of Lir, came out of
+the hill, holding in his hand a vessel of red gold, and he gave the
+vessel into Finn's hand. And no sooner did Finn drink what was in the
+vessel than his own shape and his appearance came back to him. But only
+his hair, that used to be so fair and so beautiful, like the hair of a
+woman, never got its own colour again, for the lake that Cuilinn's
+daughter had made for Finn would have turned all the men of the whole
+world grey if they had gone into it.
+
+And when Finn had drunk all that was in the vessel it slipped from his
+hand into the earth, that was loosened with the digging, and he saw it
+no more. But in the place where it went into the earth, a tree grew up,
+and any one that would look at the branches of that tree in the morning,
+fasting, would have knowledge of all that was to happen on that day.
+
+That, now, is the way Finn came by his grey hair, through the jealousy
+of Miluchradh of the Sidhe, because he had not given his love to her,
+but to her sister Aine.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIVE: OISIN'S CHILDREN
+
+
+Now as to Oisin, that was so brave and so comely, and that could
+overtake a deer at its greatest speed, and see a thistle thorn on the
+darkest night, the wife he took was Eibhir of the plaited yellow hair,
+that was the foreign sweetheart of the High King of Ireland.
+
+It is beyond the sea she lived, in a very sunny place; and her father's
+name was lunsa, and her sunny house was thatched with the feathers of
+birds, and the doorposts were of gold, and the doors of ribbed grass.
+And Oisin went there looking for her, and he fought for her against the
+High King and against an army of the Firbolgs he had helping him; and he
+got the better of them all, and brought away Eibhir of the yellow hair
+to Ireland.
+
+And he had a daughter that married the son of Oiliol, son of Eoghan, and
+of Beara, daughter of the King of Spain. It was that Eoghan was driven
+out of Ireland one time, and it is to Spain he went for safety. And
+Beara, that was daughter of the King of Spain, was very shining and
+beautiful, and her father had a mind to know who would be her husband,
+and he sent for his Druid and asked the question of him. "I can tell you
+that," said the Druid, "for the man that is to be her husband will come
+to land in Spain this very night. And let your daughter go eastward to
+the river Eibhear," he said, "and she will find a crimson-spotted salmon
+in that river, having shining clothing on him from head to tail. And let
+her strip that clothing off him," he said, "and make with it a shining
+shirt for her husband."
+
+So Beara went to the river Eibhear, and found the golden salmon as the
+Druid had said, and she stripped him of his crimson clothing and made a
+shining shirt of it.
+
+And as to Eoghan, the waves of the shore put a welcome before him, and
+he came the same night to the king's house. And the king gave him a
+friendly welcome; and it is what all the people said, that there was
+never seen a comelier man than Eoghan, or a woman more beautiful than
+Beara, and that it was fitting for them to come together. And Eoghan's
+own people said they would not be sorry for being sent away out of
+Ireland, if only Eoghan could get her for his wife.
+
+And after a while the king sent his Druid to ask Eoghan why he did not
+ask for Beara. "I will tell you that," said Eoghan; "it would not be
+fitting for me to be refused a wife, and I am but an exile in this
+country, and I have brought no treasures or goods with me out of Ireland
+for giving to learned men and to poets. But for all that," he said, "the
+king's daughter is dear to me, and I think I have the friendship of the
+king."
+
+The Druid went back with that message. "That is the answer of a king,"
+said the King of Spain; "and bid my daughter to sit at Eoghan's right
+hand," he said, "and I will give her to him this very night." And when
+Beara, the king's daughter, heard that, she sent out her serving-maid to
+bring the shirt she had made for Eoghan, and he put it on him over his
+armour, and its shining was seen in every place; and it was from wearing
+that shirt he got the name of Eoghan the Bright.
+
+And Oiliol was the first son they had; it was he that had his ear bitten
+off by Aine of the Sidhe in revenge for her brother, and it was his son
+married Oisin's daughter afterwards.
+
+And as to Osgar, that was Oisin's son, of all the young men of the
+Fianna he was the best in battle. And when he was but a young child he
+was made much of by the whole of the Fianna, and it is for him they used
+to keep the marrow bones, and they did not like to put any hardship on
+him. And he grew up tall and idle, and no one thought he would turn out
+so strong as he did. And one day there was an attack made on a troop of
+the Fianna, and all that were in it went out to fight, but they left
+Osgar after them. And when he knew the fight was going on, he took a log
+of wood that was the first thing he could find, and attacked the enemy
+and made a great slaughter, and they gave way and ran before him. And
+from that out there was no battle he did not go into; and he was said to
+be the strongest of all the Fianna, though the people of Connacht said
+that Goll was the strongest. And he and Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne,
+were comrades and dear friends; and it was Diarmuid taught him feats of
+arms and of skill, and chess-playing. And Oisin his father took great
+pride in him, and his grandfather Finn. And one time Finn was holding a
+feast at Almhuin, and he asked the chief men of the Fianna that were
+there what was the music they thought the best. "To be playing at
+games," said Conan, "that is the best music I ever heard;" for though
+Conan was a good hand against an enemy, there never was a man had less
+sense. "The music I like the best is to be talking with a woman," said
+Diarmuid. "My music is the outcry of my hounds, and they putting a deer
+to its last stand," said Lugaidh's Son. "The music of the woods is best
+to me," said Oisin; "the sound of the wind and of the cuckoo and the
+blackbird, and the sweet silence of the crane."
+
+And then Osgar was asked, and he said: "The best music is the striking
+of swords in a battle." And it is likely he took after Finn in that, for
+in spite of all the sweet sounds he gave an account of the time he was
+at Conan's house, at Ceann Slieve, it used to be said by the Fianna that
+the music that was best with Finn was what happened.
+
+This now is the way Osgar met with his wife.
+
+One time Finn and his men came to Slieve Crot, and they saw a woman
+waiting there before them, having a crimson fringed cloak, and a gold
+brooch in it, and a band of yellow gold on her forehead. Finn asked her
+name, and where she came from. "Etain of the Fair Hair is my name," she
+said, "daughter of Aedh of the White Breast, of the hill of the Sidhe at
+Beinn Edair, son of Angus Og." "What is it brought you here, girl?" said
+Finn. "To ask a man of the Fianna of Ireland to run a race with me."
+"What sort of a runner are you?" said Diarmuid. "I am a good runner,"
+said the girl; "for it is the same to me if the ground is long or short
+under my feet."
+
+All of the Fianna that were there then set out to run with her, and they
+ran to the height over Badhamair and on to Ath Cliath, and from that on
+to the hill of the Sidhe at Beinn Edair.
+
+And there was a good welcome before them, and they were brought meat and
+wine for drinking, and water for washing their feet. And after a while
+they saw a nice fair-haired girl in front of the vats, and a cup of
+white silver in her hand, and she giving out drink to every one. "It
+seems to me that is the girl came asking the Fianna to race against her
+at Slieve Crot," said Finn. "It is not," said Aedh of the White Breast,
+"for that is the slowest woman there is among us." "Who was it so?" said
+Finn. "It was Be-mannair, daughter of Ainceol, woman-messenger of the
+Tuatha de Danaan. And it is she that changes herself into all shapes;
+and she will take the shape of a fly, and of a true lover, and every one
+leaves their secret with her. And it was she outran you coming from the
+east," he said, "and not this other girl that was drinking and making
+merry here in the hall." "What is her name?" said Finn. "Etain of the
+Fair Hair," he said; "a daughter of my own, and a darling of the Tuatha
+de Danaan. And it is the way with her, she has a lover of the men of the
+Fianna." "That is well," said Finn; "and who is that lover?" "It is
+Osgar, son of Oisin," said Aedh; "and it is she herself sent her
+messenger for you," he said, "in her own shape, to Slieve Crot in the
+south. And the son of the High King of Ireland has offered a great
+bride-price to the Men of Dea for her," he said, "three hundreds of the
+land nearest to Bregia and to Midhe, and to put himself and his weight
+of gold into a balance, and to give it all to her. But we did not take
+it," he said, "since she had no mind or wish for it herself, and so we
+made no dealing or agreement about her." "Well," said Finn, "and what
+conditions will you ask of Osgar?" "Never to leave me for anything at
+all but my own fault," said the girl. "I will make that agreement with
+you indeed," said Osgar. "Give me sureties for it," said she; "give me
+the sureties of Goll for the sons of Morna, and of Finn, son of Cumhal,
+for the Fianna of Ireland."
+
+So they gave those sureties, and the wedding-feast was made, and they
+stopped there for twenty nights. And at the end of that time Osgar asked
+Finn where would he bring his wife. "Bring her to wide Almhuin for the
+first seven years," said Finn.
+
+But a while after that, in a great battle at Beinn Edair, Osgar got so
+heavy a wound that Finn and the Fianna were as if they had lost their
+wits. And when Etain of the Fair Hair came to the bed where Osgar was
+lying, and saw the way he was, and that the great kinglike shape he had
+was gone from him, greyness and darkness came on her, and she raised
+pitiful cries, and she went to her bed and her heart broke in her like a
+nut; and she died of grief for her husband and her first love.
+
+But it was not at that time Osgar got his death, but afterwards in the
+battle of Gabhra.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SIX: DIARMUID.
+
+CHAPTER I. BIRTH OF DIARMUID
+
+
+Diarmuid, now, was son of Bonn, son of Duibhne of the Fianna, and his
+mother was Crochnuit, that was near in blood to Finn. And at the time he
+was born, Bonn was banished from the Fianna because of some quarrel they
+had with him, and Angus Og took the child from him to rear him up at
+Brugh na Boinne.
+
+And after a while Crochnuit bore another son to Roc Diocain, that was
+Head Steward to Angus. Roc Diocain went then to Donn, and asked would he
+rear up his son for him, the way Angus was rearing Donn's son. But Donn
+said he would not take the son of a common man into his house, and it
+would be best for Angus to take him. So Angus took the child into Brugh
+na Boinne, and he and Diarmuid were reared up together.
+
+And one day Finn was on the great Hill at Almhuin of Leinster, and no
+one with him but Donn and a few of the poets and learned men of the
+Fianna, and their hounds and dogs, and Bran Beag came in and asked did
+he remember there were bonds on him, not to stop in Almhuin for ten
+nights together. Finn asked the people about him then where would he go
+and be entertained for that night, and Donn said: "I will bring you to
+the house of Angus, son of the Dagda, where my young son is being
+reared."
+
+
+So they went together to the house of Angus at Brugh na Boinne, and the
+child Diarmuid was there, and it is great love Angus had for him. And
+the Steward's son was with him that night, and the people of the
+household made as much of him as Angus made of Diarmuid; and there was
+great vexation on Donn when he saw that. It chanced after a while a
+great fight rose between two of Finn's hounds about some broken meat
+that was thrown to them; and the women and the common people of the
+place ran from them, and the others rose up to part them from one
+another. And in running away, the Steward's child ran between the knees
+of Donn, and Donn gave the child a strong squeeze between his two knees
+that killed him on the moment, and he threw him under the feet of the
+hounds. And when the Steward came after that and found his son dead, he
+gave a long very pitiful cry, and he said to Finn: "There is not a man
+in the house to-night has suffered more than myself from this uproar,
+for I had but one son only, and he has been killed; and what
+satisfaction will I get from you for that, Finn?" he said. "Try can you
+find the mark of a tooth or of a nail of one of the hounds on him," said
+Finn, "and if you can, I will give you satisfaction for him."
+
+So they looked at the child, and there was no scratch or mark of a tooth
+on him at all. Then the Steward put Finn under the destroying bonds of
+the Druid cave of Cruachan, to give him knowledge of who it was killed
+his son. And Finn asked for a chess-board, and for water to be brought
+to him, in a basin of pale gold, and he searched, and it was shown to
+him truly that it was Donn had killed the Steward's son between his two
+knees. When Finn knew that, he said he would take the fine on himself;
+but the Steward would not consent to that, but forced him to tell who
+was it had done him the wrong. And when he knew it was Donn had killed
+the child, he said: "There is no man in the house it is easier to get
+satisfaction from than from him, for his own son is here, and I have but
+to put him between my two knees, and if I let him go from me safe, I
+will forgive the death of my son." Angus was vexed at what the Steward
+said, and as to Donn, he thought to strike his head off till Finn put
+him back from him. Then the Steward came again, having a Druid rod with
+him, and he struck his own son with the rod, and he made of him a wild
+boar, without bristle or ear or tail, and he said: "I put you under
+bonds to bring Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to his death; and your
+own life will be no longer than his life," he said. With that the wild
+boar rose up and ran out of the open door; and he was called afterwards
+the Boar of Slieve Guillion, and it was by him Diarmuid came to his
+death at the last.
+
+And when Diarmuid came to his full strength he was given a place among
+the Fianna of Ireland; and all women loved him, and he did many great
+deeds, fighting with the enemies of the Fianna and of Ireland; and one
+time he fought a wild ox through the length of seven days and seven
+nights on the top of the Mountain of Happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. HOW DIARMUID GOT HIS LOVE-SPOT
+
+
+Diarmuid and Conan and Goll and Osgar went one day hunting, and they
+went so far they could not get home in the evening, and they spent the
+first part of the night walking through the woods and pulling berries
+and eating them. And when it was about midnight they saw a light, and
+they went towards it, and they found a little house before them, and the
+light shining from it. They went in then, and they saw an old man there,
+and he bade them welcome, and he called them all by their names. And
+they saw no one in the house but the old man and a young girl and a cat.
+And the old man bade the girl to make food ready for the Fianna of
+Ireland, for there was great hunger on them.
+
+And when the food was ready and put on the table, there came a great
+wether that was fastened up in the back of the house, and he rose up on
+the table where they were eating, and when they saw that, they looked at
+one another. "Rise up, Conan," said Goll, "and fasten that wether in
+the place it was before." Conan rose up and took hold of it, but the
+wether gave itself a shake that threw Conan under one of its feet. The
+rest were looking at that, and Goll said: "Let you rise up, Diarmuid,
+and fasten up the wether." So Diarmuid rose up and took hold of it, but
+it gave itself a shake the same way as before; and when Diarmuid was
+down it put one of its feet on him. Goll and Osgar looked at one another
+then, and shame came on them, a wether to have done so much as that. And
+Osgar got up, but the wether put him down under one of his feet, so that
+it had now the three men under him. Then Goll rose up and took hold of
+it and threw it down; but if he did, it rose up again in spite of him,
+and put Goll under his fourth foot.
+
+"It is a great shame," said the old man then, "the like of that to be
+done to the Fianna of Ireland. And rise up now, cat," he said, "and tie
+the wether in the place where he was." The cat rose up then and took
+hold of the wether, and brought it over and tied it in its place at the
+end of the house.
+
+The men rose up then, but they had no mind to go on eating, for there
+was shame on them at what the wether had done to them. "You may go on
+eating," said the old man; "and when you are done I will show you that
+now you are the bravest men of the world." So they ate their fill then,
+and the old man spoke to them, and it is what he said: "Goll," he said,
+"you are the bravest of all the men of the world, for you have wrestled
+with the world and you threw it down. The strength of the world is in
+the wether, but death will come to the world itself; and that is death,"
+he said, showing them the cat.
+
+They were talking together then, and they had their food eaten, and the
+old man said their beds were ready for them that they could go to sleep.
+The four of them went then into the one room, and when they were in
+their beds the young girl came to sleep in the same room with them, and
+the light of her beauty was shining on the walls like as if it was the
+light of a candle.
+
+And when Conan saw her he went over to the side of the bed where she
+was.
+
+Now, it was Youth the young girl was, and when she saw Conan coming to
+her: "Go back to your bed, Conan," she said; "I belonged to you once,
+and I will never belong to you again." Conan went back to his bed then,
+and Osgar had a mind to go over where she was. Then she said to him:
+"Where are you going?" "I am going over to yourself for a while," said
+he.
+
+"Go back again, Osgar," she said; "I belonged to you once, and I will
+never belong to you again."
+
+Then Diarmuid rose up to go to her: "Where are you going, Diarmuid?" she
+said. "I am going over to yourself for a while," said he. "O Diarmuid,"
+she said, "that cannot be; I belonged to you once, and I can never
+belong to you again; but come over here to me, Diarmuid," she said, "and
+I will put a love-spot on you, that no woman will ever see without
+giving you her love." So Diarmuid went over to her, and she put her hand
+on his forehead, and she left the love-spot there, and no woman that
+ever saw him after that was able to refuse him her love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE DAUGHTER OF KING UNDER-WAVE
+
+
+One snowy night of winter the Fianna were come into the house after
+their hunting. And about midnight they heard a knocking at the door, and
+there came in a woman very wild and ugly, and her hair hanging to her
+heels. She went to the place Finn was lying, and she asked him to let
+her in under the border of his covering. But when he saw her so strange
+and so ugly and so wild-looking he would not let her in. She gave a
+great cry then, and she went to where Oisin was, and asked him to let
+her shelter under the border of his covering. But Oisin refused her the
+same way. Then she gave another great scream, and she went over where
+Diarmuid was. "Let me in," she said, "under the border of your
+covering." Diarmuid looked at her, and he said: "You are strange-looking
+and wild and ugly, and your hair is down to your heels. But come in for
+all that," he said.
+
+So she came in under the border of his covering.
+
+"O Diarmuid," she said then, "I have been travelling over sea and ocean
+through the length of seven years, and in all that time I never got
+shelter any night till this night. And let me to the warmth of the fire
+now," she said. So Diarmuid brought her over to the fire, and all the
+Fianna that were sitting there went away from it seeing her so ugly and
+so dreadful to look at. And she was not long at the fire when she said:
+"Let me go under the warmth of the covering with you now." "It is asking
+too much you are," said Diarmuid; "first it was to come under the border
+you asked, and then to come to the fire, and now it is under the
+bed-covering with me you want to be. But for all that you may come," he
+said.
+
+So she came in under the covering, and he turned a fold of it between
+them. But it was not long till he looked at her, and what he saw was a
+beautiful young woman beside him, and she asleep. He called to the
+others then to come over, and he said: "Is not this the most beautiful
+woman that ever was seen?" "She is that," they said, and they covered
+her up and did not awaken her.
+
+But after a while she stirred, and she said: "Are you awake, Diarmuid?"
+"I am awake," he said. "Where would you like to see the best house
+built that ever was built?" she said. "Up there on the hillside, if I
+had my choice," said he, and with that he fell asleep.
+
+And in the morning two men of the Fianna came in, and they said they
+were after seeing a great house up on the hill, where there was not a
+house before. "Rise up, Diarmuid," said the strange woman then; "do not
+be lying there any longer, but go up to your house, and look out now and
+see it," she said. So he looked out and he saw the great house that was
+ready, and he said: "I will go to it, if you will come along with me."
+"I will do that," she said, "if you will make me a promise not to say to
+me three times what way I was when I came to you." "I will never say it
+to you for ever," said Diarmuid.
+
+They went up then to the house, and it was ready for them, with food and
+servants; and everything they could wish for they had it. They stopped
+there for three days, and when the three days were ended, she said: "You
+are getting to be sorrowful because you are away from your comrades of
+the Fianna." "I am not sorrowful indeed," said Diarmuid. "It will be
+best for you to go to them; and your food and your drink will be no
+worse when you come back than they are now," said she. "Who will take
+care of my greyhound bitch and her three pups if I go?" said Diarmuid.
+"There is no fear for them," said she.
+
+So when he heard that, he took leave of her and went back to the Fianna,
+and there was a great welcome before him. But for all that they were not
+well pleased but were someway envious, Diarmuid to have got that grand
+house and her love from the woman they themselves had turned away.
+
+Now as to the woman, she was outside the house for a while after
+Diarmuid going away, and she saw Finn, son of Cumhal, coming towards
+her, and she bade him welcome. "You are vexed with me, Queen?" he said.
+"I am not indeed," she said; "and come in now and take a drink of wine
+from me." "I will go in if I get my request," said Finn. "What request
+is there that you would not get?" said she. "It is what I am asking, one
+of the pups of Diarmuid's greyhound bitch." "That is no great thing to
+ask," she said; "and whichever one you choose of them you may bring it
+away."
+
+So he got the pup, and he brought it away with him.
+
+At the fall of night Diarmuid came back to the house, and the greyhound
+met him at the door and gave a yell when she saw him, and he looked for
+the pups, and one of them was gone. There was anger on him then, and he
+said to the woman: "If you had brought to mind the way you were when I
+let you in, and your hair hanging, you would not have let the pup be
+brought away from me." "You ought not to say that, Diarmuid," said she.
+"I ask your pardon for saying it," said Diarmuid. And they forgave one
+another, and he spent the night in the house.
+
+On the morrow Diarmuid went back again to his comrades, and the woman
+stopped at the house, and after a while she saw Oisin coming towards
+her. She gave him a welcome, and asked him into the house, and he said
+he would come if he would get his request. And what he asked was another
+of the pups of the greyhound.
+
+So she gave him that, and he went away bringing the pup with him. And
+when Diarmuid came back that night the greyhound met him, and she cried
+out twice. And he knew that another of the pups was gone, and he said to
+the greyhound, and the woman standing there: "If she had remembered the
+way she was when she came to me, she would not have let the pup be
+brought away."
+
+The next day he went back again to the Fianna, and when he was gone, the
+woman saw Caoilte coming towards her, and he would not come in to take a
+drink from her till he had got the promise of one of the pups the same
+as the others.
+
+And when Diarmuid came back that night the greyhound met him and gave
+three yells, the most terrible that ever were heard. There was great
+anger on him then, when he saw all the pups gone, and he said the third
+time: "If this woman remembered the way she was when I found her, and
+her hair down to her heels, she would not have let the pup go." "O
+Diarmuid, what is it you are after saying?" she said. He asked
+forgiveness of her then, and he thought to go into the house, but it was
+gone and the woman was gone on the moment, and it was on the bare ground
+he awoke on the morrow. There was great sorrow on him then, and he said
+he would search in every place till he would find her again.
+
+So he set out through the lonely valleys, and the first thing he saw was
+the greyhound lying dead, and he put her on his shoulder and would not
+leave her because of the love he had for her. And after a while he met
+with a cowherd, and he asked him did he see a woman going the way. "I
+saw a woman early in the morning of yesterday, and she walking hard,"
+said the cowherd. "What way was she going?" said Diarmuid. "Down that
+path below to the strand, and I saw her no more after that," he said.
+
+So he followed the path she took down to the strand till he could go no
+farther, and then he saw a ship, and he leaned on the handle of his
+spear and made a light leap on to the ship, and it went on till it came
+to land, and then he got out and lay down on the side of a hill and fell
+asleep, and when he awoke there was no ship to be seen. "It is a pity
+for me to be here," he said, "for I see no way of getting from it
+again."
+
+But after a while he saw a boat coming, and a man in the boat rowing it,
+and he went down and got into the boat, and brought the greyhound with
+him. And the boat went out over the sea, and then down below it; and
+Diarmuid, when he went down, found himself on a plain. And he went
+walking along it, and it was not long before he met with a drop of
+blood. He took it up and put it in a napkin. "It is the greyhound lost
+this," he said. And after a while he met with another drop of blood, and
+then with a third, and he put them in the napkin. And after that again
+he saw a woman, and she gathering rushes as if she had lost her wits.
+
+He went towards her and asked her what news had she. "I cannot tell it
+till I gather the rushes," she said. "Be telling it while you are
+gathering them," said Diarmuid. "There is great haste on me," she said.
+"What is this place where we are?" said Diarmuid. "It is
+Land-under-Wave," said she. "And what use have you for the rushes when
+they are gathered?" "The daughter of King Under-Wave is come home," she
+said, "and she was for seven years under enchantment, and there is
+sickness on her now, and all the physicians are gathered together and
+none of them can do her any good, and a bed of rushes is what she finds
+the wholesomest." "Will you show me where the king's daughter is?" said
+Diarmuid. "I will do that," said the woman; "I will put you in the sheaf
+of rushes, and I will put the rushes under you and over you, and I will
+carry you to her on my back." "That is a thing you cannot do," said
+Diarmuid. But she put the rushes about him, and lifted him on her back,
+and when she got to the room she let down the bundle. "O come here to
+me," said the daughter of King Under-Wave, and Diarmuid went over to
+her, and they took one another's hands, and were very joyful at that
+meeting. "Three parts of my sickness is gone from me now," she said
+then; "but I am not well yet, and I never will be, for every time I
+thought of you, Diarmuid, on my journey, I lost a drop of the blood of
+my heart." "I have got those three drops here in this napkin," said
+Diarmuid, "and take them now in a drink and you will be healed of your
+sickness." "They would do nothing for me," she said, "since I have not
+the one thing in the world that I want, and that is the thing I will
+never get," she said. "What thing is that?" said Diarmuid. "It is the
+thing you will never get, nor any man in the world," she said, "for it
+is a long time they have failed to get it." "If it is in any place on
+the whole ridge of the world I will get it," said Diarmuid. "It is three
+draughts from the cup of the King of Magh an Ionganaidh, the Plain of
+Wonder," she said, "and no man ever got it or ever will get it." "Tell
+me where that cup is to be found," said Diarmuid, "for there are not as
+many men as will keep it from me on the whole ridge of the world." "That
+country is not far from the boundary of my father's country," she said;
+"but there is a little river between, and you would be sailing on that
+river in a ship, having the wind behind it, for a year and a day before
+you would reach to the Plain of Wonder."
+
+Diarmuid set out then, and he came to the little river, and he was a
+good while walking beside it, and he saw no way to cross it. But at last
+he saw a low-sized, reddish man that was standing in the middle of the
+river. "You are in straits, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," he said;
+"and come here and put your foot in the palm of my hand and I will bring
+you through." Diarmuid did as he bade him, and put his foot in the red
+man's palm, and he brought him across the river. "It is going to the
+King of the Plain of Wonder you are," he said, "to bring away his cup
+from him; and I myself will go with you."
+
+They went on then till they came to the king's dun, and Diarmuid called
+out that the cup should be sent out to him, or else champions to fight
+with him should be sent out. It was not the cup was sent out, but twice
+eight hundred fighting men; and in three hours there was not one of them
+left to stand against him. Then twice nine hundred better fighters
+again were sent out against him, and within four hours there was not one
+of them left to stand against him. Then the king himself came out, and
+he stood in the great door, and he said: "Where did the man come from
+that has brought destruction on the whole of my kingdom?" "I will tell
+you that," said he; "I am Diarmuid, a man of the Fianna of Ireland." "It
+is a pity you not to have sent a messenger telling me that," said the
+king, "and I would not have spent my men upon you; for seven years
+before you were born it was put in the prophecy that you would come to
+destroy them. And what is it you are asking now?" he said. "It is the
+cup of healing from your own hand I am asking," said Diarmuid. "No man
+ever got that cup from me but yourself," said the king, "but it is easy
+for me to give it to you, whether or not there is healing in it."
+
+Then the King of the Plain of Wonder gave Diarmuid the cup, and they
+parted from one another; and Diarmuid went on till he came to the river,
+and it was then he thought of the red man, that he had given no thought
+to while he was at the king's house. But he was there before him, and
+took his foot in the palm of his hand and brought him over the river. "I
+know where it is you are going, Diarmuid," he said then; "it is to heal
+the daughter of King Under-Wave that you have given your love to. And it
+is to a well I will give you the signs of you should go," he said, "and
+bring a share of the water of that well with you. And when you come
+where the woman is, it is what you have to do, to put that water in the
+cup, and one of the drops of blood in it, and she will drink it, and the
+same with the second drop and the third, and her sickness will be gone
+from her from that time. But there is another thing will be gone along
+with it," he said, "and that is the love you have for her."
+
+"That will not go from me," said Diarmuid. "It will go from you," said
+the man; "and it will be best for you make no secret of it, for she will
+know, and the king will know, that you think no more of her then than of
+any other woman. And King Under-Wave will come to you," he said, "and
+will offer you great riches for healing his daughter. But take nothing
+from him," he said, "but ask only a ship to bring you home again to
+Ireland. And do you know who am I myself?" he said. "I do not know,"
+said Diarmuid. "I am the messenger from beyond the world," he said; "and
+I came to your help because your own heart is hot to come to the help of
+another."
+
+So Diarmuid did as he bade him, and he brought the water and the cup and
+the drops of blood to the woman, and she drank them, and at the third
+draught she was healed. And no sooner was she healed than the love he
+had for her was gone, and he turned away from her. "O Diarmuid," she
+said, "your love is gone from me." "O, it is gone indeed," said he.
+
+Then there was music made in the whole place, and the lamenting was
+stopped, because of the healing of the king's daughter. And as to
+Diarmuid, he would take no reward and he would not stop there, but he
+asked for a ship to bring him home to Ireland, to Finn and the Fianna.
+And when he came where they were, there was a joyful welcome before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE HARD SERVANT
+
+
+The Fianna went hunting one time in the two proud provinces of Munster.
+They went out from Almhuin by the nearest paths till they came to the
+Brosna river in Slieve Bladhma, and from there to the twelve mountains
+of Eiblinne, and on to Aine Cliach, the harp of Aine.
+
+They scattered themselves then and hunted through the borders of the
+forest that is called Magh Breogain, through blind trackless places and
+through broken lands, over beautiful level plains and the high hills of
+Desmumum, under pleasant Slieve Crot and smooth Slieve na Muc, along the
+level banks of the blue Siuir and over the green plain of Feman and the
+rough plain of Eithne, and the dark woods of Belach Gabrain.
+
+And Finn was at the side of a hill, and the chief men of the Fianna
+along with him, to watch the hunting; for they liked to be listening to
+the outcry of the hounds and the hurried cries of the boys, and the
+noise and the whistling and the shouts of the strong men.
+
+Finn asked then which of the men that were with him would go and keep
+watch on the side of the hill where they were. And Finnbane, son of
+Bresel, said he would go. And he went on to the top of the hill, where
+he could see about him on all sides. And he was not long there till he
+saw coming from the east a very big man, ugly and gloomy and deformed;
+and it is how he was, a dark-coloured shield on his back, a wide sword
+on his crooked left thigh, two spears on his shoulder, a torn loose
+cloak over his limbs, that were as black as a quenched coal. A sulky
+horse he had with him that had no good appearance, bony and thin as to
+body, and weak in the legs, and he leading it with a rough iron halter;
+and it was a great wonder the head was not pulled from the horse's body,
+or the arms pulled out of his owner, with the sudden stands and stops
+and the jerks it made. And the big man was striking blows on the horse
+with an iron cudgel to try and knock some going out of him, and the
+sound of the blows was like the breaking of strong waves.
+
+And when Finnbane saw all that, he thought to himself it would not be
+right to let the like of that stranger go up unknown to Finn and the
+Fianna, and he ran back in haste to where they were and told them all he
+had seen.
+
+And when he had told his story, they saw the big man coming towards
+them; but as short as he was from them he was long in coming, from the
+badness of his walk and his going.
+
+And when he came into Finn's presence he saluted him, and bowed his head
+and bent his knee, making signs of humility.
+
+Finn raised his hand over his head then, and asked news of him, and if
+he was of the noble or of the mean blood of the great world. He answered
+that he had no knowledge who he came from, but only that he was a man of
+the Fomor, travelling in search of wages to the kings of the earth, "and
+I heard," he said, "that Finn never refused wages to any man." "I never
+did indeed," said Finn, "and I will not refuse you. But why is it," he
+said, "you are without a boy to mind your horse?" "I have a good reason
+for that," said the big man; "there is nothing in the world is worse to
+me than a boy to be with me; for it is a hundred men's share of food,"
+he said, "that serves me for one day, and it is little enough I think
+it, and I would begrudge a boy to be sharing it with me." "What is the
+name you have?" said Finn. "The name I have is the Gilla Decair, the
+Hard Servant," said he. "Why did you get that name?" said Finn. "There
+is a good reason for that," said the big man, "for there is nothing in
+the world is harder to me than to do anything at all for my master, or
+whatever person I am with. And tell me this, Conan, son of Morna," he
+said, "who gets the best wages, a horseman or a man afoot?" "A horseman
+gets twice as much," said Conan. "Then I call you to witness, Conan," he
+said, "that I am a horseman, and that it was as a horseman I came to the
+Fianna. And give me your guarantee now, Finn, son of Cumhal, and the
+guarantee of the Fianna, and I will turn out my horse with your horses."
+"Let him out then," said Finn.
+
+The big man pulled off the iron halter then from his horse, and it made
+off as hard as it could go, till it came where the horses of the Fianna
+were; and it began to tear and to kick and to bite at them, killing and
+maiming. "Take your horse out of that, big man," said Conan; "and by the
+earth and the sky," he said, "only it was on the guarantee of Finn and
+the Fianna you took the halter off him, I would let out his brains
+through the windows of his head; and many as is the bad prize Finn has
+found in Ireland," he said, "he never got one as bad as yourself." "And
+I swear by earth and sky as well as yourself," said the big man, "I will
+never bring him out of that; for I have no serving-boy to do it for me,
+and it is not work for me to be leading my horse by the hand."
+
+Conan, son of Morna, rose up then and took the halter and put it on the
+horse, and led it back to where Finn was, and held it with his hand.
+"You would never have done a horse-boy's service, Conan," said Finn, "to
+any one of the Fianna, however far he might be beyond this Fomor. And if
+you will do what I advise," he said, "you will get up on the horse now,
+and search out with him all the hills and hollows and flowery plains of
+Ireland, till his heart is broken in his body in payment for the way he
+destroyed the horses of the Fianna."
+
+Conan made a leap then on to the horse, and struck his heels hard into
+him, but with all that the horse would not stir. "I know what ails him,"
+said Finn, "he will not stir till he has the same weight of horsemen on
+him as the weight of the big man."
