IRISH FAIRY TALES

By James Stephens

CONTENTS

 THE STORY OF TUAN MAC CAIRILL THE BOYHOOD OF FIONN THE BIRTH OF BRAN OISI'N'S MOTHER THE WOOING OF BECFOLA THE LITTLE BRAWL AT ALLEN THE CARL OF THE DRAB COAT THE ENCHANTED CAVE OF CESH CORRAN BECUMA OF THE WHITE SKIN MONGAN'S FRENZY

THE STORY OF TUAN MAC CAIRILL

CHAPTER I

Finnian, the Abbott of Moville, went southwards and eastwards in greathaste. News had come to him in Donegal that there were yet people in hisown province who believed in gods that he did not approve of, and thegods that we do not approve of are treated scurvily, even by saintlymen. 

He was told of a powerful gentleman who observed neither Saint's day norSunday. 

"A powerful person!" said Finnian. 

"All that, " was the reply. 

"We shall try this person's power, " said Finnian. 

"He is reputed to be a wise and hardy man, " said his informant. 

"We shall test his wisdom and his hardihood. "

"He is, " that gossip whispered--"he is a magician. "

"I will magician him, " cried Finnian angrily. "Where does that manlive?"

He was informed, and he proceeded to that direction without delay. 

In no great time he came to the stronghold of the gentleman who followedancient ways, and he demanded admittance in order that he might preachand prove the new God, and exorcise and terrify and banish even thememory of the old one; for to a god grown old Time is as ruthless as toa beggarman grown old. 

But the Ulster gentleman refused Finnian admittance. He barricadedhis house, he shuttered his windows, and in a gloom of indignation andprotest he continued the practices of ten thousand years, and wouldnot hearken to Finnian calling at the window or to Time knocking at hisdoor. 

But of those adversaries it was the first he redoubted. 

Finnian loomed on him as a portent and a terror; but he had no fear ofTime. Indeed he was the foster-brother of Time, and so disdainful of thebitter god that he did not even disdain him; he leaped over the scythe, he dodged under it, and the sole occasions on which Time laughs is whenhe chances on Tuan, the son of Cairill, the son of Muredac Red-neck. 

CHAPTER II

Now Finnian could not abide that any person should resist both theGospel and himself, and he proceeded to force the stronghold by peacefulbut powerful methods. He fasted on the gentleman, and he did so to suchpurpose that he was admitted to the house; for to an hospitable heartthe idea that a stranger may expire on your doorstep from sheer faminecannot be tolerated. The gentleman, however, did not give in without astruggle: he thought that when Finnian had grown sufficiently hungry hewould lift the siege and take himself off to some place where he mightget food. But he did not know Finnian. The great abbot sat down on aspot just beyond the door, and composed himself to all that might followfrom his action. He bent his gaze on the ground between his feet, and entered into a meditation from which he would Only be released byadmission or death. 

The first day passed quietly. 

Often the gentleman would send a servitor to spy if that deserter of thegods was still before his door, and each time the servant replied thathe was still there. 

"He will be gone in the morning, " said the hopeful master. 

On the morrow the state of siege continued, and through that day theservants were sent many times to observe through spy-holes. 

"Go, " he would say, "and find out if the worshipper of new gods hastaken himself away. "

But the servants returned each time with the same information. 

"The new druid is still there, " they said. 

All through that day no one could leave the stronghold. And the enforcedseclusion wrought on the minds of the servants, while the cessationof all work banded them together in small groups that whispered anddiscussed and disputed. Then these groups would disperse to peep throughthe spy-hole at the patient, immobile figure seated before the door, wrapped in a meditation that was timeless and unconcerned. Theytook fright at the spectacle, and once or twice a woman screamedhysterically, and was bundled away with a companion's hand clapped onher mouth, so that the ear of their master should not be affronted. 

"He has his own troubles, " they said. "It is a combat of the gods thatis taking place. "

So much for the women; but the men also were uneasy. They prowled up anddown, tramping from the spy-hole to the kitchen, and from the kitchento the turreted roof. And from the roof they would look down on themotionless figure below, and speculate on many things, includingthe staunchness of man, the qualities of their master, and even thepossibility that the new gods might be as powerful as the old. From these peepings and discussions they would return languid anddiscouraged. 

"If, " said one irritable guard, "if we buzzed a spear at the persistentstranger, or if one slung at him with a jagged pebble!"

"What!" his master demanded wrathfully, "is a spear to be thrown atan unarmed stranger? And from this house!" And he soundly cuffed thatindelicate servant. 

"Be at peace all of you, " he said, "for hunger has a whip, and he willdrive the stranger away in the night. "

The household retired to wretched beds; but for the master of the housethere was no sleep. He marched his halls all night, going often tothe spy-hole to see if that shadow was still sitting in the shade, andpacing thence, tormented, preoccupied, refusing even the nose of hisfavourite dog as it pressed lovingly into his closed palm. 

On the morrow he gave in. 

The great door was swung wide, and two of his servants carried Finnianinto the house, for the saint could no longer walk or stand upright byreason of the hunger and exposure to which he had submitted. But hisframe was tough as the unconquerable spirit that dwelt within it, andin no long time he was ready for whatever might come of dispute oranathema. 

Being quite re-established he undertook the conversion of the master ofthe house, and the siege he laid against that notable intelligence waslong spoken of among those who are interested in such things. 

He had beaten the disease of Mugain; he had beaten his own pupil thegreat Colm Cille; he beat Tuan also, and just as the latter's door hadopened to the persistent stranger, so his heart opened, and Finnianmarched there to do the will of God, and his own will. 

CHAPTER III

One day they were talking together about the majesty of God and Hislove, for although Tuan had now received much instruction on thissubject he yet needed more, and he laid as close a siege on Finnianas Finnian had before that laid on him. But man works outwardly andinwardly. After rest he has energy, after energy he needs repose; so, when we have given instruction for a time, we need instruction, and mustreceive it or the spirit faints and wisdom herself grows bitter. 

Therefore Finnian said: "Tell me now about yourself, dear heart. "

But Tuan was avid of information about the True God. "No, no, " hesaid, "the past has nothing more of interest for me, and I do not wishanything to come between my soul and its instruction; continue to teachme, dear friend and saintly father. "

"I will do that, " Finnian replied, "but I must first meditate deeply onyou, and must know you well. Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man ishis past, and is to be known by it. "

But Tuan pleaded: "Let the past be content with itself, for man needsforgetfulness as well as memory. "

"My son, " said Finnian, "all that has ever been done has been done forthe glory of God, and to confess our good and evil deeds is part ofinstruction; for the soul must recall its acts and abide by them, orrenounce them by confession and penitence. Tell me your genealogy first, and by what descent you occupy these lands and stronghold, and then Iwill examine your acts and your conscience. "

Tuan replied obediently: "I am known as Tuan, son of Cairill, son ofMuredac Red-neck, and these are the hereditary lands of my father. "

The saint nodded. 

"I am not as well acquainted with Ulster genealogies as I should be, yetI know something of them. I am by blood a Leinsterman, " he continued. 

"Mine is a long pedigree, " Tuan murmured. 

Finnian received that information with respect and interest. 

"I also, " he said, "have an honourable record. "

His host continued: "I am indeed Tuan, the son of Starn, the son ofSera, who was brother to Partholon. "

"But, " said Finnian in bewilderment, "there is an error here, for youhave recited two different genealogies. "

"Different genealogies, indeed, " replied Tuan thoughtfully, "but theyare my genealogies. "

"I do not understand this, " Finnian declared roundly. 

"I am now known as Tuan mac Cairill, " the other replied, "but in thedays of old I was known as Tuan mac Starn, mac Sera. "

"The brother of Partholon, " the saint gasped. 

"That is my pedigree, " Tuan said. 

"But, " Finnian objected in bewilderment, "Partholon came to Ireland notlong after the Flood. "

"I came with him, " said Tuan mildly. 

The saint pushed his chair back hastily, and sat staring at his host, and as he stared the blood grew chill in his veins, and his hair creptalong his scalp and stood on end. 

CHAPTER IV

But Finnian was not one who remained long in bewilderment. He thought onthe might of God and he became that might, and was tranquil. 

He was one who loved God and Ireland, and to the person who couldinstruct him in these great themes he gave all the interest of his mindand the sympathy of his heart. 

"It is a wonder you tell me, my beloved, " he said. "And now you musttell me more. "

"What must I tell?" asked Tuan resignedly. 

"Tell me of the beginning of time in Ireland, and of the bearing ofPartholon, the son of Noah's son. "

"I have almost forgotten him, " said Tuan. "A greatly bearded, greatlyshouldered man he was. A man of sweet deeds and sweet ways. "

"Continue, my love, " said Finnian. 

"He came to Ireland in a ship. Twenty-four men and twenty-four womencame with him. But before that time no man had come to Ireland, and inthe western parts of the world no human being lived or moved. As we drewon Ireland from the sea the country seemed like an unending forest. Faras the eye could reach, and in whatever direction, there were trees; andfrom these there came the unceasing singing of birds. Over all that landthe sun shone warm and beautiful, so that to our sea-weary eyes, ourwind-tormented ears, it seemed as if we were driving on Paradise. 

"We landed and we heard the rumble of water going gloomily through thedarkness of the forest. Following the water we came to a glade wherethe sun shone and where the earth was warmed, and there Partholon restedwith his twenty-four couples, and made a city and a livelihood. 

"There were fish in the rivers of Eire', there were animals in hercoverts. Wild and shy and monstrous creatures ranged in her plains andforests. Creatures that one could see through and walk through. Long welived in ease, and we saw new animals grow, --the bear, the wolf, thebadger, the deer, and the boar. 

"Partholon's people increased until from twenty-four couples there camefive thousand people, who lived in amity and contentment although theyhad no wits. "

"They had no wits!" Finnian commented. 

"They had no need of wits, " Tuan said. 

"I have heard that the first-born were mindless, " said Finnian. "Continue your story, my beloved. "

"Then, sudden as a rising wind, between one night and a morning, therecame a sickness that bloated the stomach and purpled the skin, and onthe seventh day all of the race of Partholon were dead, save one manonly. " "There always escapes one man, " said Finnian thoughtfully. 

"And I am that man, " his companion affirmed. 

Tuan shaded his brow with his hand, and he remembered backwards throughincredible ages to the beginning of the world and the first days ofEire'. And Finnian, with his blood again running chill and his scalpcrawling uneasily, stared backwards with him. 

CHAPTER V

"Tell on, my love, " Finnian murmured

"I was alone, " said Tuan. "I was so alone that my own shadow frightenedme. I was so alone that the sound of a bird in flight, or the creakingof a dew-drenched bough, whipped me to cover as a rabbit is scared tohis burrow. 

"The creatures of the forest scented me and knew I was alone. They stolewith silken pad behind my back and snarled when I faced them; the long, grey wolves with hanging tongues and staring eyes chased me to my cleftrock; there was no creature so weak but it might hunt me, there was nocreature so timid but it might outface me. And so I lived for two tensof years and two years, until I knew all that a beast surmises and hadforgotten all that a man had known. 

"I could pad as gently as any; I could run as tirelessly. I could beinvisible and patient as a wild cat crouching among leaves; I couldsmell danger in my sleep and leap at it with wakeful claws; I could barkand growl and clash with my teeth and tear with them. "

"Tell on, my beloved, " said Finnian, "you shall rest in God, dearheart. "

"At the end of that time, " said Tuan, "Nemed the son of Agnoman came toIreland with a fleet of thirty-four barques, and in each barque therewere thirty couples of people. "

"I have heard it, " said Finnian. 

"My heart leaped for joy when I saw the great fleet rounding the land, and I followed them along scarped cliffs, leaping from rock to rock likea wild goat, while the ships tacked and swung seeking a harbour. There Istooped to drink at a pool, and I saw myself in the chill water. 

"I saw that I was hairy and tufty and bristled as a savage boar; that Iwas lean as a stripped bush; that I was greyer than a badger; witheredand wrinkled like an empty sack; naked as a fish; wretched as a starvingcrow in winter; and on my fingers and toes there were great curvingclaws, so that I looked like nothing that was known, like nothing thatwas animal or divine. And I sat by the pool weeping my loneliness andwildness and my stern old age; and I could do no more than cry andlament between the earth and the sky, while the beasts that tracked melistened from behind the trees, or crouched among bushes to stare at mefrom their drowsy covert. 

"A storm arose, and when I looked again from my tall cliff I saw thatgreat fleet rolling as in a giant's hand. At times they were pitchedagainst the sky and staggered aloft, spinning gustily there likewind-blown leaves. Then they were hurled from these dizzy tops to theflat, moaning gulf, to the glassy, inky horror that swirled and whirledbetween ten waves. At times a wave leaped howling under a ship, and witha buffet dashed it into air, and chased it upwards with thunder strokeon stroke, and followed again, close as a chasing wolf, trying withhammering on hammering to beat in the wide-wombed bottom and suck outthe frightened lives through one black gape. A wave fell on a ship andsunk it down with a thrust, stern as though a whole sky had tumbled atit, and the barque did not cease to go down until it crashed and sank inthe sand at the bottom of the sea. 

"The night came, and with it a thousand darknesses fell from thescreeching sky. Not a round-eyed creature of the night might pierce aninch of that multiplied gloom. Not a creature dared creep or stand. Fora great wind strode the world lashing its league-long whips in cracksof thunder, and singing to itself, now in a world-wide yell, now in anear-dizzying hum and buzz; or with a long snarl and whine it hoveredover the world searching for life to destroy. 

"And at times, from the moaning and yelping blackness of the sea, therecame a sound--thin-drawn as from millions of miles away, distinct asthough uttered in the ear like a whisper of confidence--and I knew thata drowning man was calling on his God as he thrashed and was batteredinto silence, and that a blue-lipped woman was calling on her man as herhair whipped round her brows and she whirled about like a top. 

"Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans; theyleaped into the air and flew like birds. Great waves whizzed from thesea: spinning across the cliffs and hurtling to the earth in monstrousclots of foam; the very rocks came trundling and sidling and grindingamong the trees; and in that rage, and in that horror of blackness Ifell asleep, or I was beaten into slumber. "

CHAPTER VI

"THERE I dreamed, and I saw myself changing into a stag in dream, andI felt in dream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream Iarched my neck and braced my powerful limbs. 

"I awoke from the dream, and I was that which I had dreamed. 

"I stood a while stamping upon a rock, with my bristling head swunghigh, breathing through wide nostrils all the savour of the world. ForI had come marvellously from decrepitude to strength. I had writhed fromthe bonds of age and was young again. I smelled the turf and knew forthe first time how sweet that smelled. And like lightning my moving nosesniffed all things to my heart and separated them into knowledge. 

"Long I stood there, ringing my iron hoof on stone, and learning allthings through my nose. Each breeze that came from the right hand or theleft brought me a tale. A wind carried me the tang of wolf, and againstthat smell I stared and stamped. And on a wind there came the scent ofmy own kind, and at that I belled. Oh, loud and clear and sweet was thevoice of the great stag. With what ease my lovely note went lilting. With what joy I heard the answering call. With what delight I bounded, bounded, bounded; light as a bird's plume, powerful as a storm, untiringas the sea. 

"Here now was ease in ten-yard springings, with a swinging head, withthe rise and fall of a swallow, with the curve and flow and urge of anotter of the sea. What a tingle dwelt about my heart! What a thrill spunto the lofty points of my antlers! How the world was new! How the sunwas new! How the wind caressed me!

"With unswerving forehead and steady eye I met all that came. The old, lone wolf leaped sideways, snarling, and slunk away. The lumbering bearswung his head of hesitations and thought again; he trotted his smallred eye away with him to a near-by brake. The stags of my race fled frommy rocky forehead, or were pushed back and back until their legs brokeunder them and I trampled them to death. I was the beloved, the wellknown, the leader of the herds of Ireland. 

"And at times I came back from my boundings about Eire', for the stringsof my heart were drawn to Ulster; and, standing away, my wide nose tookthe air, while I knew with joy, with terror, that men were blown on thewind. A proud head hung to the turf then, and the tears of memory rolledfrom a large, bright eye. 

"At times I drew near, delicately, standing among thick leaves orcrouched in long grown grasses, and I stared and mourned as I looked onmen. For Nemed and four couples had been saved from that fierce storm, and I saw them increase and multiply until four thousand couples livedand laughed and were riotous in the sun, for the people of Nemed hadsmall minds but great activity. They were savage fighters and hunters. 

"But one time I came, drawn by that intolerable anguish of memory, andall of these people were gone: the place that knew them was silent: inthe land where they had moved there was nothing of them but their bonesthat glinted in the sun. 

"Old age came on me there. Among these bones weariness crept into mylimbs. My head grew heavy, my eyes dim, my knees jerked and trembled, and there the wolves dared chase me. 

"I went again to the cave that had been my home when I was an old man. 

"One day I stole from the cave to snatch a mouthful of grass, for I wasclosely besieged by wolves. They made their rush, and I barely escapedfrom them. They sat beyond the cave staring at me. 

"I knew their tongue. I knew all that they said to each other, and allthat they said to me. But there was yet a thud left in my forehead, adeadly trample in my hoof. They did not dare come into the cave. 

"'To-morrow, ' they said, 'we will tear out your throat, and gnaw on yourliving haunch'. "

CHAPTER VII

"Then my soul rose to the height of Doom, and I intended all that mighthappen to me, and agreed to it. 

"'To-morrow, ' I said, 'I will go out among ye, and I will die, ' and atthat the wolves howled joyfully, hungrily, impatiently. 

"I slept, and I saw myself changing into a boar in dream, and I felt indream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream I stretched mypowerful neck and braced my eager limbs. I awoke from my dream, and Iwas that which I had dreamed. 

"The night wore away, the darkness lifted, the day came; and fromwithout the cave the wolves called to me: "'Come out, O Skinny Stag. Come out and die. '

"And I, with joyful heart, thrust a black bristle through the hole ofthe cave, and when they saw that wriggling snout, those curving tusks, that red fierce eye, the wolves fled yelping, tumbling over each other, frantic with terror; and I behind them, a wild cat for leaping, a giantfor strength, a devil for ferocity; a madness and gladness of lusty, unsparing life; a killer, a champion, a boar who could not be defied. 

"I took the lordship of the boars of Ireland. 

"Wherever I looked among my tribes I saw love and obedience: wheneverI appeared among the strangers they fled away. And the wolves feared methen, and the great, grim bear went bounding on heavy paws. I chargedhim at the head of my troop and rolled him over and over; but it is noteasy to kill the bear, so deeply is his life packed under that stinkingpelt. He picked himself up and ran, and was knocked down, and ran againblindly, butting into trees and stones. Not a claw did the big bearflash, not a tooth did he show, as he ran whimpering like a baby, oras he stood with my nose rammed against his mouth, snarling up into hisnostrils. 

"I challenged all that moved. All creatures but one. For men had againcome to Ireland. Semion, the son of Stariath, with his people, from whomthe men of Domnann and the Fir Bolg and the Galiuin are descended. TheseI did not chase, and when they chased me I fled. 

"Often I would go, drawn by my memoried heart, to look at them as theymoved among their fields; and I spoke to my mind in bitterness: 'Whenthe people of Partholon were gathered in counsel my voice was heard; itwas sweet to all who heard it, and the words I spoke were wise. The eyesof women brightened and softened when they looked at me. They loved tohear him when he sang who now wanders in the forest with a tusky herd. '"

CHAPTER VIII

"OLD age again overtook me. Weariness stole into my limbs, and anguishdozed into my mind. I went to my Ulster cave and dreamed my dream, and Ichanged into a hawk. 

"I left the ground. The sweet air was my kingdom, and my bright eyestared on a hundred miles. I soared, I swooped; I hung, motionless as aliving stone, over the abyss; I lived in joy and slept in peace, and hadmy fill of the sweetness of life. 

"During that time Beothach, the son of Iarbonel the Prophet, came toIreland with his people, and there was a great battle between his menand the children of Semion. Long I hung over that combat, seeing everyspear that hurtled, every stone that whizzed from a sling, every swordthat flashed up and down, and the endless glittering of the shields. Andat the end I saw that the victory was with Iarbonel. And from his peoplethe Tuatha De' and the Ande' came, although their origin is forgotten, and learned people, because of their excellent wisdom and intelligence, say that they came from heaven. 

"These are the people of Faery. All these are the gods. 

"For long, long years I was a hawk. I knew every hill and stream; everyfield and glen of Ireland. I knew the shape of cliffs and coasts, andhow all places looked under the sun or moon. And I was still a hawk whenthe sons of Mil drove the Tuatha De' Danann under the ground, and heldIreland against arms or wizardry; and this was the coming of men and thebeginning of genealogies. 

"Then I grew old, and in my Ulster cave close to the sea I dreamed mydream, and in it I became a salmon. The green tides of ocean rose overme and my dream, so that I drowned in the sea and did not die, for Iawoke in deep waters, and I was that which I dreamed. I had been a man, a stag, a boar, a bird, and now I was a fish. In all my changes I hadjoy and fulness of life. But in the water joy lay deeper, life pulseddeeper. For on land or air there is always something excessive andhindering; as arms that swing at the sides of a man, and which themind must remember. The stag has legs to be tucked away for sleep, anduntucked for movement; and the bird has wings that must be folded andpecked and cared for. But the fish has but one piece from his nose tohis tail. He is complete, single and unencumbered. He turns in one turn, and goes up and down and round in one sole movement. 

"How I flew through the soft element: how I joyed in the country wherethere is no harshness: in the element which upholds and gives way; whichcaresses and lets go, and will not let you fall. For man may stumble ina furrow; the stag tumble from a cliff; the hawk, wing-weary and beaten, with darkness around him and the storm behind, may dash his brainsagainst a tree. But the home of the salmon is his delight, and the seaguards all her creatures. "

CHAPTER IX

"I became the king of the salmon, and, with my multitudes, I ranged onthe tides of the world. Green and purple distances were under me: greenand gold the sunlit regions above. In these latitudes I moved through aworld of amber, myself amber and gold; in those others, in a sparkleof lucent blue, I curved, lit like a living jewel: and in these again, through dusks of ebony all mazed with silver, I shot and shone, thewonder of the sea. 

"I saw the monsters of the uttermost ocean go heaving by; and the longlithe brutes that are toothed to their tails: and below, where gloomdipped down on gloom, vast, livid tangles that coiled and uncoiled, andlapsed down steeps and hells of the sea where even the salmon could notgo. 

"I knew the sea. I knew the secret caves where ocean roars to ocean; thefloods that are icy cold, from which the nose of a salmon leaps back asat a sting; and the warm streams in which we rocked and dozed and werecarried forward without motion. I swam on the outermost rim of the greatworld, where nothing was but the sea and the sky and the salmon; whereeven the wind was silent, and the water was clear as clean grey rock. 

"And then, far away in the sea, I remembered Ulster, and there came onme an instant, uncontrollable anguish to be there. I turned, and throughdays and nights I swam tirelessly, jubilantly; with terror wakening inme, too, and a whisper through my being that I must reach Ireland ordie. 

"I fought my way to Ulster from the sea. 

"Ah, how that end of the journey was hard! A sickness was racking inevery one of my bones, a languor and weariness creeping through my everyfibre and muscle. The waves held me back and held me back; the softwaters seemed to have grown hard; and it was as though I were urgingthrough a rock as I strained towards Ulster from the sea. 

"So tired I was! I could have loosened my frame and been swept away;I could have slept and been drifted and wafted away; swinging ongrey-green billows that had turned from the land and were heaving andmounting and surging to the far blue water. 

"Only the unconquerable heart of the salmon could brave that end oftoil. The sound of the rivers of Ireland racing down to the sea came tome in the last numb effort: the love of Ireland bore me up: the gods ofthe rivers trod to me in the white-curled breakers, so that I leftthe sea at long, long last; and I lay in sweet water in the curve of acrannied rock, exhausted, three parts dead, triumphant. "

CHAPTER X

"Delight and strength came to me again, and now I explored all theinland ways, the great lakes of Ireland, and her swift brown rivers. 

"What a joy to lie under an inch of water basking in the sun, or beneatha shady ledge to watch the small creatures that speed like lightning onthe rippling top. I saw the dragon-flies flash and dart and turn, witha poise, with a speed that no other winged thing knows: I saw the hawkhover and stare and swoop: he fell like a falling stone, but he couldnot catch the king of the salmon: I saw the cold-eyed cat stretchingalong a bough level with the water, eager to hook and lift the creaturesof the river. And I saw men. 

"They saw me also. They came to know me and look for me. They lay inwait at the waterfalls up which I leaped like a silver flash. They heldout nets for me; they hid traps under leaves; they made cords of thecolour of water, of the colour of weeds--but this salmon had a nose thatknew how a weed felt and how a string--they drifted meat on a sightlessstring, but I knew of the hook; they thrust spears at me, and threwlances which they drew back again with a cord. Many a wound I got frommen, many a sorrowful scar. 

"Every beast pursued me in the waters and along the banks; the barking, black-skinned otter came after me in lust and gust and swirl; the wildcat fished for me; the hawk and the steep-winged, spear-beaked birdsdived down on me, and men crept on me with nets the width of a river, so that I got no rest. My life became a ceaseless scurry and wound andescape, a burden and anguish of watchfulness--and then I was caught. "

CHAPTER XI

"THE fisherman of Cairill, the King of Ulster, took me in his net. Ah, that was a happy man when he saw me! He shouted for joy when he saw thegreat salmon in his net. 

"I was still in the water as he hauled delicately. I was still in thewater as he pulled me to the bank. My nose touched air and spun from itas from fire, and I dived with all my might against the bottom of thenet, holding yet to the water, loving it, mad with terror that I mustquit that loveliness. But the net held and I came up. 

"'Be quiet, King of the River, ' said the fisherman, 'give in to Doom, 'said he. 

"I was in air, and it was as though I were in fire. The air pressed onme like a fiery mountain. It beat on my scales and scorched them. Itrushed down my throat and scalded me. It weighed on me and squeezed me, so that my eyes felt as though they must burst from my head, my head asthough it would leap from my body, and my body as though it would swelland expand and fly in a thousand pieces. 

"The light blinded me, the heat tormented me, the dry air made meshrivel and gasp; and, as he lay on the grass, the great salmon whirledhis desperate nose once more to the river, and leaped, leaped, leaped, even under the mountain of air. He could leap upwards, but not forwards, and yet he leaped, for in each rise he could see the twinkling waves, the rippling and curling waters. 

"'Be at ease, O King, ' said the fisherman. 'Be at rest, my beloved. Letgo the stream. Let the oozy marge be forgotten, and the sandy bed wherethe shades dance all in green and gloom, and the brown flood singsalong. '

"And as he carried me to the palace he sang a song of the river, and asong of Doom, and a song in praise of the King of the Waters. 

"When the king's wife saw me she desired me. I was put over a fire androasted, and she ate me. And when time passed she gave birth to me, andI was her son and the son of Cairill the king. I remember warmth anddarkness and movement and unseen sounds. All that happened I remember, from the time I was on the gridiron until the time I was born. I forgetnothing of these things. "

"And now, " said Finnian, "you will be born again, for I shall baptizeyou into the family of the Living God. " ---- So far the story of Tuan, the son of Cairill. 

No man knows if he died in those distant ages when Finnian was Abbot ofMoville, or if he still keeps his fort in Ulster, watching all things, and remembering them for the glory of God and the honour of Ireland. 

THE BOYHOOD OF FIONN

He was a king, a seer and a poet. He was a lord with a manifold andgreat train. He was our magician, our knowledgable one, our soothsayer. All that he did was sweet with him. And, however ye deem my testimonyof Fionn excessive, and, although ye hold my praising overstrained, nevertheless, and by the King that is above me, he was three timesbetter than all I say. --Saint PATRICK. 

CHAPTER I

Fionn [pronounce Fewn to rhyme with "tune"] got his first training amongwomen. There is no wonder in that, for it is the pup's mother teaches itto fight, and women know that fighting is a necessary art although menpretend there are others that are better. These were the women druids, Bovmall and Lia Luachra. It will be wondered why his own mother did nottrain him in the first natural savageries of existence, but she couldnot do it. She could not keep him with her for dread of the clann-Morna. The sons of Morna had been fighting and intriguing for a long time tooust her husband, Uail, from the captaincy of the Fianna of Ireland, and they had ousted him at last by killing him. It was the only waythey could get rid of such a man; but it was not an easy way, for whatFionn's father did not know in arms could not be taught to him even byMorna. Still, the hound that can wait will catch a hare at last, andeven Manana'nn sleeps. Fionn's mother was beautiful, long-haired Muirne:so she is always referred to. She was the daughter of Teigue, the son ofNuada from Faery, and her mother was Ethlinn. That is, her brotherwas Lugh of the Long Hand himself, and with a god, and such a god, forbrother we may marvel that she could have been in dread of Morna or hissons, or of any one. But women have strange loves, strange fears, andthese are so bound up with one another that the thing which is presentedto us is not often the thing that is to be seen. 

However it may be, when Uall died Muirne got married again to the Kingof Kerry. She gave the child to Bovmall and Lia Luachra to rear, and wemay be sure that she gave injunctions with him, and many of them. Theyoungster was brought to the woods of Slieve Bloom and was nursed therein secret. 

It is likely the women were fond of him, for other than Fionn therewas no life about them. He would be their life; and their eyes mayhave seemed as twin benedictions resting on the small fair head. He wasfair-haired, and it was for his fairness that he was afterwards calledFionn; but at this period he was known as Deimne. They saw the food theyput into his little frame reproduce itself length-ways and sideways intough inches, and in springs and energies that crawled at first, andthen toddled, and then ran. He had birds for playmates, but all thecreatures that live in a wood must have been his comrades. There wouldhave been for little Fionn long hours of lonely sunshine, when the worldseemed just sunshine and a sky. There would have been hours as long, when existence passed like a shade among shadows, in the multitudinoustappings of rain that dripped from leaf to leaf in the wood, and slippedso to the ground. He would have known little snaky paths, narrow enoughto be filled by his own small feet, or a goat's; and he would havewondered where they went, and have marvelled again to find that, wherever they went, they came at last, through loops and twists of thebranchy wood, to his own door. He may have thought of his own door asthe beginning and end of the world, whence all things went, and whitherall things came. 

Perhaps he did not see the lark for a long time, but he would have heardhim, far out of sight in the endless sky, thrilling and thrilling untilthe world seemed to have no other sound but that clear sweetness; andwhat a world it was to make that sound! Whistles and chirps, coos andcaws and croaks, would have grown familiar to him. And he could at lasthave told which brother of the great brotherhood was making the noisehe heard at any moment. The wind too: he would have listened to itsthousand voices as it moved in all seasons and in all moods. Perhaps ahorse would stray into the thick screen about his home, and would lookas solemnly on Fionn as Fionn did on it. Or, coming suddenly on him, the horse might stare, all a-cock with eyes and ears and nose, onelong-drawn facial extension, ere he turned and bounded away withmanes all over him and hoofs all under him and tails all round him. Asolemn-nosed, stern-eyed cow would amble and stamp in his wood to find aflyless shadow; or a strayed sheep would poke its gentle muzzle throughleaves. 

"A boy, " he might think, as he stared on a staring horse, "a boy cannotwag his tail to keep the flies off, " and that lack may have saddenedhim. He may have thought that a cow can snort and be dignified atthe one moment, and that timidity is comely in a sheep. He would havescolded the jackdaw, and tried to out-whistle the throstle, and wonderedwhy his pipe got tired when the blackbird's didn't. There would be fliesto be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze that flew, and filmy specksthat flittered, and sturdy, thick-ribbed brutes that pounced like catsand bit like dogs and flew like lightning. He may have mourned for thespider in bad luck who caught that fly. There would be much to see andremember and compare, and there would be, always, his two guardians. Theflies change from second to second; one cannot tell if this bird is avisitor or an inhabitant, and a sheep is just sister to a sheep; but thewomen were as rooted as the house itself. 

CHAPTER II

Were his nurses comely or harsh-looking? Fionn would not know. This wasthe one who picked him up when he fell, and that was the one who pattedthe bruise. This one said: "Mind you do not tumble in the well!"

And that one: "Mind the little knees among the nettles. "

But he did tumble and record that the only notable thing about a wellis that it is wet. And as for nettles, if they hit him he hit back. Heslashed into them with a stick and brought them low. There was nothingin wells or nettles, only women dreaded them. One patronised women andinstructed them and comforted them, for they were afraid about one. 

They thought that one should not climb a tree!

"Next week, " they said at last, "you may climb this one, " and "nextweek" lived at the end of the world!

But the tree that was climbed was not worth while when it had beenclimbed twice. There was a bigger one near by. There were trees that noone could climb, with vast shadow on one side and vaster sunshine onthe other. It took a long time to walk round them, and you could not seetheir tops. 

It was pleasant to stand on a branch that swayed and sprung, and it wasgood to stare at an impenetrable roof of leaves and then climb into it. How wonderful the loneliness was up there! When he looked down therewas an undulating floor of leaves, green and green and greener to a veryblackness of greeniness; and when he looked up there were leavesagain, green and less green and not green at all, up to a very snow andblindness of greeniness; and above and below and around there was swayand motion, the whisper of leaf on leaf, and the eternal silence towhich one listened and at which one tried to look. 

When he was six years of age his mother, beautiful, long-haired Muirne, came to see him. She came secretly, for she feared the sons of Morna, and she had paced through lonely places in many counties before shereached the hut in the wood, and the cot where he lay with his fistsshut and sleep gripped in them. 

He awakened to be sure. He would have one ear that would catch anunusual voice, one eye that would open, however sleepy the other onewas. She took him in her arms and kissed him, and she sang a sleepy songuntil the small boy slept again. 

We may be sure that the eye that could stay open stayed open that nightas long as it could, and that the one ear listened to the sleepy songuntil the song got too low to be heard, until it was too tender to befelt vibrating along those soft arms, until Fionn was asleep again, witha new picture in his little head and a new notion to ponder on. 

The mother of himself! His own mother!

But when he awakened she was gone. 

She was going back secretly, in dread of the sons of Morna, slippingthrough gloomy woods, keeping away from habitations, getting by desolateand lonely ways to her lord in Kerry. 

Perhaps it was he that was afraid of the sons of Morna, and perhaps sheloved him. 

CHAPTER III

THE women druids, his guardians, belonged to his father's people. Bovmall was Uail's sister, and, consequently, Fionn's aunt. Only sucha blood-tie could have bound them to the clann-Baiscne, for it is noteasy, having moved in the world of court and camp, to go hide with ababy in a wood; and to live, as they must have lived, in terror. 

What stories they would have told the child of the sons of Morna. OfMorna himself, the huge-shouldered, stern-eyed, violent Connachtman; andof his sons--young Goll Mor mac Morna in particular, as huge-shoulderedas his father, as fierce in the onset, but merry-eyed when the otherwas grim, and bubbling with a laughter that made men forgive even hisbutcheries. Of Cona'n Mael mac Morna his brother, gruff as a badger, bearded like a boar, bald as a crow, and with a tongue that could managean insult where another man would not find even a stammer. His boast wasthat when he saw an open door he went into it, and when he saw a closeddoor he went into it. When he saw a peaceful man he insulted him, andwhen he met a man who was not peaceful he insulted him. There was GarraDuv mac Morna, and savage Art Og, who cared as little for their ownskins as they did for the next man's, and Garra must have been roughindeed to have earned in that clan the name of the Rough mac Morna. There were others: wild Connachtmen all, as untameable, as unaccountableas their own wonderful countryside. 

Fionn would have heard much of them, and it is likely that he practisedon a nettle at taking the head off Goll, and that he hunted a sheepfrom cover in the implacable manner he intended later on for Cona'n theSwearer. 

But it is of Uail mac Baiscne he would have heard most. With what adilation of spirit the ladies would have told tales of him, Fionn'sfather. How their voices would have become a chant as feat was addedto feat, glory piled on glory. The most famous of men and the mostbeautiful; the hardest fighter; the easiest giver; the kingly champion;the chief of the Fianna na h-Eirinn. Tales of how he had been way-laidand got free; of how he had been generous and got free; of how he hadbeen angry and went marching with the speed of an eagle and the directonfall of a storm; while in front and at the sides, angled from the prowof his terrific advance, were fleeing multitudes who did not dare towait and scarce had time to run. And of how at last, when the timecame to quell him, nothing less than the whole might of Ireland wassufficient for that great downfall. 

We may be sure that on these adventures Fionn was with his father, goingstep for step with the long-striding hero, and heartening him mightily. 

CHAPTER IV

He was given good training by the women in running and leaping andswimming. 

One of them would take a thorn switch in her hand, and Fionn wouldtake a thorn switch in his hand, and each would try to strike the otherrunning round a tree. 

You had to go fast to keep away from the switch behind, and a small boyfeels a switch. Fionn would run his best to get away from that pricklystinger, but how he would run when it was his turn to deal the strokes!

With reason too, for his nurses had suddenly grown implacable. Theypursued him with a savagery which he could not distinguish from hatred, and they swished him well whenever they got the chance. 

Fionn learned to run. After a while he could buzz around a tree likea maddened fly, and oh, the joy, when he felt himself drawing from theswitch and gaining from behind on its bearer! How he strained and pantedto catch on that pursuing person and pursue her and get his own switchinto action. 

He learned to jump by chasing hares in a bumpy field. Up went the hareand up went Fionn, and away with the two of them, hopping and poppingacross the field. If the hare turned while Fionn was after her it wasswitch for Fionn; so that in a while it did not matter to Fionn whichway the hare jumped for he could jump that way too. Long-ways, sidewaysor baw-ways, Fionn hopped where the hare hopped, and at last he was theowner of a hop that any hare would give an ear for. 

He was taught to swim, and it may be that his heart sank when he frontedthe lesson. The water was cold. It was deep. One could see the bottom, leagues below, millions of miles below. A small boy might shiver as hestared into that wink and blink and twink of brown pebbles and murder. And these implacable women threw him in!

Perhaps he would not go in at first. He may have smiled at them, andcoaxed, and hung back. It was a leg and an arm gripped then; a swing forFionn, and out and away with him; plop and flop for him; down into chilldeep death for him, and up with a splutter; with a sob; with a graspat everything that caught nothing; with a wild flurry; with a ragingdespair; with a bubble and snort as he was hauled again down, and down, and down, and found as suddenly that he had been hauled out. 

Fionn learned to swim until he could pop into the water like an otterand slide through it like an eel. 

He used to try to chase a fish the way he chased hares in the bumpyfield--but there are terrible spurts in a fish. It may be that a fishcannot hop, but he gets there in a flash, and he isn't there in another. Up or down, sideways or endways, it is all one to a fish. He goes andis gone. He twists this way and disappears the other way. He is overyou when he ought to be under you, and he is biting your toe when youthought you were biting his tail. 

You cannot catch a fish by swimming, but you can try, and Fionn tried. He got a grudging commendation from the terrible women when he was ableto slip noiselessly in the tide, swim under water to where a wild duckwas floating and grip it by the leg. 

"Qu--, " said the duck, and he disappeared before he had time to get the"-ack" out of him. 

So the time went, and Fionn grew long and straight and tough like asapling; limber as a willow, and with the flirt and spring of a youngbird. One of the ladies may have said, "He is shaping very well, mydear, " and the other replied, as is the morose privilege of an aunt, "He will never be as good as his father, " but their hearts must haveoverflowed in the night, in the silence, in the darkness, when theythought of the living swiftness they had fashioned, and that dear fairhead. 

CHAPTER V

ONE day his guardians were agitated: they held confabulations at whichFionn was not permitted to assist. A man who passed by in the morninghad spoken to them. They fed the man, and during his feeding Fionn hadbeen shooed from the door as if he were a chicken. When the strangertook his road the women went with him a short distance. As they passedthe man lifted a hand and bent a knee to Fionn. 

"My soul to you, young master, " he said, and as he said it, Fionnknew that he could have the man's soul, or his boots, or his feet, oranything that belonged to him. 

When the women returned they were mysterious and whispery. They chasedFionn into the house, and when they got him in they chased him outagain. They chased each other around the house for another whisper. Theycalculated things by the shape of clouds, by lengths of shadows, by theflight of birds, by two flies racing on a flat stone, by throwing bonesover their left shoulders, and by every kind of trick and game andchance that you could put a mind to. 

They told Fionn he must sleep in a tree that night, and they put himunder bonds not to sing or whistle or cough or sneeze until the morning. 

Fionn did sneeze. He never sneezed so much in his life. He sat up in histree and nearly sneezed himself out of it. Flies got up his nose, twoat a time, one up each nose, and his head nearly fell off the way hesneezed. 

"You are doing that on purpose, " said a savage whisper from the foot ofthe tree. 

But Fionn was not doing it on purpose. He tucked himself into a fork theway he had been taught, and he passed the crawliest, tickliest night hehad ever known. After a while he did not want to sneeze, he wanted toscream: and in particular he wanted to come down from the tree. But hedid not scream, nor did he leave the tree. His word was passed, and hestayed in his tree as silent as a mouse and as watchful, until he fellout of it. 

In the morning a band of travelling poets were passing, and thewomen handed Fionn over to them. This time they could not prevent himoverhearing. 

"The sons of Morna!" they said. 

And Fionn's heart might have swelled with rage, but that it was alreadyswollen with adventure. And also the expected was happening. Behindevery hour of their day and every moment of their lives lay the sons ofMorna. Fionn had run after them as deer: he jumped after them as hares:he dived after them as fish. They lived in the house with him: theysat at the table and ate his meat. One dreamed of them, and they wereexpected in the morning as the sun is. They knew only too well that theson of Uail was living, and they knew that their own sons would knowno ease while that son lived; for they believed in those days that likebreeds like, and that the son of Uail would be Uail with additions. 

His guardians knew that their hiding-place must at last be discovered, and that, when it was found, the sons of Morna would come. They hadno doubt of that, and every action of their lives was based on thatcertainty. For no secret can remain secret. Some broken soldier trampinghome to his people will find it out; a herd seeking his strayed cattleor a band of travelling musicians will get the wind of it. How manypeople will move through even the remotest wood in a year! The crowswill tell a secret if no one else does; and under a bush, behind a clumpof bracken, what eyes may there not be! But if your secret is leggedlike a young goat! If it is tongued like a wolf! One can hide a baby, but you cannot hide a boy. He will rove unless you tie him to a post, and he will whistle then. 

The sons of Morna came, but there were only two grim women living in alonely hut to greet them. We may be sure they were well greeted. One canimagine Goll's merry stare taking in all that could be seen; Cona'n'sgrim eye raking the women's faces while his tongue raked them again; theRough mac Morna shouldering here and there in the house and about it, with maybe a hatchet in his hand, and Art Og coursing further afield andvowing that if the cub was there he would find him. 

CHAPTER VI

But Fionn was gone. He was away, bound with his band of poets for theGaltees. 

It is likely they were junior poets come to the end of a year'straining, and returning to their own province to see again the people athome, and to be wondered at and exclaimed at as they exhibited bits ofthe knowledge which they had brought from the great schools. They wouldknow tags of rhyme and tricks about learning which Fionn would hear of;and now and again, as they rested in a glade or by the brink of a river, they might try their lessons over. They might even refer to the oghamwands on which the first words of their tasks and the opening lines ofpoems were cut; and it is likely that, being new to these things, theywould talk of them to a youngster, and, thinking that his wits could beno better than their own, they might have explained to him how ogham waswritten. But it is far more likely that his women guardians had alreadystarted him at those lessons. 

Still this band of young bards would have been of infinite interest toFionn, not on account of what they had learned, but because of what theyknew. All the things that he should have known as by nature: the look, the movement, the feeling of crowds; the shouldering and intercourse ofman with man; the clustering of houses and how people bore themselvesin and about them; the movement of armed men, and the homecoming lookof wounds; tales of births, and marriages and deaths; the chase with itsmultitudes of men and dogs; all the noise, the dust, the excitement ofmere living. These, to Fionn, new come from leaves and shadows and thedipple and dapple of a wood, would have seemed wonderful; and the talesthey would have told of their masters, their looks, fads, severities, sillinesses, would have been wonderful also. 

That band should have chattered like a rookery. 

They must have been young, for one time a Leinsterman came on them, agreat robber named Fiacuil mac Cona, and he killed the poets. He choppedthem up and chopped them down. He did not leave one poeteen of themall. He put them out of the world and out of life, so that they stoppedbeing, and no one could tell where they went or what had really happenedto them; and it is a wonder indeed that one can do that to anything letalone a band. If they were not youngsters, the bold Fiacuil could nothave managed them all. Or, perhaps, he too had a band, although therecord does not say so; but kill them he did, and they died that way. 

Fionn saw that deed, and his blood may have been cold enough as hewatched the great robber coursing the poets as a wild dog rages in aflock. And when his turn came, when they were all dead, and the grim, red-handed man trod at him, Fionn may have shivered, but he would haveshown his teeth and laid roundly on the monster with his hands. Perhapshe did that, and perhaps for that he was spared. 

"Who are you?" roared the staring black-mouth with the red tonguesquirming in it like a frisky fish. 

"The son of Uail, son of Baiscne, " quoth hardy Fionn. And at that therobber ceased to be a robber, the murderer disappeared, the black-rimmedchasm packed with red fish and precipices changed to something else, andthe round eyes that had been popping out of their sockets and tryingto bite, changed also. There remained a laughing and crying and lovingservant who wanted to tie himself into knots if that would please theson of his great captain. Fionn went home on the robber's shoulder, andthe robber gave great snorts and made great jumps and behaved like afirst-rate horse. For this same Fiacuil was the husband of Bovmall, Fionn's aunt. He had taken to the wilds when clann-Baiscne was broken, and he was at war with a world that had dared to kill his Chief. 

CHAPTER VII

A new life for Fionn in the robber's den that was hidden in a vast coldmarsh. 

A tricky place that would be, with sudden exits and even suddenerentrances, and with damp, winding, spidery places to hoard treasure in, or to hide oneself in. 

If the robber was a solitary he would, for lack of someone else, have talked greatly to Fionn. He would have shown his weapons anddemonstrated how he used them, and with what slash he chipped hisvictim, and with what slice he chopped him. He would have told why aslash was enough for this man and why that man should be sliced. All menare masters when one is young, and Fionn would have found knowledge herealso. He would have seen Fiacuil's great spear that had thirty rivetsof Arabian gold in its socket, and that had to be kept wrapped up andtied down so that it would not kill people out of mere spitefulness. Ithad come from Faery, out of the Shi' of Aillen mac Midna, and it wouldbe brought back again later on between the same man's shoulder-blades. 

What tales that man could tell a boy, and what questions a boy could askhim. He would have known a thousand tricks, and because our instinct isto teach, and because no man can keep a trick from a boy, he would showthem to Fionn. 

There was the marsh too; a whole new life to be learned; a complicated, mysterious, dank, slippery, reedy, treacherous life, but with its ownbeauty and an allurement that could grow on one, so that you couldforget the solid world and love only that which quaked and gurgled. 

In this place you may swim. By this sign and this you will know if it issafe to do so, said Fiacuil mac Cona; but in this place, with this signon it and that, you must not venture a toe. 

But where Fionn would venture his toes his ears would follow. 

There are coiling weeds down there, the robber counselled him; there arethin, tough, snaky binders that will trip you and grip you, that willpull you and will not let you go again until you are drowned; untilyou are swaying and swinging away below, with outstretched arms, withoutstretched legs, with a face all stares and smiles and jockeyings, gripped in those leathery arms, until there is no more to be gripped ofyou even by them. 

"Watch these and this and that, " Fionn would have been told, "and alwaysswim with a knife in your teeth. "

He lived there until his guardians found out where he was and came afterhim. Fiacuil gave him up to them, and he was brought home again tothe woods of Slieve Bloom, but he had gathered great knowledge and newsupplenesses. 

The sons of Morna left him alone for a long time. Having made theiressay they grew careless. 

"Let him be, " they said. "He will come to us when the time comes. "

But it is likely too that they had had their own means of gettinginformation about him. How he shaped? what muscles he had? and didhe spring clean from the mark or had he to get off with a push? Fionnstayed with his guardians and hunted for them. He could run a deer downand haul it home by the reluctant skull. "Come on, Goll, " he would sayto his stag, or, lifting it over a tussock with a tough grip on thesnout, "Are you coming, bald Cona'n, or shall I kick you in the neck?"

The time must have been nigh when he would think of taking the worlditself by the nose, to haul it over tussocks and drag it into hispen; for he was of the breed in whom mastery is born, and who are goodmasters. 

But reports of his prowess were getting abroad. Clann-Morna began tostretch itself uneasily, and, one day, his guardians sent him on histravels. 

"It is best for you to leave us now, " they said to the tall stripling, "for the sons of Morna are watching again to kill you. "

The woods at that may have seemed haunted. A stone might sling at onefrom a tree-top; but from which tree of a thousand trees did it come? Anarrow buzzing by one's ear would slide into the ground and quiver theresilently, menacingly, hinting of the brothers it had left in the quiverbehind; to the right? to the left? how many brothers? in how manyquivers. . . ? Fionn was a woodsman, but he had only two eyes to look with, one set of feet to carry him in one sole direction. But when he waslooking to the front what, or how many whats, could be staring at himfrom the back? He might face in this direction, away from, or towards asmile on a hidden face and a finger on a string. A lance might slide athim from this bush or from the one yonder. . In the night he might havefought them; his ears against theirs; his noiseless feet against theirlurking ones; his knowledge of the wood against their legion: but duringthe day he had no chance. 

Fionn went to seek his fortune, to match himself against all that mighthappen, and to carve a name for himself that will live while Time has anear and knows an Irishman. 

CHAPTER VIII

Fionn went away, and now he was alone. But he was as fitted forloneliness as the crane is that haunts the solitudes and bleak wastesof the sea; for the man with a thought has a comrade, and Fionn's mindworked as featly as his body did. To be alone was no trouble to him who, however surrounded, was to be lonely his life long; for this will besaid of Fionn when all is said, that all that came to him went from him, and that happiness was never his companion for more than a moment. 

But he was not now looking for loneliness. He was seeking theinstruction of a crowd, and therefore when he met a crowd he went intoit. His eyes were skilled to observe in the moving dusk and dapple ofgreen woods. They were trained to pick out of shadows birds that werethemselves dun-coloured shades, and to see among trees the animals thatare coloured like the bark of trees. The hare crouching in the frondswas visible to him, and the fish that swayed in-visibly in the sway andflicker of a green bank. He would see all that was to be seen, and hewould see all that is passed by the eye that is half blind from use andwont. 

At Moy Life' he came on lads swimming in a pool; and, as he lookedon them sporting in the flush tide, he thought that the tricks theyperformed were not hard for him, and that he could have shown them newones. 

Boys must know what another boy can do, and they will match themselvesagainst everything. They did their best under these observing eyes, andit was not long until he was invited to compete with them and show hismettle. Such an invitation is a challenge; it is almost, among boys, adeclaration of war. But Fionn was so far beyond them in swimming thateven the word master did not apply to that superiority. 

While he was swimming one remarked: "He is fair and well shaped, " andthereafter he was called "Fionn" or the Fair One. His name came fromboys, and will, perhaps, be preserved by them. 

He stayed with these lads for some time, and it may be that theyidolised him at first, for it is the way with boys to be astounded andenraptured by feats; but in the end, and that was inevitable, they grewjealous of the stranger. Those who had been the champions before he camewould marshal each other, and, by social pressure, would muster all theothers against him; so that in the end not a friendly eye was turned onFionn in that assembly. For not only did he beat them at swimming, hebeat their best at running and jumping, and when the sport degeneratedinto violence, as it was bound to, the roughness of Fionn would be tentimes as rough as the roughness of the roughest rough they could putforward. Bravery is pride when one is young, and Fionn was proud. 

There must have been anger in his mind as he went away leaving that lakebehind him, and those snarling and scowling boys, but there would havebeen disappointment also, for his desire at this time should have beentowards friendliness. 

He went thence to Lock Le'in and took service with the King ofFinntraigh. That kingdom may have been thus called from Fionn himselfand would have been known by another name when he arrived there. 

He hunted for the King of Finntraigh, and it soon grew evident thatthere was no hunter in his service to equal Fionn. More, there was nohunter of them all who even distantly approached him in excellence. Theothers ran after deer, using the speed of their legs, the noses of theirdogs and a thousand well-worn tricks to bring them within reach, and, often enough, the animal escaped them. But the deer that Fionn got thetrack of did not get away, and it seemed even that the animals soughthim so many did he catch. 

The king marvelled at the stories that were told of this new hunter, butas kings are greater than other people so they are more curious; and, being on the plane of excellence, they must see all that is excellentlytold of. 

The king wished to see him, and Fionn must have wondered what the kingthought as that gracious lord looked on him. Whatever was thought, whatthe king said was as direct in utterance as it was in observation. 

"If Uail the son of Baiscne has a son, " said the king, "you would surelybe that son. "

We are not told if the King of Finntraigh said anything more, but weknow that Fionn left his service soon afterwards. 

He went southwards and was next in the employment of the King of Kerry, the same lord who had married his own mother. In that service he came tosuch consideration that we hear of him as playing a match of chess withthe king, and by this game we know that he was still a boy in his mindhowever mightily his limbs were spreading. Able as he was in sports andhuntings, he was yet too young to be politic, but he remained impoliticto the end of his days, for whatever he was able to do he would do, nomatter who was offended thereat; and whatever he was not able to do hewould do also. That was Fionn. 

Once, as they rested on a chase, a debate arose among the Fianna-Finn asto what was the finest music in the world. 

"Tell us that, " said Fionn turning to Oisi'n [pronounced Usheen]

"The cuckoo calling from the tree that is highest in the hedge, " criedhis merry son. 

"A good sound, " said Fionn. "And you, Oscar, " he asked, "what is to yourmind the finest of music?"

"The top of music is the ring of a spear on a shield, " cried the stoutlad. 

"It is a good sound, " said Fionn. And the other champions told theirdelight; the belling of a stag across water, the baying of a tunefulpack heard in the distance, the song of a lark, the laugh of a gleefulgirl, or the whisper of a moved one. 

"They are good sounds all, " said Fionn. 

"Tell us, chief, " one ventured, "what you think?"

"The music of what happens, " said great Fionn, "that is the finest musicin the world. "

He loved "what happened, " and would not evade it by the swerve ofa hair; so on this occasion what was occurring he would have occur, although a king was his rival and his master. It may be that his motherwas watching the match and that he could not but exhibit his skillbefore her. He committed the enormity of winning seven games insuccession from the king himself!!!

It is seldom indeed that a subject can beat a king at chess, and thismonarch was properly amazed. 

"Who are you at all?" he cried, starting back from the chessboard andstaring on Fionn. 

"I am the son of a countryman of the Luigne of Tara, " said Fionn. 

He may have blushed as he said it, for the king, possibly for the firsttime, was really looking at him, and was looking back through twentyyears of time as he did so. The observation of a king is faultless--itis proved a thousand times over in the tales, and this king's equipmentwas as royal as the next. 

"You are no such son, " said the indignant monarch, "but you are the sonthat Muirne my wife bore to Uall mac Balscne. "

And at that Fionn had no more to say; but his eyes may have flown to hismother and stayed there. 

"You cannot remain here, " his step-father continued. "I do not want youkilled under my protection, " he explained, or complained. 

Perhaps it was on Fionn's account he dreaded the sons of Morna, but noone knows what Fionn thought of him for he never thereafter spoke of hisstep-father. As for Muirne she must have loved her lord; or she may havebeen terrified in truth of the sons of Morna and for Fionn; but it is soalso, that if a woman loves her second husband she can dislike all thatreminds her of the first one. Fionn went on his travels again. 

CHAPTER IX

All desires save one are fleeting, but that one lasts for ever. Fionn, with all desires, had the lasting one, for he would go anywhere andforsake anything for wisdom; and it was in search of this that he wentto the place where Finegas lived on a bank of the Boyne Water. Butfor dread of the clann-Morna he did not go as Fionn. He called himselfDeimne on that journey. 

We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not answered weget wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer on its back asa snail carries its shell. Fionn asked every question he could think of, and his master, who was a poet, and so an honourable man, answered themall, not to the limit of his patience, for it was limitless, but to thelimit of his ability. 

"Why do you live on the bank of a river?" was one of these questions. "Because a poem is a revelation, and it is by the brink of running waterthat poetry is revealed to the mind. "

"How long have you been here?" was the next query. "Seven years, " thepoet answered. 

"It is a long time, " said wondering Fionn. 

"I would wait twice as long for a poem, " said the inveterate bard. 

"Have you caught good poems?" Fionn asked him. 

"The poems I am fit for, " said the mild master. "No person can get morethan that, for a man's readiness is his limit. "

"Would you have got as good poems by the Shannon or the Suir or by sweetAna Life'?"

"They are good rivers, " was the answer. "They all belong to good gods. "

"But why did you choose this river out of all the rivers?"

Finegas beamed on his pupil. 

"I would tell you anything, " said he, "and I will tell you that. "

Fionn sat at the kindly man's feet, his hands absent among tall grasses, and listening with all his ears. "A prophecy was made to me, " Finegasbegan. "A man of knowledge foretold that I should catch the Salmon ofKnowledge in the Boyne Water. "

"And then?" said Fionn eagerly. 

"Then I would have All Knowledge. "

"And after that?" the boy insisted. 

"What should there be after that?" the poet retorted. 

"I mean, what would you do with All Knowledge?"

"A weighty question, " said Finegas smilingly. "I could answer it if Ihad All Knowledge, but not until then. What would you do, my dear?"

"I would make a poem, " Fionn cried. 

"I think too, " said the poet, "that that is what would be done. "

In return for instruction Fionn had taken over the service of hismaster's hut, and as he went about the household duties, drawing thewater, lighting the fire, and carrying rushes for the floor and thebeds, he thought over all the poet had taught him, and his mind dwelt onthe rules of metre, the cunningness of words, and the need for a clean, brave mind. But in his thousand thoughts he yet remembered the Salmon ofKnowledge as eagerly as his master did. He already venerated Finegasfor his great learning, his poetic skill, for an hundred reasons; but, looking on him as the ordained eater of the Salmon of Knowledge, hevenerated him to the edge of measure. Indeed, he loved as well asvenerated this master because of his unfailing kindness, his patience, his readiness to teach, and his skill in teaching. 

"I have learned much from you, dear master, " said Fionn gratefully. 

"All that I have is yours if you can take it, " the poet answered, "foryou are entitled to all that you can take, but to no more than that. Take, so, with both hands. "

"You may catch the salmon while I am with you, " the hopeful boy mused. "Would not that be a great happening!" and he stared in ecstasy acrossthe grass at those visions which a boy's mind knows. 

"Let us pray for that, " said Finegas fervently. 

"Here is a question, " Fionn continued. "How does this salmon get wisdominto his flesh?"

"There is a hazel bush overhanging a secret pool in a secret place. TheNuts of Knowledge drop from the Sacred Bush into the pool, and as theyfloat, a salmon takes them in his mouth and eats them. "

"It would be almost as easy, " the boy submitted, "if one were to set onthe track of the Sacred Hazel and eat the nuts straight from the bush. "

"That would not be very easy, " said the poet, "and yet it is not as easyas that, for the bush can only be found by its own knowledge, and thatknowledge can only be got by eating the nuts, and the nuts can only begot by eating the salmon. "

"We must wait for the salmon, " said Fionn in a rage of resignation. 

CHAPTER X

Life continued for him in a round of timeless time, wherein days andnights were uneventful and were yet filled with interest. As the daypacked its load of strength into his frame, so it added its store ofknowledge to his mind, and each night sealed the twain, for it is in thenight that we make secure what we have gathered in the day. 

If he had told of these days he would have told of a succession of mealsand sleeps, and of an endless conversation, from which his mind wouldnow and again slip away to a solitude of its own, where, in large hazyatmospheres, it swung and drifted and reposed. Then he would be backagain, and it was a pleasure for him to catch up on the thought that wasforward and re-create for it all the matter he had missed. But he couldnot often make these sleepy sallies; his master was too experienced ateacher to allow any such bright-faced, eager-eyed abstractions, and asthe druid women had switched his legs around a tree, so Finegas chasedhis mind, demanding sense in his questions and understanding in hisreplies. 

To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of amind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision. Fionn's mind learned to jump in a bumpier field than that in which hehad chased rabbits. And when he had asked his question, and given hisown answer to it, Finegas would take the matter up and make clear to himwhere the query was badly formed or at what point the answer had begunto go astray, so that Fionn came to understand by what successions agood question grows at last to a good answer. 

One day, not long after the conversation told of, Finegas came to theplace where Fionn was. The poet had a shallow osier basket on his arm, and on his face there was a look that was at once triumphant and gloomy. He was excited certainly, but he was sad also, and as he stood gazing onFionn his eyes were so kind that the boy was touched, and they were yetso melancholy that it almost made Fionn weep. "What is it, my master?"said the alarmed boy. 

The poet placed his osier basket on the grass. 

"Look in the basket, dear son, " he said. Fionn looked. 

"There is a salmon in the basket. "

"It is The Salmon, " said Finegas with a great sigh. Fionn leaped fordelight. 

"I am glad for you, master, " he cried. "Indeed I am glad for you. "

"And I am glad, my dear soul, " the master rejoined. 

But, having said it, he bent his brow to his hand and for a long time hewas silent and gathered into himself. 

"What should be done now?" Fionn demanded, as he stared on the beautifulfish. 

Finegas rose from where he sat by the osier basket. 

"I will be back in a short time, " he said heavily. "While I am away youmay roast the salmon, so that it will be ready against my return. "

"I will roast it indeed, " said Fionn. 

The poet gazed long and earnestly on him. 

"You will not eat any of my salmon while I am away?" he asked. 

"I will not eat the littlest piece, " said Fionn. 

"I am sure you will not, " the other murmured, as he turned and walkedslowly across the grass and behind the sheltering bushes on the ridge. 

Fionn cooked the salmon. It was beautiful and tempting and savoury asit smoked on a wooden platter among cool green leaves; and it looked allthese to Finegas when he came from behind the fringing bushes and satin the grass outside his door. He gazed on the fish with more than hiseyes. He looked on it with his heart, with his soul in his eyes, andwhen he turned to look on Fionn the boy did not know whether the lovethat was in his eyes was for the fish or for himself. Yet he did knowthat a great moment had arrived for the poet. 

"So, " said Finegas, "you did not eat it on me after all?" "Did I notpromise?" Fionn replied. 

"And yet, " his master continued, "I went away so that you might eat thefish if you felt you had to. "

"Why should I want another man's fish?" said proud Fionn. 

"Because young people have strong desires. I thought you might havetasted it, and then you would have eaten it on me. "

"I did taste it by chance, " Fionn laughed, "for while the fish wasroasting a great blister rose on its skin. I did not like the look ofthat blister, and I pressed it down with my thumb. That burned my thumb, so I popped it in my mouth to heal the smart. If your salmon tastes asnice as my thumb did, " he laughed, "it will taste very nice. "

"What did you say your name was, dear heart?" the poet asked. 

"I said my name was Deimne. "

"Your name is not Deimne, " said the mild man, "your name is Fionn. "

"That is true, " the boy answered, "but I do not know how you know it. "

"Even if I have not eaten the Salmon of Knowledge I have some smallscience of my own. "

"It is very clever to know things as you know them, " Fionn repliedwonderingly. "What more do you know of me, dear master?"