+
+On that thirteen men of the Fianna went up behind Conan, and the horse
+lay down with them and rose up again. "I think that you are mocking at
+my horse and at myself," said the big man; "and it is a pity for me to
+be spending the rest of the year with you, after all the humbugging I
+saw in you to-day, Finn. And I know well," he said, "that all I heard
+about you was nothing but lies, and there was no cause for the great
+name you have through the world. And I will quit you now, Finn," he
+said.
+
+With that he went from them, slow and weak, dragging himself along till
+he had put a little hill between himself and the Fianna. And as soon as
+he was on the other side of it, he tucked up his cloak to his waist, and
+away with him, as if with the quickness of a swallow or a deer, and the
+rush of his going was like a blast of loud wind going over plains and
+mountains in spring-time.
+
+When the horse saw his master going from him, he could not bear with it,
+but great as his load was he set out at full gallop following after him.
+And when Finn and the Fianna saw the thirteen men behind Conan, son of
+Morna, on the horse, and he starting off, they shouted with mocking
+laughter.
+
+And when Conan found that he was not able to come down off the horse, he
+screeched and shouted to them not to let him be brought away with the
+big man they knew nothing of, and he began abusing and reproaching them.
+"A cloud of death over water on you, Finn," he said, "and that some son
+of a slave or a robber of the bad blood, one that is a worse son of a
+father and mother even than yourself, may take all that might protect
+your life, and your head along with that, unless you follow us to
+whatever place or island the big man will carry us to, and unless you
+bring us back to Ireland again."
+
+Finn and the Fianna rose up then, and they followed the Gilla Decair
+over every bald hill, and through every valley and every river, on to
+pleasant Slieve Luachra, into the borders of Corca Duibhne; and the big
+man, that was up on the horse then along with Conan and the rest, faced
+towards the deep sea. And Liagan Luath of Luachar took hold of the
+horse's tail with his two hands, thinking to drag him back by the hair
+of it; but the horse gave a great tug, and away with him over the sea,
+and Liagan along with him, holding on to his tail.
+
+It was a heavy care to Finn, those fourteen men of his people to be
+brought away from him, and he himself under bonds to bring them back.
+"What can we do now?" Oisin asked him. "What should we do, but to follow
+our people to whatever place or island the big man has brought them,
+and, whatever way we do it, to bring them back to Ireland again." "What
+can we do, having neither a ship or any kind of boat?" said Oisin. "We
+have this," said Finn, "the Tuatha de Danaan left as a gift to the
+children of the Gael, that whoever might have to leave Ireland for a
+while, had but to go to Beinn Edair, and however many would go along
+with him, they would find a ship that would hold them all." Finn looked
+towards the sea then, and he saw two strong armed men coming towards
+him. The first one had on his back a shield ribbed and of many colours,
+having shapes of strange, wonderful beasts engraved on it, and a heavy
+sword at his side, and two thick spears on his shoulders; a cloak of
+lasting crimson about him, with a gold brooch on the breast; a band of
+white bronze on his head, gold under each of his feet; and the other was
+dressed in the same way. They made no delay till they came to where Finn
+was, and they bowed their heads and bent their knees before him, and
+Finn raised his hand over their heads, and bade them to give an account
+of themselves. "We are sons of the King of the Eastern World," they
+said, "and we are come to Ireland asking to be taken into the service of
+Finn; for we heard there was not a man in all Ireland," they said,
+"would be better than yourself to judge of the skill we have." "What is
+your name, and what skill is that?" said Finn. "My name is Feradach,
+the Very Brave," he said; "and I have a carpenter's axe and a sling, and
+if there were so many as thirty hundred of the men of Ireland along with
+me in one spot, with three blows of the axe on the sling-stick I could
+get a ship that would hold them all. And I would ask no more help of
+them," he said, "than to bow down their heads while I was striking those
+three blows." "That is a good art," said Finn. "And tell me now," he
+said, "what can the other man do?" "I can do this," he said, "I can
+follow the track of the teal over nine ridges and nine furrows until I
+come on her in her bed; and it is the same to me to do it on sea as on
+land," he said. "That is a good art," said Finn; "and it would be a good
+help to us if you would come following a track with us now." "What is
+gone from you?" said one of the men. Finn told them then the whole story
+of the Hard Servant.
+
+Then Feradach, the Very Brave, struck three blows on his sling-stick
+with the axe that he had, and the whole of the Fianna bowed their heads,
+and on the moment the whole of the bay and of the harbour was filled
+with ships and with fast boats. "What will we do with that many ships?"
+said Finn. "We will do away with all you make no use of," he said.
+
+Caoilte rose up then and let out three great shouts, and all the Fianna
+of Ireland, in whatever places they were, heard them, and they thought
+Finn and his people to be in some kind of danger from men from beyond
+the sea.
+
+They came then in small companies as they chanced to be, till they came
+to the stepping-stones of the Cat's Head in the western part of Corca
+Duibhne. And they asked news of Finn, what had happened that he called
+them away from their hunting, and Finn told them all that had happened.
+Then Finn and Oisin went into council together, and it is what they
+agreed; that as but fifteen of his people were brought away from Finn,
+he himself with fifteen others would go on their track; Oisin to be left
+at the head of the Fianna to guard Ireland.
+
+And they said farewell to one another, and a grand ship was made ready
+for Finn and his people, and there was food put in it for using and gold
+for giving away. The young men and the heroes took to their seats then,
+and took hold of the oars, and they set out over the restless hills and
+the dark valleys of the great sea.
+
+And the sea rose up and bellowed, and there was madness on the broken
+green waters; but to Finn and his people it was a call in the morning
+and a sleepy time at night to be listening to the roaring and the
+crooning that was ever and always about the sides of the ship.
+
+They went on like that for three days and three nights, and saw no
+country or island. But at the end of that time a man of them went up
+into the head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough
+grey cliff. They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of
+the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an
+eel's back. And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to
+the foot of the rock.
+
+Fergus of the True Lips said then to Diarmuid: "It is no brave thing you
+are doing, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to hold back like this, for it
+was with Manannan the Powerful, son of Lir, you were reared and got your
+learning, in the Land of Promise and in the coasts of the harbours, and
+with Angus Og, the Dagda's son. And are you without any share of their
+skill and their daring now," he said, "that would bring Finn and his
+people up this rock?"
+
+Diarmuid's face reddened when he heard those words, and he took hold of
+Manannan's staves of power that were with him, and he reddened again,
+and he rose on the staves and gave a leap, and got a standing-place for
+his two feet on the overhanging rock. He looked down from that on Finn
+and his people, but whatever wish he had to bring them up to where he
+was, he was not able to do it.
+
+He left the rock behind him then, and he was not gone far when he saw a
+wild tangled place before him, with thick woods that were of all he had
+ever walked the most leafy and the fullest of the sounds of wind and
+streams and birds, and of the humming of bees.
+
+He went on walking the plain, and as he was looking about him, he saw a
+great tree with many twigs and branches, and a rock beside it, and a
+smooth-pointed drinking-horn on it, and a beautiful fresh well at its
+foot. And there was a great drouth on Diarmuid after the sea-journey,
+and he had a mind to drink a hornful of the water. But when he stooped
+to it he heard a great noise coming towards him, and he knew then there
+was enchantment in the water.
+
+"I will drink my fill of it for all that," he said. And it was not long
+after that till he saw a Man of Enchantments coming towards him armed,
+having no friendly look. And it was in no friendly way he spoke to
+Diarmuid when he came up to him, but he gave him great abuse. "It is no
+right thing," he said, "to be walking through my thickets and to be
+drinking up my share of water." With that they faced one another
+angrily, and they fought till the end of the day.
+
+The Enchanter thought it well to leave off fighting then, and he made a
+leap into the bottom of the well away from him, but there was vexation
+on Diarmuid to be left like that.
+
+He looked around him then, and he saw a herd of deer coming through the
+scrub, and he went towards them, and threw a spear that went through the
+nearest stag and drove the bowels out of him. He kindled a fire then,
+and he cut thin bits of the flesh and put them on spits of white hazel,
+and that night he had his fill of meat and of the water of the well.
+
+He rose up early on the morrow, and he found the Enchanter at the well
+before him. "It seems to me, Grandson of Duibhne," he said, "that it is
+not enough for you to be walking my scrub and my woods without killing
+my deer as well." With that they started again, giving one another blow
+for blow, thrust for thrust, and wound for wound till the end of the day
+came on them. And Diarmuid killed another great deer that night, and in
+the morning the fight began again. But in the evening, when the
+Enchanter was making his leap into the well, Diarmuid threw his arms
+about his neck, thinking to stop him, but it is what happened, he fell
+in himself. And when he was at the bottom of the well the Enchanter left
+him.
+
+Diarmuid went then following after the Enchanter, and he found before
+him a beautiful wide flowery plain, and a comely royal city in the
+plain, and on the green before the dun he saw a great army; and when
+they saw Diarmuid following after the Enchanter, they left a way and a
+royal road for the Enchanter to pass through till he got inside the dun.
+And then they shut the gates, and the whole army turned on Diarmuid.
+
+But that put no fear or cowardice on him, but he went through them and
+over them like a hawk would go through little birds, or a wild dog
+through a flock of sheep, killing all before him, till some of them made
+away to the woods and wastes, and another share of them through the
+gates of the dun, and they shut them, and the gates of the city after
+them. And Diarmuid, all full of hurts and wounds after the hard fight,
+lay down on the plain. A very strong daring champion came then and
+kicked at him from behind, and at that Diarmuid roused himself up, and
+put out his brave ready hand for his weapons.
+
+"Wait a while, Grandson of Duibhne," the champion said then; "it is not
+to do you any hurt or harm I am come, but to say to you it is a bad
+sleeping-place for you to have, and it on your ill-wisher's lawn. And
+come now with me," he said, "and I will give you a better
+resting-place."
+
+Diarmuid followed him then, and they went a long, long way from that,
+till they came to a high-topped city, and three times fifty brave
+champions in it, three times fifty modest women, and another young woman
+on a bench, with blushes in her cheeks, and delicate hands, and having a
+silken cloak about her, and a dress sewed with gold threads, and on her
+head the flowing veil of a queen.
+
+There was a good welcome before Diarmuid for his own sake and the sake
+of his people, and he was put in a house of healing that was in the
+city, and good herbs were put to his hurts till he was smooth and sound
+again.
+
+And a feast was made then, and the tables and the benches were set, and
+no high person was put in the place of the mean, or mean in the place of
+the high, but every one in his own place, according to his nobility, or
+his descent, or his art. Plenty of good food was brought to them then,
+and well-tasting strong drinks, and they spent the first part of the
+night in drinking, and the second part with music and delight and
+rejoicing of the mind, and the third part in sound sleep that lasted
+till the sun rose over the heavy sodded earth on the morrow.
+
+Three days and three nights Diarmuid stopped in that city, and the best
+feast he ever found was given to him all through. And at the end of that
+time he asked what was the place he was in, and who was head of it. And
+the champion that brought him there told him it was Land-Under-Wave, and
+that the man that had fought with him was its king. "And he is an enemy
+of the Red Hand to me," he said. "And as to myself," he said, "I was
+one time getting wages from Finn, son of Cumhal, in Ireland, and I never
+put a year over me that pleased me better. And tell me now," he said,
+"what is the journey or the work that is before you?"
+
+And Diarmuid told him the story of the Hard Servant then from beginning
+to end.
+
+Now, as to Finn and his people, when they thought Diarmuid was too long
+away from them, they made ladders of the cords of the ship and put them
+against the rock, looking for him.
+
+And after a while they found the leavings of the meat he had eaten, for
+Diarmuid never ate meat without leaving some after him.
+
+Finn looked then on every side, and he saw a rider coming towards him
+over the plain on a dark-coloured beautiful horse, having a bridle of
+red gold. Finn saluted him when he came up, and the rider stooped his
+head and gave Finn three kisses, and asked him to go with him. They went
+on a long way till they came to a wide, large dwelling-place full of
+arms, and a great troop of armed men on the green before the fort. Three
+nights and three days Finn and his people stopped in the dun, and the
+best feast they ever got was served out to them.
+
+At the end of that time Finn asked what country was he in, and the man
+that brought him there told him it was the land of Sorcha, and that he
+himself was its king. "And I was with yourself one time, Finn, son of
+Cumhal," he said, "taking your wages through the length of a year in
+Ireland."
+
+Then Finn and the King of Sorcha called a great gathering of the people
+and a great meeting. And when it was going on they saw a woman-messenger
+coming to them through the crowd, and the king asked news of her. "I
+have news indeed," she said; "the whole of the bay and the harbour is
+full of ships and of boats, and there are armies all through the country
+robbing all before them." "I know well," said the king, "it is the High
+King of Greece is in it, for he has a mind to put the entire world under
+him, and to get hold of this country like every other." The King of
+Sorcha looked at Finn then, and Finn understood it was help from him he
+was asking, and it is what he said: "I take the protection of this
+country on myself so long as I am in it." He and his people rose up
+then, and the King of Sorcha along with them, and they went looking for
+the strange army. And when they came up with it they made great
+slaughter of its champions, and those they did not kill ran before them,
+and made no better stand than a flock of frightened birds, till there
+were hardly enough of them left to tell the story.
+
+The High King spoke then, and it is what he said: "Who is it has done
+this great slaughter of my people? And I never heard before," he said,
+"any talk of the courage or of the doings of the men of Ireland either
+at this time or in the old times. But from this out," he said, "I will
+banish the Sons of the Gael for ever to the very ends of the earth."
+
+But Finn and the King of Sorcha raised a green tent in view of the ships
+of the Greeks.
+
+The King of the Greeks called then for help against Finn and the King of
+Sorcha, to get satisfaction for the shame that was put on his people.
+And the sons of kings of the eastern and southern world came to his
+help, but they could make no stand against Finn and Osgar and Oisin and
+Goll, son of Morna. And at the last the King of Greece brought all his
+people back home, the way no more of them would be put an end to.
+
+And then Finn and the King of Sorcha called another great gathering. And
+while it was going on, they saw coming towards them a great troop of
+champions, bearing flags of many-coloured silk, and grey swords at
+their sides and high spears reared up over their heads. And in the front
+of them was Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne.
+
+When Finn saw him, he sent Fergus of the True Lips to ask news of him,
+and they told one another all that had happened.
+
+And it would take too long to tell, and it would tire the hearers, how
+Finn made the Hard Servant bring home his fifteen men that he had
+brought away. And when he had brought them back to Ireland, the whole of
+the Fianna were watching to see him ride away again, himself and his
+long-legged horse. But while they were watching him, he vanished from
+them, and all they could see was a mist, and it stretching out towards
+the sea.
+
+And that is the story of the Hard Servant, and of Diarmuid's adventures
+on the island Under-Wave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES
+
+
+And it is often the Fianna would have been badly off without the help of
+Diarmuid. It was he came to their help the time Miodac, the son of the
+King of Lochlann, brought them into the enchanted House of the Quicken
+Trees.
+
+It was by treachery he brought them in, giving himself out to be a poet,
+and making poems for Finn to make out the meaning of. A verse he made
+about a great army that he saw riding over the plains to victory, and
+robbing all before it, and the riders of it having no horses but plants
+and branches. "I understand that," said Finn, "it was an army of bees
+you saw, that was gathering riches from the flowers as it went." And
+another verse Miodac made was about a woman in Ireland that was swifter
+than the swiftest horse. "I know that," said Finn, "that woman is the
+River Boinn; and if she goes slow itself, she is swifter in the end than
+the swiftest horse, for her going never stops." And other verses he made
+about Angus' house at Brugh na Boinn, but Finn made them all out.
+
+And after that he said he had a feast ready for them, and he bade them
+go into his House of the Quicken Trees till he would bring it. And they
+did that, and went in, and it was a beautiful house, having walls of
+every colour, and foreign coverings of every colour on the floor, and a
+fire that gave out a very pleasant smoke. And they sat down there, and
+after a while Finn said: "It is a wonder such a beautiful house to be
+here." "There is a greater wonder than that," said Goll; "that fire that
+was so pleasant when we came in is giving out now the worst stench in
+the world." "There is a greater wonder than that," said Glas; "the walls
+that were of all colours are now but rough boards joined together."
+"There is a greater wonder than that," said Fiacha; "where there were
+seven high doors to the house there is now but one little door, and it
+shut." "Indeed, there is a more wonderful thing than that," said Conan;
+"for we sat down on beautiful coverings, and now there is nothing
+between us and the bare ground, and it as cold as the snow of one
+night." And he tried to rise up, but he could not stir, or any of the
+rest of them, for there was enchantment that kept them where they were.
+
+And it was the treachery of Miodac, and the spells of the Three Kings of
+the Island of the Floods that had brought them into that danger. And
+Finn knew by his divination that their enemies were gathering to make an
+end of them, and he said to his people there was no use in making
+complaints, but to sound the music of the Dord Fiann.
+
+And some of the Fianna that were waiting for him not far off heard that
+sorrowful music, and came fighting against Miodac and his armies, and
+they fought well, but they could not stand against them. And at the last
+it was Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, that made an end of Miodac that
+was so treacherous, and of the Three Kings of the Island of the Floods,
+and took the enchantment off the floor of the House of the Rowan Trees
+with their blood.
+
+And when he was freeing the Fianna, Conan called out, asking him to
+bring him a share of the feast Miodac had made ready for his own
+friends, for there was hunger on him. And when Diarmuid took no heed of
+him, he said: "If it was a comely woman was speaking to you, Diarmuid,
+you would not refuse to listen."
+
+For if many women loved Diarmuid, there were many he himself gave his
+love to; and if he was often called Diarmuid the brave, or the hardy, or
+the comely, or the Hawk of Ess Ruadh, it is often he was called as well
+the friend and the coaxer of women, Diarmuid-na-man.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SEVEN: DIARMUID AND GRANIA.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE FLIGHT FROM TEAMHAIR
+
+
+Finn rose up one morning early in Almhuin of Leinster, and he sat out
+alone on the green lawn without a boy or a servant being with him. And
+Oisin followed him there, and Diorraing the Druid. "What is the cause of
+your early rising, Finn?" said Oisin. "It is not without cause, indeed,
+I rise early," said Finn, "for I am without a wife or a companion since
+Maighneis, daughter of Black Garraidh, died from me; for quiet sleep is
+not used to come to a man that is without a fitting wife." "Why would
+you be like that?" said Oisin, "for there is not a woman in all green
+Ireland you would throw a look on but we would bring her to you, willing
+or unwilling." "I myself could find a wife would be fitting for you,"
+said Diorraing. "Who is that?" said Finn. "It is Grania, daughter of the
+High King of Ireland," said Diorraing; "and she is the woman of the best
+make and shape and the best speech of the women of the whole world." "By
+my word, Diorraing," said Finn, "there is strife and disagreement
+between the High King and myself this long time, and it would not be
+pleasing to me to get a refusal from him. And it is best for you two to
+go together," he said, "and to ask his daughter for me in marriage; the
+way that if he gives a refusal, it will be to you and not to myself he
+will give it." "We will go," said Oisin, "even if it is little profit we
+will get by it. And let no one at all know of our going," he said,
+"until such time as we are come back again."
+
+After that the two bade farewell to Finn, and set out, and it is not
+told what they did till they came to Teamhair. The King of Ireland was
+holding a gathering at that time on the green of Teamhair, and the chief
+nobles of his people were with him. And there was a friendly welcome
+given to Oisin and to Diorraing, and the king put off the gathering
+till the next day, for he was sure it was some pressing thing had
+brought these two men of the Fianna to Teamhair. And Oisin went aside
+with him, and told him it was to ask his daughter Grania in marriage
+they were come from Finn, Head of the Fianna of Ireland.
+
+The king spoke, and it is what he said: "There is not a son of a king or
+of a great prince, there is not a champion in Ireland my daughter has
+not given a refusal to, and it is on me they all lay the blame of that.
+And I will give you no answer at all," he said, "till you go to herself;
+for it is better for you to get her own answer, than to be displeased
+with me."
+
+So they went together to the sunny house of the women, and the king sat
+down at the head of the high seat beside Grania, and he said: "Here,
+Grania, are two of the people of Finn, son of Cumhal, come to ask you as
+a wife for him, and what answer have you a mind to give them?" And it is
+what Grania said: "If he is a fitting son-in-law for you, why would he
+not be a fitting husband for me?"
+
+They were satisfied then, and there was a feast made for them that night
+in Grania's sunny house, and the king settled for a meeting a fortnight
+from that time between himself and Finn at Teamhair.
+
+So Oisin and Diorraing went back again to Almhuin, and told Finn their
+story from beginning to end. And as everything wears away, so did that
+time of delay.
+
+And then Finn gathered together the seven battalions of the Fianna from
+every part where they were to Almhuin. And they set out in great bands
+and troops till they came to Teamhair.
+
+The king was out on the green before them, and the great people of the
+men of Ireland, and there was a great welcome before Finn and the
+Fianna.
+
+But when Grania saw grey-haired Finn, she said: "It is a great wonder
+it was not for Oisin Finn asked me, for he would be more fitting for me
+than a man that is older than my father."
+
+But they talked together for a while, and Finn was putting questions to
+Grania, for she had the name of being very quick with answers. "What is
+whiter than snow?" he said. "The truth," said Grania. "What is the best
+colour?" said Finn. "The colour of childhood," said she. "What is hotter
+than fire?" "The face of a hospitable man when he sees a stranger coming
+in, and the house empty." "What has a taste more bitter than poison?"
+"The reproach of an enemy." "What is best for a champion?" "His doings
+to be high, and his pride to be low." "What is the best of jewels?" "A
+knife." "What is sharper than a sword?" "The wit of a woman between two
+men." "What is quicker than the wind?" said Finn then. "A woman's mind,"
+said Grania. And indeed she was telling no lie when she said that. And
+for all their talk together she had no liking for Finn, and she felt the
+blood in her heart to be rising against him.
+
+And the wedding-feast was made ready then, and they all went into the
+king's feasting-house in the Middle Court. And the king sat down to take
+his share of drinking and pleasure, and his wife at his left side, and
+Grania beside her again; and Finn, son of Cumhal, at the right hand of
+the king, and Oisin at the other side, and every other one according to
+his nobility and his birth.
+
+Then Daire of the poems stood up before Grania, and sang the songs and
+good poems of her fathers to her. And there was sitting near to Grania a
+knowledgeable man, a Druid of Finn's people, and it was not long until
+they began to talk together. "Tell me now," said Grania, "who is that
+man on the right hand of Oisin?" "That is Goll, son of Morna," said the
+Druid, "the ready fighter." "Who is that beside Goll?" said Grania.
+"Osgar, son of Oisin," said the Druid. "And who is that thin-legged man
+beside Osgar?" "That is Caoilte, son of Ronan." "Who is that proud,
+hasty man beside Caoilte?" "Lugaidh's Son of the Strong Hand." "Who is
+that sweet-worded man," she said then, "with the dark hair, and cheeks
+like the rowan berry, on the left side of Oisin, son of Finn?" "That is
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," said the Druid, "that is the best lover
+of women in the whole world." "That is a good company," said Grania.
+
+And after the feast had gone on a while, their own feast was made for
+the dogs outside. And the dogs began to fight with one another, and the
+noise was heard in the hall, and the chief men of the Fianna went to
+drive them away from one another.
+
+Now Diarmuid was used to keep his cap always over the love-spot the
+woman had left on his forehead, for no woman could see that spot but she
+would give him her love. And it chanced, while he was driving the dogs
+apart, the cap fell from him, and Grania was looking cut at him as it
+fell, and great love for him came on her there and then. And she called
+her serving-maid to her, and bade her bring the great golden cup that
+held drink for nine times nine men from the sunny house. And when the
+serving-maid brought the cup, she filled it with wine that had
+enchantment in it, and she said: "Give the cup first to Finn, and bid
+him take a drink from it, and tell him it is I myself sent it to him."
+So the serving-maid did that, and Finn took the cup and drank out of it,
+and no sooner did he drink than he fell into a deep sleep. And then the
+cup was given to the king, and the queen, and the sons of kings, and the
+whole company, but only Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and Diarmuid, and
+Diorraing the Druid. And all that drank of it fell into the same heavy
+sleep.
+
+And when they were all in their sleep, Grania rose up softly from the
+seat where she was, and she turned her face to Diarmuid, and she said:
+"Will you take my love, Diarmuid, son of Duibhne, and will you bring me
+away out of this house to-night?"
+
+"I will not," said Diarmuid; "I will not meddle with the woman that is
+promised to Finn." "If that is so," said Grania, "I put you under Druid
+bonds, to bring me out of this house to-night before the awaking of Finn
+and of the King of Ireland from their sleep."
+
+"It is under bad bonds you are putting me, Grania," said Diarmuid. "And
+why is it," he said, "that you put them on me more than on the great men
+and sons of kings that are in the Middle Court to-night? for there is
+not one of them all but is as well worthy of a woman's love as myself."
+"By my hand, Diarmuid, it is not without cause I laid those bonds on
+you," said Grania; "for I was at the door a while ago when you were
+parting the dogs," she said, "and my eyes fell on you, and I gave you
+the love there and then that I never gave to any other, and never will
+give for ever."
+
+"It is a wonder you to give that love to me, and not to Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "for there is not in Ireland a man is a better lover of a
+woman than himself. And do you know this, Grania," he said, "the night
+Finn is in Teamhair it is he himself is the keeper of its gates. And as
+that is so, we cannot leave the town." "There is a side door of escape
+at my sunny house," said Grania, "and we will go out by it." "It is a
+thing I will never do," said Diarmuid, "to go out by any side door of
+escape at all." "That may be so," said Grania, "but I heard it said that
+every fighting man has leave to pass over the walls of any dun and of
+any strong place at all by the shafts of his spears. And I will go out
+through the door," she said, "and let you follow me like that."
+
+With that she went out, and Diarmuid spoke to his people, and it is what
+he said, "O Oisin, son of Finn, what must I do with these bonds that
+are laid on me?" "You are not guilty if the bonds were laid on you,"
+said Oisin; "and I tell you to follow Grania, and to keep yourself well
+out of the hands of Finn." "Osgar, son of Oisin," he said then, "what
+must I do with these bonds that are put on me?" "I tell you to follow
+Grania," said Osgar, "for it is a pitiful man that would break his
+bonds." "What advice do you give me, Caoilte?" said Diarmuid. "It is
+what I say," said Caoilte, "that I myself have a fitting wife; and that
+it would be better to me than all the riches of the world Grania to have
+given me that love." "What advice do you give me, Diorraing?" "I tell
+you to follow Grania," said Diorraing, "although you will get your death
+by it, and that is bad to me." "Is that the advice you all give me?"
+said Diarmuid. "It is," said Oisin, and all the rest with him. With that
+Diarmuid stood up and stretched out his hand for his weapons, and he
+said farewell to Oisin and the others, and every tear he shed was of the
+size of a mountain berry. He went out then to the wall of the dun, and
+he put the shafts of his two spears under him, and he rose with a light
+leap and he came down on the grassy earth outside, and Grania met him
+there. Then Diarmuid said: "It is a bad journey you are come on, Grania.
+For it would be better for you to have Finn, son of Cumhal, as a lover
+than myself, for I do not know any part or any western corner of Ireland
+that will hide you. And if I do bring you with me," he said, "it is not
+as a wife I will bring you, but I will keep my faith to Finn. And turn
+back now to the town," he said, "and Finn will never get news of what
+you are after doing." "It is certain I will not turn back," said Grania,
+"and I will never part with you till death parts us." "If that is so,
+let us go on, Grania," said Diarmuid.
+
+They went on then, and they were not gone far out from the town when
+Grania said: "I am getting tired, indeed." "It is a good time to be
+tired," said Diarmuid, "and go now back again to your own house. For I
+swear by the word of a true champion," he said, "I will never carry
+yourself or any other woman to the end of life and time." "That is not
+what you have to do," said Grania, "for my father's horses are in a
+grass field by themselves, and chariots with them; and turn back now,
+and bring two horses of them, and I will wait in this place till you
+come to me again."
+
+Diarmuid went back then for the horses, and we have no knowledge of
+their journey till they reached to the ford on the Sionnan, that is
+called now Ath-luain.
+
+And Diarmuid said then to Grania: "It is easier to Finn to follow our
+track, the horses being with us." "If that is so," said Grania: "leave
+the horses here, and I will go on foot from this out."
+
+Diarmuid went down to the river then, and he brought a horse with him
+over the ford, and left the other horse the far side of the river. And
+he himself and Grania went a good way with the stream westward, and they
+went to land at the side of the province of Connacht. And wherever they
+went, Diarmuid left unbroken bread after him, as a sign to Finn he had
+kept his faith with him.
+
+And from that they went on to Doire-da-Bhoth, the Wood of the Two Huts.
+And Diarmuid cut down the wood round about them, and he made a fence
+having seven doors of woven twigs, and he set out a bed of soft rushes
+and of the tops of the birch-tree for Grania in the very middle of the
+wood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE PURSUIT
+
+
+And as to Finn, son of Cumhal, I will tell out his story now.
+
+All that were in Teamhair rose up early in the morning of the morrow,
+and they found Diarmuid and Grania were wanting from them, and there
+came a scorching jealousy and a weakness on Finn. He sent out his
+trackers then on the plain, and bade them to follow Diarmuid and Grania.
+And they followed the track as far as the ford on the Sionnan, and Finn
+and the Fianna followed after them, but they were not able to carry the
+track across the ford. And Finn gave them his word that unless they
+would find the track again without delay, he would hang them on each
+side of the ford.
+
+Then the sons of Neamhuin went up against the stream, and they found a
+horse on each side of it, and then they went on with the stream
+westward, and they found the track going along the side of the Province
+of Connacht, and Finn and the Fianna of Ireland followed it on. And Finn
+said: "I know well where we will find Diarmuid and Grania now; it is in
+Doire-da-Bhoth they are." Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and Diorraing were
+listening when Finn said those words. And Osgar spoke to the others, and
+it is what he said: "There is danger they might be there, and it would
+be right for us to give them some warning; and look now, Osgar, where is
+Bran the hound, for Finn himself is no dearer to him than Diarmuid, and
+bid him go now with a warning to him."
+
+So Osgar told Bran, and Bran understood him well, and she went to the
+rear of the whole troop the way Finn would not see her, and she followed
+on the track of Diarmuid and Grania till she came to Doire-da-Bhoth, and
+she put her head into Diarmuid's bosom, and he in his sleep.
+
+Diarmuid started up out of his sleep then, and he awoke Grania, and said
+to her: "Here is Bran, Finn's hound, and she is come with a warning to
+tell us Finn himself is coming." "Let us take that warning, then," said
+Grania, "and make your escape." "I will not take it," said Diarmuid,
+"for if I cannot escape Finn, I would as soon he took me now as at any
+other time." When Grania heard that, great fear came on her.
+
+Bran went away from them then, and when Oisin saw her coming back, he
+said: "I am in dread Bran found no chance to get to Diarmuid, and we
+should send him some other warning. And look where is Fearghoin," he
+said, "Caoilte's serving-man." Now it was the way with Fearghoin, every
+shout he would give would be heard in the three nearest hundreds to him.
+So they made him give out three shouts the way Diarmuid would hear him.
+And Diarmuid heard him, and he said to Grania: "I hear Caoilte's
+serving-man, and it is with Caoilte he is, and it is along with Finn
+Caoilte is, and those shouts were sent as a warning to me." "Take that
+warning," said Grania. "I will not take it," said Diarmuid, "for Finn
+and the Fianna will come up with us before we leave the wood." And fear
+and great dread came on Grania when she heard him say that.
+
+As for Finn, he did not leave off following the track till he came to
+Doire-da-Bhoth, and he sent the sons of Neamhuin to search through the
+wood, and they saw Diarmuid, and the woman along with him. They came
+back then where Finn was, and he asked them were Diarmuid and Grania in
+the wood? "Diarmuid is in it," they said, "and there is some woman with
+him, but we knew Diarmuid, and we do not know Grania." "May no good come
+to the friends of Diarmuid for his sake," said Finn, "and he will not
+quit that wood till he has given me satisfaction for everything he has
+done to me."
+
+"It is jealousy has put you astray, Finn," said Oisin; "you to think
+Diarmuid would stop here on the plain of Maen Mhagh, and no close place
+in it but Doire-da-Bhoth, and you following after him." "Saying that
+will do you no good," said Finn, "for I knew well when I heard the three
+shouts Caoilte's serving-man gave out, it was you sent them to Diarmuid
+as a warning. And another thing," he said, "it was you sent my own
+hound Bran to him. But none of those things you have done will serve
+you, for he will not leave Doire-da-Bhoth till he gives me satisfaction
+for everything he has done to me, and every disgrace he has put on me."
+"It is great foolishness for you, Finn," said Osgar then, "to be
+thinking Diarmuid would stop in the middle of this plain and you waiting
+here to strike the head off him." "Who but himself cut the wood this
+way," said Finn, "and made this close sheltered place with seven woven
+narrow doors to it. And O Diarmuid," he said out then, "which of us is
+the truth with, myself or Oisin?" "You never failed from your good
+judgment, Finn," said Diarmuid, "and indeed I myself and Grania are
+here." Then Finn called to his men to go around Diarmuid and Grania, and
+to take them.
+
+Now it was shown at this time to Angus Og, at Brugh na Boinne, the great
+danger Diarmuid was in, that was his pupil at one time, and his dear
+foster-son. He set out then with the clear cold wind, and did not stop
+in any place till he came to Doire-da-Bhoth. And he went unknown to Finn
+or the Fianna into the place where Diarmuid and Grania were, and he
+spoke kind words to Diarmuid, and he said: "What is the thing you have
+done, grandson of Duibhne?" "It is," said Diarmuid, "the daughter of the
+King of Ireland that has made her escape with me from her father and
+from Finn, and it is not by my will she came." "Let each of you come
+under a border of my cloak, so," said Angus, "and I will bring you out
+of the place where you are without knowledge of Finn or his people."