"I know that I did not tell you the truth, " said the heavy-hearted man. 

"What did you tell me instead of it?"

"I told you a lie. "

"It is not a good thing to do, " Fionn admitted. "What sort of a lie wasthe lie, master?" "I told you that the Salmon of Knowledge was to becaught by me, according to the prophecy. "

"Yes. "

"That was true indeed, and I have caught the fish. But I did not tellyou that the salmon was not to be eaten by me, although that also was inthe prophecy, and that omission was the lie. "

"It is not a great lie, " said Fionn soothingly. 

"It must not become a greater one, " the poet replied sternly. 

"Who was the fish given to?" his companion wondered. 

"It was given to you, " Finegas answered. "It was given to Fionn, the sonof Uail, the son of Baiscne, and it will be given to him. "

"You shall have a half of the fish, " cried Fionn. 

"I will not eat a piece of its skin that is as small as the point of itssmallest bone, " said the resolute and trembling bard. "Let you now eatup the fish, and I shall watch you and give praise to the gods of theUnderworld and of the Elements. "

Fionn then ate the Salmon of Knowledge, and when it had disappeared agreat jollity and tranquillity and exuberance returned to the poet. 

"Ah, " said he, "I had a great combat with that fish. "

"Did it fight for its life?" Fionn inquired. 

"It did, but that was not the fight I meant. "

"You shall eat a Salmon of Knowledge too, " Fionn assured him. 

"You have eaten one, " cried the blithe poet, "and if you make such apromise it will be because you know. "

"I promise it and know it, " said Fionn, "you shall eat a Salmon ofKnowledge yet. "

CHAPTER XI

He had received all that he could get from Finegas. His education wasfinished and the time had come to test it, and to try all else that hehad of mind and body. He bade farewell to the gentle poet, and set outfor Tara of the Kings. 

It was Samhain-tide, and the feast of Tara was being held, at which allthat was wise or skilful or well-born in Ireland were gathered together. 

This is how Tara was when Tara was. There was the High King's palacewith its fortification; without it was another fortification enclosingthe four minor palaces, each of which was maintained by one of the fourprovincial kings; without that again was the great banqueting hall, andaround it and enclosing all of the sacred hill in its gigantic bound ranthe main outer ramparts of Tara. From it, the centre of Ireland, fourgreat roads went, north, south, east, and west, and along these roads, from the top and the bottom and the two sides of Ireland, there movedfor weeks before Samhain an endless stream of passengers. 

Here a gay band went carrying rich treasure to decorate the pavilion ofa Munster lord. On another road a vat of seasoned yew, monstrous as ahouse on wheels and drawn by an hundred laborious oxen, came bumping andjoggling the ale that thirsty Connaught princes would drink. On a roadagain the learned men of Leinster, each with an idea in his head thatwould discomfit a northern ollav and make a southern one gape andfidget, would be marching solemnly, each by a horse that was piled highon the back and widely at the sides with clean-peeled willow or oakenwands, that were carved from the top to the bottom with the ogham signs;the first lines of poems (for it was an offence against wisdom to commitmore than initial lines to writing), the names and dates of kings, theprocession of laws of Tara and of the sub-kingdoms, the names of placesand their meanings. On the brown stallion ambling peacefully yonderthere might go the warring of the gods for two or ten thousand years;this mare with the dainty pace and the vicious eye might be sidlingunder a load of oaken odes in honour of her owner's family, with afew bundles of tales of wonder added in case they might be useful; andperhaps the restive piebald was backing the history of Ireland into aditch. 

On such a journey all people spoke together, for all were friends, andno person regarded the weapon in another man's hand other than as animplement to poke a reluctant cow with, or to pacify with loud wallopssome hoof-proud colt. 

Into this teem and profusion of jolly humanity Fionn slipped, and if hismood had been as bellicose as a wounded boar he would yet have foundno man to quarrel with, and if his eye had been as sharp as a jealoushusband's he would have found no eye to meet it with calculation ormenace or fear; for the Peace of Ireland was in being, and for six weeksman was neighbour to man, and the nation was the guest of the High King. Fionn went in with the notables. 

His arrival had been timed for the opening day and the great feast ofwelcome. He may have marvelled, looking on the bright city, with itspillars of gleaming bronze and the roofs that were painted in manycolours, so that each house seemed to be covered by the spreading wingsof some gigantic and gorgeous bird. And the palaces themselves, mellowwith red oak, polished within and without by the wear and the care ofa thousand years, and carved with the patient skill of unendinggenerations of the most famous artists of the most artistic country ofthe western world, would have given him much to marvel at also. Itmust have seemed like a city of dream, a city to catch the heart, when, coming over the great plain, Fionn saw Tara of the Kings held on itshill as in a hand to gather all the gold of the falling sun, and torestore a brightness as mellow and tender as that universal largess. 

In the great banqueting hall everything was in order for the feast. Thenobles of Ireland with their winsome consorts, the learned and artisticprofessions represented by the pick of their time were in place. TheArd-Ri, Corm of the Hundred Battles, had taken his place on the raiseddais which commanded the whole of that vast hall. At his Right hand hisson Art, to be afterwards as famous as his famous father, took his seat, and on his left Goll mor mac Morna, chief of the Fianna of Ireland, hadthe seat of honour. As the High King took his place he could see everyperson who was noted in the land for any reason. He would know every onewho was present, for the fame of all men is sealed at Tara, and behindhis chair a herald stood to tell anything the king might not know or hadforgotten. 

Conn gave the signal and his guests seated themselves. 

The time had come for the squires to take their stations behind theirmasters and mistresses. But, for the moment, the great room was seated, and the doors were held to allow a moment of respect to pass before theservers and squires came in. 

Looking over his guests, Conn observed that a young man was yetstanding. 

"There is a gentleman, " he murmured, "for whom no seat has been found. "

We may be sure that the Master of the Banquet blushed at that. 

"And, " the king continued, "I do not seem to know the young man. "

Nor did his herald, nor did the unfortunate Master, nor did anybody; forthe eyes of all were now turned where the king's went. 

"Give me my horn, " said the gracious monarch. 

The horn of state was put to his hand. 

"Young gentleman, " he called to the stranger, "I wish to drink to yourhealth and to welcome you to Tara. "

The young man came forward then, greater-shouldered than any mightyman of that gathering, longer and cleaner limbed, with his fair curlsdancing about his beardless face. The king put the great horn into hishand. 

"Tell me your name, " he commanded gently. 

"I am Fionn, the son of Uail, the son of Baiscne, " said the youth. 

And at that saying a touch as of lightning went through the gatheringso that each person quivered, and the son of the great, murdered captainlooked by the king's shoulder into the twinkling eye of Goll. But noword was uttered, no movement made except the movement and the utteranceof the Ard-Ri'. 

"You are the son of a friend, " said the great-hearted monarch. "Youshall have the seat of a friend. "

He placed Fionn at the right hand of his own son Art. 

CHAPTER XII

It is to be known that on the night of the Feast of Samhain the doorsseparating this world and the next one are opened, and the inhabitantsof either world can leave their respective spheres and appear in theworld of the other beings. 

Now there was a grandson to the Dagda Mor, the Lord of the Underworld, and he was named Aillen mac Midna, out of Shi' Finnachy, and this Aillenbore an implacable enmity to Tara and the Ard-Ri'. 

As well as being monarch of Ireland her High King was chief of thepeople learned in magic, and it is possible that at some time Conn hadadventured into Tir na n-Og, the Land of the Young, and had done somedeed or misdeed in Aillen's lordship or in his family. It must have beenan ill deed in truth, for it was in a very rage of revenge that Aillencame yearly at the permitted time to ravage Tara. 

Nine times he had come on this mission of revenge, but it is not to besupposed that he could actually destroy the holy city: the Ard-Ri'and magicians could prevent that, but he could yet do a damage soconsiderable that it was worth Conn's while to take special extraprecautions against him, including the precaution of chance. 

Therefore, when the feast was over and the banquet had commenced, theHundred Fighter stood from his throne and looked over his assembledpeople. 

The Chain of Silence was shaken by the attendant whose duty and honourwas the Silver Chain, and at that delicate chime the halt went silent, and a general wonder ensued as to what matter the High King would submitto his people. 

"Friends and heroes, " said Conn, "Aillen, the son of Midna, will cometo-night from Slieve Fuaid with occult, terrible fire against ourcity. Is there among you one who loves Tara and the king, and who willundertake our defence against that being?"

He spoke in silence, and when he had finished he listened to the samesilence, but it was now deep, ominous, agonized. Each man glanceduneasily on his neighbour and then stared at his wine-cup or hisfingers. The hearts of young men went hot for a gallant moment and werechilled in the succeeding one, for they had all heard of Aillen out ofShl Finnachy in the north. The lesser gentlemen looked under their browsat the greater champions, and these peered furtively at the greatest ofall. Art og mac Morna of the Hard Strokes fell to biting his fingers, Cona'n the Swearer and Garra mac Morna grumbled irritably to each otherand at their neighbours, even Caelte, the son of Rona'n, looked downinto his own lap, and Goll Mor sipped at his wine without any twinklein his eye. A horrid embarrassment came into the great hall, and as theHigh King stood in that palpitating silence his noble face changedfrom kindly to grave and from that to a terrible sternness. In anothermoment, to the undying shame of every person present, he would have beencompelled to lift his own challenge and declare himself the champion ofTara for that night, but the shame that was on the faces of his peoplewould remain in the heart of their king. Goll's merry mind would helphim to forget, but even his heart would be wrung by a memory that hewould not dare to face. It was at that terrible moment that Fionn stoodup. 

"What, " said he, "will be given to the man who undertakes this defence?"

"All that can be rightly asked will be royally bestowed, " was the king'sanswer. 

"Who are the sureties?" said Fionn. 

"The kings of Ireland, and Red Cith with his magicians. "

"I will undertake the defence, " said Fionn. And on that, the kings andmagicians who were present bound themselves to the fulfilment of thebargain. 

Fionn marched from the banqueting hall, and as he went, all who werepresent of nobles and retainers and servants acclaimed him and wishedhim luck. But in their hearts they were bidding him good-bye, for allwere assured that the lad was marching to a death so unescapeable thathe might already be counted as a dead man. 

It is likely that Fionn looked for help to the people of the Shi'themselves, for, through his mother, he belonged to the tribes of Dana, although, on the father's side, his blood was well compounded withmortal clay. It may be, too, that he knew how events would turn, for hehad eaten the Salmon of Knowledge. Yet it is not recorded that on thisoccasion he invoked any magical art as he did on other adventures. 

Fionn's way of discovering whatever was happening and hidden was alwaysthe same and is many times referred to. A shallow, oblong dish of pure, pale gold was brought to him. This dish was filled with clear water. Then Fionn would bend his head and stare into the water, and as hestared he would place his thumb in his mouth under his "Tooth ofKnowledge, " his "wisdom tooth. "

Knowledge, may it be said, is higher than magic and is more to besought. It is quite possible to see what is happening and yet not knowwhat is forward, for while seeing is believing it does not follow thateither seeing or believing is knowing. Many a person can see a thing andbelieve a thing and know just as little about it as the person who doesneither. But Fionn would see and know, or he would under-stand a decentratio of his visions. That he was versed in magic is true, for he wasever known as the Knowledgeable man, and later he had two magiciansin his household named Dirim and mac-Reith to do the rough work ofknowledge for their busy master. 

It was not from the Shi', however, that assistance came to Fionn. 

CHAPTER XIII

He marched through the successive fortifications until he came to theouter, great wall, the boundary of the city, and when he had passed thishe was on the wide plain of Tara. 

Other than himself no person was abroad, for on the night of the Feastof Samhain none but a madman would quit the shelter of a house even ifit were on fire; for whatever disasters might be within a house would beas nothing to the calamities without it. 

The noise of the banquet was not now audible to Fionn--it is possible, however, that there was a shamefaced silence in the great hall--and thelights of the city were hidden by the successive great ramparts. The skywas over him; the earth under him; and than these there was nothing, orthere was but the darkness and the wind. 

But darkness was not a thing to terrify him, bred in the nightness ofa wood and the very fosterling of gloom; nor could the wind afflict hisear or his heart. There was no note in its orchestra that he had notbrooded on and become, which becoming is magic. The long-drawn moan ofit; the thrilling whisper and hush; the shrill, sweet whistle, so thinit can scarcely be heard, and is taken more by the nerves than by theear; the screech, sudden as a devil's yell and loud as ten thunders; thecry as of one who flies with backward look to the shelter of leaves anddarkness; and the sob as of one stricken with an age-long misery, onlyat times remembered, but remembered then with what a pang! His earknew by what successions they arrived, and by what stages they grew anddiminished. Listening in the dark to the bundle of noises which make anoise he could disentangle them and assign a place and a reason to eachgradation of sound that formed the chorus: there was the patter of arabbit, and there the scurrying of a hare; a bush rustled yonder, but that brief rustle was a bird; that pressure was a wolf, and thishesitation a fox; the scraping yonder was but a rough leaf against bark, and the scratching beyond it was a ferret's claw. 

Fear cannot be where knowledge is, and Fionn was not fearful. 

His mind, quietly busy on all sides, picked up one sound and dwelt onit. "A man, " said Fionn, and he listened in that direction, back towardsthe city. 

A man it was, almost as skilled in darkness as Fionn himself "This is noenemy, " Fionn thought; "his walking is open. "

"Who comes?" he called. 

"A friend, " said the newcomer. 

"Give a friend's name, " said Fionn. 

"Fiacuil mac Cona, " was the answer. 

"Ah, my pulse and heart!" cried Fionn, and he strode a few paces to meetthe great robber who had fostered him among the marshes. 

"So you are not afraid, " he said joyfully. 

"I am afraid in good truth, " Fiacuil whispered, "and the minute mybusiness with you is finished I will trot back as quick as legs willcarry me. May the gods protect my going as they protected my coming, "said the robber piously. 

"Amen, " said Fionn, "and now, tell me what you have come for?"

"Have you any plan against this lord of the Shl?" Fiacuil whispered. 

"I will attack him, " said Fionn. 

"That is not a plan, " the other groaned, "we do not plan to deliver anattack but to win a victory. "

"Is this a very terrible person?" Fionn asked. 

"Terrible indeed. No one can get near him or away from him. He comes outof the Shi' playing sweet, low music on a timpan and a pipe, and all whohear this music fall asleep. "

"I will not fall asleep, " said Fionn. 

"You will indeed, for everybody does. "

"What happens then?" Fionn asked. 

"When all are asleep Aillen mac Midna blows a dart of fire out of hismouth, and everything that is touched by that fire is destroyed, and hecan blow his fire to an incredible distance and to any direction. "

"You are very brave to come to help me, " Fionn murmured, "especiallywhen you are not able to help me at all. "

"I can help, " Fiacuil replied, "but I must be paid. "

"What payment?"

"A third of all you earn and a seat at your council. "

"I grant that, " said Fionn, "and now, tell me your plan?"

"You remember my spear with the thirty rivets of Arabian gold in itssocket?"

"The one, " Fionn queried, "that had its head wrapped in a blanket andwas stuck in a bucket of water and was chained to a wall as well--thevenomous Birgha?" "That one, " Fiacuil replied. 

"It is Aillen mac Midna's own spear, " he continued, "and it was takenout of his Shi' by your father. "

"Well?" said Fionn, wondering nevertheless where Fiacuil got the spear, but too generous to ask. 

"When you hear the great man of the Shi' coming, take the wrappings offthe head of the spear and bend your face over it; the heat of the spear, the stench of it, all its pernicious and acrid qualities will preventyou from going to sleep. "

"Are you sure of that?" said Fionn. 

"You couldn't go to sleep close to that stench; nobody could, " Fiacuilreplied decidedly. 

He continued: "Aillen mac Midna will be off his guard when he stopsplaying and begins to blow his fire; he will think everybody is asleep;then you can deliver the attack you were speaking of, and all good luckgo with it. "

"I will give him back his spear, " said Fionn. 

"Here it is, " said Fiacuil, taking the Birgha from under his cloak. "Butbe as careful of it, my pulse, be as frightened of it as you are of theman of Dana. "

"I will be frightened of nothing, " said Fionn, "and the only person Iwill be sorry for is that Aillen mac Midna, who is going to get his ownspear back. "

"I will go away now, " his companion whispered, "for it is growing darkerwhere you would have thought there was no more room for darkness, andthere is an eerie feeling abroad which I do not like. That man from theShi' may come any minute, and if I catch one sound of his music I amdone for. "

The robber went away and again Fionn was alone. 

CHAPTER XIV

He listened to the retreating footsteps until they could be heard nomore, and the one sound that came to his tense ears was the beating ofhis own heart. 

Even the wind had ceased, and there seemed to be nothing in the worldbut the darkness and himself. In that gigantic blackness, in that unseenquietude and vacancy, the mind could cease to be personal to itself. Itcould be overwhelmed and merged in space, so that consciousness wouldbe transferred or dissipated, and one might sleep standing; for the mindfears loneliness more than all else, and will escape to the moon ratherthan be driven inwards on its own being. 

But Fionn was not lonely, and he was not afraid when the son of Midnacame. 

A long stretch of the silent night had gone by, minute following minutein a slow sequence, wherein as there was no change there was no time;wherein there was no past and no future, but a stupefying, endlesspresent which is almost the annihilation of consciousness. A changecame then, for the clouds had also been moving and the moon at last wassensed behind them--not as a radiance, but as a percolation of light, a gleam that was strained through matter after matter and was less thanthe very wraith or remembrance of itself; a thing seen so narrowly, so sparsely, that the eye could doubt if it was or was not seeing, andmight conceive that its own memory was re-creating that which was stillabsent. 

But Fionn's eye was the eye of a wild creature that spies on darknessand moves there wittingly. He saw, then, not a thing but a movement;something that was darker than the darkness it loomed on; not a beingbut a presence, and, as it were, impending pressure. And in a little heheard the deliberate pace of that great being. 

Fionn bent to his spear and unloosed its coverings. 

Then from the darkness there came another sound; a low, sweet sound;thrillingly joyous, thrillingly low; so low the ear could scarcely noteit, so sweet the ear wished to catch nothing else and would strive tohear it rather than all sounds that may be heard by man: the music ofanother world! the unearthly, dear melody of the Shi'! So sweet it wasthat the sense strained to it, and having reached must follow drowsilyin its wake, and would merge in it, and could not return again to itsown place until that strange harmony was finished and the ear restoredto freedom. 

But Fionn had taken the covering from his spear, and with his browpressed close to it he kept his mind and all his senses engaged on thatsizzling, murderous point. 

The music ceased and Aillen hissed a fierce blue flame from his mouth, and it was as though he hissed lightning. 

Here it would seem that Fionn used magic, for spreading out his fringedmantle he caught the flame. Rather he stopped it, for it slid from themantle and sped down into the earth to the depth of twenty-six spans;from which that slope is still called the Glen of the Mantle, and therise on which Aillen stood is known as the Ard of Fire. 

One can imagine the surprise of Aillen mac Midna, seeing his fire caughtand quenched by an invisible hand. And one can imagine that at thischeck he might be frightened, for who would be more terrified than amagician who sees his magic fail, and who, knowing of power, will guessat powers of which he has no conception and may well dread. 

Everything had been done by him as it should be done. His pipe had beenplayed and his timpan, all who heard that music should be asleep, andyet his fire was caught in full course and was quenched. 

Aillen, with all the terrific strength of which he was master, blewagain, and the great jet of blue flame came roaring and whistling fromhim and was caught and disappeared. 

Panic swirled into the man from Faery; he turned from that terrible spotand fled, not knowing what might be behind, but dreading it as hehad never before dreaded anything, and the unknown pursued him; thatterrible defence became offence and hung to his heel as a wolf pads bythe flank of a bull. 

And Aillen was not in his own world! He was in the world of men, wheremovement is not easy and the very air a burden. In his own sphere, inhis own element, he might have outrun Fionn, but this was Fionn's world, Fionn's element, and the flying god was not gross enough to outstriphim. Yet what a race he gave, for it was but at the entrance to hisown Shi' that the pursuer got close enough. Fionn put a finger intothe thong of the great spear, and at that cast night fell on Aillenmac Midna. His eyes went black, his mind whirled and ceased, therecame nothingness where he had been, and as the Birgha whistled into hisshoulder-blades he withered away, he tumbled emptily and was dead. Fionntook his lovely head from its shoulders and went back through the nightto Tara. 

Triumphant Fionn, who had dealt death to a god, and to whom death wouldbe dealt, and who is now dead!

He reached the palace at sunrise. 

On that morning all were astir early. They wished to see whatdestruction had been wrought by the great being, but it was young Fionnthey saw and that redoubtable head swinging by its hair. "What is yourdemand?" said the Ard-Ri'. "The thing that it is right I should ask, "said Fionn: "the command of the Fianna of Ireland. "

"Make your choice, " said Conn to Goll Mor; "you will leave Ireland, oryou will place your hand in the hand of this champion and be his man. "

Goll could do a thing that would be hard for another person, and hecould do it so beautifully that he was not diminished by any action. 

"Here is my hand, " said Goll. 

And he twinkled at the stern, young eyes that gazed on him as he madehis submission. 

THE BIRTH OF BRAN

CHAPTER I

There are people who do not like dogs a bit--they are usually women--butin this story there is a man who did not like dogs. In fact, he hatedthem. When he saw one he used to go black in the face, and he threwrocks at it until it got out of sight. But the Power that protects allcreatures had put a squint into this man's eye, so that he always threwcrooked. 

This gentleman's name was Fergus Fionnliath, and his stronghold was nearthe harbour of Galway. Whenever a dog barked he would leap out of hisseat, and he would throw everything that he owned out of the window inthe direction of the bark. He gave prizes to servants who disliked dogs, and when he heard that a man had drowned a litter of pups he used tovisit that person and try to marry his daughter. 

Now Fionn, the son of Uail, was the reverse of Fergus Fionnliath in thismatter, for he delighted in dogs, and he knew everything about them fromthe setting of the first little white tooth to the rocking of the lastlong yellow one. He knew the affections and antipathies which are properin a dog; the degree of obedience to which dogs may be trained withoutlosing their honourable qualities or becoming servile and suspicious;he knew the hopes that animate them, the apprehensions which tingle intheir blood, and all that is to be demanded from, or forgiven in, apaw, an ear, a nose, an eye, or a tooth; and he understood these thingsbecause he loved dogs, for it is by love alone that we understandanything. 

Among the three hundred dogs which Fionn owned there were two to whomhe gave an especial tenderness, and who were his daily and nightlycompanions. These two were Bran and Sceo'lan, but if a person were toguess for twenty years he would not find out why Fionn loved these twodogs and why he would never be separated from them. 

Fionn's mother, Muirne, went to wide Allen of Leinster to visit her son, and she brought her young sister Tuiren with her. The mother and auntof the great captain were well treated among the Fianna, first, becausethey were parents to Fionn, and second, because they were beautiful andnoble women. 

No words can describe how delightful Muirne was--she took the branch;and as to Tuiren, a man could not look at her without becoming angryor dejected. Her face was fresh as a spring morning; her voice morecheerful than the cuckoo calling from the branch that is highest in thehedge; and her form swayed like a reed and flowed like a river, so thateach person thought she would surely flow to him. 

Men who had wives of their own grew moody and downcast because theycould not hope to marry her, while the bachelors of the Fianna stared ateach other with truculent, bloodshot eyes, and then they gazed on Tuirenso gently that she may have imagined she was being beamed on by the mildeyes of the dawn. 

It was to an Ulster gentleman, Iollan Eachtach, that she gave her love, and this chief stated his rights and qualities and asked for her inmarriage. 

Now Fionn did not dislike the man of Ulster, but either he did notknow them well or else he knew them too well, for he made a curiousstipulation before consenting to the marriage. He bound Iollan to returnthe lady if there should be occasion to think her unhappy, and Iollanagreed to do so. The sureties to this bargain were Caelte mac Ronan, Goll mac Morna, and Lugaidh. Lugaidh himself gave the bride away, butit was not a pleasant ceremony for him, because he also was in love withthe lady, and he would have preferred keeping her to giving her away. When she had gone he made a poem about her, beginning:

 "There is no more light in the sky--"

And hundreds of sad people learned the poem by heart. 

CHAPTER II

When Iollan and Tuiren were married they went to Ulster, and they livedtogether very happily. But the law of life is change; nothingcontinues in the same way for any length of time; happiness must becomeunhappiness, and will be succeeded again by the joy it had displaced. The past also must be reckoned with; it is seldom as far behind us as wecould wish: it is more often in front, blocking the way, and the futuretrips over it just when we think that the road is clear and joy our own. 

Iollan had a past. He was not ashamed of it; he merely thought itwas finished, although in truth it was only beginning, for it is thatperpetual beginning of the past that we call the future. 

Before he joined the Fianna he had been in love with a lady of the Shi', named Uct Dealv (Fair Breast), and they had been sweethearts for years. How often he had visited his sweetheart in Faery! With what eagernessand anticipation he had gone there; the lover's whistle that he used togive was known to every person in that Shi', and he had been discussedby more than one of the delicate sweet ladies of Faery. "That is yourwhistle, Fair Breast, " her sister of the Shi' would say. 

And Uct Dealv would reply: "Yes, that is my mortal, my lover, my pulse, and my one treasure. "

She laid her spinning aside, or her embroidery if she was at that, or ifshe were baking a cake of fine wheaten bread mixed with honey she wouldleave the cake to bake itself and fly to Iollan. Then they went hand inhand in the country that smells of apple-blossom and honey, looking onheavy-boughed trees and on dancing and beaming clouds. Or they stooddreaming together, locked in a clasping of arms and eyes, gazing upand down on each other, Iollan staring down into sweet grey wells thatpeeped and flickered under thin brows, and Uct Dealv looking up intogreat black ones that went dreamy and went hot in endless alternation. 

Then Iollan would go back to the world of men, and Uct Dealv wouldreturn to her occupations in the Land of the Ever Young. 

"What did he say?" her sister of the Shi' would ask. 

"He said I was the Berry of the Mountain, the Star of Knowledge, and theBlossom of the Raspberry. "

"They always say the same thing, " her sister pouted. 

"But they look other things, " Uct Dealv insisted. "They feel otherthings, " she murmured; and an endless conversation recommenced. 

Then for some time Iollan did not come to Faery, and Uct Dealv marvelledat that, while her sister made an hundred surmises, each one worse thanthe last. 

"He is not dead or he would be here, " she said. "He has forgotten you, my darling. "

News was brought to Tlr na n-Og of the marriage of Iollan and Tuiren, and when Uct Dealv heard that news her heart ceased to beat for amoment, and she closed her eyes. 

"Now!" said her sister of the Shi'. "That is how long the love of amortal lasts, " she added, in the voice of sad triumph which is proper tosisters. 

But on Uct Dealv there came a rage of jealousy and despair such as noperson in the Shi' had ever heard of, and from that moment shebecame capable of every ill deed; for there are two things not easilycontrolled, and they are hunger and jealousy. She determined that thewoman who had supplanted her in Iollan's affections should rue the dayshe did it. She pondered and brooded revenge in her heart, sitting inthoughtful solitude and bitter collectedness until at last she had aplan. 

She understood the arts of magic and shape-changing, so she changedher shape into that of Fionn's female runner, the best-known woman inIreland; then she set out from Faery and appeared in the world. Shetravelled in the direction of Iollan's stronghold. 

Iollan knew the appearance of Fionn's messenger, but he was surprised tosee her. 

She saluted him. 

"Health and long life, my master. ". 

"Health and good days, " he replied. "What brings you here, dear heart?"

"I come from Fionn. "

"And your message?" said he. 

"The royal captain intends to visit you. "

"He will be welcome, " said Iollan. "We shall give him an Ulster feast. "

"The world knows what that is, " said the messenger courteously. "Andnow, " she continued, "I have messages for your queen. "

Tuiren then walked from the house with the messenger, but when they hadgone a short distance Uct Dealv drew a hazel rod from beneath her cloakand struck it on the queen's shoulder, and on the instant Tuiren'sfigure trembled and quivered, and it began to whirl inwards anddownwards, and she changed into the appearance of a hound. 

It was sad to see the beautiful, slender dog standing shivering andastonished, and sad to see the lovely eyes that looked out pitifullyin terror and amazement. But Uct Dealv did not feel sad. She claspeda chain about the hound's neck, and they set off westward towards thehouse of Fergus Fionnliath, who was reputed to be the unfriendliest manin the world to a dog. It was because of his reputation that Uct Dealvwas bringing the hound to him. She did not want a good home for thisdog: she wanted the worst home that could be found in the world, and shethought that Fergus would revenge for her the rage and jealousy whichshe felt towards Tuiren. 

CHAPTER III

As they paced along Uct Dealv railed bitterly against the hound, andshook and jerked her chain. Many a sharp cry the hound gave in thatjourney, many a mild lament. 

"Ah, supplanter! Ah, taker of another girl's sweetheart!" said Uct Dealvfiercely. "How would your lover take it if he could see you now? Howwould he look if he saw your pointy ears, your long thin snout, yourshivering, skinny legs, and your long grey tail. He would not love younow, bad girl!"

"Have you heard of Fergus Fionnliath, " she said again, "the man who doesnot like dogs?"

Tuiren had indeed heard of him. 

"It is to Fergus I shall bring you, " cried Uct Dealv. "He will throwstones at you. You have never had a stone thrown at you. Ah, bad girl!You do not know how a stone sounds as it nips the ear with a whirlingbuzz, nor how jagged and heavy it feels as it thumps against a skinnyleg. Robber! Mortal! Bad girl! You have never been whipped, but you willbe whipped now. You shall hear the song of a lash as it curls forwardand bites inward and drags backward. You shall dig up old bonesstealthily at night, and chew them against famine. You shall whine andsqueal at the moon, and shiver in the cold, and you will never takeanother girl's sweetheart again. "

And it was in those terms and in that tone that she spoke to Tuirenas they journeyed forward, so that the hound trembled and shrank, andwhined pitifully and in despair. 

They came to Fergus Fionnliath's stronghold, and Uct Dealv demandedadmittance. 

"Leave that dog outside, " said the servant. 

"I will not do so, " said the pretended messenger. 

"You can come in without the dog, or you can stay out with the dog, "said the surly guardian. 

"By my hand, " cried Uct Dealv, "I will come in with this dog, or yourmaster shall answer for it to Fionn. "

At the name of Fionn the servant almost fell out of his standing. Heflew to acquaint his master, and Fergus himself came to the great doorof the stronghold. 

"By my faith, " he cried in amazement, "it is a dog. "

"A dog it is, " growled the glum servant. 

"Go you away, " said Fergus to Uct Dealv, "and when you have killed thedog come back to me and I will give you a present. "

"Life and health, my good master, from Fionn, the son of Uail, the sonof Baiscne, " said she to Fergus. 

"Life and health back to Fionn, " he replied. "Come into the house andgive your message, but leave the dog outside, for I don't like dogs. "

"The dog comes in, " the messenger replied. 

"How is that?" cried Fergus angrily. 

"Fionn sends you this hound to take care of until he comes for her, "said the messenger. 

"I wonder at that, " Fergus growled, "for Fionn knows well that there isnot a man in the world has less of a liking for dogs than I have. "

"However that may be, master, I have given Fionn's message, and here atmy heel is the dog. Do you take her or refuse her?"

"If I could refuse anything to Fionn it would be a dog, " said Fergus, "but I could not refuse anything to Fionn, so give me the hound. "

Uct Dealv put the chain in his hand. 

"Ah, bad dog!" said she. 

And then she went away well satisfied with her revenge, and returned toher own people in the Shi. 

CHAPTER IV

On the following day Fergus called his servant. 