+"Bring Grania with you," said Diarmuid, "but I will never go with you;
+but if I am alive I will follow you before long. And if I do not," he
+said, "give Grania to her father, and he will do well or ill to her."
+
+With that Angus put Grania under the border of his cloak, and brought
+her out unknown to Finn or the Fianna, and there is no news told of them
+till they came to Ros-da-Shoileach, the Headland of the Two Sallows.
+
+And as to Diarmuid, after Angus and Grania going from him, he stood up
+as straight as a pillar and put on his armour and his arms, and after
+that he went to a door of the seven doors he had made, and he asked who
+was at it. "There is no enemy to you here," they said, "for there are
+here Oisin and Osgar and the best men of the sons of Baiscne along with
+us. And come out to us now, and no one will have the daring to do any
+harm or hurt on you." "I will not go out to you," said Diarmuid, "till I
+see at what door Finn himself is." He went then to another door of the
+seven and asked who was at it. "Caoilte, son of Ronan, and the rest of
+the sons of Ronan along with him; and come out to us now, and we will
+give ourselves for your sake." "I will not go out to you," said
+Diarmuid, "for I will not put you under Finn's anger for any well-doing
+to myself." He went on to another door then and asked who was at it.
+"There is Conan, son of Morna, and the rest of the sons of Morna along
+with him; and it is enemies to Finn we are, and you are a great deal
+more to us than he is, and you may come out and no one will dare lay a
+hand on you." "I will not indeed," said Diarmuid, "for Finn would be
+better pleased to see the death of every one of you than to let me
+escape." He went then to another door and asked who was at it. "A friend
+and a comrade of your own, Fionn, son of Cuadan, head of the Fianna of
+Munster, and his men along with him; and we are of the one country and
+the one soil, and we will give our bodies and our lives for your sake."
+"I will not go out to you," said Diarmuid, "for I would not like Finn to
+have a grudge against you for any good you did to me." He went then to
+another door and asked who was at it. "It is Fionn, son of Glor, head
+of the Fianna of Ulster, and his men along him; and come out now to us
+and there is no one will dare hurt or harm you." "I will not go out to
+you," said Diarmuid, "for you are a friend to me, and your father along
+with you, and I would not like the unfriendliness of Finn to be put on
+you for my sake." He went then to another door, and he asked who was at
+it. "There is no friend of yours here," they said, "for there is here
+Aodh Beag the Little from Eamhuin, and Aodh Fada the Long from Eamhuin,
+and Caol Crodha the Fierce, and Goineach the Wounder, and Gothan the
+White-fingered, and Aoife his daughter, and Cuadan the Tracker from
+Eamhuin; and we are unfriendly people to you, and if you come out to us
+we will not spare you at all, but will make an end of you." "It is a bad
+troop is in it," said Diarmuid; "you of the lies and of the tracking and
+of the one shoe, and it is not fear of your hands is upon me, but
+because I am your enemy I will not go out."
+
+He went then to the last of the seven doors and asked who was at it. "No
+friend of yours," they said, "but it is Finn, son of Cumhal, and four
+hundred paid fighting men along with him; and if you will come out to us
+we will make opened marrow of you." "I give you my word, Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "that the door you are at yourself is the first door I will
+pass out of."
+
+When Finn heard that, he warned his battalions on pain of lasting death
+not to let Diarmuid past them unknown. But when Diarmuid heard what he
+said, he rose on the staves of his spears and he went with a very high,
+light leap on far beyond Finn and his people, without their knowledge.
+He looked back at them then, and called out that he had gone past them,
+and he put his shield on his back and went straight on towards the west,
+and it was not long before he was out of sight of Finn and the Fianna.
+Then when he did not see any one coming after him, he turned back to
+where he saw Angus and Grania going out of the wood, and he followed on
+their track till he came to Ros-da-Shoileach.
+
+He found Angus and Grania there in a sheltered, well-lighted cabin, and
+a great blazing fire kindled in it, and the half of a wild boar on
+spits. Diarmuid greeted them, and the life of Grania all to went out of
+her with joy before him.
+
+Diarmuid told them his news from beginning to end, and they ate their
+share that night, and they went to sleep till the coming of the day and
+of the full light on the morrow. And Angus rose up early, and he said to
+Diarmuid: "I am going from you now, grandson of Duibhne; and I leave
+this advice with you," he said, "not to go into a tree with one trunk,
+and you flying before Finn, and not to be going into a cave of the earth
+that has but one door, and not to be going to an island of the sea that
+has but one harbour. And in whatever place you cook your share of food,"
+he said, "do not eat it there; and in whatever place you eat it, do not
+lie down there; and in whatever place you lie down, do not rise up there
+on the morrow." He said farewell to them after that, and went his way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE GREEN CHAMPIONS
+
+Then Diarmuid and Grania went along the right bank of the Sionnan
+westward till they came to Garbh-abha-na-Fiann, the rough river of the
+Fianna. And Diarmuid killed a salmon on the brink of the river, and put
+it to the fire on a spit. Then he himself and Grania went across the
+stream to eat it, as Angus bade them; and then they went westward to
+sleep.
+
+They rose up early on the morrow, and they travelled straight westward
+till they came to the marsh of Finnliath.
+
+And on the marsh they met with a young man, having a good shape and
+appearance, but without fitting dress or arms. Diarmuid greeted the
+young man, and asked news of him. "A fighting lad I am, looking for a
+master," he said, "and Muadhan is my name." "What would you do for me,
+young man?" said Diarmuid. "I would be a servant to you in the day, and
+watch for you in the night," he said. "I tell you to keep that young
+man," said Grania, "for you cannot be always without people."
+
+Then they made an agreement with him, and bound one another, and they
+went on together westward till they reached the Carrthach river. And
+then Muadhan bade Diarmuid and Grania to go up on his back till he would
+carry them over the stream.
+
+"That would be a big load for you," said Grania. But he put them upon
+his back and carried them over. Then they went on till they came to the
+Beith, and Muadhan brought them over on his back the same way. And they
+went into a cave at the side of Currach Cinn Adhmuid, the Woody Headland
+of the Bog, over Tonn Toime, and Muadhan made ready beds of soft rushes
+and tops of the birch for them in the far end of the cave. And he went
+himself into the scrub that was near, and took a straight long rod of a
+quicken-tree, and he put a hair and a hook on the rod, and a holly berry
+on the hook, and he went up the stream, and he took a salmon with the
+first cast. Then he put on a second berry and killed another fish, and
+he put on a third berry and killed the third fish. Then he put the hook
+and the hair under his belt, and struck the rod into the earth, and he
+brought the three salmon where Diarmuid and Grania were, and put them on
+spits. When they were done, Muadhan said: "I give the dividing of the
+fish to you, Diarmuid." "I would sooner you to divide it than myself,"
+said Diarmuid. "I will give the dividing of the fish to you, so,
+Grania," said he. "I am better satisfied you to divide it," said Grania.
+"If it was you that divided the fish, Diarmuid," said Muadhan, "you
+would have given the best share to Grania; and if it was Grania divided
+it, she would have given you the best share; and as it is myself is
+dividing it, let you have the biggest fish, Diarmuid, and let Grania
+have the second biggest, and I myself will have the one is smallest."
+
+They spent the night there, and Diarmuid and Grania slept in the far
+part of the cave, and Muadhan kept watch for them until the rising of
+the day and the full light of the morrow.
+
+Diarmuid rose up early, and he bade Grania keep watch for Muadhan, and
+that he himself would go and take a walk around the country. He went out
+then, and he went up on a hill that was near, and he was looking about
+him, east and west, north and south. He was not long there till he saw a
+great fleet of ships coming from the west, straight to the bottom of the
+hill where he was. And when they were come to land, nine times nine of
+the chief men of the ships came on shore, and Diarmuid went down and
+greeted them, and asked news of them, and to what country they belonged.
+
+"Three kings we are of the Green Champions of Muir-na-locht," said they;
+"and Finn, son of Cumhal, sent looking for us by cause of a thief of the
+woods, and an enemy of his own that has gone hiding from him; and it is
+to hinder him we are come. And we are twenty hundred good fighting men,
+and every one of us is a match for a hundred, and besides that," he
+said, "we have three deadly hounds with us; fire will not burn them, and
+water will not drown them, and arms will not redden on them, and we will
+lay them on his track, and it will be short till we get news of him.
+And tell us who you are yourself?" they said, "and have you any word of
+the grandson of Duibhne?" "I saw him yesterday," said Diarmuid; "and I
+myself," he said, "am but a fighting man, walking the world by the
+strength of my hand and by the hardness of my sword. And by my word," he
+said, "you will know Diarmuid's hand when you will meet it." "Well, we
+found no one up to this," said they. "What are your own names?" said
+Diarmuid. "Dubh-chosach, the Black-footed, Fionn-chosach, the
+Fair-footed, and Treun-chosach, the Strong-footed," they said.
+
+"Is there wine in your ships?" said Diarmuid. "There is," said they. "If
+you have a mind to bring out a tun of wine," said Diarmuid, "I will do a
+trick for you." They sent men to get the tun, and when it came Diarmuid
+took it between his two hands and drank a drink out of it, and the
+others drank what was left of it. Diarmuid took up the tun after that,
+and brought it to the top of the hill, and he went up himself on the
+tun, and let it go down the steep of the hill till it was at the bottom.
+And then he brought the tun up the hill again, and he himself on it
+coming and going, and he did that trick three times before the
+strangers. But they said he was a man had never seen a good trick when
+he called that a trick; and with that a man of them went up on the tun,
+but Diarmuid gave a stroke of his foot at it and the young man fell from
+it before it began to move, and it rolled over him and crushed him, that
+he died. And another man went on it, and another after him again, till
+fifty of them were killed trying to do Diarmuid's trick, and as many of
+them as were not killed went back to their ships that night.
+
+Diarmuid went back then to where he left Grania; and Muadhan put the
+hair and the hook on the rod till he killed three salmon; and they ate
+their meal that night, and he kept watch for them the same way he did
+before.
+
+Diarmuid went out early the next day again to the hill, and it was not
+long till he saw the three strangers coming towards him, and he asked
+them would they like to see any more tricks. They said they would sooner
+get news of the grandson of Duibhne. "I saw a man that saw him
+yesterday," said Diarmuid. And with that he put off his arms and his
+clothes, all but the shirt that was next his skin, and he struck the
+Crann Buidhe, the spear of Manannan, into the earth with the point
+upwards. And then he rose with a leap and lit on the point of the spear
+as light as a bird, and came down off it again without a wound on him.
+Then a young man of the Green Champions said: "It is a man has never
+seen feats that would call that a feat"; and he put off his clothing and
+made a leap, and if he did he came down heavily on the point of the
+spear, and it went through his heart, and he fell to the ground. The
+next day Diarmuid came again, and he brought two forked poles out of the
+wood and put them standing upright on the hill, and he put the sword of
+Angus Og, the Mor-alltach, the Big-fierce one, between the two forks on
+its edge. Then he raised himself lightly over it, and walked on the
+sword three times from the hilt to the point, and he came down and asked
+was there a man of them could do that feat.
+
+"That is a foolish question," said a man of them then, "for there was
+never any feat done in Ireland but a man of our own would do it." And
+with that he rose up to walk on the sword; but it is what happened, he
+came down heavily on it the way he was cut in two halves.
+
+The rest of the champions bade him take away his sword then, before any
+more of their people would fall by it; and they asked him had he any
+word of the grandson of Duibhne. "I saw a man that saw him to-day," said
+Diarmuid, "and I will go ask news of him to-night."
+
+He went back then to where Grania was, and Muadhan killed three salmon
+for their supper, and kept a watch for them through the night. And
+Diarmuid rose up at the early break of day, and he put his battle
+clothes on him, that no weapon could go through, and he took the sword
+of Angus, that left no leavings after it, at his left side, and his two
+thick-handled spears, the Gae Buidhe and the Gae Dearg, the Yellow and
+the Red, that gave wounds there was no healing for. And then he wakened
+Grania, and he bade her to keep watch for Muadhan, and he himself would
+go out and take a look around.
+
+When Grania saw him looking so brave, and dressed in his clothes of
+anger and of battle, great fear took hold of her, and she asked what was
+he going to do. "It is for fear of meeting my enemies I am like this,"
+said he. That quieted Grania, and then Diarmuid went out to meet the
+Green Champions.
+
+They came to land then, and they asked had he news of the grandson of
+Duibhne. "I saw him not long ago," said Diarmuid. "If that is so, let us
+know where is he," said they, "till we bring his head to Finn, son of
+Cumhal." "I would be keeping bad watch for him if I did that," said
+Diarmuid, "for his life and his body are under the protection of my
+valour, and by reason of that I will do no treachery on him." "Is that
+true?" said they. "It is true indeed," said Diarmuid. "Let you yourself
+quit this place, so," they said, "or we will bring your head to Finn
+since you are an enemy to him." "It is in bonds I would be," said
+Diarmuid, "the time I would leave my head with you." And with that he
+drew his sword the Mor-alltach out of its sheath, and he made a fierce
+blow at the head nearest him that put it in two halves. Then he made an
+attack on the whole host of the Green Champions, and began to destroy
+them, cutting through the beautiful shining armour of the men of
+Muir-na-locht till there was hardly a man but got shortening of life and
+the sorrow of death, or that could go back to give news of the fight,
+but only the three kings and a few of their people that made their
+escape back to their ships. Diarmuid turned back then without wound or
+hurt on him, and he went to where Crania and Muadhan were. They bade him
+welcome, and Grania asked him did he hear any news of Finn and the
+Fianna of Ireland, and he said he did not, and they ate their food and
+spent the night there.
+
+He rose up again with the early light of the morrow and went back to the
+hill, and when he got there he struck a great blow on his shield that
+set the strand shaking with the sound. And Dubh-chosach heard it, and he
+said he himself would go fight with Diarmuid, and he went on shore there
+and then.
+
+And he and Diarmuid threw the arms out of their hands and rushed on one
+another like wrestlers, straining their arms and their sinews, knotting
+their hands on one another's backs, fighting like bulls in madness, or
+like two daring hawks on the edge of a cliff. But at the last Diarmuid
+raised up Dubh-chosach on his shoulder and threw his body to the ground,
+and bound him fast and firm on the spot. And Fionn-chosach and
+Treun-chosach came one after the other to fight with him then, and he
+put the same binding on them; and he said he would strike the heads off
+them, only he thought it a worse punishment to leave them in those
+bonds. "For there is no one can free you," he said. And he left them
+there, worn out and sorrowful.
+
+The next morning after that, Diarmuid told Grania the whole story of the
+strangers from beginning to end, and of all he had done to them, and how
+on the fifth day he had put their kings in bonds. "And they have three
+fierce hounds in a chain ready to hunt me," he said. "Did you take the
+heads off those three kings?" said Grania, "I did not," said Diarmuid,
+"for there is no man of the heroes of Ireland can loosen those bonds but
+four only, Oisin, son of Finn, and Osgar, son of Oisin, and Lugaidh's
+Son of the Strong Hand, and Conan, son of Morna; and I know well," he
+said, "none of those four will do it. But all the same, it is short till
+Finn will get news of them, and it is best for us to be going from this
+cave, or Finn and the three hounds might come on us."
+
+After that they left the cave, and they went on till they came to the
+bog of Finnliath. Grania began to fall behind them, and Muadhan put her
+on his back and carried her till they came to the great Slieve Luachra.
+Then Diarmuid sat down on the brink of the stream that was flowing
+through the heart of the mountain, and Grania was washing her hands, and
+she asked his knife from him to cut her nails with.
+
+As to the strangers, as many of them as were alive yet, they came to the
+hill where their three leaders were bound, and they thought to loose
+them; but it is the way those bonds were, all they did by meddling with
+them was to draw them tighter.
+
+And they were not long there till they saw a woman coming towards them
+with the quickness of a swallow or a weasel or a blast of wind over bare
+mountain-tops. And she asked them who was it had done that great
+slaughter on them. "Who are you that is asking that?" said they. "I am
+the Woman of the Black Mountain, the woman-messenger of Finn, son of
+Cumhal," she said; "and it is looking for you Finn sent me." "Indeed we
+do not know who it was did this slaughter," they said, "but we will tell
+you his appearance. A young man he was, having dark curling hair and
+ruddy cheeks. And it is worse again to us," they said, "our three
+leaders to be bound this way, and we not able to loose them." "What way
+did that young man go from you?" said the woman. "It was late last
+night he left us," they said, "and we do not know where is he gone." "I
+give you my word," she said, "it was Diarmuid himself that was in it;
+and take your hounds now and lay them on his track, and I will send Finn
+and the Fianna of Ireland to you."
+
+They left a woman-Druid then attending on the three champions that were
+bound, and they brought their three hounds out of the ship and laid them
+on Diarmuid's track, and followed them till they came to the opening of
+the cave, and they went into the far part of it and found the beds where
+Diarmuid and Crania had slept. Then they went on westward till they came
+to the Carrthach river, and to the bog of Finnliath, and so on to the
+great Slieve Luachra.
+
+But Diarmuid did not know they were after him till he got sight of them
+with their banners of soft silk and their three wicked hounds in the
+front of the troop and three strong champions holding them in chains.
+And when he saw them coming like that he was filled with great hatred of
+them.
+
+There was one of them had a well-coloured green cloak on him, and he
+came out far beyond the others, and Grania gave the knife back to
+Diarmuid. "I think you have not much love for that young man of the
+green cloak, Grania," said Diarmuid. "I have not indeed," said Grania;
+"and it would be better if I had never given love to any man at all to
+this day." Diarmuid put the knife in the sheath then, and went on; and
+Muadhan put Grania on his back and carried her on into the mountain.
+
+It was not long till a hound of the three hounds was loosed after
+Diarmuid, and Muadhan said to him to follow Grania, and he himself would
+check the hound. Then Muadhan turned back, and he took a whelp out of
+his belt, and put it on the flat of his hand. And when the whelp saw the
+hound rushing towards him, and its jaws open, he rose up and made a leap
+from Muadhan's hand into the throat of the hound, and came out of its
+side, bringing the heart with it, and he leaped back again to Muadhan's
+hand, and left the hound dead after him.
+
+Muadhan went on then after Diarmuid and Grania, and he took up Grania
+again and carried her a bit of the way into the mountain. Then another
+hound was loosened after them, and Diarmuid said to Muadhan: "I often
+heard there is nothing can stand against weapons of Druid wounding, and
+the throat of no beast can be made safe from them. And will you stand
+now," he said, "till I put the Gae Dearg, the Red Spear, through that
+hound."
+
+Then Muadhan and Grania stopped to see the cast. And Diarmuid made a
+cast at the hound, and the spear went through its body and brought out
+its bowels; and he took up the spear again, and they went forward.
+
+It was not long after that the third hound was loosed. And Grania said
+then: "This is the one is fiercest of them, and there is great fear on
+me, and mind yourself now, Diarmuid."
+
+It was not long till the hound overtook them, and the place he overtook
+them was Lic Dhubhain, the flag-stone of Dubhan, on Slieve Luachra. He
+rose with a light leap over Diarmuid, as if he had a mind to seize on
+Grania, but Diarmuid took him by the two hind legs, and struck a blow of
+his carcase against the side of the rock was nearest, till he had let
+out his brains through the openings of his head and of his ears. And
+then Diarmuid took up his arms and his battle clothes, and put his
+narrow-topped finger into the silken string of the Gae Dearg, and he
+made a good cast at the young man of the green cloak that was at the
+head of the troop that killed him. Then he made another cast at the
+second man and killed him, and the third man in the same way. And as it
+is not the custom to stand after leaders are fallen, the strangers when
+they saw what had happened took to flight.
+
+And Diarmuid followed after them, killing and scattering, so that unless
+any man of them got away over the forests, or into the green earth, or
+under the waters, there was not a man or messenger of them left to tell
+the news, but only the Woman-messenger of the Black Mountain, that kept
+moving around about when Diarmuid was putting down the strangers.
+
+And it was not long till Finn saw her coming towards him where he was,
+her legs failing, and her tongue muttering, and her eyes drooping, and
+he asked news of her. "It is very bad news I have to tell you," she
+said; "and it is what I think, that it is a person without a lord I am."
+Then she told Finn the whole story from beginning to end, of the
+destruction Diarmuid had done, and how the three deadly hounds had
+fallen by him. "And it is hardly I myself got away," she said. "What
+place did the grandson of Duibhne go to?" said Finn. "I do not know
+that," she said.
+
+And when Finn heard of the Kings of the Green Champions that were bound
+by Diarmuid, he called his men to him, and they went by every short way
+and every straight path till they reached the hill, and it was torment
+to the heart of Finn to see the way they were. Then he said: "Oisin," he
+said, "loosen those three kings for me." "I will not loosen them," said
+Oisin, "for Diarmuid put bonds on me not to loosen any man he would
+bind." "Loosen them, Osgar," said Finn then. "I give my word," said
+Osgar, "it is more bonds I would wish to put on them sooner than to
+loosen them." Neither would Conan help them, or Lugaidh's Son. And any
+way, they were not long talking about it till the three kings died under
+the hardness of the bonds that were on them.
+
+Then Finn made three wide-sodded graves for them, and a flag-stone was
+put over them, and another stone raised over that again, and their names
+were written in branching Ogham, and it is tired and heavy-hearted Finn
+was after that; and he and his people went back to Almhuin of Leinster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE WOOD OF DUBHROS
+
+
+And as to Diarmuid and Grania and Muadhan, they went on through Ui
+Chonaill Gabhra, and left-hand ways to Ros-da-Shoileach, and Diarmuid
+killed a wild deer that night, and they had their fill of meat and of
+pure water, and they slept till the morning of the morrow. And Muadhan
+rose up early, and spoke to Diarmuid, and it is what he said, that he
+himself was going away. "It is not right for you to do that," said
+Diarmuid, "for everything I promised you I fulfilled it, without any
+dispute."
+
+But he could not hinder him, and Muadhan said farewell to them and left
+them there and then, and it is sorrowful and downhearted Diarmuid and
+Grania were after him.
+
+After that they travelled on straight to the north, to Slieve Echtge,
+and from that to the hundred of Ui Fiachrach; and when they got there
+Grania was tired out, but she took courage and went on walking beside
+Diarmuid till they came to the wood of Dubhros.
+
+Now, there was a wonderful quicken-tree in that wood, and the way it
+came to be there is this:
+
+There rose a dispute one time between two women of the Tuatha de Danaan,
+Aine and Aoife, daughters of Manannan, son of Lir, for Aoife had given
+her love to Lugaidh's Son, and Aine had given her love to a man of her
+own race, and each of them said her own man was a better hurler than the
+other. And it came from that dispute that there was a great hurling
+match settled between the Men of Dea and the Fianna of Ireland, and the
+place it was to be played was on a beautiful plain near Loch Lein.
+
+They all came together there, and the highest men and the most daring of
+the Tuatha de Danaan were there, the three Garbhs of Slieve Mis, and the
+three Mases of Slieve Luachra, and the three yellow-haired Murchadhs,
+and the three Eochaidhs of Aine, and the three Fionns of the White
+House, and the three Sgals of Brugh na Boinne, and the three Ronans of
+Ath na Riogh, and the Suirgheach Suairc, the Pleasant Wooer from Lionan,
+and the Man of Sweet Speech from the Boinn, and Ilbrec, the
+Many-Coloured, son of Manannan, and Neamhanach, son of Angus Og, and
+Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and Manannan, son of Lir.
+
+They themselves and the Fianna were playing the match through the length
+of three days and three nights, from Leamhain to the valley of the
+Fleisg, that is called the Crooked Valley of the Fianna, and neither of
+them winning a goal. And when the Tuatha de Danaan that were watching
+the game on each side of Leamhain saw it was so hard for their hurlers
+to win a goal against the Fianna, they thought it as well to go away
+again without playing out the game.
+
+Now the provision the Men of Dea had brought with them from the Land of
+Promise was crimson nuts, and apples, and sweet-smelling rowan berries.
+And as they were passing through the district of Ui Fiachrach by the
+Muaidh, a berry of the rowan berries fell from them, and a tree grew up
+from it. And there was virtue in its berries, and no sickness or disease
+would ever come on any person that would eat them, and those that would
+eat them would feel the liveliness of wine and the satisfaction of mead
+in them, and any old person of a hundred years that would eat them would
+go back to be young again, and any young girl that would eat them would
+grow to be a flower of beauty.
+
+And it happened one time after the tree was grown, there were messengers
+of the Tuatha de Danaan going through the wood of Dubhros. And they
+heard a great noise of birds and of bees, and they went where the noise
+was, and they saw the beautiful Druid tree. They went back then and told
+what they had seen, and all the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan when
+they heard it knew the tree must have grown from a berry of the Land of
+the Ever-Living Living Ones. And they enquired among all their people,
+till they knew it was a young man of them, that was a musician, had
+dropped the berry.
+
+And it is what they agreed, to send him in search of a man of Lochlann
+that would guard the tree by day and sleep in it by night. And the women
+of the Sidhe were very downhearted to see him going from them, for there
+was no harper could play half so sweetly on his harp as he could play on
+an ivy leaf.
+
+He went on then till he came to Lochlann, and he sat down on a bank and
+sleep came on him. And he slept till the rising of the sun on the
+morrow; and when he awoke he saw a very big man coming towards him, that
+asked him who was he. "I am a messenger from the Men of Dea," he said;
+"and I am come looking for some very strong man that would be willing to
+guard a Druid tree that is in the wood of Dubhros. And here are some of
+the berries he will be eating from morning to night," he said.
+
+And when the big man had tasted the berries, he said: "I will go and
+guard all the trees of the wood to get those berries."
+
+And his name was the Searbhan Lochlannach, the Surly One of Lochlann.
+Very black and ugly he was, having crooked teeth, and one eye only in
+the middle of his forehead. And he had a thick collar of iron around his
+body, and it was in the prophecy that he would never die till there
+would be three strokes of the iron club he had, struck upon himself. And
+he slept in the tree by night and stopped near it in the daytime, and he
+made a wilderness of the whole district about him, and none of the
+Fianna dared go hunt there because of the dread of him that was on them.
+
+But when Diarmuid came to the wood of Dubhros, he went into it to where
+the Surly One was, and he made bonds of agreement with him, and got
+leave from him to go hunting in the wood, so long as he would not touch
+the berries of the tree. And he made a cabin then for himself and for
+Grania in the wood.
+
+As for Finn and his people, they were not long at Almhuin till they saw
+fifty armed men coming towards them, and two that were taller and
+handsomer than the rest in the front of them. Finn asked did any of his
+people know them. "We do not know them," they said, "but maybe you
+yourself know them, Finn." "I do not," he said; "but it seems to be they
+are enemies to myself." The troop of armed men came up to them then and
+they greeted him, and Finn asked news of them, and from what country
+they came. "I am Aonghus, son of Art Og of the children of Morna," one
+of them said, "and this is Aodh, son of Andela; and we are enemies of
+your own, and our fathers were at the killing of your father, and they
+themselves died for that deed. And it is to ask peace we are come now to
+you," they said. "Where were you the time my father was killed?" "In our
+mothers' wombs," said they; "and our mothers were two women of the
+Tuatha de Danaan, and it is time for us now to get our father's place
+among the Fianna." "I will give you that," said Finn, "but I must put a
+fine on you first in satisfaction for my father's death." "We have
+neither gold or silver or goods or cattle to give you, Finn," said they.
+"Do not put a fine on them, Finn," said Oisin, "beyond the death of
+their fathers for your father." "It is what I think," said Finn, "if any
+one killed myself, Oisin, it would be easy to pay the fine you would
+ask. And there will no one come among the Fianna," he said, "without
+giving what I ask in satisfaction for my father's death." "What is it
+you are asking of us?" said Aonghus, son of Art Og. "I am asking but the
+head of a champion, or the full of a fist of the berries of the
+quicken-tree at Dubhros." "I will give you a good advice, children of
+Morna," said Oisin, "to go back to the place you were reared, and not to
+ask peace of Finn through the length of your lives. For it is not an
+easy thing Finn is asking of you; and do you know whose head he is
+asking you to bring him?" "We do not," said they. "The head of Diarmuid,
+grandson of Duibhne, is the head he is asking of you. And if you were
+twenty hundred men in their full strength, Diarmuid would not let you
+take that head." "And what are the berries Finn is asking of us?" they
+said then. "There is nothing is harder for you to get than those
+berries," said Oisin.
+
+He told them then the whole story of the tree, and of the Searbhan, the
+Surly One of Lochlann, that was put to mind it by the Tuatha de Danaan.
+But Aodh, son of Andela, spoke then, and it is what he said, that he
+would sooner get his death looking for those berries than to go home
+again to his mother's country. And he said to Oisin to care his people
+till he would come back again, and if anything should happen himself and
+his brother in their journey, to send them back again to the Land of
+Promise. And the two said farewell then to Oisin and to the chief men of
+the Fianna, and they went forward till they reached Dubhros. And they
+went along the wood till they found a track, and they followed it to
+the door of the hunting-cabin where Diarmuid and Grania were.
+
+Diarmuid heard them coming, and he put his hand on his weapons and asked
+who was at the door. "We are of the children of Morna," they said,
+"Aodh, son of Andela, and Aonghus, son of Art Og." "What brings you to
+this wood?" said Diarmuid. "Finn, son of Cumhal, that put us looking for
+your head, if you are Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," said they. "I am
+indeed," said Diarmuid. "If that is so," they said, "Finn will take
+nothing from us but your head, or a fistful of the berries of the
+quicken-tree of Dubhros as satisfaction for the death of his father."
+"It is not easy for you to get either of those things," said Diarmuid,
+"and it is a pity for any one to be under the power of that man. And
+besides that," he said, "I know it was he himself made an end of your
+fathers, and that was enough satisfaction for him to get; and if you do
+bring him what he asks, it is likely he will not make peace with you in
+the end." "Is it not enough for you," said Aodh, "to have brought his
+wife away from Finn without speaking ill of him?" "It is not for the
+sake of speaking ill of him I said that," said Diarmuid, "but to save
+yourselves from the danger he has sent you into."
+
+"What are those berries Finn is asking?" said Grania, "that they cannot
+be got for him?"
+
+Diarmuid told her then the whole story of the berry the Tuatha de Danaan
+had lost, and of the tree that had sprung up from it, and of the man of
+Lochlann that was keeping the tree. "And at the time Finn sent me hiding
+here and became my enemy," he said, "I got leave from the Surly One to
+hunt, but he bade me never to meddle with the berries. And now, sons of
+Morna," he said, "there is your choice, to fight with me for my head, or
+to go asking the berries of the Surly One." "I swear by the blood of my
+people," said each of them, "I will fight with yourself first."
+
+With that the two young men made ready for the fight. And it is what
+they chose, to fight with the strength of their hands alone. And
+Diarmuid put them down and bound the two of them there and then. "That
+is a good fight you made," said Grania. "But, by my word," she said,
+"although the children of Morna do not go looking for those berries, I
+will not lie in a bed for ever till I get a share of them; and I will
+not live if I do not get them," she said. "Do not make me break my peace
+with the Surly One," said Diarmuid, "for he will not let me take them."
+"Loose these tyings from us," said the two young men, "and we will go
+with you, and we will give ourselves for your sake." "You must not come
+with me," said Diarmuid; "for if you got the full of your eyes of that
+terrible one, you would be more likely to die than to live." "Well, do
+us this kindness," they said then; "loosen these bonds on us, and give
+us time to go by ourselves and see the fight before you strike off our
+heads." So Diarmuid did that for them.
+
+Then Diarmuid went to the Surly One, and he chanced to be asleep before
+him, and he gave him a stroke of his foot the way he lifted his head and
+looked up at him, and he said: "Have you a mind to break our peace,
+Grandson of Duibhne?" "That is not what I want," said Diarmuid; "but it
+is Grania, daughter of the High King," he said, "has a desire to taste
+those berries, and it is to ask a handful of them I am come." "I give my
+word," said he, "if she is to die for it, she will never taste a berry
+of those berries." "I would not do treachery on you," said Diarmuid;
+"and so I tell you, willing or unwilling, I will take those berries from
+you."
+
+When the Surly One heard that, he rose up on his feet and lifted his
+club and struck three great blows on Diarmuid, that gave him some
+little hurt in spite of his shield. But when Diarmuid saw him not
+minding himself, he threw down his weapons, and made a great leap and
+took hold of the club with his two hands. And when he had a hold of the
+club he struck three great blows on him that put his brains out through
+his head. And the two young men of the sons of Morna were looking at the
+whole fight; and when they saw the Surly One was killed they came out.
+And Diarmuid sat down, for he was spent with the dint of the fight, and
+he bid the young men to bury the body under the thickets of the wood,
+the way Grania would not see it. "And after that," he said, "let you go
+back to her and bring her here." So they dragged away the body and
+buried it, and they went then for Grania and brought her to Diarmuid.
+
+"There are the berries you were asking, Grania," he said, "and you may
+take what you like of them now." "I give my word," said Grania, "I will
+not taste a berry of those berries but the one your own hand will pluck,
+Diarmuid." Diarmuid rose up then and plucked the berries for Grania, and
+for the children of Morna, and they ate their fill of them. And he said
+then to the young men: "Take all you can of these berries, and bring
+them with you to Finn, and tell him it was yourselves made an end of the
+Surly One of Lochlann." "We give you our word," said they, "we begrudge
+giving any of them to Finn."
+
+But Diarmuid plucked a load of the berries for them, and they gave him
+great thanks for all he had done; and they went back to where Finn was
+with the Fianna. And Diarmuid and Grania went up into the top of the
+tree where the bed of the Surly One was. And the berries below were but
+bitter berries beside the ones above in the tree. And when the two young
+men came to Finn, he asked news of them. "We have killed the Surly One
+of Lochlann," they said; "and we have brought you berries from the
+quicken-tree of Dubhros, in satisfaction for your father, that we may
+get peace from you." They gave the berries then into Finn's hand, and he
+knew them, and he said to the young men: "I give you my word," he said,
+"it was Diarmuid himself plucked those berries, for I know the smell of
+his hand on them; and I know well it was he killed the Surly One, and I
+will go now and see is he himself alive at the quicken-tree."
+
+After that he called for the seven battalions of the Fianna, and he set
+out and went forward to Dubhros. And they followed the track of Diarmuid
+to the foot of the quicken-tree, and they found the berries without
+protection, so they ate their fill of them. And the great heat of the
+day came on them, and Finn said they would stop where they were till the
+heat would be past; "for I know well," he said, "Diarmuid is up in the
+quicken-tree." "It is a great sign of jealousy in you, Finn," said
+Oisin, "to think that Diarmuid would stop there up in the quicken-tree
+and he knowing you are wanting to kill him."
+
+Finn asked for a chess-board after that, and he said to Oisin: "I will
+play a game with you now on this." They sat down then, Oisin and Osgar
+and Lugaidh's Son and Diorraing on the one side of the board, and Finn
+on the other side.
+
+And they were playing that game with great skill and knowledge, and Finn
+pressed Oisin so hard that he had no move to make but the one, and Finn
+said: "There is one move would win the game for you, Oisin, and I defy
+all that are with you to show you that move." Then Diarmuid said up in
+the tree where he was, and no one heard him but Grania: "It is a pity
+you be in straits, and without myself to show you that move." "It is
+worse off you are yourself," said Grania, "to be in the bed of the
+Surly One of Lochlann in the top of the quicken-tree, and the seven
+battalions of the Fianna round about it to take your life."
+
+But Diarmuid took a berry of the tree, and aimed at the one of the
+chessmen that ought to be moved, and Oisin moved it and turned the game
+against Finn by that move. It was not long before the game was going
+against Oisin the second time, and when Diarmuid saw that he threw
+another berry at the chessman it was right to move, and Oisin moved it
+and turned the game against Finn in the same way. And the third time
+Finn was getting the game from Oisin, and Diarmuid threw the third berry
+on the man that would give the game to Oisin, and the Fianna gave a
+great shout when the game was won. Finn spoke then, and it is what he
+said: "It is no wonder you to win the game, Oisin, and you having the
+help of Osgar, and the watchfulness of Diorraing, and the skill of
+Lugaidh's Son, and the teaching of the grandson of Duibhne with you."
+"That is a great sign of jealousy in you, Finn," said Osgar, "to think
+Diarmuid would stop in this tree, and you so near him." "Which of us has
+the truth, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne," Finn said out then, "myself
+or Osgar?" "You never lost your good judgment, Finn," said Diarmuid
+then; "and I myself and Grania are here, in the bed of the Surly One of
+Lochlann." Then Diarmuid rose up and gave three kisses to Grania in the
+sight of Finn and the Fianna. And a scorching jealousy and a weakness
+came on Finn when he saw that, and he said: "It was worse to me,
+Diarmuid, the seven battalions of the Fianna to see what you did at
+Teamhair, taking away Grania the night you were yourself my guard. But
+for all that," he said, "you will give your head for the sake of those
+three kisses."
+
+With that Finn called to the four hundred paid fighting men that were
+with him that they might make an end of Diarmuid; and he put their
+hands into one another's hands around that quicken-tree, and bade them,
+if they would not lose their lives, not to let Diarmuid pass out through
+them. And he said that to whatever man would take Diarmuid, he would
+give his arms and his armour, and a place among the Fianna of Ireland.
+
+Then one of the Fianna, Garbh of Slieve Cua, said it was Diarmuid had
+killed his own father, and he would avenge him now, and he went up the
+quicken-tree to make an end of him.
+
+Now, about that time it was made known to Angus Og, in Brugh na Boinne,
+the danger Diarmuid was in, and he came to his help, unknown to the
+Fianna. And when Garbh of Slieve Cua was coming up the tree, Diarmuid
+gave him a kick of his foot, and he fell down among the hired men, and
+they struck off his head, for Angus Og had put the appearance of
+Diarmuid on him. But after he was killed, his own shape came on him
+again, and the Fianna knew that it was Garbh was killed.
+
+Then Garbh of Slieve Crot said it was Diarmuid had killed his father,
+and he went up to avenge him, and the same thing happened. And in the
+end all the nine Garbhs, of Slieve Guaire, and Slieve Muice, and Slieve
+Mor, and Slieve Lugha, and Ath Fraoch, and Slieve Mis and Drom-mor, went
+trying to take Diarmuid's life and lost their own lives, every one of
+them having the shape and appearance of Diarmuid when he died. And Finn
+was very sorry and discouraged when he saw that these nine men had come
+to their death.
+
+Then Angus said he would bring away Grania with him. "Do so," said
+Diarmuid; "and if I am living at evening I will follow you." Then Angus
+said farewell to Diarmuid, and he put his Druid cloak about Grania and
+about himself, and they went away in the safety of the cloak, unknown to
+Finn and the Fianna, till they came to Brugh na Boinne.
+
+Then Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, spoke, and it is what he said: "I
+will come down to you, Finn, and to the Fianna. And I will do death and
+destruction on you and on your people, for I am certain your mind is
+made up to give me no rest, but to bring me to my death in some place.
+And I have nowhere to go from this danger," he said, "for I have no
+friend or comrade under whose protection I could go in any far part of
+the great world, for it is often I fought against the men of the great
+world for love of you. For there never came battle or fight, danger or
+trouble on you, but I would go into it for your sake and the sake of the
+Fianna; and not only that, but I would fight before you and after you.
+And I give my word, Finn," he said, "you will pay hard for me, and you
+will not get me as a free gift." "It is the truth Diarmuid is speaking,"
+said Osgar, "and give him forgiveness now, and peace." "I will not do
+that," said Finn, "to the end of life and time; and he will not get
+peace or rest for ever till I get satisfaction from him for every
+reproach he has put on me." "It is a great shame and a great sign of
+jealousy you to say that," said Osgar. "And I give the word of a true
+champion," he said, "that unless the skies come down upon me, or the
+earth opens under my feet, I will not let you or any one of the Fianna
+of Ireland give him cut or wound; and I take his body and his life under
+the protection of my valour, and I will keep him safe against all the
+men of Ireland." "Those are big words you have, Osgar," said Goll then,
+"to say you would bring a man away in spite of all the men of Ireland."
+"It is not you will raise them up against me, Goll," said Osgar, "for
+none of them would mind what you would say." "If that is what you are
+saying, you champion of great fights," said Goll, "let us see now what
+you can do." "You will have to go through with the fight you have taken
+on yourself," said Corrioll, son of Goll, in a loud voice. And Osgar
+answered him fiercely: "If I do I will shorten your bones, and your
+father's bones along with them. And come down now, Diarmuid," he said,
+"since Finn has no mind to leave you in peace, and I promise on my body
+and my life there will no harm be done to you to-day."
+
+Then Diarmuid stood up on a high bough of the boughs of the tree, and he
+rose with a light leap by the shaft of his spear, and lit on the grass
+far beyond Finn and the Fianna. And he himself and Osgar went towards
+one another, in spite of the Fianna that went between them, and Diarmuid
+struck down those that were in his way; and as to Osgar, the throwing of
+his spears as he scattered the Fianna was like the sound of the wind
+going through a valley, or water falling over flag-stones. And Conan,
+that was always bitter, said: "Let the sons of Baiscne go on killing one
+another." But Finn, when he saw Diarmuid was gone from him, bade them
+put their weapons up, and turn back again to Almhuin.
+
+And he sent those of his men that could be healed to places of healing,
+and the nine Garbhs, and the others of his men that were killed, he put
+into wide-sodded graves. And it is tired and downhearted and sorrowful
+he was after that, and he made an oath he would take no great rest till
+he would have avenged on Diarmuid all that he had done.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE QUARREL
+
+
+And as to Osgar and Diarmuid, they went on, and no cut or wound on them,
+to where Angus and Grania were at Brugh na Boinne; and there was a good
+welcome before them, and Diarmuid told them the whole story from
+beginning to end, and it is much that Grania did not die then and there,
+hearing all he had gone through.
+
+And then she and Diarmuid set out again, and they went and stopped for
+a while in a cave that was near the sea.
+
+And one night while they were there a great storm came on, so that they
+went into the far part of the cave. But bad as the night was, a man of
+the Fomor, Ciach, the Fierce One, his name was, came over the western
+ocean in a currach, with two oars, and he drew it into the cave for
+shelter. And Diarmuid bade him welcome, and they sat down to play chess
+together. And he got the best of the game, and what he asked as his
+winnings was Grania to be his wife, and he put his arms about her as if
+to bring her away. And Grania said: "I am this long time going with the
+third best man of the Fianna, and he never came as near as that to me."
+
+And Diarmuid took his sword to kill Ciach, and there was anger on Grania
+when she saw that, and she had a knife in her hand and she struck it
+into Diarmuid's thigh. And Diarmuid made an end of the Fomor, and he
+said no word to Grania, but ran out and away through the storm.
+
+And Grania went following after him, and calling to him, but there was
+great anger on him and he would not answer her. And at last at the break
+of day she overtook him, and after a while they heard the cry of a
+heron, and she asked him what was it made the heron cry out.
+
+"Tell me that," she said, "Grandson of Duibhne, to whom I gave my love."
+And Diarmuid said: "O Grania, daughter of the High King, woman who never
+took a step aright, it is because she was frozen to the rocks she gave
+that cry." And Grania was asking forgiveness of him, and he was
+reproaching her, and it is what he said: "O Grania of the beautiful
+hair, though you are more beautiful than the green tree under blossom,
+your love passes away as quickly as the cold cloud at break of day. And
+you are asking a hard thing of me now," he said, "and it is a pity what
+you said to me, Grania, for it was you brought me away from the house of
+my lord, that I am banished from it to this day; and now I am troubled
+through the night, fretting after its delight in every place.
+
+"I am like a wild deer, or a beast that is astray, going ever and always
+through the long valleys; there is great longing on me to see one of my
+kindred from the host.
+
+"I left my own people that were brighter than lime or snow; their heart
+was full of generosity to me, like the sun that is high above us; but
+now they follow me angrily, to every harbour and every strand.
+
+"I lost my people by you, and my lord, and my large bright ships on
+every sea; I lost my treasure and my gold; it is hunger you gave me
+through your love.
+
+"I lost my country and my kindred; my men that were used to serve me; I
+lost quietness and affection; I lost the men of Ireland and the Fianna
+entirely.
+
+"I lost delight and music; I lost my own right doing and my honour; I
+lost the Fianna of Ireland, my great kinsmen, for the sake of the love
+you gave me.
+
+"O Grania, white as snow, it would have been a better choice for you to
+have given hatred to me, or gentleness to the Head of the Fianna."
+
+And Grania said: "O Diarmuid of the face like snow, or like the down of
+the mountains, the sound of your voice was dearer to me than all the
+riches of the leader of the Fianna.
+
+"Your blue eye is dearer to me than his strength, and his gold and his
+great hall; the love-spot on your forehead is better to me than honey in
+streams; the time I first looked on it, it was more to me than the whole
+host of the King of Ireland.
+
+"My heart fell down there and then before your high beauty; when you
+came beside me, it was like the whole of life in one day.
+
+"O Diarmuid of the beautiful hands, take me now the same as before; it
+was with me the fault was entirely; give me your promise not to leave
+me."
+
+But Diarmuid said: "How can I take you again, you are a woman too fond
+of words; one day you give up the Head of the Fianna, and the next day
+myself, and no lie in it.
+
+"It is you parted me from Finn, the way I fell under sorrow and grief;
+and then you left me yourself, the time I was full of affection."
+
+And Grania said: "Do not leave me now this way, and my love for you ever
+growing like the fresh branches of the tree with the kind long heat of
+the day."
+
+But Diarmuid would not give in to her, and he said: "You are a woman
+full of words, and it is you have put me under sorrow. I took you with
+myself, and you struck at me for the sake of the man of the Fomor."
+
+They came then to a place where there was a cave, and water running by
+it, and they stopped to rest; and Grania said: "Have you a mind to eat
+bread and meat now, Diarmuid?"
+
+"I would eat it indeed if I had it," said Diarmuid.
+
+"Give me a knife, so," she said, "till I cut it." "Look for the knife in
+the sheath where you put it yourself," said Diarmuid.
+
+She saw then that the knife was in his thigh where she had struck it,
+for he would not draw it out himself. So she drew it out then; and that
+was the greatest shame that ever came upon her.
+
+They stopped then in the cave. And the next day when they went on again,
+Diarmuid did not leave unbroken bread like he had left every other day
+as a sign to Finn that he had kept his faith with him, but it was broken
+bread he left after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE WANDERERS
+
+
+And they went on wandering after that, all through Ireland, hiding from
+Finn in every place, sleeping under the cromlechs, or with no shelter at
+all, and there was no place they would dare to stop long in. And
+wherever they went Finn would follow them, for he knew by his divination
+where they went. But one time he made out they were on a mountain, for
+he saw them with heather under them; and it was beside the sea they
+were, asleep on heather that Diarmuid had brought down from the hills
+for their bed; and so he went searching the hills and did not find them.
+
+And Grania would be watching over Diarmuid while he slept, and she would
+make a sleepy song for him, and it is what she would be saying:
+
+"Sleep a little, a little little, for there is nothing at all to fear,
+Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne; sleep here soundly, soundly, Diarmuid, to
+whom I have given my love.
+
+"It is I will keep watch for you, grandchild of shapely Duibhne; sleep a
+little, a blessing on you, beside the well of the strong field; my lamb
+from above the lake, from the banks of the strong streams.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the South, of Dedidach of the high
+poets, the time he took away old Morann's daughter, for all Conall could
+do against him.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the North, of fair comely
+Fionnchadh of Ess Ruadh, the time he took Slaine with bravery as we
+think, in spite of Failbhe of the Hard Head.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the West, of Aine, daughter of
+Gailian, the time she went on a journey in the night with Dubhthach from
+Doirinis, by the light of torches.
+
+"Let your sleep be like the sleep in the East, of Deaghadh the proud,
+the brave fighter, the time he took Coincheann, daughter of Binn, in
+spite of fierce Decheall of Duibhreann.
+
+"O heart of the valour of the lands to the west of Greece, my heart
+will go near to breaking if I do not see you every day. The parting of
+us two will be the parting of two children of the one house; it will be
+the parting of life from the body, Diarmuid, hero of the bright lake of
+Carman."
+
+And then to rouse him she would make another song, and it is what she
+would say: "Caoinche will be loosed on your track; it is not slow the
+running of Caoilte will be; do not let death reach to you, do not give
+yourself to sleep for ever.
+
+"The stag to the east is not asleep, he does not cease from bellowing;
+though he is in the woods of the blackbirds, sleep is not in his mind;
+the hornless doe is not asleep, crying after her speckled fawn; she is
+going over the bushes, she does not sleep in her home.
+
+"The cuckoo is not asleep, the thrush is not asleep, the tops of the
+trees are a noisy place; the duck is not asleep, she is made ready for
+good swimming; the bog lark is not asleep to-night on the high stormy
+bogs; the sound of her clear voice is sweet; she is not sleeping between
+the streams."
+
+One time they were in a cave of Beinn Edair, and there was an old woman
+befriending them and helping them to keep a watch. And one day she
+chanced to go up to the top of Beinn Edair, and she saw an armed man
+coming towards her, and she did now know him to be Finn; and when he was
+come near she asked what was he looking for. "It is looking for a woman
+I am come," he said, "and for a woman's love. And will you do all I will
+ask you?" he said.
+
+"I will do that," she said; for she thought it was her own love he was
+asking.
+
+"Tell me then," he said, "where is Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne?"
+
+So she told him where he was hiding, and he bade her to keep him in the
+cave till such time as he would come back with his men.
+
+The old woman went back then, and it is what she did, she dipped her
+cloak in the sea-water before she went into the cave; and Diarmuid asked
+her why was her cloak so wet. "It is," she said, "that I never saw or
+never heard of the like of this day for cold and for storms. There is
+frost on every hillside," she said, "and there is not a smooth plain in
+all Elga where there is not a long rushing river between every two
+ridges. And there is not a deer or a crow in the whole of Ireland can
+find a shelter in any place." And she was shaking the wet off her cloak,
+and she was making a complaint against the cold, and it is what she
+said:
+
+"Cold, cold, cold to-night is the wide plain of Lurg; the snow is higher
+than the mountains, the deer cannot get at their share of food.
+
+"Cold for ever; the storm is spread over all; every furrow on the
+hillside is a river, every ford is a full pool, every full loch is a
+great sea; every pool is a full loch; horses cannot go through the ford
+of Ross any more than a man on his two feet.
+
+"The fishes of Inisfail are going astray; there is no strand or no pen
+against the waves; there are no dwellings in the country, there is no
+bell heard, no crane is calling.
+
+"The hounds of the wood of Cuan find no rest or no sleep in their
+dwelling-place; the little wren cannot find shelter in her nest on the
+slope of Lon.
+
+"A sharp wind and cold ice have come on the little company of birds; the
+blackbird cannot get a ridge to her liking or shelter for her side in
+the woods of Cuan.
+
+"It is steady our great pot hangs from its hook; it is broken the cabin
+is on the slope of Lon; the snow has made the woods smooth, it is hard
+to climb to the ridge of Bennait Bo.
+
+"The ancient bird of Glen Ride gets grief from the bitter wind; it is
+great is her misery and her pain, the ice will be in her mouth.
+
+"Mind well not to rise up from coverings and from down, mind this well;
+there would be no good sense in it. Ice is heaped up in every ford; it
+is for that I am saying and ever saying 'Cold.'"
+
+The old woman went out after that, and when she was gone, Grania took
+hold of the cloak she had left there and she put her tongue to it, and
+found the taste of salt water on it. "My grief, Diarmuid," she said
+then, "the old woman has betrayed us. And rise up now," she said, "and
+put your fighting suit upon you."
+
+So Diarmuid did that, and he went out, and Grania along with him. And no
+sooner were they outside than they saw Finn and the Fianna of Ireland
+coming towards them. Then Diarmuid looked around him and he saw a little
+boat at hand in the shelter of the harbour, and he himself and Grania
+went into it. And there was a man before them in the boat having
+beautiful clothes on him, and a wide embroidered golden-yellow cloak
+over his shoulders behind. And they knew it was Angus was in it, that
+had come again to help them to escape from Finn, and they went back with
+him for a while to Brugh na Boinne, and Osgar came to them there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. FIGHTING AND PEACE
+
+
+And after a while Finn bade his people to make his ship ready, and to
+put a store of food and of drink in it. They did that, and he himself
+and a thousand of his men went into the ship; and they were nine days
+between sailing and rowing till they came to harbour in the north of
+Alban.
+
+They bound the ship to the posts of the harbour then, and Finn with five
+of his people went to the dun of the King of Alban, and Finn struck a
+blow with the hand-wood on the door, and the door-keeper asked who was
+in it, and they told him it was Finn, son of Cumhal. "Let him in," said
+the king.
+
+Then Finn and his people went in, and the king made them welcome, and he
+bade Finn to sit down in his own place, and they were given strong
+pleasant drinks, and the king sent for the rest of Finn's people and
+bade them welcome to the dun.
+
+Then Finn told what it was brought him there, and that it was to ask
+help and advice against the grandson of Duibhne he was come.
+
+"And you have a right to give me your help," he said, "for it was he
+that killed your father and your two brothers, and many of your best men
+along with them."
+
+"That is true," said the king; "and I will give you my own two sons and
+a thousand men with each of them." Finn was glad when he heard that, and
+he and his men took leave of the king and of his household, and left
+wishes for life and health with them, and the king did the same by them.
+
+And it was near Brugh na Boinne Finn and his people came to land, and
+Finn sent messengers to the house of Angus to give out a challenge of
+battle against Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne.
+
+"What should I do about this, Osgar?" said Diarmuid.
+
+"We will both go out and make a stand against them, and we will not let
+a serving-man of them escape, but we will make an end of them all," said
+Osgar.
+
+So they rose up on the morning of the morrow and they put their suits of
+battle on their comely bodies; and it would be a pity for those, be they
+many or few, that would meet those two men, and their anger on them. And
+they bound the rims of their shields together the way they would not be
+parted from one another in the right. And the sons of the King of Alban
+said that they themselves and their people would go first to meet them.
+So they came to shore, and made a rush to meet Diarmuid and Osgar. But
+the two fought so well that they beat them back and scattered them, and
+made a great slaughter, and put great terror on them, so that at the
+last there was not a man left to stand against them.
+
+And after that, Finn went out again on the sea, and his people with him,
+and there is no word of them till they came to the Land of Promise where
+Finn's nurse was. And when she saw Finn coming she was very joyful
+before him. And Finn told her the whole story from beginning to end, and
+the cause of his quarrel with Diarmuid; and he said it was to ask an
+advice from her he was come, and that it was not possible to put him
+down by any strength of an army, unless enchantment would put him down.
+"I will go with you," said the old woman, "and I will do enchantment on
+him." Finn was very glad when he heard that, and he stopped there that
+night, and they set out for Ireland on the morrow.
+
+And when they came to Brugh na Boinne, the nurse put a Druid mist around
+Finn and the Fianna, the way no one could know they were there. Now the
+day before that, Osgar had parted from Diarmuid, and Diarmuid was out
+hunting by himself. That was shown to the hag, and she took a drowned
+leaf having a hole in it, like the quern of a mill, and she rose with
+that by her enchantments on a blast of Druid wind over Diarmuid, and
+began to aim at him through the hole with deadly spears, till she had
+done him great harm, for all his arms and his clothing, and he could not
+make away he was so hard pressed. And every danger he was ever in was
+little beside that danger. And it is what he thought, that unless he
+could strike the old woman through the hole that was in the leaf, she
+would give him his death there and then. And he lay down on his back,
+and the Gae Dearg, the Red Spear, in his hand, and he made a great cast
+of the spear, that it went through the hole, and the hag fell dead on
+the spot. And he struck off her head and brought it back with him to
+Angus Og.
+
+And the next morning early, Angus rose up, and he went where Finn was,
+and he asked would he make peace with Diarmuid, and Finn said he would.
+And then he went to the King of Ireland to ask peace for Diarmuid, and
+he said he would agree to it.
+
+And then he went back to where Diarmuid and Grania were, and asked him
+would he make peace with the High King and with Finn. "I am willing,"
+said Diarmuid, "if they will give the conditions I will ask." "What
+conditions are those?" said Angus.
+
+"The district my father had," said Diarmuid, "that is, the district of
+Ui Duibhne, without right of hunting to Finn, and without rent or
+tribute to the King of Ireland, and with that the district of Dumhais in
+Leinster, for they are the best in Ireland, and the district of Ceis
+Corainn from the King of Ireland as a marriage portion with his
+daughter; and those are the conditions on which I will make peace with
+them." "Would you be peaceable if you got those conditions?" said Angus.
+"It would go easier with me to make peace if I got them," said Diarmuid.
+
+Then Angus went with that news to where the King of Ireland was with
+Finn. And they gave him all those conditions, and they forgave him all
+he had done through the whole of the time he had been in his hiding,
+that was sixteen years.
+
+And the place Diarmuid and Grania settled in was Rath Grania, in the
+district of Ceis Corainn, far away from Finn and from Teamhair. And
+Grania bore him children there, four sons and one daughter. And they
+lived there in peace, and the people used to be saying there was not a
+man living at the same time was richer as to gold and to silver, as to
+cattle and to sheep, than Diarmuid.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE BOAR OF BEINN GULBAIN
+
+
+But at last one day Grania spoke to Diarmuid, and it is what she said,
+that it was a shame on them, with all the people and the household they
+had, and all their riches, the two best men in Ireland never to have
+come to the house, the High King, her father, and Finn, son of Cumhal.
+"Why do you say that, Grania," said Diarmuid, "and they being enemies to
+me?"
+
+"It is what I would wish," said Grania, "to give them a feast, the way
+you would get their affection." "I give leave for that," said Diarmuid.
+
+So Grania was making ready a great feast through the length of a year,
+and messengers were sent for the High King of Ireland, and for Finn and
+the seven battalions of the Fianna; and they came, and they were using
+the feast from day to day through the length of a year.
+
+And on the last night of the year, Diarmuid was in his sleep at Rath
+Grania; and in the night he heard the voice of hounds through his sleep,
+and he started up, and Grania caught him and put her two arms about him,
+and asked what had startled him. "The voice of a hound I heard," said
+he; "and it is a wonder to me to hear that in the night." "Safe keeping
+on you," said Grania, "for it is the Tuatha de Danaan are doing that on
+you, on account of Angus of Brugh na Boinn, and lie down on the bed
+again." But for all that no sleep came to him, and he heard the voice of
+the hound again, and he started up a second time to follow after it. But
+Grania caught hold of him the second time and bade him to lie down, and
+she said it was no fitting thing to go after the voice of a hound in the
+night. So he lay down again, and he fell asleep, but the voice of the
+hound awakened him the third time. And the day was come with its full
+light that time, and he said: "I will go after the voice of the hound
+now, since the day is here." "If that is so," said Grania, "bring the
+Mor-alltach, the Great Fierce One, the sword of Manannan, with you, and
+the Gae Dearg." "I will not," he said; "but I will take the
+Beag-alltach, the Little Fierce One, and the Gae Buidhe in the one hand,
+and the hound Mac an Chuill, the Son of the Hazel, in the other hand."
+
+Then Diarmuid went out of Rath Grania, and made no delay till he came to
+the top of Beinn Gulbain, and he found Finn before him there, without
+any one at all in his company. Diarmuid gave him no greeting, but asked
+him was it he was making that hunt. Finn said it was not a hunt he was
+making, but that he and some of the Fianna had gone out after midnight;
+"and one of our hounds that was loose beside us, came on the track of a
+wild boar," he said, "and they were not able to bring him back yet. And
+there is no use following that boar he is after," he said, "for it is
+many a time the Fianna hunted him, and he went away from them every time
+till now, and he has killed thirty of them this morning. And he is
+coming up the mountain towards us," he said, "and let us leave this hill
+to him now."
+
+"I will not leave the hill through fear of him," said Diarmuid. "It
+would be best for you, Diarmuid," said Finn, "for it is the earless
+Green Boar of Beinn Gulbain is in it, and it is by him you will come to
+your death, and Angus knew that well when he put bonds on you not to go
+hunting pigs." "I never knew of those bonds," said Diarmuid; "but
+however it is, I will not quit this through fear of him. And let you
+leave Bran with me now," he said, "along with Mac an Chuill." "I will
+not," said Finn, "for it is often he met this boar before and could do
+nothing against him." He went away then and left Diarmuid alone on the
+top of the hill. "I give my word," said Diarmuid, "you made this hunt
+for my death, Finn; and if it is here I am to find my death," he said,
+"I have no use in going aside from it now."
+
+The boar came up the face of the mountain then, and the Fianna after
+him. Diarmuid loosed Mac an Chuill from his leash then, but that did not
+serve him, for he did not wait for the boar, but ran from him. "It is a
+pity not to follow the advice of a good woman," said Diarmuid, "for
+Grania bade me this morning to bring the Mor-alltach and the Gae Dearg
+with me." Then he put his finger into the silken string of the Gae
+Buidhe, and took a straight aim at the boar and hit him full in the
+face; but if he did, the spear did not so much as give him a scratch.
+Diarmuid was discouraged by that, but he drew the Beag-alltach, and made
+a full stroke at the back of the boar, but neither did that make a wound
+on him, but it made two halves of the sword. Then the boar made a brave
+charge at Diarmuid, that cut the sod from under his feet and brought him
+down; but Diarmuid caught hold of the boar on rising, and held on to
+him, having one of his legs on each side of him, and his face to his
+hinder parts. And the boar made away headlong down the hill, but he
+could not rid himself of Diarmuid; and he went on after that to Ess
+Ruadh, and when he came to the red stream he gave three high leaps over
+it, backwards and forwards, but he could not put him from his back, and
+he went back by the same path till he went up the height of the
+mountain again. And at last on the top of the mountain he freed himself,
+and Diarmuid fell on the ground. And then the boar made a rush at him,
+and ripped him open, that his bowels came out about his feet. But if he
+did, Diarmuid made a cast at him with the hilt of his sword that was in
+his hand yet, and dashed out his brains, so that he fell dead there and
+then. And Rath na h-Amhrann, the Rath of the Sword Hilt, is the name of
+that place to this day.
+
+It was not long till Finn and the Fianna of Ireland came to the place,
+and the pains of death were coming on Diarmuid at that time. "It is well
+pleased I am to see you that way, Diarmuid," said Finn; "and it is a
+pity all the women of Ireland not to be looking at you now, for your
+great beauty is turned to ugliness, and your comely shape to
+uncomeliness." "For all that, you have power to heal me, Finn," said
+Diarmuid, "if you had a mind to do it." "What way could I heal you?"
+said Finn. "Easy enough," said Diarmuid, "for the time you were given
+the great gift of knowledge at the Boinn, you got this gift with it,
+that any one you would give a drink to out of the palms of your hands
+would be young and well again from any sickness after it." "You are not
+deserving of that drink from me," said Finn. "That is not true," said
+Diarmuid; "it is well I deserve it from you; for the time you went to
+the house of Dearc, son of Donnarthadh, and your chief men with you for
+a feast, your enemies came round the house, and gave out three great
+shouts against you, and threw fire and firebrands into it. And you rose
+up and would have gone out, but I bade you to stop there at drinking and
+pleasure, for that I myself would go out and put them down. And I went
+out, and put out the flames, and made three red rushes round the house,
+and I killed fifty in every rush, and I came in again without a wound.
+And it is glad and merry and in good courage you were that night,
+Finn," he said, "and if it was that night I had asked a drink of you,
+you would have given it; and it would be right for you to give it to me
+now." "That is not so," said Finn; "it is badly you have earned a drink
+or any good thing from me; for the night you went to Teamhair with me,
+you took Grania away from me in the presence of all the men of Ireland,
+and you being my own guard over her that night."
+
+"Do not blame me for that, Finn," said Diarmuid, "for what did I ever do
+against you, east or west, but that one thing; and you know well Grania
+put bonds on me, and I would not fail in my bonds for the gold of the
+whole world. And you will know it is well I have earned a drink from
+you, if you bring to mind the night the feast was made in the House of
+the Quicken Tree, and how you and all your men were bound there till I
+heard of it, and came fighting and joyful, and loosed you with my own
+blood, and with the blood of the Three Kings of the Island of the
+Floods; and if I had asked a drink of you that night, Finn, you would
+not have refused it. And I was with you in the smiting of Lon, son of
+Liobhan, and you are the man that should not forsake me beyond any other
+man. And many is the strait has overtaken yourself and the Fianna of
+Ireland since I came among you, and I was ready every time to put my
+body and my life in danger for your sake, and you ought not to do this
+unkindness on me now. And besides that," he said, "there has many a good
+champion fallen through the things you yourself have done, and there is
+not an end of them yet; and there will soon come great misfortunes on
+the Fianna, and it is few of their seed will be left after them. And it
+is not for yourself I am fretting, Finn," he said, "but for Oisin and
+Osgar, and the rest of my dear comrades, and as for you, Oisin, you will
+be left lamenting after the Fianna. And it is greatly you will feel the
+want of me yet, Finn," he said; "and if the women of the Fianna knew I
+was lying in my wounds on this ridge, it is sorrowful their faces would
+be at this time."
+
+And Osgar said then: "Although I am nearer in blood to you, Finn, than
+to Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, I will not let you refuse him this
+drink; and by my word," he said, "if any prince in the world would do
+the same unkindness to Diarmuid that you have done, it is only the one
+of us that has the strongest hand would escape alive. And give him a
+drink now without delay," he said.
+
+"I do not know of any well at all on this mountain," said Finn. "That is
+not so," said Diarmuid, "for there is not nine footsteps from you the
+well that has the best fresh water that can be found in the world."
+
+Then Finn went to the well, and he took the full of his two hands of the
+water. But when he was no more than half-way back, the thought of Grania
+came on him, and he let the water slip through his hands, and he said he
+was not able to bring it. "I give my word," said Diarmuid, "it was of
+your own will you let it from you." Then Finn went back the second time
+to get the water, but coming back he let it through his hands again at
+the thought of Grania. And Diarmuid gave a pitiful sigh of anguish when
+he saw that. "I swear by my sword and by my spear," said Osgar, "that if
+you do not bring the water without any more delay, Finn, there will not
+leave this hill but yourself or myself." Finn went back the third time
+to the well after what Osgar said, and he brought the water to Diarmuid,
+but as he reached him the life went out of his body. Then the whole
+company of the Fianna that were there gave three great heavy shouts,
+keening for Diarmuid.
+
+And Osgar looked very fiercely at Finn, and it is what he said, that it
+was a greater pity Diarmuid to be dead than if he himself had died. And
+the Fianna of Ireland had lost their yoke of battle by him, he said.