"Has that dog stopped shivering yet?" he asked. 

"It has not, sir, " said the servant. 

"Bring the beast here, " said his master, "for whoever else isdissatisfied Fionn must be satisfied. "

The dog was brought, and he examined it with a jaundiced and bitter eye. 

"It has the shivers indeed, " he said. 

"The shivers it has, " said the servant. 

"How do you cure the shivers?" his master demanded, for he thought thatif the animal's legs dropped off Fionn would not be satisfied. 

"There is a way, " said the servant doubtfully. 

"If there is a way, tell it to me, " cried his master angrily. 

"If you were to take the beast up in your arms and hug it and kiss it, the shivers would stop, " said the man. 

"Do you mean--?" his master thundered, and he stretched his hand for aclub. 

"I heard that, " said the servant humbly. 

"Take that dog up, " Fergus commanded, "and hug it and kiss it, and if Ifind a single shiver left in the beast I'll break your head. "

The man bent to the hound, but it snapped a piece out of his hand, andnearly bit his nose off as well. 

"That dog doesn't like me, " said the man. 

"Nor do I, " roared Fergus; "get out of my sight. "

The man went away and Fergus was left alone with the hound, but the poorcreature was so terrified that it began to tremble ten times worse thanbefore. 

"Its legs will drop off, " said Fergus. "Fionn will blame me, " he criedin despair. 

He walked to the hound. 

"If you snap at my nose, or if you put as much as the start of a toothinto the beginning of a finger!" he growled. 

He picked up the dog, but it did not snap, it only trembled. He held itgingerly for a few moments. 

"If it has to be hugged, " he said, "I'll hug it. I'd do more than thatfor Fionn. "

He tucked and tightened the animal into his breast, and marched moodilyup and down the room. The dog's nose lay along his breast under hischin, and as he gave it dutiful hugs, one hug to every five paces, thedog put out its tongue and licked him timidly under the chin. 

"Stop, " roared Fergus, "stop that forever, " and he grew very red inthe face, and stared truculently down along his nose. A soft brown eyelooked up at him and the shy tongue touched again on his chin. 

"If it has to be kissed, " said Fergus gloomily, "I'll kiss it; I'd domore than that for Fionn, " he groaned. 

He bent his head, shut his eyes, and brought the dog's jaw against hislips. And at that the dog gave little wriggles in his arms, and littlebarks, and little licks, so that he could scarcely hold her. He put thehound down at last. 

"There is not a single shiver left in her, " he said. 

And that was true. 

Everywhere he walked the dog followed him, giving little prances andlittle pats against him, and keeping her eyes fixed on his with sucheagerness and intelligence that he marvelled. 

"That dog likes me, " he murmured in amazement. 

"By my hand, " he cried next day, "I like that dog. "

The day after that he was calling her "My One Treasure, My LittleBranch. " And within a week he could not bear her to be out of his sightfor an instant. 

He was tormented by the idea that some evil person might throw a stoneat the hound, so he assembled his servants and retainers and addressedthem. 

He told them that the hound was the Queen of Creatures, the Pulse of hisHeart, and the Apple of his Eye, and he warned them that the person whoas much as looked sideways on her, or knocked one shiver out of her, would answer for the deed with pains and indignities. He recited a listof calamities which would befall such a miscreant, and these woes beganwith flaying and ended with dismemberment, and had inside bits of suchcomplicated and ingenious torment that the blood of the men who heard itran chill in their veins, and the women of the household fainted wherethey stood. 

CHAPTER V

In course of time the news came to Fionn that his mother's sisterwas not living with Iollan. He at once sent a messenger callingfor fulfilment of the pledge that had been given to the Fianna, anddemanding the instant return of Tuiren. Iollan was in a sad conditionwhen this demand was made. He guessed that Uct Dealv had a hand in thedisappearance of his queen, and he begged that time should be given himin which to find the lost girl. He promised if he could not discoverher within a certain period that he would deliver his body into Fionn'shands, and would abide by whatever judgement Fionn might pronounce. Thegreat captain agreed to that. 

"Tell the wife-loser that I will have the girl or I will have his head, "said Fionn. 

Iollan set out then for Faery. He knew the way, and in no great time hecame to the hill where Uct Dealv was. 

It was hard to get Uct Dealv to meet him, but at last she consented, andthey met under the apple boughs of Faery. 

"Well!" said Uct Dealv. "Ah! Breaker of Vows and Traitor to Love, " saidshe. 

"Hail and a blessing, " said Iollan humbly. 

"By my hand, " she cried, "I will give you no blessing, for it was noblessing you left with me when we parted. "

"I am in danger, " said Iollan. 

"What is that to me?" she replied fiercely. 

"Fionn may claim my head, " he murmured. 

"Let him claim what he can take, " said she. 

"No, " said Iollan proudly, "he will claim what I can give. "

"Tell me your tale, " said she coldly. 

Iollan told his story then, and, he concluded, "I am certain that youhave hidden the girl. "

"If I save your head from Fionn, " the woman of the Shi' replied, "thenyour head will belong to me. "

"That is true, " said Iollan. 

"And if your head is mine, the body that goes under it is mine. Do youagree to that?"

"I do, " said Iollan. 

"Give me your pledge, " said Uct Dealv, "that if I save you from thisdanger you will keep me as your sweetheart until the end of life andtime. "

"I give that pledge, " said Iollan. 

Uct Dealv went then to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, and she broke theenchantment that was on the hound, so that Tuiren's own shape came backto her; but in the matter of two small whelps, to which the hound hadgiven birth, the enchantment could not be broken, so they had to remainas they were. These two whelps were Bran and Sceo'lan. They were sentto Fionn, and he loved them for ever after, for they were loyal andaffectionate, as only dogs can be, and they were as intelligent as humanbeings. Besides that, they were Fionn's own cousins. 

Tuiren was then asked in marriage by Lugaidh who had loved her so long. He had to prove to her that he was not any other woman's sweetheart, and when he proved that they were married, and they lived happily everafter, which is the proper way to live. He wrote a poem beginning:

 "Lovely the day. Dear is the eye of the dawn--"

And a thousand merry people learned it after him. 

But as to Fergus Fionnliath, he took to his bed, and he stayed there fora year and a day suffering from blighted affection, and he would havedied in the bed only that Fionn sent him a special pup, and in a weekthat young hound became the Star of Fortune and the very Pulse of hisHeart, so that he got well again, and he also lived happily ever after. 

OISIN'S MOTHER

CHAPTER I

EVENING was drawing nigh, and the Fianna-Finn had decided to hunt nomore that day. The hounds were whistled to heel, and a sober, homewardmarch began. For men will walk soberly in the evening, however they goin the day, and dogs will take the mood from their masters. They werepacing so, through the golden-shafted, tender-coloured eve, when afawn leaped suddenly from covert, and, with that leap, all quietnessvanished: the men shouted, the dogs gave tongue, and a furious chasecommenced. 

Fionn loved a chase at any hour, and, with Bran and Sceo'lan, heoutstripped the men and dogs of his troop, until nothing remained in thelimpid world but Fionn, the two hounds, and the nimble, beautiful fawn. These, and the occasional boulders, round which they raced, or overwhich they scrambled; the solitary tree which dozed aloof and beautifulin the path, the occasional clump of trees that hived sweet shadow asa hive hoards honey, and the rustling grass that stretched to infinity, and that moved and crept and swung under the breeze in endless, rhythmicbillowings. 

In his wildest moment Fionn was thoughtful, and now, although runninghard, he was thoughtful. There was no movement of his beloved houndsthat he did not know; not a twitch or fling of the head, not a cockof the ears or tail that was not significant to him. But on this chasewhatever signs the dogs gave were not understood by their master. 

He had never seen them in such eager flight. They were almost utterlyabsorbed in it, but they did not whine with eagerness, nor did they castany glance towards him for the encouraging word which he never failed togive when they sought it. 

They did look at him, but it was a look which he could not comprehend. There was a question and a statement in those deep eyes, and he couldnot understand what that question might be, nor what it was they soughtto convey. Now and again one of the dogs turned a head in full flight, and stared, not at Fionn, but distantly backwards, over the spreadingand swelling plain where their companions of the hunt had disappeared. "They are looking for the other hounds, " said Fionn. 

"And yet they do not give tongue! Tongue it, a Vran!" he shouted, "Bellit out, a Heo'lan!"

It was then they looked at him, the look which he could not understandand had never seen on a chase. They did not tongue it, nor bell it, butthey added silence to silence and speed to speed, until the lean greybodies were one pucker and lashing of movement. 

Fionn marvelled. "They do not want the other dogs to hear or to come onthis chase, " he murmured, and he wondered what might be passing withinthose slender heads. 

"The fawn runs well, " his thought continued. "What is it, a Vran, myheart? After her, a Heo'lan! Hist and away, my loves!"

"There is going and to spare in that beast yet, " his mind went on. "Sheis not stretched to the full, nor half stretched. She may outrun evenBran, " he thought ragingly. 

They were racing through a smooth valley in a steady, beautiful, speedyflight when, suddenly, the fawn stopped and lay on the grass, and it laywith the calm of an animal that has no fear, and the leisure of one thatis not pressed. 

"Here is a change, " said Fionn, staring in astonishment. 

"She is not winded, " he said. "What is she lying down for?" But Bran andSceo'lan did not stop; they added another inch to their long-stretchedeasy bodies, and came up on the fawn. 

"It is an easy kill, " said Fionn regretfully. "They have her, " he cried. 

But he was again astonished, for the dogs did not kill. They leaped andplayed about the fawn, licking its face, and rubbing delighted nosesagainst its neck. 

Fionn came up then. His long spear was lowered in his fist at thethrust, and his sharp knife was in its sheath, but he did not use them, for the fawn and the two hounds began to play round him, and the fawnwas as affectionate towards him as the hounds were; so that when avelvet nose was thrust in his palm, it was as often a fawn's muzzle as ahound's. 

In that joyous company he came to wide Allen of Leinster, where thepeople were surprised to see the hounds and the fawn and the Chief andnone other of the hunters that had set out with them. 

When the others reached home, the Chief told of his chase, and it wasagreed that such a fawn must not be killed, but that it should be keptand well treated, and that it should be the pet fawn of the Fianna. But some of those who remembered Brah's parentage thought that as Branherself had come from the Shi so this fawn might have come out of theShi also. 

CHAPTER II

Late that night, when he was preparing for rest, the door of Fionn'schamber opened gently and a young woman came into the room. The captainstared at her, as he well might, for he had never seen or imagined tosee a woman so beautiful as this was. Indeed, she was not a woman, buta young girl, and her bearing was so gently noble, her look so modestlyhigh, that the champion dared scarcely look at her, although he couldnot by any means have looked away. 

As she stood within the doorway, smiling, and shy as a flower, beautifully timid as a fawn, the Chief communed with his heart. 

"She is the Sky-woman of the Dawn, " he said. "She is the light on thefoam. She is white and odorous as an apple-blossom. She smells of spiceand honey. She is my beloved beyond the women of the world. She shallnever be taken from me. "

And that thought was delight and anguish to him: delight because of suchsweet prospect, anguish because it was not yet realised, and might notbe. 

As the dogs had looked at him on the chase with a look that he did notunderstand, so she looked at him, and in her regard there was a questionthat baffled him and a statement which he could not follow. 

He spoke to her then, mastering his heart to do it. 

"I do not seem to know you, " he said. 

"You do not know me indeed, " she replied. 

"It is the more wonderful, " he continued gently, "for I should knowevery person that is here. What do you require from me?"

"I beg your protection, royal captain. "

"I give that to all, " he answered. "Against whom do you desireprotection?"

"I am in terror of the Fear Doirche. "

"The Dark Man of the Shi?"

"He is my enemy, " she said. 

"He is mine now, " said Fionn. "Tell me your story. "

"My name is Saeve, and I am a woman of Faery, " she commenced. "In theShi' many men gave me their love, but I gave my love to no man of mycountry. "

"That was not reasonable, " the other chided with a blithe heart. 

"I was contented, " she replied, "and what we do not want we do not lack. But if my love went anywhere it went to a mortal, a man of the men ofIreland. "

"By my hand, " said Fionn in mortal distress, "I marvel who that man canbe!"

"He is known to you, " she murmured. "I lived thus in the peace of Faery, hearing often of my mortal champion, for the rumour of his great deedshad gone through the Shi', until a day came when the Black Magicianof the Men of God put his eye on me, and, after that day, in whateverdirection I looked I saw his eye. "

She stopped at that, and the terror that was in her heart was on herface. "He is everywhere, " she whispered. "He is in the bushes, and onthe hill. He looked up at me from the water, and he stared down onme from the sky. His voice commands out of the spaces, and it demandssecretly in the heart. He is not here or there, he is in all places atall times. I cannot escape from him, " she said, "and I am afraid, " andat that she wept noiselessly and stared on Fionn. 

"He is my enemy, " Fionn growled. "I name him as my enemy. "

"You will protect me, " she implored. 

"Where I am let him not come, " said Fionn. "I also have knowledge. I amFionn, the son of Uail, the son of Baiscne, a man among men and a godwhere the gods are. "

"He asked me in marriage, " she continued, "but my mind was full of myown dear hero, and I refused the Dark Man. "

"That was your right, and I swear by my hand that if the man you desireis alive and unmarried he shall marry you or he will answer to me forthe refusal. "

"He is not married, " said Saeve, "and you have small control over him. "The Chief frowned thoughtfully. "Except the High King and the kings Ihave authority in this land. "

"What man has authority over himself?" said Saeve. 

"Do you mean that I am the man you seek?" said Fionn. 

"It is to yourself I gave my love, " she replied. "This is good news, "Fionn cried joyfully, "for the moment you came through the door I lovedand desired you, and the thought that you wished for another man wentinto my heart like a sword. " Indeed, Fionn loved Saeve as he had notloved a woman before and would never love one again. He loved her as hehad never loved anything before. He could not bear to be away from her. When he saw her he did not see the world, and when he saw the worldwithout her it was as though he saw nothing, or as if he looked on aprospect that was bleak and depressing. The belling of a stag had beenmusic to Fionn, but when Saeve spoke that was sound enough for him. Hehad loved to hear the cuckoo calling in the spring from the tree thatis highest in the hedge, or the blackbird's jolly whistle in an autumnbush, or the thin, sweet enchantment that comes to the mind when a larkthrills out of sight in the air and the hushed fields listen to thesong. But his wife's voice was sweeter to Fionn than the singing of alark. She filled him with wonder and surmise. There was magic in thetips of her fingers. Her thin palm ravished him. Her slender foot sethis heart beating; and whatever way her head moved there came a newshape of beauty to her face. 

"She is always new, " said Fionn. "She is always better than any otherwoman; she is always better than herself. "

He attended no more to the Fianna. He ceased to hunt. He did not listento the songs of poets or the curious sayings of magicians, for all ofthese were in his wife, and something that was beyond these was in heralso. 

"She is this world and the next one; she is completion, " said Fionn. 

CHAPTER III

It happened that the men of Lochlann came on an expedition againstIreland. A monstrous fleet rounded the bluffs of Ben Edair, and theDanes landed there, to prepare an attack which would render them mastersof the country. Fionn and the Fianna-Finn marched against them. He didnot like the men of Lochlann at any time, but this time he moved againstthem in wrath, for not only were they attacking Ireland, but they hadcome between him and the deepest joy his life had known. 

It was a hard fight, but a short one. The Lochlannachs were driven backto their ships, and within a week the only Danes remaining in Irelandwere those that had been buried there. 

That finished, he left the victorious Fianna and returned swiftly to theplain of Allen, for he could not bear to be one unnecessary day partedfrom Saeve. 

"You are not leaving us!" exclaimed Goll mac Morna. 

"I must go, " Fionn replied. 

"You will not desert the victory feast, " Conan reproached him. 

"Stay with us, Chief, " Caelte begged. 

"What is a feast without Fionn?" they complained. 

But he would not stay. 

"By my hand, " he cried, "I must go. She will be looking for me from thewindow. "

"That will happen indeed, " Goll admitted. 

"That will happen, " cried Fionn. "And when she sees me far out on theplain, she will run through the great gate to meet me. "

"It would be the queer wife would neglect that run, " Cona'n growled. 

"I shall hold her hand again, " Fionn entrusted to Caelte's ear. 

"You will do that, surely. "

"I shall look into her face, " his lord insisted. But he saw that noteven beloved Caelte understood the meaning of that, and he knew sadlyand yet proudly that what he meant could not be explained by any one andcould not be comprehended by any one. 

"You are in love, dear heart, " said Caelte. 

"In love he is, " Cona'n grumbled. "A cordial for women, a disease formen, a state of wretchedness. "

"Wretched in truth, " the Chief murmured. "Love makes us poor We have noteyes enough to see all that is to be seen, nor hands enough to seize thetenth of all we want. When I look in her eyes I am tormented because Iam not looking at her lips, and when I see her lips my soul cries out, 'Look at her eyes, look at her eyes. '"

"That is how it happens, " said Goll rememberingly. 

"That way and no other, " Caelte agreed. 

And the champions looked backwards in time on these lips and those, andknew their Chief would go. 

When Fionn came in sight of the great keep his blood and his feetquickened, and now and again he waved a spear in the air. 

"She does not see me yet, " he thought mournfully. 

"She cannot see me yet, " he amended, reproaching himself. 

But his mind was troubled, for he thought also, or he felt withoutthinking, that had the positions been changed he would have seen her attwice the distance. 

"She thinks I have been unable to get away from the battle, or that Iwas forced to remain for the feast. "

And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changedhe would have known that nothing could retain the one that was absent. 

"Women, " he said, "are shamefaced, they do not like to appear eager whenothers are observing them. "

But he knew that he would not have known if others were observing him, and that he would not have cared about it if he had known. And he knewthat his Saeve would not have seen, and would not have cared for anyeyes than his. 

He gripped his spear on that reflection, and ran as he had not run inhis life, so that it was a panting, dishevelled man that raced heavilythrough the gates of the great Dun. 

Within the Dun there was disorder. Servants were shouting to oneanother, and women were running to and fro aimlessly, wringing theirhands and screaming; and, when they saw the Champion, those nearest tohim ran away, and there was a general effort on the part of everyperson to get behind every other person. But Fionn caught the eye of hisbutler, Gariv Crona'n, the Rough Buzzer, and held it. 

"Come you here, " he said. 

And the Rough Buzzer came to him without a single buzz in his body. 

"Where is the Flower of Allen?" his master demanded. 

"I do not know, master, " the terrified servant replied. 

"You do not know!" said Fionn. "Tell what you do know. "

And the man told him this story. 

CHAPTER IV

"When you had been away for a day the guards were surprised. They werelooking from the heights of the Dun, and the Flower of Allen was withthem. She, for she had a quest's eye, called out that the master of theFianna was coming over the ridges to the Dun, and she ran from the keepto meet you. "

"It was not I, " said Fionn. 

"It bore your shape, " replied Gariv Cronan. "It had your armour and yourface, and the dogs, Bran and Sceo'lan, were with it. "

"They were with me, " said Fionn. 

"They seemed to be with it, " said the servant humbly

"Tell us this tale, " cried Fionn. 

"We were distrustful, " the servant continued. "We had never known Fionnto return from a combat before it had been fought, and we knew you couldnot have reached Ben Edar or encountered the Lochlannachs. So we urgedour lady to let us go out to meet you, but to remain herself in theDun. "

"It was good urging, " Fionn assented. 

"She would not be advised, " the servant wailed. "She cried to us, 'Letme go to meet my love'. "

"Alas!" said Fionn. 

"She cried on us, 'Let me go to meet my husband, the father of the childthat is not born. '"

"Alas!" groaned deep-wounded Fionn. "She ran towards your appearancethat had your arms stretched out to her. "

At that wise Fionn put his hand before his eyes, seeing all thathappened. 

"Tell on your tale, " said he. 

"She ran to those arms, and when she reached them the figure liftedits hand. It touched her with a hazel rod, and, while we looked, shedisappeared, and where she had been there was a fawn standing andshivering. The fawn turned and bounded towards the gate of the Dun, butthe hounds that were by flew after her. "

Fionn stared on him like a lost man. 

"They took her by the throat--" the shivering servant whispered. 

"Ah!" cried Fionn in a terrible voice. 

"And they dragged her back to the figure that seemed to be Fionn. Threetimes she broke away and came bounding to us, and three times the dogstook her by the throat and dragged her back. "

"You stood to look!" the Chief snarled. 

"No, master, we ran, but she vanished as we got to her; the great houndsvanished away, and that being that seemed to be Fionn disappeared withthem. We were left in the rough grass, staring about us and at eachother, and listening to the moan of the wind and the terror of ourhearts. "

"Forgive us, dear master, " the servant cried. But the great captain madehim no answer. He stood as though he were dumb and blind, and now andagain he beat terribly on his breast with his closed fist, as though hewould kill that within him which should be dead and could not die. Hewent so, beating on his breast, to his inner room in the Dun, and he wasnot seen again for the rest of that day, nor until the sun rose over MoyLife' in the morning. 

CHAPTER V

For many years after that time, when he was not fighting against theenemies of Ireland, Fionn was searching and hunting through the lengthand breadth of the country in the hope that he might again chance on hislovely lady from the Shi'. Through all that time he slept in misery eachnight and he rose each day to grief. Whenever he hunted he brought onlythe hounds that he trusted, Bran and Sceo'lan, Lomaire, Brod, and Lomlu;for if a fawn was chased each of these five great dogs would know ifthat was a fawn to be killed or one to be protected, and so there wassmall danger to Saeve and a small hope of finding her. 

Once, when seven years had passed in fruitless search, Fionn and thechief nobles of the Fianna were hunting Ben Gulbain. All the hounds ofthe Fianna were out, for Fionn had now given up hope of encounteringthe Flower of Allen. As the hunt swept along the sides of the hill therearose a great outcry of hounds from a narrow place high on the slopeand, over all that uproar there came the savage baying of Fionn's owndogs. 

"What is this for?" said Fionn, and with his companions he pressed tothe spot whence the noise came. 

"They are fighting all the hounds of the Fianna, " cried a champion. 

And they were. The five wise hounds were in a circle and were givingbattle to an hundred dogs at once. They were bristling and terrible, andeach bite from those great, keen jaws was woe to the beast that receivedit. Nor did they fight in silence as was their custom and training, butbetween each onslaught the great heads were uplifted, and they pealedloudly, mournfully, urgently, for their master. 

"They are calling on me, " he roared. 

And with that he ran, as he had only once before run, and the men whowere nigh to him went racing as they would not have run for their lives. They came to the narrow place on the slope of the mountain, and they sawthe five great hounds in a circle keeping off the other dogs, and inthe middle of the ring a little boy was standing. He had long, beautifulhair, and he was naked. He was not daunted by the terrible combat andclamour of the hounds. He did not look at the hounds, but he stared likea young prince at Fionn and the champions as they rushed towards himscattering the pack with the butts of their spears. When the fight wasover, Bran and Sceo'lan ran whining to the little boy and licked hishands. 

"They do that to no one, " said a bystander. "What new master is thisthey have found?"

Fionn bent to the boy. "Tell me, my little prince and pulse, what yourname is, and how you have come into the middle of a hunting-pack, andwhy you are naked?"

But the boy did not understand the language of the men of Ireland. Heput his hand into Fionn's, and the Chief felt as if that little hand hadbeen put into his heart. He lifted the lad to his great shoulder. 

"We have caught something on this hunt, " said he to Caelte mac Rongn. "We must bring this treasure home. You shall be one of the Fianna-Finn, my darling, " he called upwards. 

The boy looked down on him, and in the noble trust and fearlessness ofthat regard Fionn's heart melted away. 

"My little fawn!" he said. 

And he remembered that other fawn. He set the boy between his knees andstared at him earnestly and long. 

"There is surely the same look, " he said to his wakening heart; "that isthe very eye of Saeve. "

The grief flooded out of his heart as at a stroke, and joy foamed intoit in one great tide. He marched back singing to the encampment, and mensaw once more the merry Chief they had almost forgotten. 

CHAPTER VI

Just as at one time he could not be parted from Saeve, so now he couldnot be separated from this boy. He had a thousand names for him, eachone more tender than the last: "My Fawn, My Pulse, My Secret LittleTreasure, " or he would call him "My Music, My Blossoming Branch, MyStore in the Heart, My Soul. " And the dogs were as wild for the boy asFionn was. He could sit in safety among a pack that would have torn anyman to pieces, and the reason was that Bran and Sceo'lan, with theirthree whelps, followed him about like shadows. When he was with the packthese five were with him, and woeful indeed was the eye they turnedon their comrades when these pushed too closely or were not properlyhumble. They thrashed the pack severally and collectively until everyhound in Fionn's kennels knew that the little lad was their master, andthat there was nothing in the world so sacred as he was. 

In no long time the five wise hounds could have given over theirguardianship, so complete was the recognition of their young lord. Butthey did not so give over, for it was not love they gave the lad butadoration. 

Fionn even may have been embarrassed by their too close attendance. Ifhe had been able to do so he might have spoken harshly to his dogs, buthe could not; it was unthinkable that he should; and the boy might havespoken harshly to him if he had dared to do it. For this was the orderof Fionn's affection: first there was the boy; next, Bran and Sceo'lanwith their three whelps; then Caelte mac Rona'n, and from him downthrough the champions. He loved them all, but it was along thatprecedence his affections ran. The thorn that went into Bran's foot raninto Fionn's also. The world knew it, and there was not a champion butadmitted sorrowfully that there was reason for his love. 

Little by little the boy came to understand their speech and to speak ithimself, and at last he was able to tell his story to Fionn. 

There were many blanks in the tale, for a young child does not remembervery well. Deeds grow old in a day and are buried in a night. Newmemories come crowding on old ones, and one must learn to forget as wellas to remember. A whole new life had come on this boy, a life that wasinstant and memorable, so that his present memories blended into andobscured the past, and he could not be quite sure if that which he toldof had happened in this world or in the world he had left. 

CHAPTER VII

"I used to live, " he said, "in a wide, beautiful place. There were hillsand valleys there, and woods and streams, but in whatever direction Iwent I came always to a cliff, so tall it seemed to lean against thesky, and so straight that even a goat would not have imagined to climbit. "

"I do not know of any such place, " Fionn mused. 

"There is no such place in Ireland, " said Caelte, "but in the Shi' thereis such a place. "

"There is in truth, " said Fionn. 

"I used to eat fruits and roots in the summer, " the boy continued, "butin the winter food was left for me in a cave. "

"Was there no one with you?" Fionn asked. 

"No one but a deer that loved me, and that I loved. "

"Ah me!" cried Fionn in anguish, "tell me your tale, my son. "

"A dark stern man came often after us, and he used to speak with thedeer. Sometimes he talked gently and softly and coaxingly, but at timesagain he would shout loudly and in a harsh, angry voice. But whateverway he talked the deer would draw away from him in dread, and he alwaysleft her at last furiously. "

"It is the Dark Magician of the Men of God, " cried Fionn despairingly. 

"It is indeed, my soul, " said Caelte. 

"The last time I saw the deer, " the child continued, "the dark man wasspeaking to her. He spoke for a long time. He spoke gently and angrily, and gently and angrily, so that I thought he would never stop talking, but in the end he struck her with a hazel rod, so that she was forcedto follow him when he went away. She was looking back at me all the timeand she was crying so bitterly that any one would pity her. I tried tofollow her also, but I could not move, and I cried after her too, withrage and grief, until I could see her no more and hear her no more. ThenI fell on the grass, my senses went away from me, and when I awoke I wason the hill in the middle of the hounds where you found me. "

That was the boy whom the Fianna called Oisi'n, or the Little Fawn. Hegrew to be a great fighter afterwards, and he was the chief maker ofpoems in the world. But he was not yet finished with the Shi. He was togo back into Faery when the time came, and to come thence again to tellthese tales, for it was by him these tales were told. 

THE WOOING OF BECFOLA

CHAPTER I

We do not know where Becfola came from. Nor do we know for certain whereshe went to. We do not even know her real name, for the name Becfola, "Dowerless" or "Small-dowered, " was given to her as a nickname. Thisonly is certain, that she disappeared from the world we know of, andthat she went to a realm where even conjecture may not follow her. 

It happened in the days when Dermod, son of the famous Ae of Slane, wasmonarch of all Ireland. He was unmarried, but he had many foster-sons, princes from the Four Provinces, who were sent by their fathers astokens of loyalty and affection to the Ard-Ri, and his duties as afoster-father were righteously acquitted. Among the young princes of hishousehold there was one, Crimthann, son of Ae, King of Leinster, whomthe High King preferred to the others over whom he held fatherly sway. Nor was this wonderful, for the lad loved him also, and was as eager andintelligent and modest as becomes a prince. 

The High King and Crimthann would often set out from Tara to hunt andhawk, sometimes unaccompanied even by a servant; and on these excursionsthe king imparted to his foster-son his own wide knowledge of forestcraft, and advised him generally as to the bearing and duties of aprince, the conduct of a court, and the care of a people. 

Dermod mac Ae delighted in these solitary adventures, and when hecould steal a day from policy and affairs he would send word privily toCrimthann. The boy, having donned his hunting gear, would join the kingat a place arranged between them, and then they ranged abroad as chancemight direct. 

On one of these adventures, as they searched a flooded river to find theford, they saw a solitary woman in a chariot driving from the west. 

"I wonder what that means?" the king exclaimed thoughtfully. 

"Why should you wonder at a woman in a chariot?" his companion inquired, for Crimthann loved and would have knowledge. 

"Good, my Treasure, " Dermod answered, "our minds are astonished when wesee a woman able to drive a cow to pasture, for it has always seemed tous that they do not drive well. "

Crimthann absorbed instruction like a sponge and digested it as rapidly. 

"I think that is justly said, " he agreed. 

"But, " Dermod continued, "when we see a woman driving a chariot of twohorses, then we are amazed indeed. "

When the machinery of anything is explained to us we grow interested, and Crimthann became, by instruction, as astonished as the king was. 

"In good truth, " said he, "the woman is driving two horses. "

"Had you not observed it before?" his master asked with kindly malice. 

"I had observed but not noticed, " the young man admitted. 

"Further, " said the king, "surmise is aroused in us when we discover awoman far from a house; for you will have both observed and noticed thatwomen are home-dwellers, and that a house without a woman or a womanwithout a house are imperfect objects, and although they be but halfobserved, they are noticed on the double. "

"There is no doubting it, " the prince answered from a knitted andthought-tormented brow. 

"We shall ask this woman for information about herself, " said the kingdecidedly. 

"Let us do so, " his ward agreed

"The king's majesty uses the words 'we' and 'us' when referring tothe king's majesty, " said Dermod, "but princes who do not yetrule territories must use another form of speech when referring tothemselves. "

"I am very thoughtless, " said Crimthann humbly. 

The king kissed him on both cheeks. 

"Indeed, my dear heart and my son, we are not scolding you, but you musttry not to look so terribly thoughtful when you think. It is part of theart of a ruler. "

"I shall never master that hard art, " lamented his fosterling. 

"We must all master it, " Dermod replied. "We may think with our mindsand with our tongues, but we should never think with our noses and withour eyebrows. "

The woman in the chariot had drawn nigh to the ford by which they werestanding, and, without pause, she swung her steeds into the shallows andcame across the river in a tumult of foam and spray. 

"Does she not drive well?" cried Crimthann admiringly. 

"When you are older, " the king counselled him, "you will admire thatwhich is truly admirable, for although the driving is good the lady isbetter. "

He continued with enthusiasm. 

"She is in truth a wonder of the world and an endless delight to theeye. "

She was all that and more, and, as she took the horses through the riverand lifted them up the bank, her flying hair and parted lips and all theyoung strength and grace of her body went into the king's eye and couldnot easily come out again. 