+"Let us leave this hill," said Finn then, "before Angus and the Tuatha
+de Danaan come upon us, for although we have no share in the death of
+Diarmuid, he would not believe the truth from us." "I give my word,"
+said Osgar, "if I had thought it was against Diarmuid you made the hunt
+of Beinn Gulbain, you would never have made it"
+
+Then Finn and the Fianna went away from the hill, and Finn leading
+Diarmuid's hound Mac an Chuill. But Oisin and Osgar and Caoilte and
+Lugaidh's Son turned back again and put their four cloaks over Diarmuid,
+and then they went after the rest of the Fianna.
+
+And when they came to the Rath, Grania was out on the wall looking for
+news of Diarmuid; and she saw Finn and the Fianna of Ireland coming
+towards her. Then she said: "If Diarmuid was living, it is not led by
+Finn that Mac an Chuill would be coming home." And she was at that time
+heavy with child, and her strength went from her and she fell down from
+the wall. And when Oisin saw the way she was he bade Finn and the others
+to go on from her, but she lifted up her head and she asked Finn to
+leave Mac an Chuill with her. And he said he would not, and that he did
+not think it too much for him to inherit from Diarmuid, grandson of
+Duibhne.
+
+When Oisin heard that, he snatched the hound out of Finn's hand and gave
+it to Grania, and then he followed after his people.
+
+Then when Grania was certain of Diarmuid's death she gave out a long
+very pitiful cry that was heard through the whole place, and her women
+and her people came to her, and asked what ailed her to give a cry like
+that. And she told them how Diarmuid had come to his death by the Boar
+of Beinn Gulbain in the hunt Finn had made. "And there is grief in my
+very heart," she said, "I not to be able to fight myself with Finn, and
+I would not have let him go safe out of this place."
+
+When her people heard of the death of Diarmuid they gave three great
+heavy cries in the same way, that were heard in the clouds and the waste
+places of the sky. And then Grania bade the five hundred that she had
+for household to go to Beinn Gulbain for the body of Diarmuid.
+
+And when they were bringing it back, she went out to meet them, and they
+put down the body of Diarmuid, and it is what she said:
+
+"I am your wife, beautiful Diarmuid, the man I would do no hurt to; it
+is sorrowful I am after you to-night.
+
+"I am looking at the hawk and the hound my secret love used to be
+hunting with; she that loved the three, let her be put in the grave with
+Diarmuid.
+
+"Let us be glad to-night, let us make all welcome to-night, let us be
+open-handed to-night, since we are sitting by the body of a king.
+
+"And O Diarmuid," she said, "it is a hard bed Finn has given you, to be
+lying on the stones and to be wet with the rain. Ochone!" she said,
+"your blue eyes to be without sight, you that were friendly and generous
+and pursuing. O love! O Diarmuid! it is a pity it is he sent you to your
+death.
+
+"You were a champion of the men of Ireland, their prop in the middle of
+the fight; you were the head of every battle; your ways were glad and
+pleasant.
+
+"It is sorrowful I am, without mirth, without light, but only sadness
+and grief and long dying; your harp used to be sweet to me, it wakened
+my heart to gladness. Now my courage is fallen down, I not to hear you
+but to be always remembering your ways. Och! my grief is going through
+me.
+
+"A thousand curses on the day when Grania gave you her love, that put
+Finn of the princes from his wits; it is a sorrowful story your death is
+to-day.
+
+"Many heroes were great and strong about me in the beautiful plain;
+their hands were good at wrestling and at battle; Ochone! that I did not
+follow them.
+
+"You were the man was best of the Fianna, beautiful Diarmuid, that
+women loved. It is dark your dwelling-place is under the sod, it is
+mournful and cold your bed is; it is pleasant your laugh was to-day; you
+were my happiness, Diarmuid."
+
+And she went back then into the Rath, and bade her people to bring the
+body to her there.
+
+Now just at this time, it was showed to Angus at Brugh na Boinne that
+Diarmuid was dead on Beinn Gulbain, for he had kept no watch over him
+the night before.
+
+And he went on the cold wind towards Beinn Gulbain, and his people with
+him, and on the way they met with Grania's people that were bringing the
+body to the Rath.
+
+And when they saw him they held out the wrong sides of their shields as
+a sign of peace, and Angus knew them; and he and his people gave three
+great terrible cries over the body of Diarmuid.
+
+And Angus spoke then, and it is what he said: "I was never one night
+since the time I brought you to Brugh na Boinne, being nine months old,
+without keeping watch and protection over you till last night, Diarmuid,
+grandson of Duibhne; and now your blood has been shed and you have been
+cut off sharply, and the Boar of Beinn Gulbain has put you down,
+Diarmuid of the bright face and the bright sword. And it is a pity Finn
+to have done this treachery," he said, "and you at peace with him.
+
+"And lift up his body now," he said, "and bring it to the Brugh in the
+lasting rocks. And if I cannot bring him back to life," he said, "I will
+put life into him the way he can be talking with me every day."
+
+Then they put his body on a golden bier, and his spears over it pointed
+upwards, and they went on till they came to Brugh na Boinne.
+
+And Grania's people went to her and told her how Angus would not let
+them bring the body into the Rath, but brought it away himself to Brugh
+na Boinne. And Grania said she had no power over him.
+
+And she sent out then for her four sons that were being reared in the
+district of Corca Ui Duibhne. And when they came she gave them a loving
+welcome, and they came into the Rath and sat down there according to
+their age. And Grania spoke to them with a very loud, clear voice, and
+it is what she said: "My dear children, your father has been killed by
+Finn, son of Cumhal, against his own bond and agreement of peace, and
+let you avenge it well upon him. And here is your share of the
+inheritance of your father," she said, "his arms and his armour, and his
+feats of valour and power; and I will share these arms among you
+myself," she said, "and that they may bring you victory in every battle.
+Here is the sword for Donnchadh," she said, "the best son Diarmuid had;
+and the Gae Dearg for Eochaidh; and here is the armour for Ollann, for
+it will keep the body it is put on in safety; and the shield for Connla.
+And make no delay now," she said, "but go and learn every sort of skill
+in fighting, till such time as you will come to your full strength to
+avenge your father."
+
+So they took leave of her then, and of their household.
+
+And some of their people said: "What must we do now, since our lords
+will be going into danger against Finn and the Fianna of Ireland?" And
+Donnchadh, son of Diarmuid, bade them stop in their own places; "for if
+we make peace with Finn," he said, "there need be no fear on you, and if
+not, you can make your choice between ourselves and him." And with that
+they set out on their journey.
+
+But after a while Finn went secretly and unknown to the Fianna to the
+place where Grania was, and he got to see her in spite of all her high
+talk, and he spoke gently to her. And she would not listen to him, but
+bade him to get out of her sight, and whatever hard thing her tongue
+could say, she said it. But all the same, he went on giving her gentle
+talk and loving words, till in the end he brought her to his own will.
+
+And there is no news told of them, until such time as they came to where
+the seven battalions of the Fianna were waiting for Finn. And when they
+saw him coming, and Grania with him, like any new wife with her husband,
+they gave a great shout of laughter and of mockery, and Grania bowed
+down her head with shame, "By my word, Finn," said Oisin, "you will keep
+a good watch on Grania from this out."
+
+And some said the change had come on her because the mind of a woman
+changes like the water of a running stream; but some said it was Finn
+that had put enchantment on her.
+
+And as to the sons of Diarmuid, they came back at the end of seven
+years, after learning all that was to be learned of valour in the far
+countries of the world. And when they came back to Rath Grania they were
+told their mother was gone away with Finn, son of Cumhal, without
+leaving any word for themselves or for the King of Ireland. And they
+said if that was so, there was nothing for them to do. But after that
+they said they would make an attack on Finn, and they went forward to
+Almhuin, and they would take no offers, but made a great slaughter of
+every troop that came out against them.
+
+But at last Grania made an agreement of peace between themselves and
+Finn, and they got their father's place among the Fianna; and that was
+little good to them, for they lost their lives with the rest in the
+battle of Gabhra. And as to Finn and Grania, they stopped with one
+another to the end.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK EIGHT: CNOC-AN-AIR.
+
+CHAPTER I. TAILC, SON OF TREON
+
+
+One time the Fianna were all gathered together doing feats and casting
+stones. And after a while the Druid of Teamhair that was with them said:
+"I am in dread, Finn of the Fianna, that there is some trouble near at
+hand; and look now at those dark clouds of blood," he said, "that are
+threatening us side by side overhead. And there is fear on me," he said,
+"that there is some destruction coming on the Fianna."
+
+Finn looked up then, and he saw the great cloud of blood, and he called
+Osgar to look at it. "That need not knock a start from you," said Osgar,
+"with all the strength there is in your arms, and in the men that are
+with you." Then all the Fianna looked up at the cloud, and some of them
+were glad and cheerful and some were downhearted.
+
+Then the Druid bade Finn to call all his battalions together and to
+divide them into two halves, that they could be watching for the coming
+of the enemy.
+
+So Finn sounded the Dord Fiann, and they answered with a shout, every
+one hurrying to be the first. And Finn bade Osgar and Goll and Faolan to
+keep watch through the night, and he bade Conan the Bald to stop in the
+darkness of the cave of Liath Ard. "For it is you can shout loudest," he
+said, "to warn us if you see the enemy coming." "That I may be pierced
+through the middle of my body," said Conan, "if I will go watching for
+troubles or for armies alone, without some more of the Fianna being with
+me." "It is not fitting for you to refuse Finn," said Lugaidh's Son;
+"and it is you can shout the loudest," he said, "if the enemies come
+near the height." "Do not be speaking to me any more," said Conan, "for
+I will not go there alone, through the length of my days, for Finn and
+the whole of the Fianna." "Go then, Conan," said Osgar, "and Aodh Beag
+will go with you, and you can bring dogs with you, Bran and Sceolan and
+Fuaim and Fearagan; and let you go now without begrudging it," he said.
+
+So Conan went then to Liath Ard, and Aodh Beag and Finn's hounds along
+with him. And as to Finn, he lay down to sleep, and it was not long till
+he saw through his sleep Aodh Beag his son, and he without his head. And
+after that he saw Goll fighting with a very strong man. And he awoke
+from his sleep, and called the Druid of the Fianna to him, and asked him
+the meaning of what he saw. "I am in dread there is some destruction
+coming on the Fianna," said the Druid; "but Aodh Beag will not be
+wounded in the fight, or Goll," he said.
+
+And it was not long till Finn heard a great shout, and he sounded the
+Dord Fiann, and then he saw Conan running, and the hounds after him. And
+Finn sounded the Dord Fiann again before Conan came up, and when he
+came, Osgar asked him where was Aodh Beag. "He was at the door of the
+cave when I left it," said Conan, "but I did not look behind me since
+then," he said; "and it was not Aodh Beag was troubling me." "What was
+troubling you then?" said Osgar. "Nothing troubles me but myself," said
+Conan; "although I am well pleased at any good that comes to you," he
+said.
+
+Osgar went then running hard, till he came to the cave, and there he
+found Aodh Beag with no fear or trouble on him at all, stopping there
+till he would hear the noise of the shields. And Osgar brought him back
+to where the Fianna were, and they saw a great army coming as if in
+search of them.
+
+And a beautiful woman, having a crimson cloak, came to them over the
+plain, and she spoke to Finn, and her voice was as sweet as music. And
+Finn asked her who was she, and who did she come looking for. "I am the
+daughter of Garraidh, son of Dolar Dian, the Fierce," she said; "and my
+curse upon the King of Greece that bound me to the man that is
+following after me, and that I am going from, Tailc, son of Treon."
+"Tell me why are you shunning him, and I will protect you in spite of
+him," said Finn. "It is not without reason I hate him," said she, "for
+he has no good appearance, and his skin is of the colour of coal, and he
+has the head and the tail of a cat. And I have walked the world three
+times," she said, "and I did not leave a king or a great man without
+asking help from him, and I never got it yet." "I will give you
+protection," said Finn, "or the seven battalions of the Fianna will fall
+for your sake."
+
+With that they saw the big strange man, Tailc, son of Treon, coming
+towards them, and he said no word at all of greeting to Finn, but he
+called for a battle on account of his wife.
+
+So a thousand of the Fianna went out to meet him and his men; and if
+they did they all fell, and not one of them came back again. And then
+another thousand of the best men of the Fianna, having blue and green
+shields, went out under Caoilte, son of Ronan, and they were worsted by
+Tailc and his people. And then Osgar asked leave of Finn to go out and
+fight the big man. "I will give you leave," said Finn, "although I am
+sure you will fall by him." So Osgar went out, and he himself and Tailc,
+son of Treon, were fighting through the length of five days and five
+nights without food or drink or sleep. And at the end of that time,
+Osgar made an end of Tailc, and struck his head off. And when the Fianna
+saw that, they gave a shout of lamentation for those they had lost of
+the Fianna, and two shouts of joy for the death of Tailc.
+
+And as to the young woman, when she saw all the slaughter that had been
+done on account of her, shame reddened her face, and she fell dead there
+and then. And to see her die like that, after all she had gone through,
+preyed more on the Fianna than any other thing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. MEARGACH'S WIFE
+
+
+And while the Fianna were gathered yet on the hill where Tailc, son of
+Treon, had been put down, they saw a very great champion coming towards
+them, having an army behind him. He took no notice of any one more than
+another, but he asked in a very rough voice where was Finn, the Head of
+the Fianna. And Aodh Beag, that had a quiet heart, asked him who was he,
+and what was he come for. "I will tell you nothing at all, child," said
+the big man, "for it is short your years are, and I will tell nothing at
+all to any one but Finn." So Aodh Beag brought him to where Finn was,
+and Finn asked him his name. "Meargach of the Green Spears is my name,"
+he said; "and arms were never reddened yet on my body, and no one ever
+boasted of driving me backwards. And was it you, Finn," he said, "put
+down Tailc, son of Treon?" "It was not by me he fell," said Finn, "but
+by Osgar of the strong hand." "Was it not a great shame for you, Finn,"
+said Meargach then, "to let the queen-woman that had such a great name
+come to her death by the Fianna?" "It was not by myself or by any of the
+Fianna she got her death," said Finn; "it was seeing the army lost that
+brought her to her death. But if it is satisfaction for her death or the
+death of Tailc you want," he said, "You can get it from a man of the
+Fianna, or you can go quietly from this place." Then Meargach said he
+would fight with any man they would bring against him, to avenge Tailc,
+son of Treon.
+
+And it was Osgar stood up against him, and they fought a very hard fight
+through the length of three days, and at one time the Fianna thought it
+was Osgar was worsted, and they gave a great sorrowful shout. But in the
+end Osgar put down Meargach and struck his head off, and at that the
+seven battalions of the Fianna gave a shout of victory, and the army of
+Meargach keened him very sorrowfully. And after that, the two sons of
+Meargach, Ciardan the Swift and Liagan the Nimble, came up and asked
+who would come against them, hand to hand, that they might get
+satisfaction for their father.
+
+And it was Goll stood up against Ciardan, and it was not long till he
+put him down; and Conan came out against Liagan, and Liagan mocked at
+him and said: "It is foolishness your coming is, bald man!" But Conan
+made a quick blow and struck his head off before the fight was begun at
+all.
+
+And Faolan said that was a shameful thing to do, not to stand his ground
+and make a fair fight. But Conan said: "If I could make an end of the
+whole army by one blow, I would do it, and I would not be ashamed, and
+the whole of the Fianna could not shelter them from me."
+
+Then the two armies came towards each other, and they were making ready
+for the attack. And they saw a beautiful golden-haired woman coming
+towards them, and she crying and ever crying, and the battle was given
+up on both sides, waiting for her to come; and the army of Meargach knew
+it was their queen, Ailne of the Bright Face, and they raised a great
+cry of grief; and the Fianna were looking at her, and said no word.
+
+And she asked where was her husband, and where were her two sons. "High
+Queen," said Finn then, "for all they were so complete and quick and
+strong, the three you are asking for fell in fight."
+
+And when the queen-woman heard that, she cried out aloud, and she went
+to the place where her husband and her two sons were lying, and she
+stood over their bodies, and her golden hair hanging, and she keened
+them there. And her own people raised a sharp lamentation listening to
+her, and the Fianna themselves were under grief.
+
+And it is what she said: "O Meargach," she said, "of the sharp green
+spears, it is many a fight and many a heavy battle your hard hand fought
+in the gathering of the armies or alone.
+
+"I never knew any wound to be on your body after them; and it is full
+sure I am, it was not strength but treachery got the upper hand of you
+now.
+
+"It is long your journey was from far off, from your own kind country to
+Inisfail, to come to Finn and the Fianna, that put my three to death
+through treachery.
+
+"My grief! to have lost my husband, my head, by the treachery of the
+Fianna; my two sons, my two men that were rough in the fight.
+
+"My grief! my food and my drink; my grief! my teaching everywhere; my
+grief! my journey from far off, and I to have lost my high heroes.
+
+"My grief! my house thrown down; my grief! my shelter and my shield; my
+grief! Meargach and Ciardan; my grief! Liagan of the wide chest.
+
+"My grief! my protection and my shelter; my grief! my strength and my
+power; my grief! there is darkness come from this thing; my grief
+to-night you to be in your weakness.
+
+"My grief! my gladness and my pleasure; my grief! my desire in every
+place; my grief! my courage is gone and my strength; my grief from this
+night out for ever.
+
+"My grief! my guide and my going; my grief! my desire to the day of my
+death; my grief! my store and my sway; my grief! my heroes that were
+open-handed.
+
+"My grief! my bed and my sleep; my grief! my journey and my coming; my
+grief! my teacher and my share; my sorrowful grief! my three men.
+
+"My grief! my beauty and my ornaments; my grief! my jewels and my
+riches; my grief! my treasures and my goods; my grief! my three Candles
+of Valour.
+
+"My grief! my friends and my kindred; my grief! my people and my
+friends. My grief! my father and my mother; my grief and my trouble! you
+to be dead.
+
+"My grief my portion and my welcome; my grief! my health at every time;
+my grief! my increase and my light; my sore trouble, you to be without
+strength.
+
+"My grief! your spear and your sword; my grief! your gentleness and your
+love; my grief! your country and your home; my grief! you to be parted
+from my reach.
+
+"My grief! my coasts and my harbours; my grief! my wealth and my
+prosperity; my grief! my greatness and my kingdom; my grief and my
+crying are until death.
+
+"My grief! my luck altogether; my grief for you in time of battle; my
+grief! my gathering of armies; my grief! my three proud lions.
+
+"My grief! my games and my drinking; my grief! my music and my delight;
+my grief! my sunny house and my women; my crying grief, you to be under
+defeat.
+
+"My grief! my lands and my hunting; my grief! my three sure fighters;
+Och! my grief! they are my sorrow, to fall far off by the Fianna.
+
+"I knew by the great host of the Sidhe that were fighting over the dun,
+giving battle to one another in the valleys of the air, that destruction
+would put down my three.
+
+"I knew by the noise of the voices of the Sidhe coming into my ears,
+that a story of new sorrow was not far from me; it is your death it was
+foretelling.
+
+"I knew at the beginning of the day when my three good men went from me,
+when I saw tears of blood on their cheeks, that they would not come back
+to me as winners.
+
+"I knew by the voice of the battle-crow over your dun every evening,
+since you went from me comely and terrible, that misfortune and grief
+were at hand.
+
+"It is well I remember, my three strong ones, how often I used to be
+telling you that if you would go to Ireland, I would not see the joy of
+victory on your faces.
+
+"I knew by the voice of the raven every morning since you went from me,
+that your fall was sure and certain; that you would never come back to
+your own country.
+
+"I knew, my three great ones, by your forgetting the thongs of your
+hounds, that you would not gain the day or escape from the treachery of
+the Fianna.
+
+"I knew, Candles of Valour, by the stream near the dun turning to blood
+when you set out, that there would be treachery in Finn.
+
+"I knew by the eagle coming every evening over the dun, that it would
+not be long till I would hear a story of bad news of my three.
+
+"I knew by the withering of the tree before the dun, that you would
+never come back as conquerors from the treachery of Finn, son of
+Cumhal."
+
+When Grania, now, heard what the woman was saying, there was anger on
+her, and she said: "Do not be speaking against Finn or the Fianna,
+Queen, for it was not by any treachery or any deceit your three men were
+brought to their end."
+
+But Ailne made her no answer and gave no heed to her, but she went on
+with her complaint, and she crying and ever crying.
+
+"I knew, looking after you the day you went out from the dun, by the
+flight of the raven before you, there was no good sign of your coming
+back again.
+
+"I knew by Ciardan's hounds that were howling mournfully every evening,
+that it would not be long till I would have bad news of you.
+
+"I knew by my sleep that went from me, by my tears through every lasting
+night, that there was no luck before you.
+
+"I knew by the sorrowful vision that showed myself in danger, my head
+and my hands cut off, that it was yourselves were without sway.
+
+"I knew by the voice of Uaithnin, the hound that is dearest to Liagan,
+howling early every morning, that death was certain for my three.
+
+"I knew when I saw in a vision a lake of blood in the place of the dun,
+that my three were put down by the deceit that was always with Finn."
+
+"Do not be faulting Finn," said Grania then, "however vexed your heart
+may be. And leave off now," she said, "speaking against the Fianna and
+against himself; for if your men had stopped in their own country," she
+said, "without coming to avenge the son of Treon, there would no harm
+have happened them." "I would not put any reproach on the Fianna,
+Grania," said Ailne, "if my three men had been put down in fair battle,
+but they are not living to bear witness to me," she said; "and it is
+likely they were put under Druid spells at the first, or they would
+never have given in." "If they were living, Queen," said Grania, "they
+would not be running down the Fianna, but they would tell you it was by
+bravery and the strong hand they fell." "I do not believe you or the
+Fianna when you say that," said Ailne; "for no one that came to meet
+them ever got the sway over them by the right of the sword." "If you do
+not believe what I am saying, beautiful Ailne," said Grania, "I tell
+you more of your great army will fall by the Fianna, and that not by
+treachery." "That is not so," said Ailne, "but I have good hopes that my
+own army will do destruction on the Fianna, for the sake of the men that
+are dead." "Well, Ailne," said Grania, "I know it is a far journey you
+have come. And come now and eat and drink," she said, "with myself and
+with the Fianna."
+
+But Ailne would not do that, but she said it would not be fitting for
+her to take food from people that did such deeds, and what she wanted
+was satisfaction for the death of her husband and her two sons.
+
+And first it was settled for two men of each side to go out against one
+another; and then Ailne said that there should be thirty men on each
+side, and then she said she would not be satisfied to go back to her own
+country till she brought the head of Finn with her, or till the last of
+his men had fallen. And there was a great battle fought in the end, and
+it is seldom the Fianna fought so hard a battle as that.
+
+And it would be too long to tell, and it would tire the hearers, how
+many good men were killed on each side. But in the end Ailne of the
+Bright Face was worsted, and she went back with what were left of her
+men to their own country, and no one knew where they went.
+
+And the hill in the west those battles were fought on got the name of
+Cnoc-an-Air, the Hill of Slaughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. AILNE'S REVENGE
+
+
+One day Finn and his people were hunting on Slieve Fuad, and a stag
+stood against them for a while and fought with his great rough horns,
+and then he turned and ran, and the Fianna followed after him till they
+came to the green hill of Liadhas, and from that to rocky Cairgin. And
+there they lost him again for a while, till Sceolan started him again,
+and he went back towards Slieve Fuad, and the Fianna after him.
+
+But Finn and Daire of the Songs, that were together, went astray and
+lost the rest of their people, and they did not know was it east or west
+they were going.
+
+Finn sounded the Dord Fiann then, and Daire played some sorrowful music
+to let their people know where they were. But when the Fianna heard the
+music, it seemed to be a long way off; and sometimes they thought it was
+in the north it was, and sometimes in the east, and then it changed to
+the west, the way they did not know in the wide world where was it
+coming from.
+
+And as to Finn and Daire, a Druid mist came about them, and they did not
+know what way they were going.
+
+And after a while they met with a young woman, comely and pleasant, and
+they asked who was she, and what brought her there. "Glanluadh is my
+name," she said, "and my husband is Lobharan; and we were travelling
+over the plain together a while ago, and we heard the cry of hounds, and
+he left me and went after the hunt, and I do not know where is he, or
+what way did he go." "Come on then with us," said Finn, "and we will
+take care of you, for we ourselves do not know what way the hunt is
+gone, east or west." So they went on, and before long they came to a
+hill, and they heard sleepy music of the Sidhe beside them. And after
+that there came shouts and noises, and then the music began again, and
+heavy sleep came on Finn and Daire. And when they awoke from their sleep
+they saw a very large lighted house before them, and a stormy blue sea
+around it. Then they saw a very big grey man coming through the waves,
+and he took hold of Finn and of Daire, and all their strength went from
+them, and he brought them across the waves and into the house, and he
+shut the door of the house with iron hooks. "My welcome to you, Finn of
+the great name," he said then in a very harsh voice; "it is long we are
+waiting here for you."
+
+They sat down then on the hard side of a bed, and the woman of the house
+came to them, and they knew her to be Ailne, wife of Meargach. "It is
+long I am looking for you, Finn," she said, "to get satisfaction for the
+treachery you did on Meargach and on my two comely young sons, and on
+Tailc, son of Treon, and all his people. And do you remember that,
+Finn?" she said. "I remember well," said Finn, "that they fell by the
+swords of the Fianna, not by treachery but in fighting." "It was by
+treachery they fell," said the Grey Man then; "and it is our witness to
+it, pleasant Ailne to be the way she is, and many a strong army under
+grief on account of her." "What is Ailne to you, man of the rough
+voice?" said Finn. "I am her own brother," said the man.
+
+With that he put bonds on the three, Finn and Daire and Glanluadh, and
+he put them down into some deep shut place.
+
+They were very sorrowful then, and they stopped there to the end of five
+days and five nights, without food, without drink, without music.
+
+And Ailne went to see them then, and Finn said to her: "O Ailne," he
+said, "bring to mind the time you come to Cnoc-an-Air, and the way the
+Fianna treated you with generosity; and it is not fitting for you," he
+said, "to keep us now under shame and weakness and in danger of death."
+"I know well I got kind treatment from Grania," said Ailne in a
+sorrowful voice; "but for all that, Finn," she said, "if all the Fianna
+were in that prison along with you under hard bonds, it would please me
+well, and I would not pity their case. And what is it set you following
+after Finn," she said then to Glanluadh, "for that is not a fitting
+thing for you to do, and his own kind wife living yet."
+
+Then Glanluadh told her the whole story, and how she was walking the
+plain with Lobharan her husband, and he followed the hunt, and the mist
+came about her that she did not know east from west, and how she met
+then with Finn that she never saw before that time. "If that is so,"
+said Ailne, "it is not right for you to be under punishment without
+cause."
+
+She called then to her brother the Grey Man, and bade him take the
+spells off Glanluadh. And when she was set free it is sorry she was to
+leave Daire in bonds, and Finn. And when she had bidden them farewell
+she went out with Ailne, and there was food brought to her, but a cloud
+of weakness came on her of a sudden, that it was a pity to see the way
+she was.
+
+And when Ailne saw that, she brought out an enchanted cup of the Sidhe
+and gave her a drink from it. And no sooner did Glanluadh drink from the
+cup than her strength and her own appearance came back to her again; but
+for all that, she was fretting after Finn and Daire in their bonds. "It
+seems to me, Glanluadh, you are fretting after those two men," said
+Ailne. "I am sorry indeed," said Glanluadh, "the like of those men to be
+shut up without food or drink." "If it is pleasing to you to give them
+food you may give it," said Ailne, "for I will not make an end of them
+till I see can I get the rest of the Fianna into bonds along with them."
+The two women brought food and drink then to Finn, and to Daire; and
+Glanluadh gave her blessing to Finn, and she cried when she saw the way
+he was; but as to Ailne, she had no pity at all for the King of the
+Fianna.
+
+Now as to the Grey Man, he heard them talking of the Fianna, and they
+were saying that Daire had a great name for the sweetness of his music.
+"I have a mind to hear that sweet music," said he. So he went to the
+place where they were, and he bade Daire to let him hear what sort of
+music he could make. "My music pleased the Fianna well," said Daire;
+"but I think it likely it would not please you." "Play it for me now,
+till I know if the report I heard of you is true," said the Grey Man.
+"Indeed, I have no mind for music," said Daire, "being weak and
+downhearted the way I am, through your spells that put down my courage."
+"I will take my spells off you for so long as you play for me," said the
+Grey Man. "I could never make music seeing Finn in bonds the way he is,"
+said Daire; "for it is worse to me, he to be under trouble than myself."
+"I will take the power of my spells off Finn till you play for me," said
+the Grey Man.
+
+He weakened the spells then, and gave them food and drink, and it
+pleased him greatly the way Daire played the music, and he called to
+Glanluadh and to Ailne to come and to listen to the sweetness of it. And
+they were well pleased with it, and it is glad Glanluadh was, seeing
+them not so discouraged as they were.
+
+Now as to the Fianna, they were searching for Finn and for Daire in
+every place they had ever stopped in. And when they came to this place
+they could hear Daire's sweet music; and at first they were glad when
+they heard it, and then when they knew the way he himself and Finn were,
+they made an attack on Ailne's dun to release them.
+
+But the Grey Man heard their shouts, and he put the full power of his
+spells again on Finn and on Daire. And the Fianna heard the music as if
+stammering, and then they heard a great noise like the loud roaring of
+waves, and when they heard that, there was not one of them but fell into
+a sleep and clouds of death, under those sorrowful spells.
+
+And then the Grey Man and Ailne came out quietly from where they were,
+and they brought the whole of the men of the Fianna that were there into
+the dun. And they put hard bonds on them, and put them where Finn and
+Daire were. And there was great grief on Finn and Daire when they saw
+them, and they were all left there together for a while.
+
+Then Glanluadh said to the Grey Man: "If Daire's music is pleasing to
+you, let him play it to us now." "If you have a mind for music," said
+the Grey Man, "Daire must play it for us, and for Finn and his army as
+well."
+
+They went then to where they were, and bade Daire to play. "I could
+never play sweet music," said Daire, "the time the Fianna are in any
+trouble; for when they are in trouble, I myself am in trouble, and I
+could not sound any sweet string," he said, "while there is trouble on
+any man of them." The Grey Man weakened the spells then on them all, and
+Daire played first the strings of sweetness, and of the noise of
+shouting, and then he sang his own grief and the grief of all the
+Fianna. And at that the Grey Man said it would not be long before he
+would put the whole of the Fianna to death; and then Daire played a tune
+of heavy shouts of lamentation. And then at Finn's bidding he played the
+music of sweet strings for the Fianna.
+
+They were kept, now, a long time in that prison, and they got very hard
+treatment; and sometimes Ailne's brother would come in and strike the
+heads off some of them, for none of them could rise up from the seats
+they were sitting on through his enchantments. But one time he was going
+to strike the bald head off Conan, and Conan made a great leap from the
+seat; but if he did, he left strips of his skin hanging to it, that his
+back was left bare. And then he came round the Grey Man with his pitiful
+words: "Stop your hand now," he said, "for that is enough for this time;
+and do not send me to my death yet awhile, and heal me of my wounds
+first," he said, "before you make an end of me." And the reason he said
+that was because he knew Ailne to have an enchanted cup in the dun, that
+had cured Glanluadh.
+
+And the Grey Man took pity on his case, and he brought him out and bade
+Ailne to bring the cup to him and to cure his wounds. "I will not bring
+it," said Ailne, "for it would be best give no time at all to him or to
+the Fianna, but to make an end of them." "It is not to be saved from
+death I am asking, bright-faced Ailne," said Conan, "but only not to go
+to my death stripped bare the way I am." When Ailne heard that, she
+brought a sheepskin and she put it on Conan's back, and it fitted and
+grew to him, and covered his wounds. "I will not put you to death,
+Conan," said the Grey Man then, "but you can stop with myself to the end
+of your life." "You will never be without grief and danger and the fear
+of treachery if you keep him with you," said Ailne; "for there is
+treachery in his heart the same as there is in the rest of them." "There
+is no fear of that," said her brother, "or I will make no delay until I
+put the whole of the Fianna to death." And with that he brought Conan to
+where the enchanted cup was, and he put it in his hand. And just at that
+moment they heard Daire playing very sweet sorrowful music, and the Grey
+Man went to listen to it, very quick and proud. And Conan followed him
+there, and after a while the Grey Man asked him what did he do with the
+enchanted cup. "I left it where I found it, full of power," said Conan.
+
+The Grey Man hurried back then to the place where the treasures of the
+dun were. But no sooner was he gone than Conan took out the cup that he
+had hidden, and he gave a drink from it to Finn and to Osgar and to the
+rest of the Fianna. And they that were withered and shaking, without
+strength, without courage, got back their own appearance and their
+strength again on the moment.
+
+And when the Grey Man came back from looking for the cup, and saw what
+had happened, he took his sword and made a stroke at Conan. But Conan
+called to Osgar to defend him, and Osgar attacked the Grey Man, and it
+was not long till he made him acquainted with death.
+
+And when Ailne saw that, with the grief and the dread that came on her,
+she fell dead then and there.
+
+Then all the Fianna made a feast with what they found of food and of
+drink, and they were very joyful and merry. But when they rose up in the
+morning, there was no trace or tidings of the dun, but it was on the
+bare grass they were lying.
+
+But as to Conan, the sheepskin never left him; and the wool used to grow
+on it every year, the same as it would on any other skin.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK NINE: THE WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA.
+
+CHAPTER I. THE QUARREL WITH THE SONS OF MORNA
+
+
+One time when the Fianna were gone here and there hunting, Black
+Garraidh and Caoilte were sitting beside Finn, and they were talking of
+the battle where Finn's father was killed. And Finn said then to
+Garraidh: "Tell me now, since you were there yourself, what way was it
+you brought my father Cumhal to his death?" "I will tell you that since
+you ask me," said Garraidh; "it was my own hand and the hands of the
+rest of the sons of Morna that made an end of him." "That is cold
+friendship from my followers the sons of Morna," said Finn. "If it is
+cold friendship," said Garraidh, "put away the liking you are letting on
+to have for us, and show us the hatred you have for us all the while."