Nevertheless, it was upon his ward that the lady's gaze rested, and ifthe king could scarcely look away from her, she could, but only with anequal effort, look away from Crimthann. 

"Halt there!" cried the king. 

"Who should I halt for?" the lady demanded, halting all the same, as isthe manner of women, who rebel against command and yet receive it. 

"Halt for Dermod!"

"There are Dermods and Dermods in this world, " she quoted. 

"There is yet but one Ard-Ri', " the monarch answered. 

She then descended from the chariot and made her reverence. 

"I wish to know your name?" said he. 

But at this demand the lady frowned and answered decidedly:

"I do not wish to tell it. "

"I wish to know also where you come from and to what place you aregoing?"

"I do not wish to tell any of these things. "

"Not to the king!"

"I do not wish to tell them to any one. "

Crimthann was scandalised. 

"Lady, " he pleaded, "you will surely not withhold information from theArd-Ri'?"

But the lady stared as royally on the High King as the High King did onher, and, whatever it was he saw in those lovely eyes, the king did notinsist. 

He drew Crimthann apart, for he withheld no instruction from that lad. 

"My heart, " he said, "we must always try to act wisely, and we shouldonly insist on receiving answers to questions in which we are personallyconcerned. "

Crimthann imbibed all the justice of that remark. 

"Thus I do not really require to know this lady's name, nor do I carefrom what direction she comes. "

"You do not?" Crimthann asked. 

"No, but what I do wish to know is, Will she marry me?"

"By my hand that is a notable question, " his companion stammered. 

"It is a question that must be answered, " the king cried triumphantly. "But, " he continued, "to learn what woman she is, or where she comesfrom, might bring us torment as well as information. Who knows in whatadventures the past has engaged her!"

And he stared for a profound moment on disturbing, sinister horizons, and Crimthann meditated there with him. 

"The past is hers, " he concluded, "but the future is ours, and we shallonly demand that which is pertinent to the future. "

He returned to the lady. 

"We wish you to be our wife, " he said. And he gazed on her benevolentlyand firmly and carefully when he said that, so that her regard couldnot stray otherwhere. Yet, even as he looked, a tear did well into thoselovely eyes, and behind her brow a thought moved of the beautiful boywho was looking at her from the king's side. 

But when the High King of Ireland asks us to marry him we do not refuse, for it is not a thing that we shall be asked to do every day in theweek, and there is no woman in the world but would love to rule it inTara. 

No second tear crept on the lady's lashes, and, with her hand in theking's hand, they paced together towards the palace, while behind them, in melancholy mood, Crimthann mac Ae led the horses and the chariot. 

CHAPTER II

They were married in a haste which equalled the king's desire; and as hedid not again ask her name, and as she did not volunteer to give it, andas she brought no dowry to her husband and received none from him, shewas called Becfola, the Dowerless. 

Time passed, and the king's happiness was as great as his expectationof it had promised. But on the part of Becfola no similar tidings can begiven. 

There are those whose happiness lies in ambition and station, and tosuch a one the fact of being queen to the High King of Ireland is asatisfaction at which desire is sated. But the mind of Becfola was notof this temperate quality, and, lacking Crimthann, it seemed to her thatshe possessed nothing. 

For to her mind he was the sunlight in the sun, the brightness in themoonbeam; he was the savour in fruit and the taste in honey; and whenshe looked from Crimthann to the king she could not but consider thatthe right man was in the wrong place. She thought that crowned only withhis curls Crlmthann mac Ae was more nobly diademed than are the mastersof the world, and she told him so. 

His terror on hearing this unexpected news was so great that hemeditated immediate flight from Tara; but when a thing has been utteredonce it is easier said the second time and on the third repetition it ispatiently listened to. 

After no great delay Crimthann mac Ae agreed and arranged that he andBecfola should fly from Tara, and it was part of their understandingthat they should live happily ever after. 

One morning, when not even a bird was astir, the king felt that his dearcompanion was rising. He looked with one eye at the light that stolegreyly through the window, and recognised that it could not in justicebe called light. 

"There is not even a bird up, " he murmured. 

And then to Becfola. 

"What is the early rising for, dear heart?"

"An engagement I have, " she replied. 

"This is not a time for engagements, " said the calm monarch. 

"Let it be so, " she replied, and she dressed rapidly. 

"And what is the engagement?" he pursued. 

"Raiment that I left at a certain place and must have. Eight silkensmocks embroidered with gold, eight precious brooches of beaten gold, three diadems of pure gold. "

"At this hour, " said the patient king, "the bed is better than theroad. "

"Let it be so, " said she. 

"And moreover, " he continued, "a Sunday journey brings bad luck. "

"Let the luck come that will come, " she answered. 

"To keep a cat from cream or a woman from her gear is not work for aking, " said the monarch severely. 

The Ard-Ri' could look on all things with composure, and regard allbeings with a tranquil eye; but it should be known that there was onedeed entirely hateful to him, and he would punish its commission withthe very last rigour--this was, a transgression of the Sunday. Duringsix days of the week all that could happen might happen, so far asDermod was concerned, but on the seventh day nothing should happen atall if the High King could restrain it. Had it been possible he wouldhave tethered the birds to their own green branches on that day, andforbidden the clouds to pack the upper world with stir and colour. Thesethe king permitted, with a tight lip, perhaps, but all else that cameunder his hand felt his control. 

It was his custom when he arose on the morn of Sunday to climb to themost elevated point of Tara, and gaze thence on every side, so thathe might see if any fairies or people of the Shi' were disportingthemselves in his lordship; for he absolutely prohibited the usage ofthe earth to these beings on the Sunday, and woe's worth was it for thesweet being he discovered breaking his law. 

We do not know what ill he could do to the fairies, but during Dermod'sreign the world said its prayers on Sunday and the Shi' folk stayed intheir hills. 

It may be imagined, therefore, with what wrath he saw his wife'spreparations for her journey, but, although a king can do everything, what can a husband do. . . ? He rearranged himself for slumber. 

"I am no party to this untimely journey, " he said angrily. 

"Let it be so, " said Becfola. 

She left the palace with one maid, and as she crossed the doorwaysomething happened to her, but by what means it happened would be hardto tell; for in the one pace she passed out of the palace and out of theworld, and the second step she trod was in Faery, but she did not knowthis. 

Her intention was to go to Cluain da chaillech to meet Crimthann, butwhen she left the palace she did not remember Crimthann any more. 

To her eye and to the eye of her maid the world was as it always hadbeen, and the landmarks they knew were about them. But the object forwhich they were travelling was different, although unknown, and thepeople they passed on the roads were unknown, and were yet people thatthey knew. 

They set out southwards from Tara into the Duffry of Leinster, and aftersome time they came into wild country and went astray. At last Becfolahalted, saying:

"I do not know where we are. "

The maid replied that she also did not know. 

"Yet, " said Becfola, "if we continue to walk straight on we shall arrivesomewhere. "

They went on, and the maid watered the road with her tears. 

Night drew on them; a grey chill, a grey silence, and they wereenveloped in that chill and silence; and they began to go in expectationand terror, for they both knew and did not know that which they werebound for. 

As they toiled desolately up the rustling and whispering side of alow hill the maid chanced to look back, and when she looked back shescreamed and pointed, and clung to Becfola's arm. Becfola followed thepointing finger, and saw below a large black mass that moved jerkilyforward. 

"Wolves!" cried the maid. "Run to the trees yonder, " her mistressordered. "We will climb them and sit among the branches. "

They ran then, the maid moaning and lamenting all the while. 

"I cannot climb a tree, " she sobbed, "I shall be eaten by the wolves. "

And that was true. 

But her mistress climbed a tree, and drew by a hand's breadth from therap and snap and slaver of those steel jaws. Then, sitting on a branch, she looked with angry woe at the straining and snarling horde below, seeing many a white fang in those grinning jowls, and the smouldering, red blink of those leaping and prowling eyes. 

CHAPTER III

But after some time the moon arose and the wolves went away, for theirleader, a sagacious and crafty chief, declared that as long as theyremained where they were, the lady would remain where she was; and so, with a hearty curse on trees, the troop departed. Becfola had pains inher legs from the way she had wrapped them about the branch, but therewas no part of her that did not ache, for a lady does not sit with anyease upon a tree. 

For some time she did not care to come down from the branch. "Thosewolves may return, " she said, "for their chief is crafty and sagacious, and it is certain, from the look I caught in his eye as he departed, that he would rather taste of me than cat any woman he has met. "

She looked carefully in every direction to see if one might discoverthem in hiding; she looked closely and lingeringly at the shadows underdistant trees to see if these shadows moved; and she listened on everywind to try if she could distinguish a yap or a yawn or a sneeze. Butshe saw or heard nothing; and little by little tranquillity crept intoher mind, and she began to consider that a danger which is past is adanger that may be neglected. 

Yet ere she descended she looked again on the world of jet and silverthat dozed about her, and she spied a red glimmer among distant trees. 

"There is no danger where there is light, " she said, and she thereuponcame from the tree and ran in the direction that she had noted. 

In a spot between three great oaks she came upon a man who was roastinga wild boar over a fire. She saluted this youth and sat beside him. Butafter the first glance and greeting he did not look at her again, nordid he speak. 

When the boar was cooked he ate of it and she had her share. Then hearose from the fire and walked away among the trees. Becfola followed, feeling ruefully that something new to her experience had arrived;"for, " she thought, "it is usual that young men should not speak to menow that I am the mate of a king, but it is very unusual that young menshould not look at me. "

But if the young man did not look at her she looked well at him, andwhat she saw pleased her so much that she had no time for furthercogitation. For if Crimthann had been beautiful, this youth was tentimes more beautiful. The curls on Crimthann's head had been indeed asa benediction to the queen's eye, so that she had eaten the better andslept the sounder for seeing him. But the sight of this youth left herwithout the desire to eat, and, as for sleep, she dreaded it, for if sheclosed an eye she would be robbed of the one delight in time, which wasto look at this young man, and not to cease looking at him while her eyecould peer or her head could remain upright. 

They came to an inlet of the sea all sweet and calm under the round, silver-flooding moon, and the young man, with Becfola treading on hisheel, stepped into a boat and rowed to a high-jutting, pleasant island. There they went inland towards a vast palace, in which there was noperson but themselves alone, and there the young man went to sleep, while Becfola sat staring at him until the unavoidable peace presseddown her eyelids and she too slumbered. 

She was awakened in the morning by a great shout. 

"Come out, Flann, come out, my heart!"

The young man leaped from his couch, girded on his harness, and strodeout. Three young men met him, each in battle harness, and these fouradvanced to meet four other men who awaited them at a little distance onthe lawn. Then these two sets of four fought togethor with every warlikecourtesy but with every warlike severity, and at the end of that combatthere was but one man standing, and the other seven lay tossed in death. 

Becfola spoke to the youth. 

"Your combat has indeed been gallant, " she said. 

"Alas, " he replied, "if it has been a gallant deed it has not been agood one, for my three brothers are dead and my four nephews are dead. "

"Ah me!" cried Becfola, "why did you fight that fight?"

"For the lordship of this island, the Isle of Fedach, son of Dali. "

But, although Becfola was moved and horrified by this battle, it was inanother direction that her interest lay; therefore she soon asked thequestion which lay next her heart:

"Why would you not speak to me or look at me?"

"Until I have won the kingship of this land from all claimants, I am nomatch for the mate of the High King of Ireland, " he replied. 

And that reply was llke balm to the heart of Becfola. 

"What shall I do?" she inquired radiantly. "Return to your home, " hecounselled. "I will escort you there with your maid, for she is notreally dead, and when I have won my lordship I will go seek you inTara. "

"You will surely come, " she insisted. 

"By my hand, " quoth he, "I will come. "

These three returned then, and at the end of a day and night they sawfar off the mighty roofs of Tara massed in the morning haze. Theyoung man left them, and with many a backward look and with dragging, reluctant feet, Becfola crossed the threshold of the palace, wonderingwhat she should say to Dermod and how she could account for an absenceof three days' duration. 

CHAPTER IV

IT was so early that not even a bird was yet awake, and the dull greylight that came from the atmosphere enlarged and made indistinct allthat one looked at, and swathed all things in a cold and livid gloom. 

As she trod cautiously through dim corridors Becfola was glad that, saving the guards, no creature was astir, and that for some time yetshe need account to no person for her movements. She was glad also ofa respite which would enable her to settle into her home and draw abouther the composure which women feel when they are surrounded by the wallsof their houses, and can see about them the possessions which, by thefact of ownership, have become almost a part of their personality. Sundered from her belongings, no woman is tranquil, her heart is nottruly at ease, however her mind may function, so that under the broadsky or in the house of another she is not the competent, preciseindividual which she becomes when she sees again her household in orderand her domestic requirements at her hand. 

Becfola pushed the door of the king's sleeping chamber and enterednoiselessly. Then she sat quietly in a seat gazing on the recumbentmonarch, and prepared to consider how she should advance to him whenhe awakened, and with what information she might stay his inquiries orreproaches. 

"I will reproach him, " she thought. "I will call him a bad husbandand astonish him, and he will forget everything but his own alarm andindignation. "

But at that moment the king lifted his head from the pillow and lookedkindly at her. Her heart gave a great throb, and she prepared to speakat once and in great volume before he could formulate any question. But the king spoke first, and what he said so astonished her that theexplanation and reproach with which her tongue was thrilling fledfrom it at a stroke, and she could only sit staring and bewildered andtongue-tied. 

"Well, my dear heart, " said the king, "have you decided not to keep thatengagement?"

"I--I--!" Becfola stammered. 

"It is truly not an hour for engagements, " Dermod insisted, "for nota bird of the birds has left his tree; and, " he continued maliciously, "the light is such that you could not see an engagement even if you metone. "

"I, " Becfola gasped. "I---!"

"A Sunday journey, " he went on, "is a notorious bad journey. No good cancome from it. You can get your smocks and diadems to-morrow. But at thishour a wise person leaves engagements to the bats and the staring owlsand the round-eyed creatures that prowl and sniff in the dark. Come backto the warm bed, sweet woman, and set on your journey in the morning. "

Such a load of apprehension was lifted from Becfola's heart that sheinstantly did as she had been commanded, and such a bewilderment had yetpossession of her faculties that she could not think or utter a word onany subject. 

Yet the thought did come into her head as she stretched in the warmgloom that Crimthann the son of Ae must be now attending her atCluain da chaillech, and she thought of that young man as of somethingwonderful and very ridiculous, and the fact that he was waiting forher troubled her no more than if a sheep had been waiting for her or aroadside bush. 

She fell asleep. 

CHAPTER V

In the morning as they sat at breakfast four clerics were announced, andwhen they entered the king looked on them with stern disapproval. 

"What is the meaning of this journey on Sunday?" he demanded. 

A lank-jawed, thin-browed brother, with uneasy, intertwining fingers, and a deep-set, venomous eye, was the spokesman of those four. 

"Indeed, " he said, and the fingers of his right hand strangled and didto death the fingers of his left hand, "indeed, we have transgressed byorder. "

"Explain that. "

"We have been sent to you hurriedly by our master, Molasius ofDevenish. "

"A pious, a saintly man, " the king interrupted, "and one who does notcountenance transgressions of the Sunday. "

"We were ordered to tell you as follows, " said the grim cleric, and heburied the fingers of his right hand in his left fist, so that one couldnot hope to see them resurrected again. "It was the duty of one ofthe Brothers of Devenish, " he continued, "to turn out the cattle thismorning before the dawn of day, and that Brother, while in his duty, saweight comely young men who fought together. "

"On the morning of Sunday, " Dermod exploded. 

The cleric nodded with savage emphasis. 

"On the morning of this self-same and instant sacred day. "

"Tell on, " said the king wrathfully. 

But terror gripped with sudden fingers at Becfola's heart. 

"Do not tell horrid stories on the Sunday, " she pleaded. "No good cancome to any one from such a tale. "

"Nay, this must be told, sweet lady, " said the king. But the clericstared at her glumly, forbiddingly, and resumed his story at a gesture. 

"Of these eight men, seven were killed. "

"They are in hell, " the king said gloomily. 

"In hell they are, " the cleric replied with enthusiasm. 

"And the one that was not killed?"

"He is alive, " that cleric responded. 

"He would be, " the monarch assented. "Tell your tale. "

"Molasius had those seven miscreants buried, and he took from theirunhallowed necks and from their lewd arms and from their unblessedweapons the load of two men in gold and silver treasure. "

"Two men's load!" said Dermod thoughtfully. 

"That much, " said the lean cleric. "No more, no less. And he has sent usto find out what part of that hellish treasure belongs to the Brothersof Devenish and how much is the property of the king. "

Becfola again broke in, speaking graciously, regally, hastily: "Letthose Brothers have the entire of the treasure, for it is Sundaytreasure, and as such it will bring no luck to any one. "

The cleric again looked at her coldly, with a harsh-lidded, small-set, grey-eyed glare, and waited for the king's reply. 

Dermod pondered, shaking his head as to an argument on his left side, and then nodding it again as to an argument on his right. 

"It shall be done as this sweet queen advises. Let a reliquary be formedwith cunning workmanship of that gold and silver, dated with my date andsigned with my name, to be in memory of my grandmother who gave birth toa lamb, to a salmon, and then to my father, the Ard-Ri'. And, as to thetreasure that remains over, a pastoral staff may be beaten from it inhonour of Molasius, the pious man. "

"The story is not ended, " said that glum, spike-chinned cleric. 

The king moved with jovial impatience. 

"If you continue it, " he said, "it will surely come to an end some time. A stone on a stone makes a house, dear heart, and a word on a word tellsa tale. "

The cleric wrapped himself into himself, and became lean and menacing. He whispered: "Besides the young man, named Flann, who was not slain, there was another person present at the scene and the combat and thetransgression of Sunday. "

"Who was that person?" said the alarmed monarch. 

The cleric spiked forward his chin, and then butted forward his brow. 

"It was the wife of the king, " he shouted. "It was the woman calledBecfola. It was that woman, " he roared, and he extended a lean, inflexible, unending first finger at the queen. 

"Dog!" the king stammered, starting up. 

"If that be in truth a woman, " the cleric screamed. 

"What do you mean?" the king demanded in wrath and terror. 

"Either she is a woman of this world to be punished, or she is a womanof the Shi' to be banished, but this holy morning she was in the Shi', and her arms were about the neck of Flann. "

The king sank back in his chair stupefied, gazing from one to the other, and then turned an unseeing, fear-dimmed eye towards Becfola. 

"Is this true, my pulse?" he murmured. 

"It is true, " Becfola replied, and she became suddenly to the king's eyea whiteness and a stare. He pointed to the door. 

"Go to your engagement, " he stammered. "Go to that Flann. "

"He is waiting for me, " said Becfola with proud shame, "and the thoughtthat he should wait wrings my heart. "

She went out from the palace then. She went away from Tara: and in allIreland and in the world of living men she was not seen again, and shewas never heard of again. 

THE LITTLE BRAWL AT ALLEN

CHAPTER I

"I think, " said Cairell Whiteskin, "that although judgement was givenagainst Fionn, it was Fionn had the rights of it. "

"He had eleven hundred killed, " said Cona'n amiably, "and you may callthat the rights of it if you like. "

"All the same--" Cairell began argumentatively. 

"And it was you that commenced it, " Cona'n continued. 

"Ho! Ho!" Cairell cried. "Why, you are as much to blame as I am. "

"No, " said Cona'n, "for you hit me first. "

"And if we had not been separated--" the other growled. 

"Separated!" said Cona'n, with a grin that made his beard poke allaround his face. 

"Yes, separated. If they had not come between us I still think--"

"Don't think out loud, dear heart, for you and I are at peace by law. "

"That is true, " said Cairell, "and a man must stick by a judgement. Comewith me, my dear, and let us see how the youngsters are shaping in theschool. One of them has rather a way with him as a swordsman. "

"No youngster is any good with a sword, " Conan replied. 

"You are right there, " said Cairell. "It takes a good ripe man for thatweapon. "

"Boys are good enough with slings, " Confro continued, "but except foreating their fill and running away from a fight, you can't count onboys. "

The two bulky men turned towards the school of the Fianna. 

It happened that Fionn mac Uail had summoned the gentlemen of the Fiannaand their wives to a banquet. Everybody came, for a banquet given byFionn was not a thing to be missed. There was Goll mor mac Morna and hispeople; Fionn's son Oisi'n and his grandson Oscar. There was Dermod ofthe Gay Face, Caelte mac Ronan--but indeed there were too many to betold of, for all the pillars of war and battle-torches of the Gael werethere. 

The banquet began. 

Fionn sat in the Chief Captain's seat in the middle of the fort; andfacing him, in the place of honour, he placed the mirthful Goll macMorna; and from these, ranging on either side, the nobles of the Fiannatook each the place that fitted his degree and patrimony. 

After good eating, good conversation; and after good conversation, sleep--that is the order of a banquet: so when each person had beenserved with food to the limit of desire the butlers carried in shining, and jewelled drinking-horns, each having its tide of smooth, headyliquor. Then the young heroes grew merry and audacious, the ladiesbecame gentle and kind, and the poets became wonders of knowledge andprophecy. Every eye beamed in that assembly, and on Fionn every eye wasturned continually in the hope of a glance from the great, mild hero. 

Goll spoke to him across the table enthusiastically. 

"There is nothing wanting to this banquet, O Chief, " said he. 

And Fionn smiled back into that eye which seemed a well of tendernessand friendship. 

"Nothing is wanting, " he replied, "but a well-shaped poem. " A crierstood up then, holding in one hand a length of coarse iron links and inthe other a chain of delicate, antique silver. He shook the iron chainso that the servants and followers of the household should be silent, and he shook the silver one so that the nobles and poets should hearkenalso. 

Fergus, called True-Lips, the poet of the Fianna-Finn, then sang ofFionn and his ancestors and their deeds. When he had finished Fionn andOisi'n and Oscar and mac Lugac of the Terrible Hand gave him rare andcostly presents, so that every person wondered at their munificence, andeven the poet, accustomed to the liberality of kings and princes, wasastonished at his gifts. 

Fergus then turned to the side of Goll mac Morna, and he sang of theForts, the Destructions, the Raids, and the Wooings of clann-Morna; andas the poems succeeded each other, Goll grew more and more jovial andcontented. When the songs were finished Goll turned in his seat. 

"Where is my runner?" he cried. 

He had a woman runner, a marvel for swiftness and trust. She steppedforward. 

"I am here, royal captain. "

"Have you collected my tribute from Denmark?"

"It is here. "

And, with help, she laid beside him the load of three men of doublyrefined gold. Out of this treasure, and from the treasure of rings andbracelets and torques that were with him, Goll mac Morna paid Fergus forhis songs, and, much as Fionn had given, Goll gave twice as much. 

But, as the banquet proceeded, Goll gave, whether it was to harpers orprophets or jugglers, more than any one else gave, so that Fionn becamedispleased, and as the banquet proceeded he grew stern and silent. 

CHAPTER II

[This version of the death of Uail is not correct. Also Cnocha is not inLochlann but in Ireland. ]

The wonderful gift-giving of Goll continued, and an uneasiness andembarrassment began to creep through the great banqueting hall. 

Gentlemen looked at each other questioningly, and then spoke again onindifferent matters, but only with half of their minds. The singers, theharpers, and jugglers submitted to that constraint, so that every personfelt awkward and no one knew what should be done or what would happen, and from that doubt dulness came, with silence following on its heels. 

There is nothing more terrible than silence. Shame grows in that blank, or anger gathers there, and we must choose which of these is to be ourmaster. 

That choice lay before Fionn, who never knew shame. 

"Goll, " said he, "how long have you been taking tribute from the peopleof Lochlann?"

"A long time now, " said Goll. 

And he looked into an eye that was stern and unfriendly. 

"I thought that my rent was the only one those people had to pay, " Fionncontinued. 

"Your memory is at fault, " said Goll. 

"Let it be so, " said Fionn. "How did your tribute arise?"

"Long ago, Fionn, in the days when your father forced war on me. "

"Ah!" said Fionn. 

"When he raised the High King against me and banished me from Ireland. "

"Continue, " said Fionn, and he held Goll's eye under the great beetle ofhis brow. 

"I went into Britain, " said Goll, "and your father followed me there. Iwent into White Lochlann (Norway) and took it. Your father banished methence also. "

"I know it, " said Fionn. 

"I went into the land of the Saxons and your father chased me out ofthat land. And then, in Lochlann, at the battle of Cnocha your fatherand I met at last, foot to foot, eye to eye, and there, Fionn!"

"And there, Goll?"

"And there I killed your father. "

Fionn sat rigid and unmoving, his face stony and terrible as the face ofa monument carved on the side of a cliff. 

"Tell all your tale, " said he. 

"At that battle I beat the Lochlannachs. I penetrated to the hold of theDanish king, and I took out of his dungeon the men who had lainthere for a year and were awaiting their deaths. I liberated fifteenprisoners, and one of them was Fionn. "

"It is true, " said Fionn. 

Goll's anger fled at the word. 

"Do not be jealous of me, dear heart, for if I had twice the tribute Iwould give it to you and to Ireland. "

But at the word jealous the Chief's anger revived. 

"It is an impertinence, " he cried, "to boast at this table that youkilled my father. "

"By my hand, " Goll replied, "if Fionn were to treat me as his father didI would treat Fionn the way I treated Fionn's father. "

Fionn closed his eyes and beat away the anger that was rising withinhim. He smiled grimly. 

"If I were so minded, I would not let that last word go with you, Goll, for I have here an hundred men for every man of yours. "

Goll laughed aloud. 

"So had your father, " he said. 

Fionn's brother, Cairell Whiteskin, broke into the conversation with aharsh laugh. 

"How many of Fionn's household has the wonderful Goll put down?" hecried. 

But Goll's brother, bald Cona'n the Swearer, turned a savage eye onCairell. 

"By my weapons, " said he, "there were never less than an hundred-and-onemen with Goll, and the least of them could have put you down easilyenough. "

"Ah?" cried Cairell. "And are you one of the hundred-and-one, oldscaldhead?"

"One indeed, my thick-witted, thin-livered Cairell, and I undertake toprove on your hide that what my brother said was true and that what yourbrother said was false. "

"You undertake that, " growled Cairell, and on the word he loosed afurious buffet at Con'an, which Cona'n returned with a fist so big thatevery part of Cairell's face was hit with the one blow. The two thenfell into grips, and went lurching and punching about the great hall. Two of Oscar's sons could not bear to see their uncle being worsted, andthey leaped at Cona'n, and two of Goll's sons rushed at them. Then Oscarhimself leaped up, and with a hammer in either hand he went batteringinto the melee. 

"I thank the gods, " said Cona'n, "for the chance of killing yourself, Oscar. "

These two encountered then, and Oscar knocked a groan of distress out ofCona'n. He looked appealingly at his brother Art og mac Morna, and thatpowerful champion flew to his aid and wounded Oscar. Oisi'n, Oscar'sfather, could not abide that; he dashed in and quelled Art Og. ThenRough Hair mac Morna wounded Oisin and was himself tumbled by mac Lugac, who was again wounded by Gara mac Morna. 

The banqueting hall was in tumult. In every part of it men were givingand taking blows. Here two champions with their arms round each other'snecks were stamping round and round in a slow, sad dance. Here were twocrouching against each other, looking for a soft place to hit. Yonder abig-shouldered person lifted another man in his arms and threw him at asmall group that charged him. In a retired corner a gentleman stood ina thoughtful attitude while he tried to pull out a tooth that had beenknocked loose. 

"You can't fight, " he mumbled, "with a loose shoe or a loose tooth. "

"Hurry up with that tooth, " the man in front of him grum-bled, "for Iwant to knock out another one. "

Pressed against the wall was a bevy of ladies, some of whom werescreaming and some laughing and all of whom were calling on the men togo back to their seats. 

Only two people remained seated in the hall. 

Goll sat twisted round watching the progress of the brawl critically, and Fionn, sitting opposite, watched Goll. 

Just then Faelan, another of Fionn's sons, stormed the hall with threehundred of the Fianna, and by this force all Goll's people were put outof doors, where the fight continued. 

Goll looked then calmly on Fionn. 

"Your people are using their weapons, " said he. 

"Are they?" Fionn inquired as calmly, and as though addressing the air. 

"In the matter of weapons--!" said Goll. 

And the hard-fighting pillar of battle turned to where his arms hung onthe wall behind him. He took his solid, well-balanced sword in his fist, over his left arm his ample, bossy shield, and, with another side-lookat Fionn, he left the hall and charged irresistibly into the fray. 

Fionn then arose. He took his accoutrements from the wall also andstrode out. Then he raised the triumphant Fenian shout and went into thecombat. 

That was no place for a sick person to be. It was not the corner whicha slender-fingered woman would choose to do up her hair; nor was it thespot an ancient man would select to think quietly in, for the tumult ofsword on sword, of axe on shield, the roar of the contending parties, the crying of wounded men, and the screaming of frightened womendestroyed peace, and over all was the rallying cry of Goll mac Morna andthe great shout of Fionn. 

Then Fergus True-Lips gathered about him all the poets of the Fianna, and they surrounded the combatants. They began to chant and intonelong, heavy rhymes and incantations, until the rhythmic beating of theirvoices covered even the noise of war, so that the men stopped hackingand hewing, and let their weapons drop from their hands. These werepicked up by the poets and a reconciliation was effected between the twoparties. 

But Fionn affirmed that he would make no peace with clann-Morna untilthe matter had been judged by the king, Cormac mac Art, and by hisdaughter Ailve, and by his son Cairbre of Ana Life' and by Fintan thechief poet. Goll agreed that the affair should be submitted to thatcourt, and a day was appointed, a fortnight from that date, to meetat Tara of the Kings for judgement. Then the hall was cleansed and thebanquet recommenced. 

Of Fionn's people eleven hundred of men and women were dead, while ofGoll's people eleven men and fifty women were dead. But it was throughfright the women died, for not one of them had a wound or a bruise or amark. 

CHAPTER III

AT the end of a fortnight Fionn and Goll and the chief men of the Fiannaattended at Tara. The king, his son and daughter, with Flahri, Feehal, and Fintan mac Bocna sat in the place of judgement, and Cormac called onthe witnesses for evidence. 

Fionn stood up, but the moment he did so Goll mac Morna arose also. 

"I object to Fionn giving evidence, " said he. 

"Why so?" the king asked. 

"Because in any matter that concerned me Fionn would turn a lie intotruth and the truth into a lie. "

"I do not think that is so, " said Fionn. 

"You see, he has already commenced it, " cried Goll. 

"If you object to the testimony of the chief person present, in what wayare we to obtain evidence?" the king demanded. 

"I, " said Goll, "will trust to the evidence of Fergus True-Lips. He isFionn's poet, and will tell no lie against his master; he is a poet, andwill tell no lie against any one. "

"I agree to that, " said Fionn. 

"I require, nevertheless, " Goll continued, "that Fergus should swearbefore the Court, by his gods, that he will do justice between us. "

Fergus was accordingly sworn, and gave his evidence. He stated thatFionn's brother Cairell struck Cona'n mac Morna, that Goll's two sonscame to help Cona'n, that Oscar went to help Cairell, and with thatFionn's people and the clann-Morna rose at each other, and what hadstarted as a brawl ended as a battle with eleven hundred of Fionn'speople and sixty-one of Goll's people dead. 

"I marvel, " said the king in a discontented voice, "that, consideringthe numbers against them, the losses of clann-Morna should be so small. "

Fionn blushed when he heard that. 

Fergus replied:

"Goll mac Morna covered his people with his shield. All that slaughterwas done by him. "

"The press was too great, " Fionn grumbled. "I could not get at him intime or---"

"Or what?" said Goll with a great laugh. 

Fionn shook his head sternly and said no more. 

"What is your judgement?" Cormac demanded of his fellow-judges. 

Flahri pronounced first. 

"I give damages to clann-Morna. "

"Why?" said Cormac. 

"Because they were attacked first. "

Cormac looked at him stubbornly. 

"I do not agree with your judgement, " he said. 

"What is there faulty in it?" Flahri asked. 

"You have not considered, " the king replied, "that a soldier owesobedience to his captain, and that, given the time and the place, Fionnwas the captain and Goll was only a simple soldier. "

Flahri considered the king's suggestion. 

"That, " he said, "would hold good for the white-striking or blows offists, but not for the red-striking or sword-strokes. "

"What is your judgement?" the king asked Feehal. Feehal then pronounced:

"I hold that clann-Morna were attacked first, and that they are to befree from payment of damages. "

"And as regards Fionn?" said Cormac. 

"I hold that on account of his great losses Fionn is to be exemptfrom payment of damages, and that his losses are to be considered asdamages. "

"I agree in that judgement, " said Fintan. 

The king and his son also agreed, and the decision was imparted to theFianna. 

"One must abide by a judgement, " said Fionn. 

"Do you abide by it?" Goll demanded. 

"I do, " said Fionn. 

Goll and Fionn then kissed each other, and thus peace was made. For, notwithstanding the endless bicker of these two heroes, they loved eachother well. 

Yet, now that the years have gone by, I think the fault lay with Golland not with Fionn, and that the judgement given did not considereverything. For at that table Goll should not have given greater giftsthan his master and host did. And it was not right of Goll to take byforce the position of greatest gift-giver of the Fianna, for there wasnever in the world one greater at giving gifts, or giving battle, ormaking poems than Fionn was. 

That side of the affair was not brought before the Court. But perhaps itwas suppressed out of delicacy for Fionn, for if Goll could be accusedof ostentation, Fionn was open to the uglier charge of jealousy. Itwas, nevertheless, Goll's forward and impish temper which commenced thebrawl, and the verdict of time must be to exonerate Fionn and to let theblame go where it is merited. 

There is, however, this to be added and remembered, that whenever Fionnwas in a tight corner it was Goll that plucked him out of it; and, lateron, when time did his worst on them all and the Fianna were sent to hellas unbelievers, it was Goll mac Morna who assaulted hell, with a chainin his great fist and three iron balls swinging from it, and it washe who attacked the hosts of great devils and brought Fionn and theFianna-Finn out with him. 

THE CARL OF THE DRAB COAT

CHAPTER I

One day something happened to Fionn, the son of Uail; that is, hedeparted from the world of men, and was set wandering in great distressof mind through Faery. He had days and nights there and adventuresthere, and was able to bring back the memory of these. 

That, by itself, is wonderful, for there are few people who rememberthat they have been to Faery or aught of all that happened to them inthat state. 

In truth we do not go to Faery, we become Faery, and in the beating of apulse we may live for a year or a thousand years. But when we returnthe memory is quickly clouded, and we seem to have had a dream or seen avision, although we have verily been in Faery. 

It was wonderful, then, that Fionn should have remembered all thathappened to him in that wide-spun moment, but in this tale there is yetmore to marvel at; for not only did Fionn go to Faery, but the greatarmy which he had marshalled to Ben Edair [The Hill of Howth] weretranslated also, and neither he nor they were aware that they haddeparted from the world until they came back to it. 

Fourteen battles, seven of the reserve and seven of the regular Fianna, had been taken by the Chief on a great march and manoeuvre. When theyreached Ben Edair it was decided to pitch camp so that the troopsmight rest in view of the warlike plan which Fionn had imagined for themorrow. The camp was chosen, and each squadron and company of the hostwere lodged into an appropriate place, so there was no overcrowding andno halt or interruption of the march; for where a company halted thatwas its place of rest, and in that place it hindered no other company, and was at its own ease. 

When this was accomplished the leaders of battalions gathered on alevel, grassy plateau overlooking the sea, where a consultation beganas to the next day's manoeuvres, and during this discussion they lookedoften on the wide water that lay wrinkling and twinkling below them. 

A roomy ship under great press of sall was bearing on Ben Edair from theeast. 

Now and again, in a lull of the discussion, a champion would look andremark on the hurrying vessel; and it may have been during one of thesemoments that the adventure happened to Fionn and the Fianna. 

"I wonder where that ship comes from?" said Cona'n idly. 

But no person could surmise anything about it beyond that it was avessel well equipped for war. 

As the ship drew by the shore the watchers observed a tall man swingfrom the side by means of his spear shafts, and in a little while thisgentleman was announced to Fionn, and was brought into his presence. 

A sturdy, bellicose, forthright personage he was indeed. He was equippedin a wonderful solidity of armour, with a hard, carven helmet onhis head, a splendid red-bossed shield swinging on his shoulder, awide-grooved, straight sword clashing along his thigh. On his shouldersunder the shield he carried a splendid scarlet mantle; over his breastwas a great brooch of burnt gold, and in his fist he gripped a pair ofthick-shafted, unburnished spears. 

Fionn and the champions looked on this gentleman, and they admiredexceedingly his bearing and equipment. 

"Of what blood are you, young gentleman?" Fionn demanded, "and fromwhich of the four corners of the world do you come?"

"My name is Cael of the Iron, " the stranger answered, "and I am son tothe King of Thessaly. "

"What errand has brought you here?"

"I do not go on errands, " the man replied sternly, "but on the affairsthat please me. "

"Be it so. What is the pleasing affair which brings you to this land?"

"Since I left my own country I have not gone from a land or an islanduntil it paid tribute to me and acknowledged my lordship. "

"And you have come to this realm, " cried Fionn, doubting his ears. 

"For tribute and sovereignty, " growled that other, and he struck thehaft of his spear violently on the ground. 

"By my hand, " said Cona'n, "we have never heard of a warrior, howevergreat, but his peer was found in Ireland, and the funeral songs of allsuch have been chanted by the women of this land. "

"By my hand and word, " said the harsh stranger, "your talk makes methink of a small boy or of an idiot. "

"Take heed, sir, " said Fionn, "for the champions and great dragons ofthe Gael are standing by you, and around us there are fourteen battlesof the Fianna of Ireland. "

"If all the Fianna who have died in the last seven years were added toall that are now here, " the stranger asserted, "I would treat all ofthese and those grievously, and would curtail their limbs and theirlives. "

"It is no small boast, " Cona'n murmured, staring at him. 

"It is no boast at all, " said Cael, "and, to show my quality andstanding, I will propose a deed to you. "

"Give out your deed, " Fionn commanded. 

"Thus, " said Cael with cold savagery. "If you can find a man among yourfourteen battalions who can outrun or outwrestle or outfight me, I willtake myself off to my own country, and will trouble you no more. "

And so harshly did he speak, and with such a belligerent eye did hestare, that dismay began to seize on the champions, and even Fionn feltthat his breath had halted. 

"It is spoken like a hero, " he admitted after a moment, "and if youcannot be matched on those terms it will not be from a dearth ofapplicants. "

"In running alone, " Fionn continued thoughtfully, "we have a notablechampion, Caelte mac Rona'n. "

"This son of Rona'n will not long be notable, " the stranger asserted. 

"He can outstrip the red deer, " said Cona'n. 

"He can outrun the wind, " cried Fionn. 

"He will not be asked to outrun the red deer or the wind, " the strangersneered. "He will be asked to outrun me, " he thundered. "Produce thisrunner, and we shall discover if he keeps as great heart in his feet ashe has made you think. "

"He is not with us, " Cona'n lamented. 

"These notable warriors are never with us when the call is made, " saidthe grim stranger. 

"By my hand, " cried Fionn, "he shall be here in no great time, for Iwill fetch him myself. "

"Be it so, " said Cael. "And during my absence, " Fionn continued, "Ileave this as a compact, that you make friends with the Fianna herepresent, and that you observe all the conditions and ceremonies offriendship. "

Cael agreed to that. 

"I will not hurt any of these people until you return, " he said. 

Fionn then set out towards Tara of the Kings, for he thought Caelte macRomin would surely be there; "and if he is not there, " said the championto himself, "then I shall find him at Cesh Corran of the Fianna. "

CHAPTER II

He had not gone a great distance from Ben Edair when he came toan intricate, gloomy wood, where the trees grew so thickly and theundergrowth was such a sprout and tangle that one could scarcely passthrough it. He remembered that a path had once been hacked through thewood, and he sought for this. It was a deeply scooped, hollow way, andit ran or wriggled through the entire length of the wood. 

Into this gloomy drain Fionn descended and made progress, but when hehad penetrated deeply in the dank forest he heard a sound of thumpingand squelching footsteps, and he saw coming towards him a horrible, evil-visaged being; a wild, monstrous, yellow-skinned, big-boned giant, dressed in nothing but an ill-made, mud-plastered, drab-coloured coat, which swaggled and clapped against the calves of his big bare legs. Onhis stamping feet there were great brogues of boots that were shapedlike, but were bigger than, a boat, and each time he put a foot down itsquashed and squirted a barrelful of mud from the sunk road. 

Fionn had never seen the like of this vast person, and he stood gazingon him, lost in a stare of astonishment. 

The great man saluted him. 

"All alone, Fionn?" he cried. "How does it happen that not one Fenianof the Fianna is at the side of his captain?" At this inquiry Fionn gotback his wits. 

"That is too long a story and it is too intricate and pressing to betold, also I have no time to spare now. "

"Yet tell it now, " the monstrous man insisted. 

Fionn, thus pressed, told of the coming of Cael of the Iron, of thechallenge the latter had issued, and that he, Fionn, was off to Tara ofthe Kings to find Caelte mac Rona'n. 

"I know that foreigner well, " the big man commented. 

"Is he the champion he makes himself out to be?" Fionn inquired. 

"He can do twice as much as he said he would do, " the monster replied. 

"He won't outrun Caelte mac Rona'n, " Fionn asserted. The big man jeered. 

"Say that he won't outrun a hedgehog, dear heart. This Cael will end thecourse by the time your Caelte begins to think of starting. "

"Then, " said Fionn, "I no longer know where to turn, or how to protectthe honour of Ireland. "

"I know how to do these things, " the other man commented with a slow nodof the head. 

"If you do, " Fionn pleaded, "tell it to me upon your honour. "

"I will do that, " the man replied. 

"Do not look any further for the rusty-kneed, slow-trotting son ofRona'n, " he continued, "but ask me to run your race, and, by this hand, I will be first at the post. "

At this the Chief began to laugh. 

"My good friend, you have work enough to carry the two tons of mud thatare plastered on each of your coat-tails, to say nothing of your weightyboots. "

"By my hand, " the man cried, "there is no person in Ireland but myselfcan win that race. I claim a chance. "

Fionn agreed then. "Be it so, " said he. "And now, tell me your name?"

"I am known as the Carl of the Drab Coat. "

"All names are names, " Fionn responded, "and that also is a name. "

They returned then to Ben Edair. 

CHAPTER III

When they came among the host the men of Ireland gathered about the vaststranger; and there were some who hid their faces in their mantles sothat they should not be seen to laugh, and there were some who rolledalong the ground in merriment, and there were others who could only holdtheir mouths open and crook their knees and hang their arms and staredumbfoundedly upon the stranger, as though they were utterly dazed. 

Cael of the Iron came also on the scene, and he examined the strangerwith close and particular attention. 

"What in the name of the devil is this thing?" he asked of Fionn. 

"Dear heart, " said Fionn, "this is the champion I am putting against youin the race. "

Cael of the Iron grew purple in the face, and he almost swallowed histongue through wrath. 

"Until the end of eternity, " he roared, "and until the very last momentof doom I will not move one foot in a race with this greasy, big-hoofed, ill-assembled resemblance of a beggarman. "

But at this the Carl burst into a roar of laughter, so that the eardrumsof the warriors present almost burst inside of their heads. 

"Be reassured, my darling, I am no beggarman, and my quality is not moregross than is the blood of the most delicate prince in this assembly. You will not evade your challenge in that way, my love, and you shallrun with me or you shall run to your ship with me behind you. Whatlength of course do you propose, dear heart?"

"I never run less than sixty miles, " Cael replied sullenly. 

"It is a small run, " said the Carl, "but it will do. From this placeto the Hill of the Rushes, Slieve Luachra of Munster, is exactly sixtymiles. Will that suit you?"

"I don't care how it is done, " Cael answered. 

"Then, " said the Carl, "we may go off to Slieve Luachra now, and in themorning we can start our race there to here. "

"Let it be done that way, " said Cael. 

These two set out then for Munster, and as the sun was setting theyreached Slieve Luachra and prepared to spend the night there. 

CHAPTER IV

"Cael, my pulse, " said the Carl, "we had better build a house or a hutto pass the night in. "

"I'Il build nothing, " Cael replied, looking on the Carl with greatdisfavour. 

"No!"

"I won't build house or hut for the sake of passing one night here, forI hope never to see this place again. "

"I'Il build a house myself, " said the Carl, "and the man who does nothelp in the building can stay outside of the house. "

The Carl stumped to a near-by wood, and he never rested until he hadfelled and tied together twenty-four couples of big timber. He thrustthese under one arm and under the other he tucked a bundle of rushes forhis bed, and with that one load he rushed up a house, well thatched andsnug, and with the timber that remained over he made a bonfire on thefloor of the house. 

His companion sat at a distance regarding the work with rage andaversion. 

"Now Cael, my darling, " said the Carl, "if you are a man help me to lookfor something to eat, for there is game here. "

"Help yourself, " roared Cael, "for all that I want is not to be nearyou. "

"The tooth that does not help gets no helping, " the other replied. 

In a short time the Carl returned with a wild boar which he had rundown. He cooked the beast over his bonfire and ate one half of it, leaving the other half for his breakfast. Then he lay down on therushes, and in two turns he fell asleep. 

But Cael lay out on the side of the hill, and if he went to sleep thatnight he slept fasting. It was he, however, who awakened the Carl in themorning. 

"Get up, beggarman, if you are going to run against me. "

The Carl rubbed his eyes. 

"I never get up until I have had my fill of sleep, and there is anotherhour of it due to me. But if you are in a hurry, my delight, you canstart running now with a blessing. I will trot on your track when Iwaken up. "

Cael began to race then, and he was glad of the start, for hisantagonist made so little account of him that he did not know what toexpect when the Carl would begin to run. 

"Yet, " said Cael to himself, "with an hour's start the beggarman willhave to move his bones if he wants to catch on me, " and he settled downto a good, pelting race. 

CHAPTER V

At the end of an hour the Carl awoke. He ate the second half of theboar, and he tied the unpicked bones in the tail of his coat. Then witha great rattling of the boar's bones he started. 

It is hard to tell how he ran or at what speed he ran, but he wentforward in great two-legged jumps, and at times he moved inimmense one-legged, mud-spattering hops, and at times again, withwide-stretched, far-flung, terrible-tramping, space-destroying legs heran. 

He left the swallows behind as if they were asleep. He caught up ona red deer, jumped over it, and left it standing. The wind was alwaysbehind him, for he outran it every time; and he caught up in jumps andbounces on Cael of the Iron, although Cael was running well, withhis fists up and his head back and his two legs flying in and out sovigorously that you could not see them because of that speedy movement. 

Trotting by the side of Cael, the Carl thrust a hand into the tail ofhis coat and pulled out a fistfull of red bones. 

"Here, my heart, is a meaty bone, " said he, "for you fasted all night, poor friend, and if you pick a bit off the bone your stomach will get arest. "

"Keep your filth, beggarman, " the other replied, "for I would rather behanged than gnaw on a bone that you have browsed. "

"Why don't you run, my pulse?" said the Carl earnestly; "why don't youtry to win the race?"

Cael then began to move his limbs as if they were the wings of a fly, or the fins of a little fish, or as if they were the six legs of aterrified spider. 

"I am running, " he gasped. 

"But try and run like this, " the Carl admonished, and he gave awriggling bound and a sudden outstretching and scurrying of shanks, andhe disappeared from Cael's sight in one wild spatter of big boots. 

Despair fell on Cael of the Iron, but he had a great heart. "I will rununtil I burst, " he shrieked, "and when I burst, may I burst to a greatdistance, and may I trip that beggar-man up with my burstings and makehim break his leg. "

He settled then to a determined, savage, implacable trot. He caught upon the Carl at last, for the latter had stopped to eat blackberries fromthe bushes on the road, and when he drew nigh, Cael began to jeer andsneer angrily at the Carl. 

"Who lost the tails of his coat?" he roared. 

"Don't ask riddles of a man that's eating blackberries, " the Carlrebuked him. 

"The dog without a tall and the coat without a tail, " cried Cael. 

"I give it up, " the Carl mumbled. 

"It's yourself, beggarman, " jeered Cael. 

"I am myself, " the Carl gurgled through a mouthful of blackberries, "and as I am myself, how can it be myself? That is a silly riddle, " heburbled. 

"Look at your coat, tub of grease?"

The Carl did so. 

"My faith, " said he, "where are the two tails of my coat?" "I couldsmell one of them and it wrapped around a little tree thirty milesback, " said Cael, "and the other one was dishonouring a bush ten milesbehind that. "

"It is bad luck to be separated from the tails of your own coat, " theCarl grumbled. "I'll have to go back for them. Wait here, beloved, andeat blackberries until I come back, and we'll both start fair. "

"Not half a second will I wait, " Cael replied, and he began to runtowards Ben Edair as a lover runs to his maiden or as a bee flies to hishive. 

"I haven't had half my share of blackberries either, " the Carl lamentedas he started to run backwards for his coat-tails. 

He ran determinedly on that backward journey, and as the path he hadtravelled was beaten out as if it had been trampled by an hundred bullsyoked neck to neck, he was able to find the two bushes and the twocoat-tails. He sewed them on his coat. 

Then he sprang up, and he took to a fit and a vortex and an exasperationof running for which no description may be found. The thumping of hisbig boots grew as con-tinuous as the pattering of hailstones on aroof, and the wind of his passage blew trees down. The beasts that wereranging beside his path dropped dead from concussion, and the steam thatsnored from his nose blew birds into bits and made great lumps of cloudfall out of the sky. 

He again caught up on Cael, who was running with his head down and histoes up. 

"If you won't try to run, my treasure, " said the Carl, "you will neverget your tribute. "

And with that he incensed and exploded himself into an eye-blinding, continuous, waggle and complexity of boots that left Cael behind him ina flash. 

"I will run until I burst, " sobbed Cael, and he screwed agitation anddespair into his legs until he hummed and buzzed like a blue-bottle on awindow. 

Five miles from Ben Edair the Carl stopped, for he had again come amongblackberries. 

He ate of these until he was no more than a sack of juice, and whenhe heard the humming and buzzing of Cael of the Iron he mourned andlamented that he could not wait to eat his fill He took off his coat, stuffed it full of blackberries, swung it on his shoulders, and wentbounding stoutly and nimbly for Ben Edair. 

CHAPTER VI

It would be hard to tell of the terror that was in Fionn's breast andin the hearts of the Fianna while they attended the conclusion of thatrace. 

They discussed it unendingly, and at some moment of the day a manupbraided Fionn because he had not found Caelte the son of Rona'n as hadbeen agreed on. 

"There is no one can run like Caelte, " one man averred. 

"He covers the ground, " said another. 

"He is light as a feather. "

"Swift as a stag. " "Lunged like a bull. "

"Legged like a wolf. "

"He runs!"

These things were said to Fionn, and Fionn said these things to himself. 

With every passing minute a drop of lead thumped down into every heart, and a pang of despair stabbed up to every brain. 

"Go, " said Fionn to a hawk-eyed man, "go to the top of this hill andwatch for the coming of the racers. "

And he sent lithe men with him so that they might run back in endlesssuccession with the news. 

The messengers began to run through his tent at minute intervals calling"nothing, " "nothing, " "nothing, " as they paused and darted away. 

And the words, "nothing, nothing, nothing, " began to drowse into thebrains of every person present. 

"What can we hope from that Carl?" a champion demanded savagely. 

"Nothing, " cried a messenger who stood and sped. 

"A clump!" cried a champion. 

"A hog!" said another. 

"A flat-footed. "

"Little-wlnded. "

"Big-bellied. "

"Lazy-boned. "

"Pork!"

"Did you think, Fionn, that a whale could swim on land, or what did youimagine that lump could do?"

"Nothing, " cried a messenger, and was sped as he spoke. 

Rage began to gnaw in Fionn's soul, and a red haze danced and flickeredbefore his eyes. His hands began to twitch and a desire crept over himto seize on champions by the neck, and to shake and worry and rage amongthem like a wild dog raging among sheep. 

He looked on one, and yet he seemed to look on all at once. 

"Be silent, " he growled. "Let each man be silent as a dead man. "

And he sat forward, seeing all, seeing none, with his mouth droopingopen, and such a wildness and bristle lowering from that great glum browthat the champions shivered as though already in the chill of death, andwere silent. 

He rose and stalked to the tent-door. 

"Where to, O Fionn?" said a champion humbly. 

"To the hill-top, " said Fionn, and he stalked on. 

They followed him, whispering among themselves, keeping their eyes onthe ground as they climbed. 

CHAPTER VII

"What do you see?" Fionn demanded of the watcher. 

"Nothing, " that man replied. 

"Look again, " said Fionn. 

The eagle-eyed man lifted a face, thin and sharp as though it had beencarven on the wind, and he stared forward with an immobile intentness. 

"What do you see?" said Fionn. 

"Nothing, " the man replied. 

"I will look myself, " said Fionn, and his great brow bent forward andgloomed afar. 

The watcher stood beside, staring with his tense face and unwinking, lidless eye. 

"What can you see, O Fionn?" said the watcher. 

"I can see nothing, " said Fionn, and he projected again his grim, gauntforehead. For it seemed as if the watcher stared with his whole face, aye, and with his hands; but Fionn brooded weightedly on distance withhis puckered and crannied brow. 

They looked again. 

"What can you see?" said Fionn. 

"I see nothing, " said the watcher. 

"I do not know if I see or if I surmise, but something moves, " saidFionn. "There is a trample, " he said. 

The watcher became then an eye, a rigidity, an intense out-thrusting andransacking of thin-spun distance. At last he spoke. 

"There is a dust, " he said. 

And at that the champions gazed also, straining hungrily afar, untiltheir eyes became filled with a blue darkness and they could no longersee even the things that were close to them. 

"I, " cried Cona'n triumphantly, "I see a dust. "

"And I, " cried another. 

"And I. "

"I see a man, " said the eagle-eyed watcher. 

And again they stared, until their straining eyes grew dim with tearsand winks, and they saw trees that stood up and sat down, and fieldsthat wobbled and spun round and round in a giddily swirling world. 

"There is a man, " Cona'n roared. 

"A man there is, " cried another. 

"And he is carrying a man on his back, " said the watcher. 

"It is Cael of the Iron carrying the Carl on his back, " he groaned. 

"The great pork!" a man gritted. 

"The no-good!" sobbed another. 

"The lean-hearted. "

"Thick-thighed. "

"Ramshackle. "

"Muddle-headed. "

"Hog!" screamed a champion. 

And he beat his fists angrily against a tree. 

But the eagle-eyed watcher watched until his eyes narrowed and becamepin-points, and he ceased to be a man and became an optic. 

"Wait, " he breathed, "wait until I screw into one other inch of sight. "

And they waited, looking no longer on that scarcely perceptible speck inthe distance, but straining upon the eye of the watcher as though theywould penetrate it and look through it. 

"It is the Carl, " he said, "carrying something on his back, and behindhim again there is a dust. "

"Are you sure?" said Fionn in a voice that rumbled and vibrated likethunder. 

"It is the Carl, " said the watcher, "and the dust behind him is Cael ofthe Iron trying to catch him up. "

Then the Fianna gave a roar of exultation, and each man seized hisneighbour and kissed him on both cheeks; and they gripped hands aboutFionn, and they danced round and round in a great circle, roaring withlaughter and relief, in the ecstasy which only comes where grisly fearhas been and whence that bony jowl has taken itself away. 

CHAPTER VIII

The Carl of the Drab Coat came bumping and stumping and clumping intothe camp, and was surrounded by a multitude that adored him and hailedhim with tears. 

"Meal!" he bawled, "meal for the love of the stars!"

And he bawled, "Meal, meal!" until he bawled everybody into silence. 

Fionn addressed him. 

"What for the meal, dear heart?"

"For the inside of my mouth, " said the Carl, "for the recesses andcrannies and deep-down profundities of my stomach. Meal, meal!" helamented. 

Meal was brought. 

The Carl put his coat on the ground, opened it carefully, and revealeda store of blackberries, squashed, crushed, mangled, democratic, ill-looking. 

"The meal!" he groaned, "the meal!"

It was given to him. 

"What of the race, my pulse?" said Fionn. 

"Wait, wait, " cried the Carl. "I die, I die for meal and blackberries. "

Into the centre of the mess of blackberries he discharged a barrel ofmeal, and be mixed the two up and through, and round and down, untilthe pile of white-black, red-brown slibber-slobber reached up to hisshoulders. Then he commenced to paw and impel and project and cram themixture into his mouth, and between each mouthful he sighed a contentedsigh, and during every mouthful he gurgled an oozy gurgle. 

But while Fionn and the Fianna stared like lost minds upon the Carl, there came a sound of buzzing, as if a hornet or a queen of the wasps ora savage, steep-winged griffin was hovering about them, and looking awaythey saw Cael of the Iron charging on them with a monstrous extensionand scurry of his legs. He had a sword in his hand, and there wasnothing in his face but redness and ferocity. 

Fear fell llke night around the Fianna, and they stood with slack kneesand hanging hands waiting for death. But the Carl lifted a pawful of hisoozy slop and discharged this at Cael with such a smash that the man'shead spun off his shoulders and hopped along the ground. The Carl thenpicked up the head and threw it at the body with such aim and forcethat the neck part of the head jammed into the neck part of the body andstuck there, as good a head as ever, you would have said, but that itbad got twisted the wrong way round. The Carl then lashed his opponenthand and foot. 

"Now, dear heart, do you still claim tribute and lordship of Ireland?"said he. 

"Let me go home, " groaned Cael, "I want to go home. "

"Swear by the sun and moon, if I let you go home, that you will send toFionn, yearly and every year, the rent of the land of Thessaly. "

"I swear that, " said Cael, "and I would swear anything to get home. "

The Carl lifted him then and put him sitting into his ship. Then heraised his big boot and gave the boat a kick that drove it seven leaguesout into the sea, and that was how the adventure of Cael of the Ironfinished. 

"Who are you, sir?" said Fionn to the Carl. 

But before answering the Carl's shape changed into one of splendour anddelight. 

"I am ruler of the Shi' of Rath Cruachan, " he said. 

Then Fionn mac Uail made a feast and a banquet for the jovial god, andwith that the tale is ended of the King of Thessaly's son and the Carlof the Drab Coat. 

THE ENCHANTED CAVE OF CESH CORRAN

CHAPTER I

Fionn mac Uail was the most prudent chief of an army in the world, buthe was not always prudent on his own account. Discipline sometimesirked him, and he would then take any opportunity that presented for anadventure; for he was not only a soldier, he was a poet also, that is, aman of science, and whatever was strange or unusual had an irresistibleat-traction for him. Such a soldier was he that, single-handed, he couldtake the Fianna out of any hole they got into, but such an inveteratepoet was he that all the Fianna together could scarcely retrieve himfrom the abysses into which he tumbled. It took him to keep the Fiannasafe, but it took all the Fianna to keep their captain out of danger. They did not complain of this, for they loved every hair of Fionn's headmore than they loved their wives and children, and that was reasonablefor there was never in the world a person more worthy of love than Fionnwas. 

Goll mac Morna did not admit so much in words, but he admitted it inall his actions, for although he never lost an opportunity of killinga member of Fionn's family (there was deadly feud between clann-Baiscneand clann-Morna), yet a call from Fionn brought Goll raging to hisassistance like a lion that rages tenderly by his mate. Not even a callwas necessary, for Goll felt in his heart when Fionn was threatened, andhe would leave Fionn's own brother only half-killed to fly where his armwas wanted. He was never thanked, of course, for although Fionn lovedGoll he did not like him, and that was how Goll felt towards Fionn. 

Fionn, with Cona'n the Swearer and the dogs Bran and Sceo'lan, wassitting on the hunting-mound at the top of Cesh Corran. Below and aroundon every side the Fianna were beating the coverts in Legney and Brefny, ranging the fastnesses of Glen Dallan, creeping in the nut and beechforests of Carbury, spying among the woods of Kyle Conor, and rangingthe wide plain of Moy Conal. 

The great captain was happy: his eyes were resting on the sights heliked best--the sunlight of a clear day, the waving trees, the puresky, and the lovely movement of the earth; and his ears were filled withdelectable sounds--the baying of eager dogs, the clear calling of youngmen, the shrill whistling that came from every side, and each sound ofwhich told a definite thing about the hunt. There was also the plungeand scurry of the deer, the yapping of badgers, and the whirr of birdsdriven into reluctant flight. 

CHAPTER II

Now the king of the Shi' of Cesh Corran, Conaran, son of Imidel, wasalso watching the hunt, but Fionn did not see him, for we cannot see thepeople of Faery until we enter their realm, and Fionn was not thinkingof Faery at that moment. Conaran did not like Fionn, and, seeing thatthe great champion was alone, save for Cona'n and the two hounds Branand Sceo'lan, he thought the time had come to get Fionn into his power. We do not know what Fionn had done to Conaran, but it must have been badenough, for the king of the Shi' of Cesh Cotran was filled with joyat the sight of Fionn thus close to him, thus unprotected, thusunsuspicious. 

This Conaran had four daughters. He was fond of them and proud of them, but if one were to search the Shi's of Ireland or the land of Ireland, the equal of these four would not be found for ugliness and bad humourand twisted temperaments. 

Their hair was black as ink and tough as wire: it stuck up and poked outand hung down about their heads in bushes and spikes and tangles. Theireyes were bleary and red. Their mouths were black and twisted, and ineach of these mouths there was a hedge of curved yellow fangs. They hadlong scraggy necks that could turn all the way round like the neck ofa hen. Their arms were long and skinny and muscular, and at the end ofeach finger they had a spiked nail that was as hard as horn and as sharpas a briar. Their bodies were covered with a bristle of hair and furand fluff, so that they looked like dogs in some parts and like catsin others, and in other parts again they looked like chickens. They hadmoustaches poking under their noses and woolly wads growing out of theirears, so that when you looked at them the first time you never wantedto look at them again, and if you had to look at them a second time youwere likely to die of the sight. 

They were called Caevo'g, Cuillen, and Iaran. The fourth daughter, Iarnach, was not present at that moment, so nothing need be said of heryet. 

Conaran called these three to him. 

"Fionn is alone, " said he. "Fionn is alone, my treasures. "

"Ah!" said Caevo'g, and her jaw crunched upwards and stuck outwards, aswas usual with her when she was satisfied. 

"When the chance comes take it, " Conaran continued, and he smiled ablack, beetle-browed, unbenevolent smile. 

"It's a good word, " quoth Cuillen, and she swung her jaw loose and madeit waggle up and down, for that was the way she smiled. 

"And here is the chance, " her father added. 

"The chance is here, " Iaran echoed, with a smile that was very likeher sister's, only that it was worse, and the wen that grew on her nosejoggled to and fro and did not get its balance again for a long time. 

Then they smiled a smile that was agreeable to their own eyes, but whichwould have been a deadly thing for anybody else to see. 

"But Fionn cannot see us, " Caevo'g objected, and her brow set downwardsand her chin set upwards and her mouth squeezed sidewards, so that herface looked like a badly disappointed nut. 

"And we are worth seeing, " Cuillen continued, and the disappointmentthat was set in her sister's face got carved and twisted into hers, butit was worse in her case. 