+"If I were to lift my hand against you now, sons of Morna," said Finn,
+"I would be well able for you all without the help of any man." "It was
+by his arts Cumhal got the upper hand of us," said Garraidh; "and when
+he got power over us," he said, "he banished us to every far country; a
+share of us he sent to Alban, and a share of us to dark Lochlann, and a
+share of us to bright Greece, parting us from one another; and for
+sixteen years we were away from Ireland, and it was no small thing to us
+to be without seeing one another through that time. And the first day we
+came back to Ireland," he said, "we killed sixteen hundred men, and no
+lie in it, and not a man of them but would be keened by a hundred. And
+we took their duns after that," he said, "and we went on till we were
+all around one house in Munster of the red walls. But so great was the
+bravery of the man in that house, that was your father, that it was
+easier to find him than to kill him. And we killed all that were of his
+race out on the hill, and then we made a quick rush at the house where
+Cumhal was, and every man of us made a wound on his body with his spear.
+And I myself was in it, and it was I gave him the first wound. And
+avenge it on me now, Finn, if you have a mind to," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not long after that, Finn gave a feast at Almhuin for all his
+chief men, and there came to it two sons of the King of Alban, and sons
+of the kings of the great world. And when they were all sitting at the
+feast, the serving-men rose up and took drinking-horns worked by skilled
+men, and having shining stones in them, and they poured out strong drink
+for the champions; and it is then mirth rose up in their young men, and
+courage in their fighting men, and kindness and gentleness in their
+women, and knowledge and foreknowledge in their poets.
+
+And then a crier rose up and shook a rough iron chain to silence the
+clowns and the common lads and idlers, and then he shook a chain of old
+silver to silence the high lords and chief men of the Fianna, and the
+learned men, and they all listened and were silent.
+
+And Fergus of the True Lips rose up and sang before Finn the songs and
+the good poems of his forefathers; and Finn and Oisin and Lugaidh's Son
+rewarded him with every good thing. And then he went on to Goll, son of
+Morna, and told the fights and the destructions and the cattle-drivings
+and the courtings of his fathers; and it is well-pleased and high-minded
+the sons of Morna were, listening to that.
+
+And Goll said then: "Where is my woman-messenger?" "I am here, King of
+the Fianna," said she. "Have you brought me my hand-tribute from the men
+of Lochlann?" "I have brought it surely," said she. And with that she
+rose up and laid on the floor of the hall before Goll a load of pure
+gold, the size of a good pig, and that would be a heavy load for a
+strong man. And Goll loosened the covering that was about it, and he
+gave Fergus a good reward from it as he was used to do; for there never
+was a wise, sharp-worded poet, or a sweet harp-player, or any learned
+man of Ireland or of Alban, but Goll would give him gold or silver or
+some good thing.
+
+And when Finn saw that, he said: "How long is it, Goll, you have this
+rent on the men of Lochlann, and my own rent being on them always with
+it, and one of my own men, Ciaran son of Latharne, and ten hundred men
+of his household, guarding it and guarding my right of hunting?" And
+Goll saw there was anger on Finn, and he said: "It is a long time, Finn,
+I have that rent on the men of Lochlann, from the time your father put
+war and quarrels on me, and the King of Ireland joined with him, and I
+was made to quit Ireland by them. And I went into Britain," he said,
+"and I took the country and killed the king himself and did destruction
+on his people, but Cumhal put me out of it; and from that I went to
+Fionnlochlann, and the king fell by me, and his household, and Cumhal
+put me out of it; and I went from that to the country of the Saxons, and
+the king and his household fell by me, and Cumhal put me out of it. But
+I came back then to Ireland, and I fought a battle against your father,
+and he fell by me there. And it was at that time I put this rent upon
+the men of Lochlann. And, Finn," he said, "it is not a rent of the
+strong hand you have put on them, but it is a tribute for having the
+protection of the Fianna of Ireland, and I do not lessen that. And you
+need not begrudge that tribute to me," he said, "for if I had more than
+that again, it is to you and to the men of Ireland I would give it."
+
+There was great anger on Finn then, and he said: "You tell me, Goll," he
+said, "by your own story, that you came from the city of Beirbhe to
+fight against my father, and that you killed him in the battle; and it
+is a bold thing you to tell that to me." "By your own hand," said Goll,
+"if you were to give me the same treatment your father gave me, I would
+pay you the same way as I paid him." "It would be hard for you to do
+that," said Finn, "for there are a hundred men in my household against
+every man there is in your household." "That was the same with your
+father," said Goll, "and I avenged my disgrace on him; and I would do
+the same on yourself if you earned it," he said.
+
+Then Cairell of the White Skin, son of Finn, said: "It is many a man of
+Finn's household you have put down, Goll!" And Bald Conan when he heard
+that said: "I swear by my arms, Goll was never without having a hundred
+men in his household, every one of them able to get the better of
+yourself." "And is it to them you belong, crooked-speaking, bare-headed
+Conan?" said Cairell. "It is to them I belong, you black, feeble,
+nail-scratching, rough-skinned Cairell; and I will make you know it was
+Finn was in the wrong," said Conan.
+
+With that Cairell rose up and gave a furious blow of his fist to Conan,
+and Conan took it with no great patience, but gave him back a blow in
+his teeth, and from that they went on to worse blows again. And the two
+sons of Goll rose up to help Conan, and Osgar went to the help of
+Cairell, and it was not long till many of the chief men of the Fianna
+were fighting on the one side or the other, on the side of Finn or on
+the side of the sons of Morna.
+
+But then Fergus of the True Lips rose up, and the rest of the poets of
+the Fianna along with him, and they sang their songs and their poems to
+check and to quiet them. And they left off their fighting at the sound
+of the poets' songs, and they let their weapons fall on the floor, and
+the poets took them up, and made peace between the fighters; and they
+put bonds on Finn and on Goll to keep the peace for a while, till they
+could ask for a judgment from the High King of Ireland. And that was the
+end for that time of the little quarrel at Almhuin.
+
+But it broke out again, one time there was a falling out between Finn
+and Goll as to the dividing of a pig of the pigs of Manannan. And at
+Daire Tardha, the Oak Wood of Bulls, in the province of Connacht, there
+was a great fight between Finn's men and the sons of Morna. And the sons
+of Morna were worsted, and fifteen of their men were killed; and they
+made their mind up that from that time they would set themselves against
+any friends of Finn or of his people. And it was Conan the Bald gave
+them that advice, for he was always bitter, and a maker of quarrels and
+of mischief in every place.
+
+And they kept to their word, and spared no one. There was a
+yellow-haired queen that Finn loved, Berach Brec her name was, and she
+was wise and comely and worthy of any good man, and she had her house
+full of treasures, and never refused the asking of any. And any one that
+came to her house at Samhain time might stay till Beltaine, and have his
+choice then to go or to stay. And the sons of Morna had fostered her,
+and they went where she was and bade her to give up Finn and she need be
+in no dread of them. But she said she would not give up her kind lover
+to please them; and she was going away from them to her ship, and Art,
+son of Morna, made a cast of his spear that went through her body, that
+she died, and her people brought her up from the strand and buried her.
+
+And as to Goll, he took a little hound that Finn thought a great deal
+of, Conbeg its name was, and he drowned it in the sea; and its body was
+brought up to shore by a wave afterwards, and it was buried under a
+little green hill by the Fianna. And Caoilte made a complaint over it,
+and he said how swift the little hound was after deer, or wild pigs, and
+how good at killing them, and that it was a pity it to have died, out on
+the cold green waves. And about that time, nine women of the Tuatha de
+Danaan came to meet with nine men of the Fianna, and the sons of Morna
+saw them coming and made an end of them.
+
+And when Caoilte met with Goll, he made a cast of his spear at him that
+struck the golden helmet off his head and a piece of his flesh along
+with it. But Goll took it very proudly, and put on the helmet again and
+took up his weapons, and called out to his brothers that he was no way
+ashamed.
+
+And Finn went looking for the sons of Morna in every place to do
+vengeance on them. They were doing robbery and destruction one time in
+Slieve Echtge, that got its name from Echtge, daughter of Nuada of the
+Silver Hand, and Finn and the Fianna were to the west, at Slieve Cairn
+in the district of Corcomruadh. And Finn was in doubt if the sons of
+Morna were gone southward into Munster or north into Connacht. So he
+sent Aedan and Cahal, two sons of the King of Ulster, and two hundred
+righting men with them, into the beautiful pleasant province of
+Connacht, and every day they used to go looking for the sons of Morna
+from place to place. But after a while the three battalions of the
+Fianna that were in Corcomruadh saw the track of a troop of men, and
+they thought it to be the track of the sons of Morna; and they closed
+round them at night, and made an end of them all. But when the full
+light came on the morrow, they knew them to be their own people, that
+were with the King of Ulster's sons, and they gave three great heavy
+cries, keening the friends they had killed in mistake.
+
+And Caoilte and Oisin went to Rath Medba and brought a great stone and
+put it over the king's sons, and it was called Lia an Imracail, the
+Stone of the Mistake. And the place where Goll brought his men the time
+he parted from Finn in anger got the name of Druimscarha, the Parting
+Hill of Heroes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. DEATH OF GOLL
+
+
+And at last it chanced that Goll and Cairell, son of Finn, met with one
+another, and said sharp words, and they fought in the sea near the
+strand, and Cairell got his death by Goll. And there was great anger and
+great grief on Finn, seeing his son, that was so strong and comely,
+lying dead and grey, like a blighted branch.
+
+And as to Goll, he went away to a cave that was in a point stretching
+out into the sea; and he thought to stop there till Finn's anger would
+have passed.
+
+And Osgar knew where he was, and he went to see him, that had been his
+comrade in so many battles. But Goll thought it was as an enemy he came,
+and he made a cast of his spear at him, and though Osgar got no wound by
+it, it struck his shield and crushed it. And Finn took notice of the way
+the shield was, and when he knew that Goll had made a cast at Osgar
+there was greater anger again on him. And he sent out his men and bade
+them to watch every path and every gap that led to the cave where Goll
+was, the way they would make an end of him.
+
+And when Goll knew Finn to be watching for his life that way, he made no
+attempt to escape, but stopped where he was, without food, without
+drink, and he blinded with the sand that was blowing into his eyes.
+
+And his wife came to a rock where she could speak with him, and she
+called to him to come to her. "Come over to me," she said; "and it is a
+pity you to be blinded where you are, on the rocks of the waste sea,
+with no drink but the salt water, a man that was first in every fight.
+And come now to be sleeping beside me," she said; "and in place of the
+hard sea-water I will nourish you from my own breast, and it is I will
+do your healing. And the gold of your hair is my desire for ever," she
+said, "and do not stop withering there like an herb in the winter-time,
+and my heart black with grief within me."
+
+But Goll would not leave the spot where he was for all she could say.
+"It is best as it is," he said, "and I never took the advice of a woman
+east or west, and I never will take it. And O sweet-voiced queen," he
+said, "what ails you to be fretting after me; and remember now your
+silver and your gold, and your silks and stuffs, and remember the seven
+hounds I gave you at Cruadh Ceirrge, and every one of them without
+slackness till he has killed the deer. And do not be crying tears after
+me, queen with the white hands," he said; "but remember your constant
+lover, Aodh, the son of the best woman of the world, that came out from
+Spain asking for you, and that I fought at Corcar-an-Deirg; and go to
+him now," he said, "for it is bad when a woman is in want of a good
+man."
+
+And he lay down on the rocks, and at the end of twelve days he died. And
+his wife keened him there, and made a great lamentation for her husband
+that had such a great name, and that was the second best of the Fianna
+of Ireland.
+
+And when Conan heard of the death of Goll his brother, there was great
+anger on him, and he went to Garraidh, and asked him to go with him to
+Finn to ask satisfaction for Goll. "I am not willing to go," said
+Garraidh, "since we could get no satisfaction for the great son of
+Morna." "Whether you have a mind to go or not, I will go," said Conan;
+"and I will make an end of every man I meet with, for the sake of
+yellow-haired Goll; I will have the life of Oisin, Finn's great son, and
+of Osgar and of Caoilte and of Daire of the Songs; I will have no
+forgiveness for them; we must show no respect for Finn, although we may
+die in the fight, having no help from Goll. And let us take that work in
+hand, and make no delay," he said; "for if Finn is there, his strength
+will be there, until we put him under his flag-stone."
+
+But it is not likely Garraidh went with him, and he after speaking such
+foolish words.
+
+And what happened Conan in the end is not known. But there is a cairn of
+stones on a hill of Burren, near to Corcomruadh, and the people of
+Connacht say it is there he is buried, and that there was a stone found
+there one time, having on it in the old writing: "Conan the
+swift-footed, the bare-footed." But the Munster people say it is on
+their own side of Burren he is buried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE BATTLE OF GABHRA
+
+
+Now, with one thing and another, the High King of Ireland had got to be
+someway bitter against Finn and the Fianna; and one time that he had a
+gathering of his people he spoke out to them, and he bade them to
+remember all the harm that had been done them through the Fianna, and
+all their pride, and the tribute they asked. "And as to myself," he
+said, "I would sooner die fighting the Fianna, if I could bring them
+down along with me, than live with Ireland under them the way it is
+now."
+
+All his people were of the same mind, and they said they would make no
+delay, but would attack the Fianna and make an end of them. "And we will
+have good days of joy and of feasting," they said, "when once Almhuin is
+clear of them."
+
+And the High King began to make plans against Finn; and he sent to all
+the men of Ireland to come and help him. And when all was ready, he sent
+and bade Osgar to come to a feast he was making at Teamhair.
+
+And Osgar, that never was afraid before any enemy, set out for Teamhair,
+and three hundred of his men with him. And on the way they saw a woman
+of the Sidhe washing clothes at a river, and there was the colour of
+blood on the water where she was washing them. And Osgar said to her:
+"There is red on the clothes you are washing; and it is for the dead you
+are washing them." And the woman answered him, and it is what she said:
+"It is not long till the ravens will be croaking over your own head
+after the battle." "Is there any weakness in our eyes," said Osgar,
+"that a little story like that would set us crying? And do another
+foretelling for us now," he said, "and tell us will any man of our
+enemies fall by us before we ourselves are made an end of?"
+
+"There will nine hundred fall by yourself," she said; "and the High
+King himself will get his death-wound from you."
+
+Osgar and his men went on then to the king's house at Teamhair, and they
+got good treatment, and the feast was made ready, and they were three
+days at pleasure and at drinking.
+
+And on the last day of the drinking, the High King called out with a
+loud voice, and he asked Osgar would he make an exchange of spears with
+him. "Why do you ask that exchange," said Osgar, "when I myself and my
+spear were often with yourself in time of battle? And you would not ask
+it of me," he said, "if Finn and the Fianna were with me now." "I would
+ask it from any fighting man among you," said the king, "and for rent
+and tribute along with it." "Any gold or any treasure you might ask of
+us, we would give it to you," said Osgar, "but it is not right for you
+to ask my spear." There were very high words between them then, and they
+threatened one another, and at the last the High King said: "I will put
+my spear of the seven spells out through your body." "And I give my word
+against that," said Osgar, "I will put my spear of the nine spells
+between the meeting of your hair and your beard."
+
+With that he and his men rose up and went out of Teamhair, and they
+stopped to rest beside a river, and there they heard the sound of a very
+sorrowful tune, that was like keening, played on a harp. And there was
+great anger on Osgar when he heard that, and he rose up and took his
+arms and roused his people, and they went on again to where Finn was.
+And there came after them a messenger from the High King, and the
+message he brought was this, that he never would pay tribute to the
+Fianna or bear with them at all from that time.
+
+And when Finn heard that, he sent a challenge of battle, and he gathered
+together all the Fianna that were left to him. But as to the sons of
+Morna, it was to the High King of Ireland they gathered.
+
+And it was at the hill of Gabhra the two armies met, and there were
+twenty men with the King of Ireland for every man that was with Finn.
+
+And it is a very hard battle was fought that day, and there were great
+deeds done on both sides; and there never was a greater battle fought in
+Ireland than that one.
+
+And as to Osgar, it would be hard to tell all he killed on that day;
+five score of the Sons of the Gael, and five score fighting men from the
+Country of Snow, and seven score of the Men of Green Swords that never
+went a step backward, and four hundred from the Country of the Lion, and
+five score of the sons of kings; and the shame was for the King of
+Ireland.
+
+But as to Osgar himself, that began the day so swift and so strong, at
+the last he was like leaves on a strong wind, or like an aspen-tree that
+is falling. But when he saw the High King near him, he made for him like
+a wave breaking on the strand; and the king saw him coming, and shook
+his greedy spear, and made a cast of it, and it went through his body
+and brought him down on his right knee, and that was the first grief of
+the Fianna. But Osgar himself was no way daunted, but he made a cast of
+his spear of the nine spells that went into the High King at the meeting
+of the hair and the beard, and gave him his death. And when the men
+nearest to the High King saw that, they put the king's helmet up on a
+pillar, the way his people would think he was living yet. But Osgar saw
+it, and he lifted a thin bit of a slab-stone that was on the ground
+beside him, and he made a cast of it that broke the helmet where it was;
+and then he himself fell like a king.
+
+And there fell in that battle the seven sons of Caoilte, and the son of
+the King of Lochlann that had come to give them his help, and it would
+be hard to count the number of the Fianna that fell in that battle.
+
+And when it was ended, those that were left of them went looking for
+their dead. And Caoilte stooped down over his seven brave sons, and
+every living man of the Fianna stooped over his own dear friends. And it
+was a lasting grief to see all that were stretched in that place, but
+the Fianna would not have taken it to heart the way they did, but for
+being as they were, a beaten race.
+
+And as to Oisin, he went looking for Osgar, and it is the way he found
+him, lying stretched, and resting on his left arm and his broken shield
+beside him, and his sword in his hand yet, and his blood about him on
+every side. And he put out his hand to Oisin, and Oisin took it and gave
+out a very hard cry. And Osgar said: "It is glad I am to see you safe,
+my father." And Oisin had no answer to give him. And just then Caoilte
+came where they were, and he looked at Osgar. "What way are you now, my
+darling?" he said. "The way you would like me to be," said Osgar.
+
+Then Caoilte searched the wound, and when he saw how the spear had torn
+its way through to the back, he cried out, and a cloud came over him and
+his strength failed him. "O Osgar," he said, "you are parted from the
+Fianna, and they themselves must be parted from battle from this out,"
+he said, "and they must pay their tribute to the King of Ireland."
+
+Then Caoilte and Oisin raised up Osgar on their shields and brought him
+to a smooth green hill till they would take his dress off. And there was
+not a hands-breadth of his white body that was without a wound.
+
+And when the rest of the Fianna saw what way Osgar was, there was not a
+man of them that keened his own son or his brother, but every one of
+them came keening Osgar.
+
+And after a while, at noonday, they saw Finn coming towards them, and
+what was left of the Sun-banner raised on a spear-shaft. All of them
+saluted Finn then, but he made no answer, and he came up to the hill
+where Osgar was. And when Osgar saw him coming he saluted him, and he
+said: "I have got my desire in death, Finn of the sharp arms." And Finn
+said: "It is worse the way you were, my son, on the day of the battle at
+Beinn Edair when the wild geese could swim on your breast, and it was my
+hand that gave you healing." "There can no healing be done for me now
+for ever," said Osgar, "since the King of Ireland put the spear of seven
+spells through my body." And Finn said: "It is a pity it was not I
+myself fell in sunny scarce Gabhra, and you going east and west at the
+head of the Fianna." "And if it was yourself fell in the battle," said
+Osgar, "you would not hear me keening after you; for no man ever knew
+any heart in me," he said, "but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered
+with iron. But the howling of the dogs beside me," he said, "and the
+keening of the old righting men, and the crying of the women one after
+another, those are the things that are vexing me." And Finn said: "Child
+of my child, calf of my calf, white and slender, it is a pity the way
+you are. And my heart is starting like a deer," he said, "and I am weak
+after you and after the Fianna of Ireland. And misfortune has followed
+us," he said; "and farewell now to battles and to a great name, and
+farewell to taking tributes; for every good thing I ever had is gone
+from me now," he said.
+
+And when Osgar heard those words he stretched out his hands, and his
+eyelids closed. And Finn turned away from the rest, and he cried tears
+down; and he never shed a tear through the whole length of his lifetime
+but only for Osgar and for Bran.
+
+And all that were left of the Fianna gave three gorrowful cries after
+Osgar, for there was not one of the Fianna beyond him, unless it might
+be Finn or Oisin.
+
+And it is many of the Fianna were left dead in Gabhra, and graves were
+made for them. And as to Lugaidh's Son, that was so tall a man and so
+good a fighter, they made a very wide grave for him, as was fitting for
+a king. And the whole length of the rath at Gabhra, from end to end, it
+is that was the grave of Osgar, son of Oisin, son of Finn.
+
+And as to Finn himself, he never had peace or pleasure again from that
+day.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TEN: THE END OF THE FIANNA.
+
+CHAPTER I. DEATH OF BRAN
+
+
+One day Finn was hunting, and Bran went following after a fawn. And they
+were coming towards Finn, and the fawn called out, and it said: "If I go
+into the sea below I will never come back again; and if I go up into the
+air above me, it will not save me from Bran." For Bran would overtake
+the wild geese, she was that swift.
+
+"Go out through my legs," said Finn then. So the fawn did that, and Bran
+followed her; and as Bran went under him, Finn squeezed his two knees on
+her, that she died on the moment.
+
+And there was great grief on him after that, and he cried tears down the
+same as he did when Osgar died.
+
+And some said it was Finn's mother the fawn was, and that it was to save
+his mother he killed Bran. But that is not likely, for his mother was
+beautiful Muirne, daughter of Tadg, son of Nuada of the Tuatha de
+Danaan, and it was never heard that she was changed into a fawn. It is
+more likely it was Oisin's mother was in it.
+
+But some say Bran and Sceolan are still seen to start at night out of
+the thicket on the hill of Almhuin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE CALL OF OISIN
+
+
+One misty morning, what were left of the Fianna were gathered together
+to Finn, and it is sorrowful and downhearted they were after the loss of
+so many of their comrades.
+
+And they went hunting near the borders of Loch Lein, where the bushes
+were in blossom and the birds were singing; and they were waking up the
+deer that were as joyful as the leaves of a tree in summer-time.
+
+And it was not long till they saw coming towards them from the west a
+beautiful young woman, riding on a very fast slender white horse. A
+queen's crown she had on her head, and a dark cloak of silk down to the
+ground, having stars of red gold on it; and her eyes were blue and as
+clear as the dew on the grass, and a gold ring hanging down from every
+golden lock of her hair; and her cheeks redder than the rose, and her
+skin whiter than the swan upon the wave, and her lips as sweet as honey
+that is mixed through red wine.
+
+And in her hand she was holding a bridle having a golden bit, and there
+was a saddle worked with red gold under her. And as to the horse, he had
+a wide smooth cloak over him, and a silver crown on the back of his
+head, and he was shod with shining gold.
+
+She came to where Finn was, and she spoke with a very kind, gentle
+voice, and she said: "It is long my journey was, King of the Fianna."
+And Finn asked who was she, and what was her country and the cause of
+her coming. "Niamh of the Golden Head is my name," she said; "and I have
+a name beyond all the women of the world, for I am the daughter of the
+King of the Country of the Young." "What was it brought you to us from
+over the sea, Queen?" said Finn then. "Is it that your husband is gone
+from you, or what is the trouble that is on you?" "My husband is not gone
+from me," she said, "for I never went yet to any man. But O King of the
+Fianna," she said, "I have given my love and my affection to your own
+son, Oisin of the strong hands." "Why did you give your love to him
+beyond all the troops of high princes that are under the sun?" said
+Finn. "It was by reason of his great name, and of the report I heard of
+his bravery and of his comeliness," she said. "And though there is many
+a king's son and high prince gave me his love, I never consented to any
+till I set my love on Oisin."
+
+When Oisin heard what she was saying, there was not a limb of his body
+that was not in love with beautiful Niamh; and he took her hand in his
+hand, and he said: "A true welcome before you to this country, young
+queen. It is you are the shining one," he said; "it is you are the
+nicest and the comeliest; it is you are better to me than any other
+woman; it is you are my star and my choice beyond the women of the
+entire world." "I put on you the bonds of a true hero," said Niamh then,
+"you to come away with me now to the Country of the Young." And it is
+what she said:
+
+"It is the country is most delightful of all that are under the sun; the
+trees are stooping down with fruit and with leaves and with blossom.
+
+"Honey and wine are plentiful there, and everything the eye has ever
+seen; no wasting will come on you with the wasting away of time; you
+will never see death or lessening.
+
+"You will get feasts, playing and drinking; you will get sweet music on
+the strings; you will get silver and gold and many jewels.
+
+"You will get, and no lie in it, a hundred swords; a hundred cloaks of
+the dearest silk; a hundred horses, the quickest in battle; a hundred
+willing hounds.
+
+"You will get the royal crown of the King of the Young that he never
+gave to any one under the sun. It will be a shelter to you night and
+day in every rough fight and in every battle.
+
+"You will get a right suit of armour; a sword, gold-hilted, apt for
+striking; no one that ever saw it got away alive from it.
+
+"A hundred coats of armour and shirts of satin; a hundred cows and a
+hundred calves; a hundred sheep having golden fleeces; a hundred jewels
+that are not of this world.
+
+"A hundred glad young girls shining like the sun, their voices sweeter
+than the music of birds; a hundred armed men strong in battle, apt at
+feats, waiting on you, if you will come with me to the Country of the
+Young.
+
+"You will get everything I have said to you, and delights beyond them,
+that I have no leave to tell; you will get beauty, strength and power,
+and I myself will be with you as a wife."
+
+And after she had made that song, Oisin said: "O pleasant golden-haired
+queen, you are my choice beyond the women of the world; and I will go
+with you willingly," he said.
+
+And with that he kissed Finn his father and bade him farewell, and he
+bade farewell to the rest of the Fianna, and he went up then on the
+horse with Niamh.
+
+And the horse set out gladly, and when he came to the strand he shook
+himself and he neighed three times, and then he made for the sea. And
+when Finn and the Fianna saw Oisin facing the wide sea, they gave three
+great sorrowful shouts. And as to Finn, he said: "It is my grief to see
+you going from me; and I am without a hope," he said, "ever to see you
+coming back to me again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE LAST OF THE GREAT MEN
+
+
+And indeed that was the last time Finn and Oisin and the rest of the
+Fianna of Ireland were gathered together, for hunting, for battle, for
+chess-playing, for drinking or for music; for they all wore away after
+that, one after another.
+
+As to Caoilte, that was old and had lost his sons, he used to be
+fretting and lonesome after the old times. And one day that there was
+very heavy snow on the ground, he made this complaint:--
+
+"It is cold the winter is; the wind is risen; the fierce high-couraged
+stag rises up; it is cold the whole mountain is to-night, yet the fierce
+stag is calling. The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings does not lay
+his side to the ground; he no less than the stag of the top of cold
+Echtge hears the music of the wolves.
+
+"I, Caoilte, and brown-haired Diarmuid and pleasant light-footed Osgar,
+we used to be listening to the music of the wolves through the end of
+the cold night. It is well the brown deer sleeps with its hide to the
+hollow, hidden as if in the earth, through the end of the cold night.
+
+"To-day I am in my age, and I know but a few men; I used to shake my
+spear bravely in the ice-cold morning. It is often I put silence on a
+great army that is very cold to-night."
+
+And after a while he went into a hill of the Sidhe to be healed of his
+old wounds. And whether he came back from there or not is not known; and
+there are some that say he used to be talking with Patrick of the Bells
+the same time Oisin was with him. But that is not likely, or Oisin would
+not have made complaints about his loneliness the way he did.
+
+But a long time after that again, there was a king of Ireland making a
+journey. And he and his people missed their way, and when night-time
+came on, they were in a dark wood, and no path before them.
+
+And there came to them a very tall man, that was shining like a burning
+flame, and he took hold of the bridle of the king's horse, and led him
+through the wood till they came to the right road. And the King of
+Ireland asked him who was he, and first he said: "I am your
+candlestick"; and then he said: "I was with Finn one time." And the king
+knew it was Caoilte, son of Ronan, was in it.
+
+And three times nine of the rest of the Fianna came out of the west one
+time to Teamhair. And they took notice that now they were wanting their
+full strength and their great name, no one took notice of them or came
+to speak with them at all. And when they saw that, they lay down on the
+side of the hill at Teamhair, and put their lips to the earth and died.
+
+And for three days and a month and a year from the time of the
+destruction of the Fianna of Ireland, Loch Dearg was under mists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And as to Finn, there are some say he died by the hand of a fisherman;
+but it is likely that is not true, for that would be no death for so
+great a man as Finn, son of Cumhal. And there are some say he never
+died, but is alive in some place yet.
+
+And one time a smith made his way into a cave he saw, that had a door to
+it, and he made a key that opened it. And when he went in he saw a very
+wide place, and very big men lying on the floor. And one that was bigger
+than the rest was lying in the middle, and the Dord Fiann beside him;
+and he knew it was Finn and the Fianna were in it.
+
+And the smith took hold of the Dord Fiann, and it is hardly he could
+lift it to his mouth, and he blew a very strong blast on it, and the
+sound it made was so great, it is much the rocks did not come down on
+him. And at the sound, the big men lying on the ground shook from head
+to foot. He gave another blast then, and they all turned on their
+elbows.
+
+And great dread came on him when he saw that, and he threw down the Dord
+Fiann and ran from the caye and locked the door after him, and threw the
+key into the lake. And he heard them crying after him, "You left us
+worse than you found us." And the cave was not found again since that
+time.
+
+But some say the day will come when the Dord Fiann will be sounded three
+times, and that at the sound of it the Fianna will rise up as strong and
+as well as ever they were. And there are some say Finn, son of Cumhal,
+has been on the earth now and again since the old times, in the shape of
+one of the heroes of Ireland.
+
+And as to the great things he and his men did when they were together,
+it is well they have been kept in mind through the poets of Ireland and
+of Alban. And one night there were two men minding sheep in a valley,
+and they were saying the poems of the Fianna while they were there. And
+they saw two very tall shapes on the two hills on each side of the
+valley, and one of the tall shapes said to the other: "Do you hear that
+man down below? I was the second doorpost of battle at Gabhra, and that
+man knows all about it better than myself."
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ELEVEN: OISIN AND PATRICK.
+
+CHAPTER I. OISIN'S STORY
+
+
+As to Oisin, it was a long time after he was brought away by Niamh that
+he came back again to Ireland. Some say it was hundreds of years he was
+in the Country of the Young, and some say it was thousands of years he
+was in it; but whatever time it was, it seemed short to him.
+
+And whatever happened him through the time he was away, it is a withered
+old man he was found after coming back to Ireland, and his white horse
+going away from him, and he lying on the ground.
+
+And it was S. Patrick had power at that time, and it was to him Oisin
+was brought; and he kept him in his house, and used to be teaching him
+and questioning him. And Oisin was no way pleased with the way Ireland
+was then, but he used to be talking of the old times, and fretting after
+the Fianna.
+
+And Patrick bade him to tell what happened him the time he left Finn and
+the Fianna and went away with Niamh. And it is the story Oisin
+told:--"The time I went away with golden-haired Niamh, we turned our
+backs to the land, and our faces westward, and the sea was going away
+before us, and filling up in waves after us. And we saw wonderful things
+on our journey," he said, "cities and courts and duns and lime-white
+houses, and shining sunny-houses and palaces. And one time we saw beside
+us a hornless deer running hard, and an eager white red-eared hound
+following after it. And another time we saw a young girl on a horse and
+having a golden apple in her right hand, and she going over the tops of
+the waves; and there was following after her a young man riding a white
+horse, and having a crimson cloak and a gold-hilted sword in his right
+hand."
+
+"Follow on with your story, pleasant Oisin," said Patrick, "for you did
+not tell us yet what was the country you went to."
+
+"The Country of the Young, the Country of Victory, it was," said Oisin.
+"And O Patrick," he said, "there is no lie in that name; and if there
+are grandeurs in your Heaven the same as there are there, I would give
+my friendship to God.
+
+"We turned our backs then to the dun," he said, "and the horse under us
+was quicker than the spring wind on the backs of the mountains. And it
+was not long till the sky darkened, and the wind rose in every part, and
+the sea was as if on fire, and there was nothing to be seen of the sun.
+
+"But after we were looking at the clouds and the stars for a while the
+wind went down, and the storm, and the sun brightened. And we saw before
+us a very delightful country under full blossom, and smooth plains in
+it, and a king's dun that was very grand, and that had every colour in
+it, and sunny-houses beside it, and palaces of shining stones, made by
+skilled men. And we saw coming out to meet us three fifties of armed
+men, very lively and handsome. And I asked Niamh was this the Country of
+the Young, and she said it was. 'And indeed, Oisin,' she said, 'I told
+you no lie about it, and you will see all I promised you before you for
+ever.'
+
+"And there came out after that a hundred beautiful young girls, having
+cloaks of silk worked with gold, and they gave me a welcome to their own
+country. And after that there came a great shining army, and with it a
+strong beautiful king, having a shirt of yellow silk and a golden cloak
+over it, and a very bright crown on his head. And there was following
+after him a young queen, and fifty young girls along with her.