"That is the truth, " said Iaran in a voice of lamentation, and her facetook on a gnarl and a writhe and a solidity of ugly woe that beat theother two and made even her father marvel. 

"He cannot see us now, " Conaran replied, "but he will see us in aminute. "

"Won't Fionn be glad when he sees us!" said the three sisters. 

And then they joined hands and danced joyfully around their father, andthey sang a song, the first line of which is:

 "Fionn thinks he is safe. But who knows when the sky will fall?"

Lots of the people in the Shi' learned that song by heart, and theyapplied it to every kind of circumstance. 

CHAPTER III

BY his arts Conaran changed the sight of Fionn's eyes, and he did thesame for Cona'n. 

In a few minutes Fionn stood up from his place on the mound. Everythingwas about him as before, and he did not know that he had gone intoFaery. He walked for a minute up and down the hillock. Then, as bychance, he stepped down the sloping end of the mound and stood with hismouth open, staring. He cried out:

"Come down here, Cona'n, my darling. "

Cona'n stepped down to him. 

"Am I dreaming?" Fionn demanded, and he stretched out his finger beforehim. 

"If you are dreaming, " said Congn, "I'm dreaming too. They weren't herea minute ago, " he stammered. 

Fionn looked up at the sky and found that it was still there. He staredto one side and saw the trees of Kyle Conor waving in the distance. Hebent his ear to the wind and heard the shouting of hunters, the yappingof dogs, and the clear whistles, which told how the hunt was going. 

"Well!" said Fionn to himself. 

"By my hand!" quoth Cona'n to his own soul. 

And the two men stared into the hillside as though what they werelooking at was too wonderful to be looked away from. 

"Who are they?" said Fionn. 

"What are they?" Cona'n gasped. And they stared again. 

For there was a great hole like a doorway in the side of the mound, andin that doorway the daughters of Conaran sat spinning. They had threecrooked sticks of holly set up before the cave, and they were reelingyarn off these. But it was enchantment they were weaving. 

"One could not call them handsome, " said Cona'n. 

"One could, " Fionn replied, "but it would not be true. "

"I cannot see them properly, " Fionn complained. "They are hiding behindthe holly. "

"I would be contented if I could not see them at all, " his companiongrumbled. 

But the Chief insisted. 

"I want to make sure that it is whiskers they are wearing. "

"Let them wear whiskers or not wear them, " Cona'n counselled. "But letus have nothing to do with them. "

"One must not be frightened of anything, " Fionn stated. 

"I am not frightened, " Cona'n explained. "I only want to keep my goodopinion of women, and if the three yonder are women, then I feel sure Ishall begin to dislike females from this minute out. "

"Come on, my love, " said Fionn, "for I must find out if these whiskersare true. "

He strode resolutely into the cave. He pushed the branches of hollyaside and marched up to Conaran's daughters, with Cona'n behind him. 

CHAPTER IV

The instant they passed the holly a strange weakness came over theheroes. Their fists seemed to grow heavy as lead, and went dingle-dangleat the ends of their arms; their legs became as light as straws andbegan to bend in and out; their necks became too delicate to holdanything up, so that their heads wibbled and wobbled from side to side. 

"What's wrong at all?" said Cona'n, as he tumbled to the ground. 

"Everything is, " Fionn replied, and he tumbled beside him. 

The three sisters then tied the heroes with every kind of loop and twistand knot that could be thought of. 

"Those are whiskers!" said Fionn. 

"Alas!" said Conan. 

"What a place you must hunt whiskers in?" he mumbled savagely. "Whowants whiskers?" he groaned. 

But Fionn was thinking of other things. 

"If there was any way of warning the Fianna not to come here, " Fionnmurmured. 

"There is no way, my darling, " said Caevo'g, and she smiled a smile thatwould have killed Fionn, only that he shut his eyes in time. 

After a moment he murmured again:

"Cona'n, my dear love, give the warning whistle so that the Fianna willkeep out of this place. "

A little whoof, like the sound that would be made by a baby and itasleep, came from Cona'n. 

"Fionn, " said he, "there isn't a whistle in me. We are done for, " saidhe. 

"You are done for, indeed, " said Cuillen, and she smiled a hairy andtwisty and fangy smile that almost finished Cona'n. 

By that time some of the Fianna had returned to the mound to see whyBran and Sceo'lan were barking so outrageously. They saw the cave andwent into it, but no sooner had they passed the holly branches thantheir strength went from them, and they were seized and bound by thevicious hags. Little by little all the members of the Fianna returned tothe hill, and each of them was drawn into the cave, and each was boundby the sisters. 

Oisi'n and Oscar and mac Lugac came, with the nobles of clann-Baiscne, and with those of clann-Corcoran and clann-Smo'l; they all came, andthey were all bound. 

It was a wonderful sight and a great deed this binding of the Fianna, and the three sisters laughed with a joy that was terrible to hear andwas almost death to see. As the men were captured they were carried bythe hags into dark mysterious holes and black perplexing labyrinths. 

"Here is another one, " cried Caevo'g as she bundled a trussed championalong. 

"This one is fat, " said Cuillen, and she rolled a bulky Fenian alonglike a wheel. 

"Here, " said Iaran, "is a love of a man. One could eat this kind ofman, " she murmured, and she licked a lip that had whiskers growinginside as well as out. 

And the corded champion whimpered in her arms, for he did not knowbut eating might indeed be his fate, and he would have preferred to becoffined anywhere in the world rather than to be coffined inside of thatface. So far for them. 

CHAPTER V

Within the cave there was silence except for the voices of the hags andthe scarcely audible moaning of the Fianna-Finn, but without there wasa dreadful uproar, for as each man returned from the chase his dogs camewith him, and although the men went into the cave the dogs did not. 

They were too wise. 

They stood outside, filled with savagery and terror, for they couldscent their masters and their masters' danger, and perhaps they couldget from the cave smells till then unknown and full of alarm. 

From the troop of dogs there arose a baying and barking, a snarling andhowling and growling, a yelping and squealing and bawling for which nowords can be found. Now and again a dog nosed among a thousand smellsand scented his master; the ruff of his neck stood up like a hog'sbristles and a netty ridge prickled along his spine. Then with red eyes, with bared fangs, with a hoarse, deep snort and growl he rushed at thecave, and then he halted and sneaked back again with all his rufflessmoothed, his tail between his legs, his eyes screwed sideways inmiserable apology and alarm, and a long thin whine of woe dribbling outof his nose. 

The three sisters took their wide-channelled, hard-tempered swords intheir hands, and prepared to slay the Fianna, but before doing so theygave one more look from the door of the cave to see if there might be astraggler of the Fianna who was escaping death by straggling, and theysaw one coming towards them with Bran and Sceo'lan leaping beside him, while all the other dogs began to burst their throats with barks andsplit their noses with snorts and wag their tails off at sight of thetall, valiant, white-toothed champion, Goll mor mac Morna. "We will killthat one first, " said Caevo'g. 

"There is only one of him, " said Cuillen. 

"And each of us three is the match for an hundred, " said Iaran. 

The uncanny, misbehaved, and outrageous harridans advanced then to meetthe son of Morna, and when he saw these three Goll whipped the swordfrom his thigh, swung his buckler round, and got to them in ten greatleaps. 

Silence fell on the world during that conflict. The wind went down; theclouds stood still; the old hill itself held its breath; the warriorswithin ceased to be men and became each an ear; and the dogs sat ina vast circle round the combatants, with their heads all to one side, their noses poked forward, their mouths half open, and their tailsforgotten. Now and again a dog whined in a whisper and snapped alittle snap on the air, but except for that there was neither sound normovement. 

It was a long fight. It was a hard and a tricky fight, and Goll won itby bravery and strategy and great good luck; for with one shrewd sliceof his blade he carved two of these mighty termagants into equal halves, so that there were noses and whiskers to his right hand and knees andtoes to his left: and that stroke was known afterwards as one of thethree great sword-strokes of Ireland. The third hag, however, hadmanaged to get behind Goll, and she leaped on to his back with the boundof a panther, and hung here with the skilful, many-legged, tight-twistedclutching of a spider. But the great champion gave a twist of his hipsand a swing of his shoulders that whirled her around him like a sack. He got her on the ground and tied her hands with the straps of a shield, and he was going to give her the last blow when she appealed to hishonour and bravery. 

"I put my life under your protection, " said she. "And if you let me gofree I will lift the enchantment from the Fianna-Finn and will give themall back to you again. "

"I agree to that, " said Goll, and he untied her straps. The harridan didas she had promised, and in a short time Fionn and Oisi'n and Oscar andCona'n were released, and after that all the Fianna were released. 

CHAPTER VI

As each man came out of the cave he gave a jump and a shout; the courageof the world went into him and he felt that he could fight twenty. Butwhile they were talking over the adventure and explaining how it hadhappened, a vast figure strode over the side of the hill and descendedamong them. It was Conaran's fourth daughter. 

If the other three had been terrible to look on, this one was moreterrible than the three together. She was clad in iron plate, and shehad a wicked sword by her side and a knobby club in her hand She haltedby the bodies of her sisters, and bitter tears streamed down into herbeard. 

"Alas, my sweet ones, " said she, "I am too late. "

And then she stared fiercely at Fionn. 

"I demand a combat, " she roared. 

"It is your right, " said Fionn. He turned to his son. 

"Oisi'n, my heart, kill me this honourable hag. " But for the only timein his life Oisi'n shrank from a combat. 

"I cannot do it, " he said, "I feel too weak. "

Fionn was astounded. "Oscar, " he said, "will you kill me this greathag?"

Oscar stammered miserably. "I would not be able to, " he said. 

Cona'n also refused, and so did Caelte mac Rona'n and mac Lugac, forthere was no man there but was terrified by the sight of that mighty andvaliant harridan. 

Fionn rose to his feet. "I will take this combat myself, " he saidsternly. 

And he swung his buckler forward and stretched his right hand to thesword. But at that terrible sight Goll mae Morna blushed deeply andleaped from the ground. 

"No, no, " he cried; "no, my soul, Fionn, this would not be a propercombat for you. I take this fight. "

"You have done your share, Goll, " said the captain. 

"I should finish the fight I began, " Goll continued, "for it was I whokilled the two sisters of this valiant hag, and it is against me thefeud lies. "

"That will do for me, " said the horrible daughter of Conaran. "I willkill Goll mor mac Morna first, and after that I will kill Fionn, andafter that I will kill every Fenian of the Fianna-Finn. "

"You may begin, Goll, " said Fionn, "and I give you my blessing. "

Goll then strode forward to the fight, and the hag moved against himwith equal alacrity. In a moment the heavens rang to the clash of swordson bucklers. It was hard to with-stand the terrific blows of that mightyfemale, for her sword played with the quickness of lightning and smotelike the heavy crashing of a storm. But into that din and encirclementGoll pressed and ventured, steady as a rock in water, agile as acreature of the sea, and when one of the combatants retreated it wasthe hag that gave backwards. As her foot moved a great shout of joy rosefrom the Fianna. A snarl went over the huge face of the monster andshe leaped forward again, but she met Goll's point in the road; it wentthrough her, and in another moment Goll took her head from its shouldersand swung it on high before Fionn. 

As the Fianna turned homewards Fionn spoke to his great champion andenemy. 

"Goll, " he said, "I have a daughter. "

"A lovely girl, a blossom of the dawn, " said Goll. 

"Would she please you as a wife?" the chief demanded. 

"She would please me, " said Goll. 

"She is your wife, " said Fionn. 

But that did not prevent Goll from killing Fionn's brother Cairell lateron, nor did it prevent Fionn from killing Goll later on again, andthe last did not prevent Goll from rescuing Fionn out of hell when theFianna-Finn were sent there under the new God. Nor is there any reasonto complain or to be astonished at these things, for it is a mutualworld we llve in, a give-and-take world, and there is no great harm init. 

BECUMA OF THE WHITE SKIN

CHAPTER I

There are more worlds than one, and in many ways they are unlike eachother. But joy and sorrow, or, in other words, good and evil, are notabsent in their degree from any of the worlds, for wherever there islife there is action, and action is but the expression of one or otherof these qualities. 

After this Earth there is the world of the Shi'. Beyond it again liesthe Many-Coloured Land. Next comes the Land of Wonder, and after thatthe Land of Promise awaits us. You will cross clay to get into the Shi';you will cross water to attain the Many-Coloured Land; fire must bepassed ere the Land of Wonder is attained, but we do not know what willbe crossed for the fourth world. 

This adventure of Conn the Hundred Fighter and his son Art was by theway of water, and therefore he was more advanced in magic than Fionnwas, all of whose adventures were by the path of clay and into Faeryonly, but Conn was the High King and so the arch-magician of Ireland. 

A council had been called in the Many-Coloured Land to discuss the caseof a lady named Becuma Cneisgel, that is, Becuma of the White Skin, thedaughter of Eogan Inver. She had run away from her husband Labraid andhad taken refuge with Gadiar, one of the sons of Mananna'n mac Lir, thegod of the sea, and the ruler, therefore, of that sphere. 

It seems, then, that there is marriage in two other spheres. In theShi' matrimony is recorded as being parallel in every respect withearth-marriage, and the desire which urges to it seems to be as violentand inconstant as it is with us; but in the Many-Coloured Land marriageis but a contemplation of beauty, a brooding and meditation wherein allgrosser desire is unknown and children are born to sinless parents. 

In the Shi' the crime of Becuma would have been lightly considered, andwould have received none or but a nominal punishment, but in the secondworld a horrid gravity attaches to such a lapse, and the retributionmeted is implacable and grim. It may be dissolution by fire, and thatcan note a destruction too final for the mind to contemplate; or it maybe banishment from that sphere to a lower and worse one. 

This was the fate of Becuma of the White Skin. 

One may wonder how, having attained to that sphere, she could havecarried with her so strong a memory of the earth. It is certain that shewas not a fit person to exist in the Many-Coloured Land, and it is to befeared that she was organised too grossly even for life in the Shi'. 

She was an earth-woman, and she was banished to the earth. 

Word was sent to the Shi's of Ireland that this lady should not bepermitted to enter any of them; from which it would seem that theordinances of the Shi come from the higher world, and, it might follow, that the conduct of earth lies in the Shi'. 

In that way, the gates of her own world and the innumerable doors ofFaery being closed against her, Becuma was forced to appear in the worldof men. 

It is pleasant, however, notwithstanding her terrible crime and herwoeful punishment, to think how courageous she was. When she was toldher sentence, nay, her doom, she made no outcry, nor did she waste anytime in sorrow. She went home and put on her nicest clothes. 

She wore a red satin smock, and, over this, a cloak of green silk out ofwhich long fringes of gold swung and sparkled, and she had light sandalsof white bronze on her thin, shapely feet. She had long soft hair thatwas yellow as gold, and soft as the curling foam of the sea. Her eyeswere wide and clear as water and were grey as a dove's breast. Her teethwere white as snow and of an evenness to marvel at. Her lips were thinand beautifully curved: red lips in truth, red as winter berries andtempting as the fruits of summer. The people who superintended herdeparture said mournfully that when she was gone there would be no morebeauty left in their world. 

She stepped into a coracle, it was pushed on the enchanted waters, andit went forward, world within world, until land appeared, and her boatswung in low tide against a rock at the foot of Ben Edair. 

So far for her. 

CHAPTER II

Conn the Hundred Fighter, Ard-Ri' of Ireland, was in the lowest spiritsthat can be imagined, for his wife was dead. He had been Ard-Ri for nineyears, and during his term the corn used to be reaped three times ineach year, and there was full and plenty of everything. There are fewkings who can boast of more kingly results than he can, but there wassore trouble in store for him. 

He had been married to Eithne, the daughter of Brisland Binn, King ofNorway, and, next to his subjects, he loved his wife more than all thatwas lovable in the world. But the term of man and woman, of king orqueen, is set in the stars, and there is no escaping Doom for any one;so, when her time came, Eithne died. 

Now there were three great burying-places in Ireland--the Brugh of theBoyne in Ulster, over which Angus Og is chief and god; the Shi' moundof Cruachan Ahi, where Ethal Anbual presides over the underworld ofConnacht, and Tailltin, in Royal Meath. It was in this last, the sacredplace of his own lordship, that Conn laid his wife to rest. 

Her funeral games were played during nine days. Her keen was sung bypoets and harpers, and a cairn ten acres wide was heaved over her clay. Then the keening ceased and the games drew to an end; the princes of theFive Prov-inces returned by horse or by chariot to their own places;the concourse of mourners melted away, and there was nothing left bythe great cairn but the sun that dozed upon it in the daytime, the heavyclouds that brooded on it in the night, and the desolate, memoried king. 

For the dead queen had been so lovely that Conn could not forget her;she had been so kind at every moment that he could not but miss her atevery moment; but it was in the Council Chamber and the JudgementHall that he most pondered her memory. For she had also been wise, andlack-ing her guidance, all grave affairs seemed graver, shadowing eachday and going with him to the pillow at night. 

The trouble of the king becomes the trouble of the subject, for howshall we live if judgement is withheld, or if faulty decisions arepromulgated? Therefore, with the sorrow of the king, all Ireland was ingrief, and it was the wish of every person that he should marry again. 

Such an idea, however, did not occur to him, for he could not conceivehow any woman should fill the place his queen had vacated. He grew moreand more despondent, and less and less fitted to cope with affairs ofstate, and one day he instructed his son Art to take the rule during hisabsence, and he set out for Ben Edair. 

For a great wish had come upon him to walk beside the sea; to listento the roll and boom of long, grey breakers; to gaze on an unfruitful, desolate wilderness of waters; and to forget in those sights all thathe could forget, and if he could not forget then to remember all that heshould remember. 

He was thus gazing and brooding when one day he observed a coracledrawing to the shore. A young girl stepped from it and walked to himamong black boulders and patches of yellow sand. 

CHAPTER III

Being a king he had authority to ask questions. Conn asked her, therefore, all the questions that he could think of, for it is not everyday that a lady drives from the sea, and she wearing a golden-fringedcloak of green silk through which a red satin smock peeped at theopenings. She replied to his questions, but she did not tell him all thetruth; for, indeed, she could not afford to. 

She knew who he was, for she retained some of the powers proper to theworlds she had left, and as he looked on her soft yellow hair and on herthin red lips, Conn recognised, as all men do, that one who is lovelymust also be good, and so he did not frame any inquiry on that count;for everything is forgotten in the presence of a pretty woman, and amagician can be bewitched also. 

She told Conn that the fame of his son Art had reached even theMany-Coloured Land, and that she had fallen in love with the boy. Thisdid not seem unreasonable to one who had himself ventured much in Faery, and who had known so many of the people of that world leave their ownland for the love of a mortal. 

"What is your name, my sweet lady?" said the king. 

"I am called Delvcaem (Fair Shape) and I am the daughter of Morgan, " shereplied. 

"I have heard much of Morgan, " said the king. "He is a very greatmagician. "

During this conversation Conn had been regarding her with the minutefreedom which is right only in a king. At what precise instant he forgothis dead consort we do not know, but it is certain that at this momenthis mind was no longer burdened with that dear and lovely memory. Hisvoice was melancholy when he spoke again. 

"You love my son!"

"Who could avoid loving him?" she murmured. 

"When a woman speaks to a man about the love she feels for another manshe is not liked. And, " he continued, "when she speaks to a man who hasno wife of his own about her love for another man then she is disliked. "

"I would not be disliked by you, " Becuma murmured. 

"Nevertheless, " said he regally, "I will not come between a woman andher choice. "

"I did not know you lacked a wife, " said Becuma, but indeed she did. 

"You know it now, " the king replied sternly. 

"What shall I do?" she inquired, "am I to wed you or your son?"

"You must choose, " Conn answered. 

"If you allow me to choose it means that you do not want me very badly, "said she with a smile. 

"Then I will not allow you to choose, " cried the king, "and it is withmyself you shall marry. "

He took her hand in his and kissed it. 

"Lovely is this pale thin hand. Lovely is the slender foot that I see ina small bronze shoe, " said the king. 

After a suitable time she continued:

"I should not like your son to be at Tara when I am there, or for a yearafterwards, for I do not wish to meet him until I have forgotten him andhave come to know you well. "

"I do not wish to banish my son, " the king protested. 

"It would not really be a banishment, " she said. "A prince's duty couldbe set him, and in such an absence he would improve his knowledge bothof Ireland and of men. Further, " she continued with downcast eyes, "when you remember the reason that brought me here you will see that hispresence would be an embarrassment to us both, and my presence would beunpleasant to him if he remembers his mother. "

"Nevertheless, " said Conn stubbornly, "I do not wish to banish my son;it is awkward and unnecessary. "

"For a year only, " she pleaded. 

"It is yet, " he continued thoughtfully, "a reasonable reason that yougive and I will do what you ask, but by my hand and word I don't likedoing it. "

They set out then briskly and joyfully on the homeward journey, and indue time they reached Tara of the Kings. 

CHAPTER IV

It is part of the education of a prince to be a good chess player, andto continually exercise his mind in view of the judgements that he willbe called upon to give and the knotty, tortuous, and perplexing matterswhich will obscure the issues which he must judge. Art, the son of Conn, was sitting at chess with Cromdes, his father's magician. 

"Be very careful about the move you are going to make, " said Cromdes. 

"CAN I be careful?" Art inquired. "Is the move that you are thinking ofin my power?"

"It is not, " the other admitted. 

"Then I need not be more careful than usual, " Art replied, and he madehis move. 

"It is a move of banishment, " said Cromdes. 

"As I will not banish myself, I suppose my father will do it, but I donot know why he should. "

"Your father will not banish you. "

"Who then?" "Your mother. "

"My mother is dead. "

"You have a new one, " said the magician. 

"Here is news, " said Art. "I think I shall not love my new mother. "

"You will yet love her better than she loves you, " said Cromdes, meaningthereby that they would hate each other. 

While they spoke the king and Becuma entered the palace. 

"I had better go to greet my father, " said the young man. 

"You had better wait until he sends for you, " his companion advised, andthey returned to their game. 

In due time a messenger came from the king directing Art to leave Tarainstantly, and to leave Ireland for one full year. 

He left Tara that night, and for the space of a year he was not seenagain in Ireland. But during that period things did not go well with theking nor with Ireland. Every year before that time three crops of cornused to be lifted off the land, but during Art's absence there was nocorn in Ireland and there was no milk. The whole land went hungry. 

Lean people were in every house, lean cattle in every field; the bushesdid not swing out their timely berries or seasonable nuts; the bees wentabroad as busily as ever, but each night they returned languidly, withempty pouches, and there was no honey in their hives when the honeyseason came. People began to look at each other questioningly, meaningly, and dark remarks passed between them, for they knew that abad harvest means, somehow, a bad king, and, although this belief can becombated, it is too firmly rooted in wisdom to be dismissed. 

The poets and magicians met to consider why this disaster should havebefallen the country and by their arts they discovered the truth aboutthe king's wife, and that she was Becuma of the White Skin, and theydiscovered also the cause of her banishment from the Many-Coloured Landthat is beyond the sea, which is beyond even the grave. 

They told the truth to the king, but he could not bear to be parted fromthat slender-handed, gold-haired, thin-lipped, blithe enchantress, andhe required them to discover some means whereby he might retain his wifeand his crown. There was a way and the magicians told him of it. 

"If the son of a sinless couple can be found and if his blood be mixedwith the soll of Tara the blight and ruin will depart from Ireland, "said the magicians. 

"If there is such a boy I will find him, " cried the Hundred Fighter. 

At the end of a year Art returned to Tara. His father delivered to himthe sceptre of Ireland, and he set out on a journey to find the son of asinless couple such as he had been told of. 

CHAPTER V

The High King did not know where exactly he should look for such asaviour, but he was well educated and knew how to look for whatever waslacking. This knowledge will be useful to those upon whom a similar dutyshould ever devolve. 

He went to Ben Edair. He stepped into a coracle and pushed out to thedeep, and he permitted the coracle to go as the winds and the wavesdirected it. 

In such a way he voyaged among the small islands of the sea until helost all knowledge of his course and was adrift far out in ocean. He wasunder the guidance of the stars and the great luminaries. 

He saw black seals that stared and barked and dived dancingly, with theround turn of a bow and the forward onset of an arrow. Great whales cameheaving from the green-hued void, blowing a wave of the sea highinto the air from their noses and smacking their wide flat tailsthunder-ously on the water. Porpoises went snorting past in bands andclans. Small fish came sliding and flickering, and all the outlandishcreatures of the deep rose by his bobbing craft and swirled and spedaway. 

Wild storms howled by him so that the boat climbed painfully to the skyon a mile-high wave, balanced for a tense moment on its level top, andsped down the glassy side as a stone goes furiously from a sling. 

Or, again, caught in the chop of a broken sea, it stayed shuddering andbacking, while above his head there was only a low sad sky, and aroundhim the lap and wash of grey waves that were never the same and werenever different. 

After long staring on the hungry nothingness of air and water he wouldstare on the skin-stretched fabric of his boat as on a strangeness, orhe would examine his hands and the texture of his skin and the stiffblack hairs that grew behind his knuckles and sprouted around his ring, and he found in these things newness and wonder. 

Then, when days of storm had passed, the low grey clouds shivered andcracked in a thousand places, each grim islet went scudding to thehorizon as though terrified by some great breadth, and when they hadpassed he stared into vast after vast of blue infinity, in the depthsof which his eyes stayed and could not pierce, and wherefrom they couldscarcely be withdrawn. A sun beamed thence that filled the air withsparkle and the sea with a thousand lights, and looking on these he wasreminded of his home at Tara: of the columns of white and yellow bronzethat blazed out sunnily on the sun, and the red and white and yellowpainted roofs that beamed at and astonished the eye. 

Sailing thus, lost in a succession of days and nights, of winds andcalms, he came at last to an island. 

His back was turned to it, and long before he saw it he smelled it andwondered; for he had been sitting as in a daze, musing on a change thathad seemed to come in his changeless world; and for a long time he couldnot tell what that was which made a difference on the salt-whipped windor why he should be excited. For suddenly he had become excited and hisheart leaped in violent expectation. 

"It is an October smell, " he said. 

"It is apples that I smell. "

He turned then and saw the island, fragrant with apple trees, sweet withwells of wine; and, hearkening towards the shore, his ears, dulled yetwith the unending rhythms of the sea, distinguished and were filledwith song; for the isle was, as it were, a nest of birds, and they sangjoyously, sweetly, triumphantly. 

He landed on that lovely island, and went forward under the dartingbirds, under the apple boughs, skirting fragrant lakes about which werewoods of the sacred hazel and into which the nuts of knowledge fell andswam; and he blessed the gods of his people because of the ground thatdid not shiver and because of the deeply rooted trees that could not gador budge. 

CHAPTER VI

Having gone some distance by these pleasant ways he saw a shapely housedozing in the sunlight. 

It was thatched with the wings of birds, blue wings and yellow and whitewings, and in the centre of the house there was a door of crystal set inposts of bronze. 

The queen of this island lived there, Rigru (Large-eyed), the daughterof Lodan, and wife of Daire Degamra. She was seated on a crystalthrone with her son Segda by her side, and they welcomed the High Kingcourteously. 

There were no servants in this palace; nor was there need for them. TheHigh King found that his hands had washed themselves, and when later onhe noticed that food had been placed before him he noticed also thatit had come without the assistance of servile hands. A cloak was laidgently about his shoulders, and he was glad of it, for his own wassoiled by exposure to sun and wind and water, and was not worthy of alady's eye. 

Then he was invited to eat. 

He noticed, however, that food had been set for no one but himself, andthis did not please him, for to eat alone was contrary to the hospitableusage of a king, and was contrary also to his contract with the gods. 

"Good, my hosts, " he remonstrated, "it is geasa (taboo) for me to eatalone. "

"But we never eat together, " the queen replied. 

"I cannot violate my geasa, " said the High King. 

"I will eat with you, " said Segda (Sweet Speech), "and thus, while youare our guest you will not do violence to your vows. "

"Indeed, " said Conn, "that will be a great satisfaction, for I havealready all the trouble that I can cope with and have no wish to add toit by offending the gods. "

"What is your trouble?" the gentle queen asked. "During a year, " Connreplied, "there has been neither corn nor milk in Ireland. The land isparched, the trees are withered, the birds do not sing in Ireland, andthe bees do not make honey. "

"You are certainly in trouble, " the queen assented. 

"But, " she continued, "for what purpose have you come to our island?"

"I have come to ask for the loan of your son. "

"A loan of my son!"

"I have been informed, " Conn explained, "that if the son of a sinlesscouple is brought to Tara and is bathed in the waters of Ireland theland will be delivered from those ills. "

The king of this island, Daire, had not hitherto spoken, but he now didso with astonishment and emphasis. 

"We would not lend our son to any one, not even to gain the kingship ofthe world, " said he. 

But Segda, observing that the guest's countenance was discomposed, brokein:

"It is not kind to refuse a thing that the Ard-Ri' of Ireland asks for, and I will go with him. "

"Do not go, my pulse, " his father advised. 

"Do not go, my one treasure, " his mother pleaded. 

"I must go indeed, " the boy replied, "for it is to do good I amrequired, and no person may shirk such a requirement. "

"Go then, " said his father, "but I will place you under the protectionof the High King and of the Four Provincial Kings of Ireland, and underthe protection of Art, the son of Conn, and of Fionn, the son of Uail, and under the protection of the magicians and poets and the men of artin Ireland. " And he thereupon bound these protections and safeguards onthe Ard-Ri' with an oath. 

"I will answer for these protections, " said Conn. 

He departed then from the island with Segda and in three days theyreached Ireland, and in due time they arrived at Tara. 

CHAPTER VII

On reaching the palace Conn called his magicians and poets to a counciland informed them that he had found the boy they sought--the son of avirgin. These learned people consulted together, and they stated thatthe young man must be killed, and that his blood should be mixed withthe earth of Tara and sprinkled under the withered trees. 

When Segda heard this he was astonished and defiant; then, seeing thathe was alone and without prospect of succour, he grew downcast and wasin great fear for his life. But remembering the safeguards under whichhe had been placed, he enumerated these to the assembly, and called onthe High King to grant him the protections that were his due. 

Conn was greatly perturbed, but, as in duty bound, he placed the boyunder the various protections that were in his oath, and, with thecourage of one who has no more to gain or lose, he placed Segda, furthermore, under the protection of all the men of Ireland. 

But the men of Ireland refused to accept that bond, saying that althoughthe Ard-Ri' was acting justly towards the boy he was not acting justlytowards Ireland. 

"We do not wish to slay this prince for our pleasure, " they argued, "butfor the safety of Ireland he must be killed. "

Angry parties were formed. Art, and Fionn the son of Uail, and theprinces of the land were outraged at the idea that one who had beenplaced under their protection should be hurt by any hand. But the men ofIreland and the magicians stated that the king had gone to Faery for aspecial purpose, and that his acts outside or contrary to that purposewere illegal, and committed no person to obedience. 

There were debates in the Council Hall, in the market-place, in thestreets of Tara, some holding that national honour dissolved andabsolved all personal honour, and others protesting that no man hadaught but his personal honour, and that above it not the gods, not evenIreland, could be placed--for it is to be known that Ireland is a god. 

Such a debate was in course, and Segda, to whom both sides addressedgentle and courteous arguments, grew more and more disconsolate. 

"You shall die for Ireland, dear heart, " said one of them, and he gaveSegda three kisses on each cheek. 

"Indeed, " said Segda, returning those kisses, "indeed I had notbargained to die for Ireland, but only to bathe in her waters and toremove her pestilence. "

"But dear child and prince, " said another, kissing him likewise, "if anyone of us could save Ireland by dying for her how cheerfully we woulddie. "

And Segda, returning his three kisses, agreed that the death was noble, but that it was not in his undertaking. 