+
+"And when all were come to the one spot, the king took me by the hand,
+and he said out before them all: 'A hundred thousand welcomes before
+you, Oisin, son of Finn. And as to this country you are come to,' he
+said, 'I will tell you news of it without a lie. It is long and lasting
+your life will be in it, and you yourself will be young for ever. And
+there is no delight the heart ever thought of,' he said, 'but it is
+here against your coming. And you can believe my words, Oisin,' he said,
+'for I myself am the King of the Country of the Young, and this is its
+comely queen, and it was golden-headed Niamh our daughter that went over
+the sea looking for you to be her husband for ever.' I gave thanks to
+him then, and I stooped myself down before the queen, and we went
+forward to the royal house, and all the high nobles came out to meet us,
+both men and women, and there was a great feast made there through the
+length of ten days and ten nights.
+
+"And that is the way I married Niamh of the Golden Hair, and that is the
+way I went to the Country of the Young, although it is sorrowful to me
+to be telling it now, O Patrick from Rome," said Oisin.
+
+"Follow on with your story, Oisin of the destroying arms," said Patrick,
+"and tell me what way did you leave the Country of the Young, for it is
+long to me till I hear that; and tell us now had you any children by
+Niamh, and was it long you were in that place."
+
+"Two beautiful children I had by Niamh," said Oisin, "two young sons and
+a comely daughter. And Niamh gave the two sons the name of Finn and of
+Osgar, and the name I gave to the daughter was The Flower.
+
+"And I did not feel the time passing, and it was a long time I stopped
+there," he said, "till the desire came on me to see Finn and my comrades
+again. And I asked leave of the king and of Niamh to go back to Ireland.
+'You will get leave from me,' said Niamh; 'but for all that,' she said,
+'it is bad news you are giving me, for I am in dread you will never come
+back here again through the length of your days.' But I bade her have no
+fear, since the white horse would bring me safe back again from Ireland.
+'Bear this in mind, Oisin,' she said then, 'if you once get off the
+horse while you are away, or if you once put your foot to ground, you
+will never come back here again. And O Oisin,' she said, 'I tell it to
+you now for the third time, if you once get down from the horse, you
+will be an old man, blind and withered, without liveliness, without
+mirth, without running, without leaping. And it is a grief to me,
+Oisin,' she said, 'you ever to go back to green Ireland; and it is not
+now as it used to be, and you will not see Finn and his people, for
+there is not now in the whole of Ireland but a Father of Orders and
+armies of saints; and here is my kiss for you, pleasant Oisin,' she
+said, 'for you will never come back any more to the Country of the
+Young.'
+
+"And that is my story, Patrick, and I have told you no lie in it," said
+Oisin. "And O Patrick," he said, "if I was the same the day I came here
+as I was that day, I would have made an end of all your clerks, and
+there would not be a head left on a neck after me."
+
+"Go on with your story," said Patrick, "and you will get the same good
+treatment from me you got from Finn, for the sound of your voice is
+pleasing to me."
+
+So Oisin went on with his story, and it is what he said: "I have nothing
+to tell of my journey till I came back into green Ireland, and I looked
+about me then on all sides, but there were no tidings to be got of Finn.
+And it was not long till I saw a great troop of riders, men and women,
+coming towards me from the west. And when they came near they wished me
+good health; and there was wonder on them all when they looked at me,
+seeing me so unlike themselves, and so big and so tall.
+
+"I asked them then did they hear if Finn was still living, or any other
+one of the Fianna, or what had happened them. 'We often heard of Finn
+that lived long ago,' said they, 'and that there never was his equal for
+strength or bravery or a great name; and there is many a book written
+down,' they said, 'by the sweet poets of the Gael, about his doings and
+the doings of the Fianna, and it would be hard for us to tell you all
+of them. And we heard Finn had a son,' they said, 'that was beautiful
+and shining, and that there came a young girl looking for him, and he
+went away with her to the Country of the Young.'
+
+"And when I knew by their talk that Finn was not living or any of the
+Fianna, it is downhearted I was, and tired, and very sorrowful after
+them. And I made no delay, but I turned my face and went on to Almhuin
+of Leinster. And there was great wonder on me when I came there to see
+no sign at all of Finn's great dun, and his great hall, and nothing in
+the place where it was but weeds and nettles."
+
+And there was grief on Oisin then, and he said: "Och, Patrick! Och,
+ochone, my grief! It is a bad journey that was to me; and to be without
+tidings of Finn or the Fianna has left me under pain through my
+lifetime."
+
+"Leave off fretting, Oisin," said Patrick, "and shed your tears to the
+God of grace. Finn and the Fianna are slack enough now, and they will
+get no help for ever." "It is a great pity that would be," said Oisin,
+"Finn to be in pain for ever; and who was it gained the victory over
+him, when his own hand had made an end of so many a hard fighter?"
+
+"It is God gained the victory over Finn," said Patrick, "and not the
+strong hand of an enemy; and as to the Fianna, they are condemned to
+hell along with him, and tormented for ever."
+
+"O Patrick," said Oisin, "show me the place where Finn and his people
+are, and there is not a hell or a heaven there but I will put it down.
+And if Osgar, my own son, is there," he said, "the hero that was bravest
+in heavy battles, there is not in hell or in the Heaven of God a troop
+so great that he could not destroy it."
+
+"Let us leave off quarrelling on each side now," said Patrick; "and go
+on, Oisin, with your story. What happened you after you knew the Fianna
+to be at an end?"
+
+"I will tell you that, Patrick," said Oisin. "I was turning to go away,
+and I saw the stone trough that the Fianna used to be putting their
+hands in, and it full of water. And when I saw it I had such a wish and
+such a feeling for it that I forgot what I was told, and I got off the
+horse. And in the minute all the years came on me, and I was lying on
+the ground, and the horse took fright and went away and left me there,
+an old man, weak and spent, without sight, without shape, without
+comeliness, without strength or understanding, without respect.
+
+"There, Patrick, is my story for you now," said Oisin, "and no lie in
+it, of all that happened me going away and coming back again from the
+Country of the Young."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. OISIN IN PATRICK'S HOUSE
+
+
+And Oisin stopped on with S. Patrick, but he was not very well content
+with the way he was treated. And one time he said: "They say I am
+getting food, but God knows I am not, or drink; and I Oisin, son of
+Finn, under a yoke, drawing stones." "It is my opinion you are getting
+enough," said S. Patrick then, "and you getting a quarter of beef and a
+churn of butter and a griddle of bread every day." "I often saw a
+quarter of a blackbird bigger than your quarter of beef," said Oisin,
+"and a rowan berry as big as your churn of butter, and an ivy leaf as
+big as your griddle of bread." S, Patrick was vexed when he heard that,
+and he said to Oisin that he had told a lie.
+
+There was great anger on Oisin then, and he went where there was a
+litter of pups, and he bade a serving-boy to nail up the hide of a
+freshly killed bullock to the wall, and to throw the pups against it one
+by one. And every one that he threw fell down from the hide till it came
+to the last, and he held on to it with his teeth and his nails. "Rear
+that one," said Oisin, "and drown all the rest."
+
+Then he bade the boy to keep the pup in a dark place, and to care it
+well, and never to let it taste blood or see the daylight. And at the
+end of a year, Oisin was so well pleased with the pup, that he gave it
+the name of Bran Og, young Bran.
+
+And one day he called to the serving-boy to come on a journey with him,
+and to bring the pup in a chain. And they set out and passed by
+Slieve-nam-ban, where the witches of the Sidhe do be spinning with their
+spinning-wheels; and then they turned eastward into Gleann-na-Smol. And
+Oisin raised a rock that was there, and he bade the lad take from under
+it three things, a great sounding horn of the Fianna, and a ball of iron
+they had for throwing, and a very sharp sword. And when Oisin saw those
+things, he took them in his hands, and he said: "My thousand farewells
+to the day when you were put here!" He bade the lad to clean them well
+then; and when he had done that, he bade him to sound a blast on the
+horn. So the boy did that, and Oisin asked him did he see anything
+strange. "I did not," said the boy. "Sound it again as loud as you can,"
+said Oisin. "That is as hard as I can sound it, and I can see nothing
+yet," said the boy when he had done that. Then Oisin took the horn
+himself, and he put it to his mouth, and blew three great blasts on it.
+"What do you see now?" he said. "I see three great clouds coming," he
+said, "and they are settling down in the valley; and the first cloud is
+a flight of very big birds, and the second cloud is a flight of birds
+that are bigger again, and the third flight is of the biggest and the
+blackest birds the world ever saw."
+
+"What is the dog doing?" said Oisin. "The eyes are starting from his
+head, and there is not a rib of hair on him but is standing up." "Let
+him loose now," said Oisin.
+
+The dog rushed down to the valley then, and he made an attack on one of
+the birds, that was the biggest of all, and that had a shadow like a
+cloud. And they fought a very fierce fight, but at last Bran Og made an
+end of the big bird, and lapped its blood. But if he did, madness came
+on him, and he came rushing back towards Oisin, his jaws open and his
+eyes like fire. "There is dread on me, Oisin," said the boy, "for the
+dog is making for us, mad and raging." "Take this iron ball and make a
+cast at him when he comes near," said Oisin. "I am in dread to do that,"
+said the boy. "Put it in my hand, and turn it towards him," said Oisin.
+The boy did that, and Oisin made a cast of the ball that went into the
+mouth and the throat of the dog, and choked him, and he fell down the
+slope, twisting and foaming.
+
+Then they went where the great bird was left dead, and Oisin bade the
+lad to cut a quarter off it with the sword, and he did so. And then he
+bade him cut open the body, and in it he found a rowan berry, the
+biggest he had ever seen, and an ivy leaf that was bigger than the
+biggest griddle.
+
+So Oisin turned back then, and went to where S. Patrick was, and he
+showed him the quarter of the bird that was bigger than any quarter of a
+bullock, and the rowan berry that was bigger than a churning of butter,
+and the leaf. "And you know now, Patrick of the Bells," he said, "that I
+told no lie; and it is what kept us all through our lifetime," he said,
+"truth that was in our hearts, and strength in our arms, and fulfilment
+in our tongues."
+
+"You told no lie indeed," said Patrick.
+
+And when Oisin had no sight left at all, he used every night to put up
+one of the serving-men on his shoulders, and to bring him out to see how
+were the cattle doing. And one night the servants had no mind to go, and
+they agreed together to tell him it was a very bad night.
+
+And it is what the first of them said; "It is outside there is a heavy
+sound with the heavy water dropping from the tops of trees; the sound of
+the waves is not to be heard for the loud splashing of the rain." And
+then the next one said: "The trees of the wood are shivering, and the
+birch is turning black; the snow is killing the birds; that is the story
+outside." And the third said: "It is to the east they have turned their
+face, the white snow and the dark rain; it is what is making the plain
+so cold is the snow that is dripping and getting hard."
+
+But there was a serving-girl in the house, and she said: "Rise up,
+Oisin, and go out to the white-headed cows, since the cold wind is
+plucking the trees from the hills."
+
+Oisin went out then, and the serving-man on his shoulders; but it is
+what the serving-man did, he brought a vessel of water and a birch broom
+with him, and he was dashing water in Oisin's face, the way he would
+think it was rain. But when they came to the pen where the cattle were,
+Oisin found the night was quiet, and after that he asked no more news of
+the weather from the servants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE ARGUMENTS
+
+
+And S. Patrick took in hand to convert Oisin, and to bring him to
+baptism; but it was no easy work he had to do, and everything he would
+say, Oisin would have an answer for it. And it is the way they used to
+be talking and arguing with one another, as it was put down afterwards
+by the poets of Ireland:--
+
+PATRICK. "Oisin, it is long your sleep is. Rise up and listen to the
+Psalm. Your strength and your readiness are gone from you, though you
+used to be going into rough fights and battles."
+
+OLSIN. "My readiness and my strength are gone from me since Finn has no
+armies living; I have no liking for clerks, their music is not sweet to
+me after his."
+
+PATRICK. "You never heard music so good from the beginning of the world
+to this day; it is well you would serve an army on a hill, you that are
+old and silly and grey."
+
+OLSIN. "I used to serve an army on a hill, Patrick of the closed-up
+mind; it is a pity you to be faulting me; there was never shame put on
+me till now.
+
+"I have heard music was sweeter than your music, however much you are
+praising your clerks: the song of the blackbird in Leiter Laoi, and the
+sound of the Dord Fiann; the very sweet thrush of the Valley of the
+Shadow, or the sound of the boats striking the strand. The cry of the
+hounds was better to me than the noise of your schools, Patrick.
+
+"Little Nut, little Nut of my heart, the little dwarf that was with
+Finn, when he would make tunes and songs he would put us all into deep
+sleep.
+
+"The twelve hounds that belonged to Finn, the time they would be let
+loose facing out from the Siuir, their cry was sweeter than harps and
+than pipes.
+
+"I have a little story about Finn; we were but fifteen men; we took the
+King of the Saxons of the feats, and we won a battle against the King of
+Greece.
+
+"We fought nine battles in Spain, and nine times twenty battles in
+Ireland; from Lochlann and from the eastern world there was a share of
+gold coming to Finn.
+
+"My grief! I to be stopping after him, and without delight in games or
+in music; to be withering away after my comrades; my grief it is to be
+living. I and the clerks of the Mass books are two that can never agree.
+
+"If Finn and the Fianna were living, I would leave the clerks and the
+bells; I would follow the deer through the valleys, I would like to be
+close on his track.
+
+"Ask Heaven of God, Patrick, for Finn of the Fianna and his race; make
+prayers for the great man; you never heard of his like."
+
+PATRICK. "I will not ask Heaven for Finn, man of good wit that my anger
+is rising against, since his delight was to be living in valleys with
+the noise of hunts."
+
+OISIN. "If you had been in company with the Fianna, Patrick of the
+joyless clerks and of the bells, you would not be attending on schools
+or giving heed to God."
+
+PATRICK. "I would not part from the Son of God for all that have lived
+east or west; O Oisin, O shaking poet, there will harm come on you in
+satisfaction for the priests."
+
+OISIN. "It was a delight to Finn the cry of his hounds on the mountains,
+the wild dogs leaving their harbours, the pride of his armies, those
+were his delights."
+
+PATRICK. "There was many a thing Finn took delight in, and there is not
+much heed given to it after him; Finn and his hounds are not living now,
+and you yourself will not always be living, Oisin."
+
+OISIN. "There is a greater story of Finn than of us, or of any that have
+lived in our time; all that are gone and all that are living, Finn was
+better to give out gold than themselves."
+
+PATRICK. "All the gold you and Finn used to be giving out, it is little
+it does for you now; he is in Hell in bonds because he did treachery and
+oppression."
+
+OISIN. "It is little I believe of your truth, man from Rome with the
+white books, Finn the open-handed head of the Fianna to be in the hands
+of devils or demons."
+
+PATRICK. "Finn is in bonds in Hell, the pleasant man that gave out
+gold; in satisfaction for his disrespect to God, he is under grief in
+the house of pain."
+
+OISIN. "If the sons of Morna were within it, or the strong men of the
+sons of Baiscne, they would take Finn out of it, or they would have the
+house for themselves."
+
+PATRICK. "If the five provinces of Ireland were within it, or the strong
+seven battalions of the Fianna, they would not be able to bring Finn out
+of it, however great their strength might be."
+
+OISIN. "If Faolan and Goll were living, and brown-haired Diarmuid and
+brave Osgar, Finn of the Fianna could not be held in any house that was
+made by God or devils."
+
+PATRICK. "If Faolan and Goll were living, and all the Fianna that ever
+were, they could not bring out Finn from the house where he is in pain."
+
+OISIN. "What did Finn do against God but to be attending on schools and
+on armies? Giving gold through a great part of his time, and for another
+while trying his hounds."
+
+PATRICK. "In payment for thinking of his hounds and for serving the
+schools of the poets, and because he gave no heed to God, Finn of the
+Fianna is held down."
+
+OISIN. "You say, Patrick of the Psalms, that the Fianna could not take
+out Finn, or the five provinces of Ireland along with them.
+
+"I have a little story about Finn. We were but fifteen men when we took
+the King of Britain of the feasts by the strength of our spears and our
+own strength.
+
+"We took Magnus the great, the son of the King of Lochlann of the
+speckled ships; we came back no way sorry or tired, we put our rent on
+far places.
+
+"O Patrick, the story is pitiful, the King of the Fianna to be under
+locks; a heart without envy, without hatred, a heart hard in earning
+victory.
+
+"It is an injustice, God to be unwilling to give food and riches; Finn
+never refused strong or poor, although cold Hell is now his
+dwelling-place.
+
+"It is what Finn had a mind for, to be listening to the sound of Druim
+Dearg; to sleep at the stream of Ess Ruadh, to be hunting the deer of
+Gallimh of the bays.
+
+"The cries of the blackbird of Leiter Laoi, the wave of Rudraighe
+beating the strand, the bellowing of the ox of Magh Maoin, the lowing of
+the calf of Gleann da Mhail.
+
+"The noise of the hunt on Slieve Crot, the sound of the fawns round
+Slieve Cua, the scream of the sea-gulls there beyond on Iorrus, the
+screech of the crows over the battle.
+
+"The waves vexing the breasts of the boats, the howling of the hounds at
+Druim Lis; the voice of Bran on Cnoc-an-Air, the outcry of the streams
+about Slieve Mis.
+
+"The call of Osgar going to the hunt; the voice of the hounds on the
+road of the Fianna, to be listening to them and to the poets, that was
+always his desire.
+
+"A desire of the desires of Osgar was to listen to the striking of
+shields; to be hacking at bones in a battle, it is what he had a mind
+for always.
+
+"We went westward one time to hunt at Formaid of the Fianna, to see the
+first running of our hounds.
+
+"It was Finn was holding Bran, and it is with myself Sceolan was;
+Diarmuid of the Women had Fearan, and Osgar had lucky Adhnuall.
+
+"Conan the Bald had Searc; Caoilte, son of Ronan, had Daol; Lugaidh's
+Son and Goll were holding Fuaim and Fothran.
+
+"That was the first day we loosed out a share of our hounds to a
+hunting; and Och! Patrick, of all that were in it, there is not one left
+living but myself.
+
+"O Patrick, it is a pity the way I am now, a spent old man without
+sway, without quickness, without strength, going to Mass at the altar.
+
+"Without the great deer of Slieve Luchra; without the hares of Slieve
+Cuilinn; without going into fights with Finn; without listening to the
+poets.
+
+"Without battles, without taking of spoils; without playing at nimble
+feats; without going courting or hunting, two trades that were my
+delight."
+
+PATRICK. "Leave off, old man, leave your foolishness; let what you have
+done be enough for you from this out. Think on the pains that are before
+you; the Fianna are gone, and you yourself will be going."
+
+OISIN. "If I go, may yourself not be left after me, Patrick of the
+hindering heart; if Conan, the least of the Fianna, were living, your
+buzzing would not be left long to you."
+
+"Or if this was the day I gave ten hundred cows to the headless woman
+that came to the Valley of the Two Oxen; the birds of the air brought
+away the ring I gave her, I never knew where she went herself from me."
+
+PATRICK. "That is little to trouble you, Oisin; it was but for a while
+she was with you; it is better for you to be as you are than to be among
+them again."
+
+OISIN. "O Son of Calphurn of the friendly talk, it is a pity for him
+that gives respect to clerks and bells; I and Caoilte my friend, we were
+not poor when we were together.
+
+"The music that put Finn to his sleep was the cackling of the ducks from
+the lake of the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of
+Doire an Cairn, the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries.
+
+"The whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories, or from the
+rough branches of the ridge by the stream; the grouse of the heather of
+Cruachan; the call of the otter of Druim-re-Coir.
+
+"The song of the blackbird of Doire an Cairn indeed I never heard
+sweeter music, if I could be under its nest.
+
+"My grief that I ever took baptism; it is little credit I got by it,
+being without food, without drink, doing fasting and praying."
+
+PATRICK. "In my opinion it did not harm you, old man; you will get nine
+score cakes of bread, wine and meat to put a taste on it; it is bad talk
+you are giving."
+
+OISIN. "This mouth that is talking with you, may it never confess to a
+priest, if I would not sooner have the leavings of Finn's house than a
+share of your own meals."
+
+PATRICK. "He got but what he gathered from the banks, or whatever he
+could kill on the rough hills; he got hell at the last because of his
+unbelief."
+
+OISIN. "That was not the way with us at all, but our fill of wine and of
+meat; justice and a right beginning at the feasts, sweet drinks and
+every one drinking them.
+
+"It is fretting after Diarmuid and Goll I am, and after Fergus of the
+True Lips, the time you will not let me be speaking of them, O new
+Patrick from Rome."
+
+PATRICK. "We would give you leave to be speaking of them, but first you
+should give heed to God. Since you are now at the end of your days,
+leave your foolishness, weak old man."
+
+OISIN. "O Patrick, tell me as a secret, since it is you have the best
+knowledge, will my dog or my hound be let in with me to the court of the
+King of Grace?"
+
+PATRICK. "Old man in your foolishness that I cannot put any bounds to,
+your dog or your hound will not be let in with you to the court of the
+King of Power."
+
+OISIN. "If I had acquaintance with God, and my hound to be at hand, I
+would make whoever gave food to myself give a share to my hound as well.
+
+"One strong champion that was with the Fianna of Ireland would be better
+than the Lord of Piety, and than you yourself, Patrick."
+
+PATRICK. "O Oisin of the sharp blades, it is mad words you are saying.
+God is better for one day than the whole of the Fianna of Ireland."
+
+OISIN. "Though I am now without sway and my life is spent to the end, do
+not put abuse, Patrick, on the great men of the sons of Baiscne.
+
+"If I had Conan with me, the man that used to be running down the
+Fianna, it is he would break your head within among your clerks and your
+priests."
+
+PATRICK. "It is a silly thing, old man, to be talking always of the
+Fianna; remember your end is come, and take the Son of God to help you."
+
+OISIN. "I used to sleep out on the mountain under the grey dew; I was
+never used to go to bed without food, while there was a deer on the hill
+beyond."
+
+PATRICK. "You are astray at the end of your life between the straight
+way and the crooked. Keep out from the crooked path of pains, and the
+angels of God will come beneath your head."
+
+OISIN. "If myself and open-handed Fergus and Diarmuid were together now
+on this spot, we would go in every path we ever went in, and ask no
+leave of the priests."
+
+PATRICK. "Leave off, Oisin; do not be speaking against the priests that
+are telling the word of God in every place. Unless you leave off your
+daring talk, it is great pain you will have in the end."
+
+OISIN. "When myself and the leader of the Fianna were looking for a boar
+in a valley, it was worse to me not to see it than all your clerks to be
+without their heads."
+
+PATRICK. "It is pitiful seeing you without sense; that is worse to you
+than your blindness; if you were to get sight within you, it is great
+your desire would be for Heaven."
+
+OISIN. "It is little good it would be to me to be sitting in that city,
+without Caoilte, without Osgar, without my father being with me.
+
+"The leap of the buck would be better to me, or the sight of badgers
+between two valleys, than all your mouth is promising me, and all the
+delights I could get in Heaven."
+
+PATRICK. "Your thoughts are foolish, they will come to nothing; your
+pleasure and your mirth are gone. Unless you will take my advice
+to-night, you will not get leave on this side or that."
+
+OISIN. "If myself and the Fianna were on the top of a hill to-day
+drawing our spear-heads, we would have our choice of being here or there
+in spite of books and priests and bells."
+
+PATRICK. "You were like the smoke of a wisp, or like a stream in a
+valley, or like a whirling wind on the top of a hill, every tribe of you
+that ever lived."
+
+OISIN. "If I was in company with the people of strong arms, the way I
+was at Bearna da Coill, I would sooner be looking at them than at this
+troop of the crooked croziers.
+
+"If I had Scolb Sceine with me, or Osgar, that was smart in battles, I
+would not be without meat to-night at the sound of the bell of the seven
+tolls."
+
+PATRICK. "Oisin, since your wits are gone from you be glad at what I
+say; it is certain to me you will leave the Fianna and that you will
+receive the God of the stars."
+
+OISIN. "There is wonder on me at your hasty talk, priest that has
+travelled in every part, to say that I would part from the Fianna, a
+generous people, never niggardly."
+
+PATRICK. "If you saw the people of God, the way they are settled at
+feasts, every good thing is more plentiful with them than with Finn's
+people, however great their name was.
+
+"Finn and the Fianna are lying now very sorrowful on the flag-stone of
+pain; take the Son of God in their place; make your repentance and do
+not lose Heaven."
+
+OISIN. "I do not believe your talk now. O Patrick of the crooked staves,
+Finn and the Fianna to be there within, unless they find pleasure being
+in it."
+
+PATRICK. "Make right repentance now, before you know when your end is
+coming; God is better for one hour than the whole of the Fianna of
+Ireland."
+
+OISIN. "That is a daring answer to make to me, Patrick of the crooked
+crozier; your crozier would be in little bits if I had Osgar with me
+now.
+
+"If my son Osgar and God were hand to hand on the Hill of the Fianna, if
+I saw my son put down, I would say that God was a strong man.
+
+"How could it be that God or his priests could be better men than Finn,
+the King of the Fianna, a generous man without crookedness.
+
+"If there was a place above or below better than the Heaven of God, it
+is there Finn would go, and all that are with him of his people.
+
+"You say that a generous man never goes to the hell of pain; there was
+not one among the Fianna that was not generous to all.
+
+"Ask of God, Patrick, does He remember when the Fianna were alive, or
+has He seen east or west any man better than themselves in their
+fighting.
+
+"The Fianna used not to be saying treachery; we never had the name of
+telling lies. By truth and the strength of our hands we came safe out of
+every battle.
+
+"There never sat a priest in a church, though you think it sweet to be
+singing psalms, was better to his word than the Fianna, or more generous
+than Finn himself.
+
+"If my comrades were living to-night, I would take no pleasure in your
+crooning in the church; as they are not living now, the rough voice of
+the bells has deafened me.
+
+"Och! in the place of battles and heavy fights, where I used to have my
+place and to take my pleasure, the crozier of Patrick being carried, and
+his clerks at their quarrelling.
+
+"Och! slothful, cheerless Conan, it is great abuse I used to be giving
+you; why do you not come to see me now? you would get leave for making
+fun and reviling through the whole of the niggardly clerks.
+
+"Och! where are the strong men gone that they do not come together to
+help me! O Osgar of the sharp sword of victory, come and free your
+father from his bonds!
+
+"Where is the strong son of Lugaidh? Och! Diarmuid of all the women!
+Och! Caoilte, son of Ronan, think of our love, and travel to me!"
+
+PATRICK. "Stop your talk, you withered, witless old man; it is my King
+that made the Heavens, it is He that gives blossom to the trees, it is
+He made the moon and the sun, the fields and the grass."
+
+OISIN. "It was not in shaping fields and grass that my king took his
+delight, but in overthrowing fighting men, and defending countries, and
+bringing his name into every part.
+
+"In courting, in playing, in hunting, in baring his banner at the first
+of a fight; in playing at chess, at swimming, in looking around him at
+the drinking-hall.
+
+"O Patrick, where was your God when the two came over the sea that
+brought away the queen of Lochlann of the Ships? Where was He when Dearg
+came, the son of the King of Lochlann of the golden shields? Why did not
+the King of Heaven protect them from the blows of the big man?
+
+"Or when Tailc, son of Treon, came, the man that did great slaughter on
+the Fianna; it was not by God that champion fell, but by Osgar, in the
+sight of all.
+
+"Many a battle and many a victory was gained by the Fianna of Ireland; I
+never heard any great deed was done by the King of Saints, or that He
+ever reddened His hand.
+
+"It would be a great shame for God not to take the locks of pain off
+Finn; if God Himself were in bonds, my king would fight for His sake.
+
+"Finn left no one in pain or in danger without freeing him by silver or
+gold, or by fighting till he got the victory.
+
+"For the strength of your love, Patrick, do not forsake the great men;
+bring in the Fianna unknown to the King of Heaven.
+
+"It is a good claim I have on your God, to be among his clerks the way I
+am; without food, without clothing, without music, without giving
+rewards to poets.
+
+"Without the cry of the hounds or the horns, without guarding coasts,
+without courting generous women; for all that I have suffered by the
+want of food, I forgive the King of Heaven in my will."
+
+Oisin said: "My story is sorrowful. The sound of your voice is not
+pleasant to me. I will cry my fill, but not for God, but because Finn
+and the Fianna are not living."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. OISIN'S LAMENTS
+
+
+And Oisin used to be making laments, and sometimes he would be making
+praises of the old times and of Finn; and these are some of them that
+are remembered yet:--
+
+     I saw the household of Finn; it was not the household of a soft
+     race; I had a vision of that man yesterday.
+
+     I saw the household of the High King, he with the brown,
+     sweet-voiced son; I never saw a better man.
+
+     I saw the household of Finn; no one saw it as I saw it; I saw Finn
+     with the sword, Mac an Luin. Och! it was sorrowful to see it.
+
+     I cannot tell out every harm that is on my head; free us from our
+     trouble for ever; I have seen the household of Finn.
+
+It is a week from yesterday I last saw Finn; I never saw a braver man. A
+king of heavy blows; my law, my adviser, my sense and my wisdom, prince
+and poet, braver than kings, King of the Fianna, brave in all countries;
+golden salmon of the sea, clean hawk of the air, rightly taught,
+avoiding lies; strong in his doings, a right judge, ready in courage, a
+high messenger in bravery and in music.
+
+His skin lime-white, his hair golden; ready to work, gentle to women.
+His great green vessels full of rough sharp wine, it is rich the king
+was, the head of his people.
+
+Seven sides Finn's house had, and seven score shields on every side.
+Fifty fighting men he had about him having woollen cloaks; ten bright
+drinking-cups in his hall; ten blue vessels, ten golden horns.
+
+It is a good household Finn had, without grudging, without lust, without
+vain boasting, without chattering, without any slur on any one of the
+Fianna.
+
+Finn never refused any man; he never put away any one that came to his
+house. If the brown leaves falling in the woods were gold, if the white
+waves were silver, Finn would have given away the whole of it.
+
+Blackbird of Doire an Chairn, your voice is sweet; I never heard on any
+height of the world music was sweeter than your voice, and you at the
+foot of your nest.
+
+The music is sweetest in the world, it is a pity not to be listening to
+it for a while, O son of Calphurn of the sweet bells, and you would
+overtake your nones again.
+
+If you knew the story of the bird the way I know it, you would be crying
+lasting tears, and you would give no heed to your God for a while.
+
+In the country of Lochlann of the blue streams, Finn, son of Cumhal, of
+the red-gold cups, found that bird you hear now; I will tell you its
+story truly.
+
+Doire an Chairn, that wood there to the west, where the Fianna used to
+be delaying, it is there they put the blackbird, in the beauty of the
+pleasant trees.
+
+The stag of the heather of quiet Cruachan, the sorrowful croak from the
+ridge of the Two Lakes; the voice of the eagle of the Valley of the
+Shapes, the voice of the cuckoo on the Hill of Brambles.
+
+The voice of the hounds in the pleasant valley; the scream of the eagle
+on the edge of the wood; the early outcry of the hounds going over the
+Strand of the Red Stones.
+
+The time Finn lived and the Fianna, it was sweet to them to be listening
+to the whistle of the blackbird; the voice of the bells would not have
+been sweet to them.
+
+
+There was no one of the Fianna without his fine silken shirt and his
+soft coat, without bright armour, without shining stones on his head,
+two spears in his hand, and a shield that brought victory.
+
+If you were to search the world you would not find a harder man, best of
+blood, best in battle; no one got the upper hand of him. When he went
+out trying his white hound, which of us could be put beside Finn?
+
+One time we went hunting on Slieve-nam-ban; the sun was beautiful
+overhead, the voice of the hounds went east and west, from hill to hill.
+Finn and Bran sat for a while on the hill, every man was jealous for the
+hunt. We let out three thousand hounds from their golden chains; every
+hound of them brought down two deer.
+
+Patrick of the true crozier, did you ever see, east or west, a greater
+hunt than that hunt of Finn and the Fianna? O son of Calphurn of the
+bells, that day was better to me than to be listening to your
+lamentations in the church.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no strength in my hands to-night, there is no power within me;
+it is no wonder I to be sorowful, being thrown down in the sorrow of old
+age.
+
+Everything is a grief to me beyond any other man on the face of the
+earth, to be dragging stones along to the church and the hill of the
+priests.
+
+I have a little story of our people. One time Finn had a mind to make a
+dun on the bald hill of Cuailgne, and he put it on the Fianna of Ireland
+to bring stones for building it; a third on the sons of Morna, a third
+on myself, and a third on the sons of Baiscne.
+
+I gave an answer to Finn, son of Cumhal; I said I would be under his
+sway no longer, and that I would obey him no more.
+
+When Finn heard that, he was silent a long time, the man without a He,
+without fear. And he said to me then: "You yourself will be dragging
+stones before your death comes to you."
+
+I rose up then with anger on me, and there followed me the fourth of the
+brave battalions of the Fianna. I gave my own judgments, there were many
+of the Fianna with me.
+
+Now my strength is gone from me, I that was adviser to the Fianna; my
+whole body is tired to-night, my hands, my feet, and my head, tired,
+tired, tired.
+
+It is bad the way I am after Finn of the Fianna; since he is gone away,
+every good is behind me.
+
+Without great people, without mannerly ways; it is sorrowful I am after
+our king that is gone.
+
+I am a shaking tree, my leaves gone from me; an empty nut, a horse
+without a bridle; a people without a dwelling-place, I Oisin, son of
+Finn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is long the clouds are over me to-night! it is long last night was;
+although this day is long, yesterday was longer again to me; every day
+that comes is long to me!
+
+That is not the way I used to be, without fighting, without battles,
+without learning feats, without young girls, without music, without
+harps, without bruising bones, without great deeds; without increase of
+learning, without generosity, without drinking at feasts, without
+courting, without hunting, the two trades I was used to; without going
+out to battle, Ochone! the want of them is sorrowful to me.
+
+No hunting of deer or stag, it is not like that I would wish to be; no
+leashes for our hounds, no hounds; it is long the clouds are over me
+to-night!
+
+Without rising up to do bravery as we were used, without playing as we
+had a mind; without swimming of our fighting men in the lake; it is long
+the clouds are over me to-night!
+
+There is no one at all in the world the way I am; it is a pity the way I
+am; an old man dragging stones; it is long the clouds are over me
+to-night!
+
+I am the last of the Fianna, great Oisin, son of Finn, listening to the
+voice of bells; it is long the clouds are over me to-night!
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+I. THE APOLOGY
+
+
+The Irish text of the greater number of the stories in this book has
+been published, and from this text I have worked, making my own
+translation as far as my scholarship goes, and when it fails, taking the
+meaning given by better scholars. In some cases the Irish text has not
+been printed, and I have had to work by comparing and piecing together
+various translations. I have had to put a connecting sentence of my own
+here and there, and I have fused different versions together, and
+condensed many passages, and I have left out many, using the choice that
+is a perpetual refusing, in trying to get some clear outline of the
+doings of the heroes.
+
+I have found it more natural to tell the stories in the manner of the
+thatched houses, where I have heard so many legends of Finn and his
+friends, and Oisin and Patrick, and the Ever-Living Ones, and the
+Country of the Young, rather than in the manner of the slated houses,
+where I have not heard them.
+
+Four years ago, Dr Atkinson, a Professor of Trinity College, Dublin, in
+his evidence before the Commission of Intermediate Education, said of
+the old literature of Ireland:--"It has scarcely been touched by the
+movements of the great literatures; it is the untrained popular feeling.
+Therefore it is almost intolerably low in tone--I do not mean naughty,
+but low; and every now and then, when the circumstance occasions it, it
+goes down lower than low ... If I read the books in the Greek, the Latin
+or the French course, in almost every one of them there is something
+with an ideal ring about it--something that I can read with positive
+pleasure--something that has what the child might take with him as a
+[Greek: ktema eis dei]--a perpetual treasure; but if I read the Irish
+books, I see nothing ideal in them, and my astonishment is that through
+the whole range of Irish literature that I have read (and I have read
+an enormous range of it), the smallness of the element of idealism is
+most noticeable ... And as there is very little idealism there is very
+little imagination ... The Irish tales as a rule are devoid of it
+fundamentally."
+
+Dr Atkinson is an Englishman, but unfortunately not only
+fellow-professors in Trinity but undergraduates there have been
+influenced by his opinion, that Irish literature is a thing to be
+despised. I do not quote his words to draw attention to a battle that is
+still being fought, but to explain my own object in working, as I have
+worked ever since that evidence was given, to make a part of Irish
+literature accessible to many, especially among my young countrymen, who
+have not opportunity to read the translations of the chief scholars,
+scattered here and there in learned periodicals, or patience and time to
+disentangle overlapping and contradictory versions, that they may judge
+for themselves as to its "lowness" and "want of imagination," and the
+other well-known charges brought against it before the same Commission.
+
+I believe that those who have once learned to care for the story of
+Cuchulain of Muirthemne, and of Finn and Lugh and Etain, and to
+recognise the enduring belief in an invisible world and an immortal life
+behind the visible and the mortal, will not be content with my
+redaction, but will go, first to the fuller versions of the best
+scholars, and then to the manuscripts themselves. I believe the forty
+students of old Irish lately called together by Professor Kuno Meyer
+will not rest satisfied until they have explored the scores and scores
+of uncatalogued and untranslated manuscripts in Trinity College Library,
+and that the enthusiasm which the Gaelic League has given birth to will
+lead to much fine scholarship.
+
+A day or two ago I had a letter from one of the best Greek scholars and
+translators in England, who says of my "Cuchulain": "It opened up a
+great world of beautiful legend which, though accounting myself as an
+Irishman, I had never known at all. I am sending out copies to Irish
+friends in Australia who, I am sure, will receive the same sort of
+impression, almost an impression of pride in the beauty of the Irish
+mind, as I received myself." And President Roosevelt wrote to me a
+little time ago that after he had read "Cuchulain of Muirthemne," he had
+sent for all the other translations from the Irish he could get, to take
+on his journey to the Western States.
+
+I give these appreciative words not, I think, from vanity, for they are
+not for me but for my material, to show the effect our old literature
+has on those who come fresh to it, and that they do not complain of its
+"want of imagination." I am, of course, very proud and glad in having
+had the opportunity of helping to make it known, and the task has been
+pleasant, although toil-some. Just now, indeed, on the 6th October, I am
+tired enough, and I think with sympathy of the old Highland piper, who
+complained that he was "withered with yelping the seven Fenian
+battalions."
+
+
+
+
+II. THE AGE AND ORIGIN OF THE STORIES OF THE FIANNA
+
+
+Mr Alfred Nutt says in _Ossian and the Ossianic Literature,_ No. 3 of
+his excellent series of sixpenny pamphlets, _Popular Studies in
+Mythology, Romance, and Folklore_:--
+
+"The body of Gaelic literature connected with the name of Ossian is of
+very considerable extent and of respectable antiquity. The oldest texts,
+prose for the most part, but also in verse, are preserved in Irish MSS.
+of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and go back to a period from one
+hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty years older at least. The
+bulk of Ossianic literature is, however, of later date as far as the
+form under which it has come down to us is concerned. A number of
+important texts, prose for the most part, are preserved in MSS. of the
+fourteenth century, but were probably redacted in the thirteenth and
+twelfth centuries. But by far the largest mass consists of narrative
+poems, as a rule dramatic in structure. These have come down to us in
+MSS. written in Scotland from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of
+the seventeenth century, in Ireland from the sixteenth down to the
+middle of the nineteenth century. The Gaelic-speaking peasantry, alike
+in Ireland and Scotland, have preserved orally a large number of these
+ballads, as also a great mass of prose narratives, the heroes of which
+are Ossian and his comrades.
+
+"Were all Ossianic texts preserved in MSS. older than the present
+century to be printed, they would fill some eight to ten thousand octavo
+pages. The mere bulk of the literature, even if we allow for
+considerable repetition of incident, arrests attention. If we further
+recall that for the last five hundred years this body of romance has
+formed the chief imaginative recreation of Gaeldom, alike in Ireland and
+Scotland, and that a peasantry unable to read or write has yet preserved
+it almost entire, its claims to consideration and study will appear
+manifest."
+
+He then goes on to discuss how far the incidents in the stories can be
+accepted as they were accepted by Irish historical writers of the
+eleventh century as authentic history:--
+
+"Fortunately there is little need for me to discuss the credibility or
+otherwise of the historic records concerning Finn, his family, and his
+band of warriors. They may be accepted or rejected according to
+individual bent of mind without really modifying our view of the
+literature. For when we turn to the romances, whether in prose or verse,
+we find that, although the history is professedly the same as that of
+the Annals, firstly, we are transported to a world entirely romantic, in
+which divine and semi-divine beings, ungainly monsters and giants, play a
+prominent part, in which men and women change shapes with animals, in
+which the lives of the heroes are miraculously prolonged--in short, we
+find ourselves in a land of Faery; secondly, we find that the historic
+conditions in which the heroes are represented as living do not, for the
+most part, answer to anything we know or can surmise of the third
+century. For Finn and his warriors are perpetually on the watch to guard
+Ireland against the attacks of over-sea raiders, styled Lochlannac by
+the narrators, and by them undoubtedly thought of as Norsemen. But the
+latter, as is well known, only came to Ireland at the close of the
+eighth century, and the heroic period of their invasions extended for
+about a century, from 825 to 925; to be followed by a period of
+comparative settlement during the tenth century, until at the opening of
+the eleventh century the battle of Clontarf, fought by Brian, the great
+South Irish chieftain, marked the break-up of the separate Teutonic
+organisations and the absorption of the Teutons into the fabric of Irish
+life. In these pages then we may disregard the otherwise interesting
+question of historic credibility in the Ossianic romances: firstly,
+because they have their being in a land unaffected by fact; secondly,
+because if they ever did reflect the history of the third century the
+reflection was distorted in after-times, and a pseudo-history based upon
+events of the ninth and tenth centuries was substituted for it. What the
+historian seeks for in legend is far more a picture of the society in
+which it took rise than a record of the events which it commemorates."
+
+In a later part of the pamphlet Mr Nutt discusses such questions as
+whether we may look for examples of third-century customs in the
+stories, what part of the stories first found their way into writing,
+whether the Oisin and Patrick dialogues were written under the influence
+of actual Pagan feeling persisting from Pagan times, or whether "a
+change came over the feeling of Gaeldom during the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries," when the Oisin and Patrick dialogues in their
+present form began to be written. His final summing-up is that
+"well-nigh the same stories that were told of Finn and his warrior
+braves by the Gael of the eleventh century are told in well-nigh the
+same way by his descendant to-day." Mr Nutt does not enquire how long
+the stories may have been told before the first story was written down.
+Larminie, however, whose early death was the first great loss of our
+intellectual movement, pushes them backward for untold ages in the
+introduction to his _West Irish Folk Tales and Romances_. He builds up a
+detailed and careful argument, for which I must refer readers to his
+book, to prove that the Scottish Highlands and Ireland have received
+their folk-lore both from "Aryan and Non-Aryan sources," and that in the
+Highlands there is more non-Aryan influence and more non-Aryan blood
+than in Ireland. He argues that nothing is more improbable than that all
+folk-tales are Aryan, as has sometimes been supposed, and sums up as
+follows:--
+
+"They bear the stamp of the genius of more than one race. The pure and
+placid but often cold imagination of the Aryan has been at work on some.
+In others we trace the more picturesque fancy, the fierceness and
+sensuality, the greater sense of artistic elegance belonging to races
+whom the Aryan, in spite of his occasional faults of hardness and
+coarseness, has, on the whole, left behind him. But as the greatest
+results in the realm of the highest art have always been achieved in the
+case of certain blends of Aryan with other blood, I should hardly deem
+it extravagant if it were asserted that in the humbler regions of the
+folk-tale we might trace the working of the same law. The process which
+has gone on may in part have been as follows:--Every race which has
+acquired very definite characteristics must have been for a long time
+isolated. The Aryans during their period of isolation probably developed
+many of their folk-germs into their larger myths, owing to the greater
+constructiveness of their imagination, and thus, in a way, they used up
+part of their material. Afterwards, when they became blended with other
+races less advanced, they acquired fresh material to work on. We have in
+Ireland an instance to hand, of which a brief discussion may help to
+illustrate the whole race theory.
+
+"The larger Irish legendary literature divides itself into three
+cycles--the divine, the heroic, the Fenian. Of these three the last is
+so well-known orally in Scotland that it has been a matter of dispute to
+which country it really belongs. It belongs, in fact, to both. Here,
+however, comes in a strange contrast with the other cycles. The first
+is, so far as I am aware, wholly unknown in Scotland, the second
+comparatively unknown. What is the explanation? Professor Zimmer not
+having established his late-historical view as regards Finn, and the
+general opinion among scholars having tended of recent years towards the
+mythical view, we want to know why there is so much more community in
+one case than in the other. Mr O'Grady long since seeing this
+difficulty, and then believing Finn to be historical, was induced to
+place the latter in point of time before Cuchulain and his compeers. But
+this view is of course inadmissible when Finn is seen not to be
+historical at all. There remains but one explanation. The various bodies
+of legend in question are, so far as Ireland is concerned, only earlier
+or later, as they came into the island with the various races to which
+they belonged. The wider prevalence, then, of the Finn Saga would
+indicate that it belonged to an early race occupying both Ireland and
+Scotland. Then entered the Aryan Gael, and for him henceforth, as the
+ruler of the island, his own gods and heroes were sung by his own bards.
+His legends became the subject of what I may call the court poetry, the
+aristocratic literature. When he conquered Scotland, he took with him
+his own gods and heroes; but in the latter country the bardic system
+never became established, and hence we find but feeble echoes of the
+heroic cycle among the mountains of the North. That this is the
+explanation is shown by what took place in Ireland. Here the heroic
+cycle has been handed down in remembrance almost solely by the bardic
+literature. The popular memory retains but few traces of it. Its
+essentially aristocratic character is shown by the fact that the people
+have all but forgotten it, if they ever knew it. But the Fenian cycle
+has not been forgotten. Prevailing everywhere, still cherished by the
+conquered peoples, it held its ground in Scotland and Ireland alike,
+forcing its way in the latter country even into the written literature,
+and so securing a twofold lease of existence ... The Fenian cycle, in a
+word, is non-Aryan folk-literature partially subjected to Aryan
+treatment."
+
+The whole problem is extremely complex, and several other writers have
+written upon it. Mr Borlase, for instance, has argued in his big book on
+the Dolmens that the cromlechs, and presumably the Diarmuid and Crania
+legend, is connected with old religious rites of an erotic nature coming
+down from a very primitive state of society.
+
+I have come to my own conclusion not so much because of any weight of
+argument, as because I found it impossible to arrange the stories in a
+coherent form so long as I considered them a part of history. I tried to
+work on the foundation of the Annalists, and fit the Fianna into a
+definite historical epoch, but the whole story seemed trivial and
+incoherent until I began to think of them as almost contemporaneous with
+the battle of Magh Tuireadh, which even the Annalists put back into
+mythical ages. In this I have only followed some of the story-tellers,
+who have made the mother of Lugh of the Long Hand the grandmother of
+Finn, and given him a shield soaked with the blood of Balor. I cannot
+think of any of the stories as having had a modern origin, or that the
+century in which each was written down gives any evidence as to its age.
+"How Diarmuid got his Love-Spot," for instance, which was taken down
+only a few years ago from some old man's recitation by Dr Hyde, may well
+be as old as "Finn and the Phantoms," which is in one of the earliest
+manuscripts. It seems to me that one cannot choose any definite period
+either from the vast living mass of folk-lore in the country or from the
+written text, and that there is as good evidence of Finn being of the
+blood of the gods as of his being, as some of the people tell me, "the
+son of an O'Shaughnessy who lived at Kiltartan Cross."
+
+Dr Douglas Hyde, although he placed the Fenian after the Cuchulain cycle
+in his _History of Irish Literature_, has allowed me to print this
+note:--
+
+"While believing in the real objective existence of the Fenians as a
+body of Janissaries who actually lived, ruled, and hunted in King
+Cormac's time, I think it equally certain that hundreds of stories,
+traits, and legends far older and more primitive than any to which they
+themselves could have given rise, have clustered about them. There is
+probably as large a bulk of primitive mythology to be found in the Finn
+legend as in that of the Red Branch itself. The story of the Fenians was
+a kind of nucleus to which a vast amount of the flotsam and jetsam of a
+far older period attached itself, and has thus been preserved."
+
+As I found it impossible to give that historical date to the stories, I,
+while not adding in anything to support my theory, left out such names
+as those of Cormac and Art, and such more or less historical personages,
+substituting "the High King." And in the "Battle of the White Strand," I
+left out the name of Caelur, Tadg's wife, because I had already followed
+another chronicler in giving him Ethlinn for a wife. In the earlier part
+I have given back to Angus Og the name of "The Disturber," which had, as
+I believe, strayed from him to the Saint of the same name.
+
+
+
+
+III. THE AUTHORITIES
+
+
+The following is a list of the authorities I have been chiefly helped by
+in putting these stories together and in translation of the text. But I
+cannot make it quite accurate, for I have sometimes transferred a mere
+phrase, sometimes a whole passage from one story to another, where it
+seemed to fit better. I have sometimes, in the second part of the book,
+used stories preserved in the Scottish Gaelic, as will be seen by my
+references. I am obliged to write these notes away from libraries, and
+cannot verify them, but I think they are fairly correct.
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE. BOOKS ONE, TWO, AND THREE
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN, AND LUGH OF
+THE LONG HAND, AND THE COMING OF THE GAEL.--
+  O'Curry, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_;
+  _MSS. Materials_;
+  _Atlantis_;
+  De Jubainville, _Cycle Mythologique_;
+  Hennessy, _Chronicum Scotorum_;
+  Atkinson, _Book of Leinster_;
+  _Annals of the Four Masters_;
+  Nennius, _Hist, Brit._ (Irish Version);
+  Zimmer, _Glossae Hibernacae_;
+  Whitley Stokes, _Three Irish Glossaries_;
+  _Revue Celtique_ and _Irische Texte_;
+  _Gaedelica_;
+  Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_;
+  _Proceedings Ossianic Societ_;
+  O'Beirne Crowe, _Amra Columcille_;
+  Dean of Lismore's Book;
+  Windisch, _Irische Texte_;
+  Hennessy and others in _Revue Celtique_;
+  _Kilkenny Archaeological Journal_;
+  Keatinge's _History_;
+  _Ogyia_;
+  Curtin's _Folk Tales_;
+  _Proceedings Royal Irish Academy_, MSS. Series;
+  Dr Sigerson, _Bards of Gael and Gall_;
+  Miscellanies, _Celtic Society_.
+
+
+BOOK FOUR
+
+THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES
+
+I have used many of the above, and for separate stories, I may
+give these authorities:--
+
+MIDHIR AND ETAIN.--
+  O'Curry, _Manners and Customs_;
+  Whitley Stokes, _Dinnsenchus_;
+  Mueller, _Revue Celtique_;
+  Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_;
+  De Jubainville, _Epopee Celtique_;
+  Standish Hayes O'Grady, MS. lent me by him.
+
+MANANNAN AT PLAY.--
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+HIS CALL TO BRAN.--
+  Professor Kuno Meyer in Nutt's _Voyage of Bran_;
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  De Jubainville, _Cycle Mythologique_.
+
+HIS THREE CALLS TO CORMAC.--
+  Whitley Stokes, _Irische Texte_.
+
+CLIODNA'S WAVE.--
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Whitley Stokes, _Dinnsenchus_.
+
+HIS CALL TO CONNLA.--
+  O'Beirne Crowe, _Kilkenny Arch. Journal_;
+  Windisch, _Irische Texte_.
+
+TADG IN THE ISLANDS.--
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+LAEGAIRE IN THE HAPPY PLAIN.--
+  S.H. O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Kuno Meyer in Nutt's _Voyage of Bran_.
+
+FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR.--
+  O'Curry, _Atlantis_.
+
+
+PART TWO. THE FIANNA
+
+THE COMING OF FINN, AND FINN'S HOUSEHOLD.--
+  _Proceedings Ossianic Society_;
+  Kuno Meyer, _Four Songs of Summer and Winter_;
+  _Revue Celtique_;
+  S. Hayes O'Grady, _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Curtin's _Folk Tales_.
+
+BIRTH OF BRAN.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+OISIN'S MOTHER.--
+  Kennedy, _Legendary Fictions Irish Celts_;
+  Mac Innis;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_.
+
+BEST MEN OF THE FIANNA.--
+  Dean of Lismore's Book;
+  _Silva Gaedelica;
+  Leabhar na Feinne_.
+
+LAD OF THE SKINS.--
+  _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_;
+  Larminie's _Folk Tales_;
+  Curtin's _Tales_.
+
+THE HOUND.--
+ _Silva Gaedelica_;
+ Whitley Stokes, _Dinnsenchus_.
+
+RED RIDGE.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND.--
+  Kuno Meyer, _Anec. Oxonienses_;
+  Hanmer's _Chronicle_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  Curtin's _Tales_;
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+KING OF BRITAIN'S SON.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+DONN, SON OF MIDHIR.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+HOSPITALITY OF CUANNA'S HOUSE.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+CAT-HEADS AND DOG-HEADS.--
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales of the Western Highlands_.
+
+LOMNA'S HEAD.--
+  O'Curry, _Orc. Treith_, O'Donovan, ed. Stokes.
+
+ILBREC OF ESS RUADH.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+CAVE OF CRUACHAN.--
+  Stokes, _Irische Texts._
+
+WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+THE SHADOWY ONE.--
+  O'Curry.
+
+FINN'S MADNESS.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+THE RED WOMAN.--
+  Hyde, _Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach_.
+
+FINN AND THE PHANTOMS.--
+  Kuno Meyer, _Revue Celtique_.
+
+THE PIGS OF ANGUS.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+OISIN'S CHILDREN.--
+  O'Curry;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales of the Western Highlands_;
+  Stokes, _Irische Texte_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Celtic Magazine_;
+  _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_.
+
+BIRTH OF DIARMUID.--
+  _Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grania_
+      (Society for Preservation of the Irish Language);
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales_.
+
+HOW DIARMUID GOT HIS LOVE-SPOT.--
+  Hyde, _Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach_.
+
+DAUGHTER OF KING UNDER-WAVE.--
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales_.
+
+THE HARD SERVANT.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES.--
+  MSS. in Royal Irish Academy, and in Dr Hyde's possession.
+
+DIARMUID AND GRANIA.--
+  Text Published by S. Hayes O'Grady,
+      _Proc. Ossianic Society_,
+      and re-edited by N. O'Duffey for
+      Society for Preservation of the Irish Language;
+   Kuno Meyer, _Revue Celtique_, and _Four Songs_;
+   _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+   Campbell's _Popular Tales_;
+   _Kilkenny Arch. Journal_;
+   _Folk Lore_, vol. vii., 1896;
+   Dean of Lismore;
+   Nutt, _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_.
+
+CNOC-AN-AIR, ETC.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_.
+
+WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA.--
+  _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Leabhar na Feinne_;
+  Campbell's _Popular Tales_;
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_;
+  O'Curry;
+  _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_;
+  Stokes, _Irische Texte_.
+
+THE END OF THE FIANNA.--
+  Hyde, _Sgealuidhe Gaedhealach_;
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_;
+  _Silva Gaedelica_;
+  Miss Brooke's _Reliques_;
+  _Annals of the Four Masters_;
+  _Celtic Magazine_.
+
+OISIN AND PATRICK, AND OISIN'S LAMENTS.--
+  _Proc. Ossianic Society_;
+  Dean of Lismore;
+  _Kilkenny Arch, fournal_;
+  Curtin's _Tales_.
+
+I have taken Grania's sleepy song, and the description of Finn's shield
+and of Cumhal's treasure-bag, and the fact of Finn's descent from
+Ethlinn, from _Duanaire Finn_, now being edited for the Irish Texts
+Society by Mr John MacNeill, the proofs of which I have been kindly
+allowed to see. And I have used sometimes parts of stories, or comments
+on them gathered directly from the people, who have kept these heroes so
+much in mind. The story of Caoilte coming to the help of the King of
+Ireland in a dark wood is the only one I have given without either a
+literary or a folk ancestry. It was heard or read by Mr Yeats, he cannot
+remember where, but he had, with it in his mind, written of "Caoilte's
+burning hair" in one of his poems.
+
+I and my readers owe special thanks to those good workers in the
+discovery of Irish literature, Professor Kuno Meyer and Mr Whitley
+Stokes, translators of so many manuscripts; and to my friend and kinsman
+Standish Hayes O'Grady, for what I have taken from that wonderful
+treasure-house, his _Silva Gaedelica_.
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE PRONUNCIATION
+
+
+This is the approximate pronunciation of some of the more difficult
+names:
+
+Adhnuall             Ai-noo-al.
+Ailbhe.              Alva.
+Almhuin              All-oon, _or_ Alvin.
+Aobh                 Aev, _or_ Eev.
+Aodh                 Ae (rhyming to "day").
+Aoibhill             Evill.
+Aoife                Eefa.
+
+Badb                 Bibe.
+Beltaine,
+    or Bealtaine     Bal-tinna.
+Bladhma              Bly-ma.
+Bodb Dearg           Bove Darrig.
+
+Caoilte              Cweeltia.
+Cam Ruidhe           Corn Rwee.
+Ciabhan              Kee-a-van.
+Cliodna              Cleevna.
+Coincheann           Kun-Kann.
+Crann Buidhe         Cran bwee.
+Credhe               Crae-a.
+Cumhal               Coo-al.
+
+Deaghadh             D'ya-a.
+Dubhthach            Duffach.
+Duibhreann           Dhiv-ran.
+Duibhrium            Dhiv-rinn.
+Dun                  Doon.
+
+Eimher               Aevir.
+Emhain               Avvin.
+Eochaid              Eohee.
+Eoghan               Owen.
+
+Fionnchad            Finn-ach-a.
+Fodhla               Fola.
+Fodla                Fola.
+
+Gallimh              Gol-yiv.
+Glas Gaibhnenn       Glos Gov-nan.
+
+Leith Laeig          Leh Laeg.
+Loch Dairbhreach     Loch Darvragh.
+Lugaidh              Loo-ee, _or_ Lewy.
+Lugh                 Loo.
+
+Magh an Ionganaidh   Moy-in-eean-ee.
+Magh Cuillean        Moy Cullin.
+Magh Feabhail        Moy Fowl.
+Magh Macraimhe       Moy Mucrivva.
+Magh Mell            Moy Mal.
+Magh Rein            Moy Raen.
+Magh Tuireadh        Moytirra.
+Manannan             Mananaun.
+Midhe                Mee.
+Midhna               Mec-na.
+Mochaomhog           Mo-cwecv-og.
+Muadhan              Moo-aun.
+Murchadh             Murachu.
+
+Nemhnain             Now-nin.
+Niamh                Nee-av.
+
+Og                   Og.
+
+Rath Medba,
+    or Meadhbha      Ra Maev-a.
+Rudraighe            Rury.
+
+Samhain              Sow-in.
+Scathniamh           Scau-nee-av.
+Sceolan              Skolaun.
+Searbhan             Sharavaun.
+Sidhe                Shee.
+Slieve Echtge        Sleev Acht-ga.
+
+Tadg                 Teig.
+Teamhair             T'yower, _or_ Tavvir.
+Tuatha de Danaan     Too-a-ha dae Donnan.
+Tuathmumhain         Too-moon.
+
+I have not followed a fixed rule as to the spelling of Irish names; I
+have taken the spelling I give from various good authorities, but they
+vary so much that, complete accuracy not being easy, I sometimes look to
+custom and convenience. I use, for instance, "Slieve" for "Sliabh,"
+because it comes so often, and a mispronunciation would spoil so many
+names. I have treated "Inbhir" (a river mouth) in the same way, spelling
+it "Inver," and even adopting it as an English word, because it is so
+useful. The forty scholars of the New School of Old Irish will do us
+good service if they work at the question both of spelling and of
+pronunciation of the old names and settle them as far as is possible.
+
+
+V. THE PLACE NAMES
+
+Accuill                Achill, Co. Mayo.
+Aine Cliach            Cnoc Aine, Co. Limerick.
+Almhuin                Near Kildare.
+Ath Cliath             Dublin.
+Athluain               Athlone.
+Ath na Riogh           Athenry.
+Badhamain              Cahir, Co. Tipperary.
+Baile Cronin           Barony of Imokilty, Co. Cork.
+Banna                  The Bann.
+Beare                  Berehaven.
+Bearna na Eadargana    Roscommon.
+Bearnas Mor            Co. Donegal.
+Beinn Gulbain          Benbulban, Co. Sligo.
+Beire do Bhunadas      Berehaven.
+Bel-atha Senaig        Ballyshannon.
+Belgata                In Connemara.
+Benna Boirde           Source of the Bann and Mourne Mountains.
+Berramain              Near Tralee.
+Bhas                   River Bush.
+Boinn                  River Boyne.
+Bri Leith              Co. Longford.
+
+Cairbre                Carbury.
+Cairgin                Three miles south of Londonderry.
+Carrthach River        River Carra, near Dunkerrin Mountains.
+Ceanntaile             Kinsale.
+Ceiscorainn            Co. Sligo.
+Cill Dolun             Killaloe, Co. Clare.
+Cliodna's Wave         At Glandore, Co. Cork.
+Cluantarbh             Clontarf.
+Cnoc Aine              Co. Limerick.
+Cnoc-an-Air            Co. Kerry.
+Cnoc na righ           Co. Sligo.
+Corca Duibhne          Corcaguiny, Co. Kerry.
+Corrslieve             Carlow Mountains.
+Crotta Cliach          Galtee Mountains.
+Cruachan               Co. Roscommon.
+Cruachan Aigle         Croagh Patrick.
+
+Doire a Cairn          Derrycarn, Co. Meath.
+Doire-da-Bhoth         In Slieve Echtge.
+Druim Cleibh           Co. Sligo.
+Druim Lis              Near Loch Gill.
+Druimscarha            Near River Arighis, Co. Cork.
+Dun Sobairce           Dunsevenh, Co. Antrim.
+Durlas                 Thurles.
+
+Ess Dara               Near Sligo.
+Ess Ruadh              Assaroe, Co. Donegal.
+Fidh Gaible            Fergill, Co. Sligo.
+Finntraighe            Ventry.
+Fionn                  The Finn.
+Fionnabraic            Kilfenna, Co. Clare.
+Fionntutach            Co. Limerick.
+Fleisge                Co. Kerry.
+
+Gabhra                 Near Tara.
+Gaibh atha na Fiann    River Leamhar, flows from Killarney.
+Gairech and Ilgairech  Hills near Mullingar.
+Gallimh                Galway.
+Gleann na Caor         Co. Cork.
+Gullach Dollairb       Barony of Rathconrath.
+
+Hill of Bairnech       Near Killarney.
+Hill of Uisnech        Co. Westmeath.
+
+Inver Cechmaine        East coast of Ulster.
+Inver Colpa            Drogheda.
+Inver Slane            N.E. of Leinster.
+Irrus Domnann          Erris, Co. Mayo.
+Island of Toraig       Tory Island, Co. Donegal.
+
+Laoi                   River Lee.
+Leith Laoi             Leitrim.
+Linn Feic              Near Slaney.
+Loch Bel Sead          Co. Tipperary.
+Loch Ce                Co. Roscommon.
+Loch Dairbhreach       Loch Derryvaragh, Co. Westmeath.
+Loch Deirg Dheirc      Loch Derg on the Shannon.
+Loch Eirne             Loch Erne.
+Loch Feabhail          Loch Foyle.
+Loch Lein              Killarney.
+Loch Orbson            Loch Corrib.
+Loch na-n Ean          In Co. Roscommon.
+Lough Neatach          Loch Neagh.
+Luimneach              Limerick.
+
+Maev Mhagh             Plain about Loughrea.
+Magh Cobha             Iveagh, Co. Down.
+Magh Cuilenn           Moycullen, Co. Galway.
+Magh Femen             Co. Tipperary.
+Magh Larg              Co. Roscommon.
+Magh Leine             King's County.
+Magh Luirg             Co. Roscommon.
+Magh Maini             Co. Wexford.
+Magh Mucraimhe         Near Athenry.
+Magh Nia               Same as Magh Tuireadh.
+Magh Rein              Co. Leitrim.
+Magh Tuireadh          Moytura near Sligo, scene of great
+                          battle, and Moytura, near
+                          Cong, scene of first battle.
+March of Finnliath     River Lee, near Tralee.
+Midhe                  Meath, west of Ardagh.
+Mis Geadh              In Bay of Erris.
+Muaid                  River Moy.
+Muc-inis               Muckinish, off Connemara.
+
+Nas                    Naas.
+Nem                    The Nem.
+
+Oenach Clochan         Morristown, Co. Limerick.
+Osraige                Ossory.
+
+Paps of Dana           Co. Kerry.
+Portlairge             Waterford.
+
+River Maigh            Co. Limerick.
+Ros da Shioleach       Limerick.
+Ruirlech               Liffey.
+
+Samair                 R. Cumhair, runs through Bruff.
+Sionnan                River Shannon.
+Siuir                  River Suir, Co. Tipperary.
+Siuir and Beoir        Suir and Nore and Barrow.
+   and Berba
+Slieve Baisne          Co. Roscommon.
+Slieve Bladmai         Slieve Bloom.
+Slieve Buane           Slieve Banne, Co. Roscommon.
+Slieve Conaill         Border of Leitrim and Donegal.
+Slieve Crot            Co. Tipperary.
+Slieve Cua             Co. Waterford.
+Slieve Cua
+   and Slieve Crot     In Galtee Mountains.
+Slieve Cuailgne        Co. Louth.
+Slieve Echtge          Co. Galway.
+Slieve Fuad            Co. Armagh.
+Slieve Guaire          Co. Cavan.
+Slieve Luchra          Co. Kerry.
+Slieve Lugha           Co. Mayo.
+Slieve Mis             Co. Kerry.
+Slieve Muice           Co. Tipperary.
+Slieve-nam-Ban         Co. Tipperary
+Sligach                Sligo.
+Srub Bruin             In West Kerry.
+Sruth na Maoile        Mull of Cantire.
+
+Tailltin               Telltown.
+Teamhair               Tara, Co. Meath.
+Teunhair Luchra        Near Castle Island, Co. Kerry.
+The Beith              River Behy, Barony of Dunkerrin.
+The Beoir              The Berba.
+The Islands of Mod     In Clew Bay.
+The Lemain             River Laune, Co. Kerry.
+The Muaidh             River Moy, Co. Sligo.
+Tonn Toime             Toines, near Killarney.
+Traigh Eothaile        Near Ballisodare.
+Tuathmumain            Thomond.
+
+Ui Chonaill Gabhra       Co. Limerick.
+Ui Fiachraih, Fiachraig  Co. Mayo.
+
+Wave of Rudraighe      Bay of Dundrum.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Gods and Fighting Men, by Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODS AND FIGHTING MEN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 14465.txt or 14465.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/6/14465/
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Robert Ledger and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/14465.zip b/old/14465.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3610a96
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14465.zip