Then, observing the stricken countenances about him, and the faces ofmen and women hewn thin by hunger, his resolution melted away, and hesaid:

"I think I must die for you, " and then he said:

"I will die for you. "

And when he had said that, all the people present touched his cheek withtheir lips, and the love and peace of Ireland entered into his soul, sothat he was tranquil and proud and happy. 

The executioner drew his wide, thin blade and all those present coveredtheir eyes with their cloaks, when a wailing voice called on theexecutioner to delay yet a moment. The High King uncovered his eyes andsaw that a woman had approached driving a cow before her. 

"Why are you killing the boy?" she demanded. 

The reason for this slaying was explained to her. 

"Are you sure, " she asked, "that the poets and magicians really knoweverything?"

"Do they not?" the king inquired. 

"Do they?" she insisted. 

And then turning to the magicians:

"Let one magician of the magicians tell me what is hidden in the bagsthat are lying across the back of my cow. "

But no magician could tell it, nor did they try to. 

"Questions are not answered thus, " they said. "There is formulae, andthe calling up of spirits, and lengthy complicated preparations in ourart. "

"I am not badly learned in these arts, " said the woman, "and I say thatif you slay this cow the effect will be the same as if you had killedthe boy. "

"We would prefer to kill a cow or a thousand cows rather than harm thisyoung prince, " said Conn, "but if we spare the boy will these evilsreturn?"

"They will not be banished until you have banished their cause. "

"And what is their cause?"

"Becuma is the cause, and she must be banished. "

"If you must tell me what to do, " said Conn, "tell me at least to dosomething that I can do. "

"I will tell you certainly. You can keep Becuma and your ills as long asyou want to. It does not matter to me. Come, my son, " she said toSegda, for it was Segda's mother who had come to save him; and thenthat sinless queen and her son went back to their home of enchantment, leaving the king and Fionn and the magicians and nobles of Irelandastonished and ashamed. 

CHAPTER VIII

There are good and evil people in this and in every other world, and theperson who goes hence will go to the good or the evil that is nativeto him, while those who return come as surely to their due. The troublewhich had fallen on Becuma did not leave her repentant, and the sweetlady began to do wrong as instantly and innocently as a flower beginsto grow. It was she who was responsible for the ills which had come onIreland, and we may wonder why she brought these plagues and droughts towhat was now her own country. 

Under all wrong-doing lies personal vanity or the feeling that we areendowed and privileged beyond our fellows. It is probable that, howevercourageously she had accepted fate, Becuma had been sharply stricken inher pride; in the sense of personal strength, aloofness, and identity, in which the mind likens itself to god and will resist every dominationbut its own. She had been punished, that is, she had submitted tocontrol, and her sense of freedom, of privilege, of very being, wasoutraged. The mind flinches even from the control of natural law, andhow much more from the despotism of its own separated likenesses, for ifanother can control me that other has usurped me, has become me, and howterribly I seem diminished by the seeming addition!

This sense of separateness is vanity, and is the bed of all wrong-doing. For we are not freedom, we are control, and we must submit to our ownfunction ere we can exercise it. Even unconsciously we accept the rightsof others to all that we have, and if we will not share our good withthem, it is because we cannot, having none; but we will yet give whatwe have, although that be evil. To insist on other people sharing inour personal torment is the first step towards insisting that they shallshare in our joy, as we shall insist when we get it. 

Becuma considered that if she must suffer all else she met should sufferalso. She raged, therefore, against Ireland, and in particular she ragedagainst young Art, her husband's son, and she left undone nothing thatcould afflict Ireland or the prince. She may have felt that she couldnot make them suffer, and that is a maddening thought to any woman. Orperhaps she had really desired the son instead of the father, and herthwarted desire had perpetuated itself as hate. But it is true that Artregarded his mother's successor with intense dislike, and it is truethat she actively returned it. 

One day Becuma came on the lawn before the palace, and seeing that Artwas at chess with Cromdes she walked to the table on which the match wasbeing played and for some time regarded the game. But the young princedid not take any notice of her while she stood by the board, for he knewthat this girl was the enemy of Ireland, and he could not bring himselfeven to look at her. 

Becuma, looking down on his beautiful head, smiled as much in rage as indisdain. 

"O son of a king, " said she, "I demand a game with you for stakes. "

Art then raised his head and stood up courteously, but he did not lookat her. 

"Whatever the queen demands I will do, " said he. 

"Am I not your mother also?" she replied mockingly, as she took the seatwhich the chief magician leaped from. 

The game was set then, and her play was so skilful that Art was hard putto counter her moves. But at a point of the game Becuma grew thoughtful, and, as by a lapse of memory, she made a move which gave the victory toher opponent. But she had intended that. She sat then, biting on her lipwith her white small teeth and staring angrily at Art. 

"What do you demand from me?" she asked. 

"I bind you to eat no food in Ireland until you find the wand of Curoi, son of Dare'. "

Becuma then put a cloak about her and she went from Tara northward andeastward until she came to the dewy, sparkling Brugh of Angus mac an Ogin Ulster, but she was not admitted there. She went thence to the Shi'ruled over by Eogabal, and although this lord would not admit her, hisdaughter Aine', who was her foster-sister, let her into Faery. 

She made inquiries and was informed where the dun of Curoi mac Dare'was, and when she had received this intelligence she set out for SlievMis. By what arts she coaxed Curoi to give up his wand it matters not, enough that she was able to return in triumph to Tara. When she handedthe wand to Art, she said:

"I claim my game of revenge. "

"It is due to you, " said Art, and they sat on the lawn before the palaceand played. 

A hard game that was, and at times each of the combatants sat for anhour staring on the board before the next move was made, and at timesthey looked from the board and for hours stared on the sky seeking asthough in heaven for advice. But Becuma's foster-sister, Aine', camefrom the Shi', and, unseen by any, she interfered with Art's play, sothat, suddenly, when he looked again on the board, his face went pale, for he saw that the game was lost. 

"I didn't move that piece, " said he sternly. 

"Nor did I, " Becuma replied, and she called on the onlookers to confirmthat statement. 

She was smiling to herself secretly, for she had seen what the mortaleyes around could not see. 

"I think the game is mine, " she insisted softly. 

"I think that your friends in Faery have cheated, " he replied, "but thegame is yours if you are content to win it that way. "

"I bind you, " said Becuma, "to eat no food in Ireland until you havefound Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan. "

"Where do I look for her?" said Art in despair. 

"She is in one of the islands of the sea, " Becuma replied, "that isall I will tell you, " and she looked at him maliciously, joyously, contentedly, for she thought he would never return from that journey, and that Morgan would see to it. 

CHAPTER IX

Art, as his father had done before him, set out for the Many-ColouredLand, but it was from Inver Colpa he embarked and not from Ben Edair. 

At a certain time he passed from the rough green ridges of the sea toenchanted waters, and he roamed from island to island asking all peoplehow he might come to Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan. But he got nonews from any one, until he reached an island that was fragrant withwild apples, gay with flowers, and joyous with the song of birds and thedeep mellow drumming of the bees. In this island he was met by a lady, Crede', the Truly Beautiful, and when they had exchanged kisses, he toldher who he was and on what errand he was bent. 

"We have been expecting you, " said Crede', "but alas, poor soul, it isa hard, and a long, bad way that you must go; for there is sea and land, danger and difficulty between you and the daughter of Morgan. "

"Yet I must go there, " he answered. 

"There is a wild dark ocean to be crossed. There is a dense wood whereevery thorn on every tree is sharp as a spear-point and is curved andclutching. There is a deep gulf to be gone through, " she said, "a placeof silence and terror, full of dumb, venomous monsters. There is animmense oak forest--dark, dense, thorny, a place to be strayed in, a place to be utterly bewildered and lost in. There is a vast darkwilderness, and therein is a dark house, lonely and full of echoes, andin it there are seven gloomy hags, who are warned already of your comingand are waiting to plunge you in a bath of molten lead. "

"It is not a choice journey, " said Art, "but I have no choice and mustgo. "

"Should you pass those hags, " she continued, "and no one has yet passedthem, you must meet Ailill of the Black Teeth, the son of Mongan TenderBlossom, and who could pass that gigantic and terrible fighter?"

"It is not easy to find the daughter of Morgan, " said Art in amelancholy voice. 

"It is not easy, " Crede' replied eagerly, "and if you will take myadvice--"

"Advise me, " he broke in, "for in truth there is no man standing in suchneed of counsel as I do. "

"I would advise you, " said Crede' in a low voice, "to seek no more forthe sweet daughter of Morgan, but to stay in this place where all thatis lovely is at your service. "

"But, but--" cried Art in astonishment. 

"Am I not as sweet as the daughter of Morgan?" she demanded, and shestood before him queenly and pleadingly, and her eyes took his withimperious tenderness. 

"By my hand, " he answered, "you are sweeter and lovelier than any beingunder the sun, but--"

"And with me, " she said, "you will forget Ireland. "

"I am under bonds, " cried Art, "I have passed my word, and I wouldnot forget Ireland or cut myself from it for all the kingdoms of theMany-Coloured Land. "

Crede' urged no more at that time, but as they were parting shewhispered, "There are two girls, sisters of my own, in Morgan's palace. They will come to you with a cup in either hand; one cup will be filledwith wine and one with poison. Drink from the right-hand cup, O mydear. "

Art stepped into his coracle, and then, wringing her hands, she made yetan attempt to dissuade him from that drear journey. 

"Do not leave me, " she urged. "Do not affront these dangers. Around thepalace of Morgan there is a palisade of copper spikes, and on the top ofeach spike the head of a man grins and shrivels. There is one spike onlywhich bears no head, and it is for your head that spike is waiting. Donot go there, my love. "

"I must go indeed, " said. Art earnestly. 

"There is yet a danger, " she called. "Beware of Delvcaem's mother, DogHead, daughter of the King of the Dog Heads. Beware of her. "

"Indeed, " said Art to himself, "there is so much to beware of that Iwill beware of nothing. I will go about my business, " he said to thewaves, "and I will let those beings and monsters and the people of theDog Heads go about their business. "

CHAPTER X

He went forward in his light bark, and at some moment found that hehad parted from those seas and was adrift on vaster and more turbulentbillows. From those dark-green surges there gaped at him monstrousand cavernous jaws; and round, wicked, red-rimmed, bulging eyes staredfixedly at the boat. A ridge of inky water rushed foaming mountainouslyon his board, and behind that ridge came a vast warty head that gurgledand groaned. But at these vile creatures he thrust with his lengthyspear or stabbed at closer reach with a dagger. 

He was not spared one of the terrors which had been foretold. Thus, inthe dark thick oak forest he slew the seven hags and buried them in themolten lead which they had heated for him. He climbed an icy mountain, the cold breath of which seemed to slip into his body and chip offinside of his bones, and there, until he mastered the sort of climbingon ice, for each step that he took upwards he slipped back ten steps. Almost his heart gave way before he learned to climb that venomous hill. In a forked glen into which he slipped at night-fall he was surroundedby giant toads, who spat poison, and were icy as the land they livedin, and were cold and foul and savage. At Sliav Saev he encountered thelong-maned lions who lie in wait for the beasts of the world, growlingwoefully as they squat above their prey and crunch those terrifiedbones. He came on Ailill of the Black Teeth sitting on the bridge thatspanned a torrent, and the grim giant was grinding his teeth on a pillarstone. Art drew nigh unobserved and brought him low. 

It was not for nothing that these difficulties and dangers were in hispath. These things and creatures were the invention of Dog Head, thewife of Morgan, for it had become known to her that she would die on theday her daughter was wooed. Therefore none of the dangers encounteredby Art were real, but were magical chimeras conjured against him by thegreat witch. 

Affronting all, conquering all, he came in time to Morgan's dun, a placeso lovely that after the miseries through which he had struggled healmost wept to see beauty again. 

Delvcaem knew that he was coming. She was waiting for him, yearning forhim. To her mind Art was not only love, he was freedom, for the poorgirl was a captive in her father's home. A great pillar an hundred feethigh had been built on the roof of Morgan's palace, and on the top ofthis pillar a tiny room had been constructed, and in this room Delvcaemwas a prisoner. 

She was lovelier in shape than any other princess of the Many-ColouredLand. She was wiser than all the other women of that land, and shewas skilful in music, embroidery, and chastity, and in all else thatpertained to the knowledge of a queen. 

Although Delvcaem's mother wished nothing but ill to Art, she yettreated him with the courtesy proper in a queen on the one hand andfitting towards the son of the King of Ireland on the other. Therefore, when Art entered the palace he was met and kissed, and he was bathed andclothed and fed. Two young girls came to him then, having a cup ineach of their hands, and presented him with the kingly drink, but, remembering the warning which Credl had given him, he drank only fromthe right-hand cup and escaped the poison. Next he was visited byDelvcaem's mother, Dog Head, daughter of the King of the Dog Heads, andMorgan's queen. She was dressed in full armour, and she challenged Artto fight with her. 

It was a woeful combat, for there was no craft or sagacity unknown toher, and Art would infallibly have perished by her hand but that herdays were numbered, her star was out, and her time had come. It was herhead that rolled on the ground when the combat was over, and it washer head that grinned and shrivelled on the vacant spike which she hadreserved for Art's. 

Then Art liberated Delvcaem from her prison at the top of the pillarand they were affianced together. But the ceremony had scarcely beencompleted when the tread of a single man caused the palace to quake andseemed to jar the world. 

It was Morgan returning to the palace. 

The gloomy king challenged him to combat also, and in his honour Artput on the battle harness which he had brought from Ireland. He wore abreastplate and helmet of gold, a mantle of blue satin swung from hisshoulders, his left hand was thrust into the grips of a purpleshield, deeply bossed with silver, and in the other hand he held thewide-grooved, blue hilted sword which had rung so often into fights andcombats, and joyous feats and exercises. 

Up to this time the trials through which he had passed had seemed sogreat that they could not easily be added to. But if all those trialshad been gathered into one vast calamity they would not equal one halfof the rage and catastrophe of his war with Morgan. 

For what he could not effect by arms Morgan would endeavour by guile, so that while Art drove at him or parried a crafty blow, the shape ofMorgan changed before his eyes, and the monstrous king was having at himin another form, and from a new direction. 

It was well for the son of the Ard-Ri' that he had been beloved by thepoets and magicians of his land, and that they had taught him all thatwas known of shape-changing and words of power. 

He had need of all these. 

At times, for the weapon must change with the enemy, they fought withtheir foreheads as two giant stags, and the crash of their monstrousonslaught rolled and lingered on the air long after their skulls hadparted. Then as two lions, long-clawed, deep-mouthed, snarling, withrigid mane, with red-eyed glare, with flashing, sharp-white fangs, theyprowled lithely about each other seeking for an opening. And then as twogreen-ridged, white-topped, broad-swung, overwhelming, vehement billowsof the deep, they met and crashed and sunk into and rolled away fromeach other; and the noise of these two waves was as the roar of allocean when the howl of the tempest is drowned in the league-long fury ofthe surge. 

But when the wife's time has come the husband is doomed. He is requiredelsewhere by his beloved, and Morgan went to rejoin his queen in theworld that comes after the Many-Coloured Land, and his victor shore thatknowledgeable head away from its giant shoulders. 

He did not tarry in the Many-Coloured Land, for he had nothing furtherto seek there. He gathered the things which pleased him best from amongthe treasures of its grisly king, and with Delvcaem by his side theystepped into the coracle. 

Then, setting their minds on Ireland, they went there as it were in aflash. 

The waves of all the world seemed to whirl past them in one huge, greencataract. The sound of all these oceans boomed in their ears for oneeternal instant. Nothing was for that moment but a vast roar and pourof waters. Thence they swung into a silence equally vast, and so suddenthat it was as thunderous in the comparison as was the elemental ragethey quitted. For a time they sat panting, staring at each other, holding each other, lest not only their lives but their very soulsshould be swirled away in the gusty passage of world within world; andthen, looking abroad, they saw the small bright waves creaming by therocks of Ben Edair, and they blessed the power that had guided andprotected them, and they blessed the comely land of Ir. 

On reaching Tara, Delvcaem, who was more powerful in art and magic thanBecuma, ordered the latter to go away, and she did so. 

She left the king's side. She came from the midst of the counsellors andmagicians. She did not bid farewell to any one. She did not say good-byeto the king as she set out for Ben Edair. 

Where she could go to no man knew, for she had been ban-ished from theMany-Coloured Land and could not return there. She was forbidden entryto the Shi' by Angus Og, and she could not remain in Ireland. She wentto Sasana and she became a queen in that country, and it was she whofostered the rage against the Holy Land which has not ceased to thisday. 

MONGAN'S FRENZY

CHAPTER I

The abbot of the Monastery of Moville sent word to the story-tellers ofIreland that when they were in his neighbourhood they should call atthe monastery, for he wished to collect and write down the stories whichwere in danger of being forgotten. 

"These things also must be told, " said he. 

In particular he wished to gather tales which told of the deeds that hadbeen done before the Gospel came to Ireland. 

"For, " said he, "there are very good tales among those ones, and itwould be a pity if the people who come after us should be ignorant ofwhat happened long ago, and of the deeds of their fathers. "

So, whenever a story-teller chanced in that neighbourhood he wasdirected to the monastery, and there he received a welcome and his fillof all that is good for man. 

The abbot's manuscript boxes began to fill up, and he used to regardthat growing store with pride and joy. In the evenings, when the daysgrew short and the light went early, he would call for some one of thesemanuscripts and have it read to him by candle-light, in order that hemight satisfy himself that it was as good as he had judged it to be onthe previous hearing. 

One day a story-teller came to the monastery, and, like all the others, he was heartily welcomed and given a great deal more than his need. 

He said that his name was Cairide', and that he had a story to tellwhich could not be bettered among the stories of Ireland. 

The abbot's eyes glistened when he heard that. He rubbed his handstogether and smiled on his guest. 

"What is the name of your story?" he asked. 

"It is called 'Mongan's Frenzy. '"

"I never heard of it before, " cried the abbot joyfully. 

"I am the only man that knows it, " Cairide' replied. 

"But how does that come about?" the abbot inquired. 

"Because it belongs to my family, " the story-teller answered. "Therewas a Cairide' of my nation with Mongan when he went into Faery. ThisCairide' listened to the story when it was first told. Then he toldit to his son, and his son told it to his son, and that son'sgreat-great-grandson's son told it to his son's son, and he told it tomy father, and my father told it to me. "

"And you shall tell it to me, " cried the abbot triumphantly. 

"I will indeed, " said Cairide'. Vellum was then brought and quills. Thecopyists sat at their tables. Ale was placed beside the story-teller, and he told this tale to the abbot. 

CHAPTER II

Said Cairide':

Mongan's wife at that time was Bro'tiarna, the Flame Lady. She waspassionate and fierce, and because the blood would flood suddenly to hercheek, so that she who had seemed a lily became, while you looked uponher, a rose, she was called Flame Lady. She loved Mongan with ecstasyand abandon, and for that also he called her Flame Lady. 

But there may have been something of calculation even in her wildestmoment, for if she was delighted in her affection she was tormented init also, as are all those who love the great ones of life and strive toequal themselves where equality is not possible. 

For her husband was at once more than himself and less than himself. He was less than himself because he was now Mongan. He was more thanhimself because he was one who had long disappeared from the world ofmen. His lament had been sung and his funeral games played many, many years before, and Bro'tiarna sensed in him secrets, experiences, knowledges in which she could have no part, and for which she wasgreedily envious. 

So she was continually asking him little, simple questions a' propos ofevery kind of thing. 

She weighed all that he said on whatever subject, and when he talked inhis sleep she listened to his dream. 

The knowledge that she gleaned from those listenings tormented herfar more than it satisfied her, for the names of other women werecontinually on his lips, sometimes in terms of dear affection, sometimesin accents of anger or despair, and in his sleep he spoke familiarlyof people whom the story-tellers told of, but who had been dead forcenturies. Therefore she was perplexed, and became filled with a veryrage of curiosity. 

Among the names which her husband mentioned there was one which, becauseof the frequency with which it appeared, and because of the tone ofanguish and love and longing in which it was uttered, she thought ofoftener than the others: this name was Duv Laca. Although she questionedand cross-questioned Cairide', her story-teller, she could discovernothing about a lady who had been known as the Black Duck. But one nightwhen Mongan seemed to speak with Duv Laca he mentioned her father asFiachna Duv mac Demain, and the story-teller said that king had beendead for a vast number of years. 

She asked her husband then, boldly, to tell her the story of Duv Laca, and under the influence of their mutual love he promised to tell it toher some time, but each time she reminded him of his promise he becameconfused, and said that he would tell it some other time. 

As time went on the poor Flame Lady grew more and more jealous of DuvLaca, and more and more certain that, if only she could know whathad happened, she would get some ease to her tormented heart and someassuagement of her perfectly natural curiosity. Therefore she lost noopportunity of reminding Mongan of his promise, and on each occasion herenewed the promise and put it back to another time. 

CHAPTER III

In the year when Ciaran the son of the Carpenter died, the same yearwhen Tuathal Maelgariv was killed and the year when Diarmait the son ofCerrbel became king of all Ireland, the year 538 of our era in short, ithappened that there was a great gathering of the men of Ireland at theHill of Uisneach in Royal Meath. 

In addition to the Council which was being held, there were games andtournaments and brilliant deployments of troops, and universal feastingsand enjoyments. The gathering lasted for a week, and on the last dayof the week Mongan was moving through the crowd with seven guards, hisstory-teller Cairide', and his wife. 

It had been a beautiful day, with brilliant sunshine and great sport, but suddenly clouds began to gather in the sky to the west, and otherscame rushing blackly from the east. When these clouds met the world wentdark for a space, and there fell from the sky a shower of hailstones, solarge that each man wondered at their size, and so swift and heavy thatthe women and young people of the host screamed from the pain of theblows they received. 

Mongan's men made a roof of their shields, and the hailstones batteredon the shields so terribly that even under them they were afraid. Theybegan to move away from the host looking for shelter, and when they hadgone apart a little way they turned the edge of a small hill and a knollof trees, and in the twinkling of an eye they were in fair weather. 

One minute they heard the clashing and bashing of the hailstones, thehowling of the venomous wind, the screams of women and the uproar of thecrowd on the Hill of Uisneach, and the next minute they heard nothingmore of those sounds and saw nothing more of these sights, for they hadbeen permitted to go at one step out of the world of men and into theworld of Faery. 

CHAPTER IV

There is a difference between this world and the world of Faery, but itis not immediately perceptible. Everything that is here is there, butthe things that are there are better than those that are here. Allthings that are bright are there brighter. There is more gold in thesun and more silver in the moon of that land. There is more scent in theflowers, more savour in the fruit. There is more comeliness in the menand more tenderness in the women. Everything in Faery is better by thisone wonderful degree, and it is by this betterness you will know thatyou are there if you should ever happen to get there. 

Mongan and his companions stepped from the world of storm into sunshineand a scented world. The instant they stepped they stood, bewildered, looking at each other silently, questioningly, and then with one accordthey turned to look back whence they had come. 

There was no storm behind them. The sunlight drowsed there as it did infront, a peaceful flooding of living gold. They saw the shapes ofthe country to which their eyes were accustomed, and recognised thewell-known landmarks, but it seemed that the distant hills were a triflehigher, and the grass which clothed them and stretched between wasgreener, was more velvety: that the trees were better clothed and hadmore of peace as they hung over the quiet ground. 

But Mongan knew what had happened, and he smiled with glee as he watchedhis astonished companions, and he sniffed that balmy air as one whosenostrils remembered it. 

"You had better come with me, " he said. 

"Where are we?" his wife asked. "Why, we are here, " cried Mongan; "whereelse should we be?"

He set off then, and the others followed, staring about them cautiously, and each man keeping a hand on the hilt of his sword. 

"Are we in Faery?" the Flame Lady asked. 

"We are, " said Mongan. 

When they had gone a little distance they came to a grove of ancienttrees. Mightily tail and well grown these trees were, and the trunk ofeach could not have been spanned by ten broad men. As they went amongthese quiet giants into the dappled obscurity and silence, theirthoughts became grave, and all the motions of their minds elevatedas though they must equal in greatness and dignity those ancient andglorious trees. When they passed through the grove they saw a lovelyhouse before them, built of mellow wood and with a roof of bronze--itwas like the dwelling of a king, and over the windows of the Sunny Roomthere was a balcony. There were ladies on this balcony, and when theysaw the travellers approaching they sent messengers to welcome them. 

Mongan and his companions were then brought into the house, and all wasdone for them that could be done for honoured guests. Everything withinthe house was as excellent as all without, and it was inhabited by sevenmen and seven women, and it was evident that Mongan and these peoplewere well acquainted. 

In the evening a feast was prepared, and when they had eaten well therewas a banquet. There were seven vats of wine, and as Mongan loved winehe was very happy, and he drank more on that occasion than any one hadever noticed him to drink before. 

It was while he was in this condition of glee and expansion that theFlame Lady put her arms about his neck and begged he would tell her thestory of Duv Laca, and, being boisterous then and full of good spirits, he agreed to her request, and he prepared to tell the tale. 

The seven men and seven women of the Fairy Palace then took theirplaces about him in a half-circle; his own seven guards sat behindthem; his wife, the Flame Lady, sat by his side; and at the back ofall Cairid, his story-teller sat, listening with all his ears, andremembering every word that was uttered. 

CHAPTER V

Said Mongan:

In the days of long ago and the times that have disappeared for ever, there was one Fiachna Finn the son of Baltan, the son of Murchertach, the son of Muredach, the son of Eogan, the son of Neill. He went fromhis own country when he was young, for he wished to see the land ofLochlann, and he knew that he would be welcomed by the king of thatcountry, for Fiachna's father and Eolgarg's father had done deeds incommon and were obliged to each other. 

He was welcomed, and he stayed at the Court of Lochlann in great easeand in the midst of pleasures. 

It then happened that Eolgarg Mor fell sick and the doctors could notcure him. They sent for other doctors, but they could not cure him, norcould any one say what he was suffering from, beyond that he was wastingvisibly before their eyes, and would certainly become a shadow anddisappear in air unless he was healed and fattened and made visible. 

They sent for more distant doctors, and then for others more distantstill, and at last they found a man who claimed that he could make acure if the king were supplied with the medicine which he would order. 

"What medicine is that?" said they all. 

"This is the medicine, " said the doctor. "Find a perfectly white cowwith red ears, and boil it down in the lump, and if the king drinks thatrendering he will recover. "

Before he had well said it messengers were going from the palace in alldirections looking for such a cow. They found lots of cows which werenearly like what they wanted, but it was only by chance they came onthe cow which would do the work, and that beast belonged to the mostnotorious and malicious and cantankerous female in Lochlann, the BlackHag. Now the Black Hag was not only those things that have been said;she was also whiskered and warty and one-eyed and obstreperous, and shewas notorious and ill-favoured in many other ways also. 

They offered her a cow in the place of her own cow, but she refused togive it. Then they offered a cow for each leg of her cow, but she wouldnot accept that offer unless Fiachna went bail for the payment. Heagreed to do so, and they drove the beast away. 

On the return journey he was met by messengers who brought news fromIreland. They said that the King of Ulster was dead, and that he, Fiachna Finn, had been elected king in the dead king's place. He at oncetook ship for Ireland, and found that all he had been told was true, andhe took up the government of Ulster. 

CHAPTER VI

A year passed, and one day as he was sitting at judgement there camea great noise from without, and this noise was so persistent that thepeople and suitors were scandalised, and Fiachna at last ordered thatthe noisy person should be brought before him to be judged. 

It was done, and to his surprise the person turned out to be the BlackHag. 

She blamed him in the court before his people, and complained that hehad taken away her cow, and that she had not been paid the four cows hehad gone bail for, and she demanded judgement from him and justice. 

"If you will consider it to be justice, I will give you twenty cowsmyself, " said Fiachna. 

"I would not take all the cows in Ulster, " she screamed. 

"Pronounce judgement yourself, " said the king, "and if I can do what youdemand I will do it. " For he did not like to be in the wrong, and he didnot wish that any person should have an unsatisfied claim upon him. 

The Black Hag then pronounced judgement, and the king had to fulfil it. 

"I have come, " said she, "from the east to the west; you must come fromthe west to the east and make war for me, and revenge me on the King ofLochlann. "

Fiachna had to do as she demanded, and, although it was with a heavyheart, he set out in three days' time for Lochlann, and he brought withhim ten battalions. 

He sent messengers before him to Big Eolgarg warning him of his coming, of his intention, and of the number of troops he was bringing; and whenhe landed Eolgarg met him with an equal force, and they fought together. 

In the first battle three hundred of the men of Lochlann were killed, but in the next battle Eolgarg Mor did not fight fair, for he let somevenomous sheep out of a tent, and these attacked the men of Ulster andkilled nine hundred of them. 

So vast was the slaughter made by these sheep and so great the terrorthey caused, that no one could stand before them, but by great good luckthere was a wood at hand, and the men of Ulster, warriors and princesand charioteers, were forced to climb up the trees, and they roostedamong the branches like great birds, while the venomous sheep rangedbelow bleating terribly and tearing up the ground. 

Fiachna Fim was also sitting in a tree, very high up, and he wasdisconsolate. 

"We are disgraced, " said he. 

"It is very lucky, " said the man in the branch below, "that a sheepcannot climb a tree. "

"We are disgraced for ever, " said the King of Ulster. 

"If those sheep learn how to climb, we are undone surely, " said the manbelow. 

"I will go down and fight the sheep, " said Fiachna. But the others wouldnot let the king go. 

"It is not right, " they said, "that you should fight sheep. "

"Some one must fight them, " said Fiachna Finn, "but no more of my menshall die until I fight myself; for if I am fated to die, I will die andI cannot escape it, and if it is the sheep's fate to die, then die theywill; for there is no man can avoid destiny, and there is no sheep candodge it either. "

"Praise be to god!" said the warrior that was higher up. 

"Amen!" said the man who was higher than he, and the rest of thewarriors wished good luck to the king. 

He started then to climb down the tree with a heavy heart, but whilehe hung from the last branch and was about to let go, he noticed a tallwarrior walking towards him. The king pulled himself up on the branchagain and sat dangle-legged on it to see what the warrior would do. 

The stranger was a very tall man, dressed in a green cloak with a silverbrooch at the shoulder. He had a golden band about his hair and goldensandals on his feet, and he was laughing heartily at the plight of themen of Ireland. 

CHAPTER VII

"It is not nice of you to laugh at us, " said Fiachna Finn. 

"Who could help laughing at a king hunkering on a branch and his armyroosting around him like hens?" said the stranger. 

"Nevertheless, " the king replied, "it would be courteous of you not tolaugh at misfortune. "

"We laugh when we can, " commented the stranger, "and are thankful forthe chance. "

"You may come up into the tree, " said Fiachna, "for I perceive that youare a mannerly person, and I see that some of the venomous sheep arecharging in this direction. I would rather protect you, " he continued, "than see you killed; for, " said he lamentably, "I am getting down nowto fight the sheep. "

"They will not hurt me, " said the stranger. "Who are you?" the kingasked. 

"I am Mananna'n, the son of Lir. "

Fiachna knew then that the stranger could not be hurt. 

"What will you give me if I deliver you from the sheep?" askedMananna'n. 

"I will give you anything you ask, if I have that thing. "

"I ask the rights of your crown and of your household for one day. "

Fiachna's breath was taken away by that request, and he took a littletime to compose himself, then he said mildly:

"I will not have one man of Ireland killed if I can save him. All thatI have they give me, all that I have I give to them, and if I must givethis also, then I will give this, although it would be easier for me togive my life. " "That is agreed, " said Mannana'n. 

He had something wrapped in a fold of his cloak, and he unwrapped andproduced this thing. 

It was a dog. 

Now if the sheep were venomous, this dog was more venomous still, for itwas fearful to look at. In body it was not large, but its head was of agreat size, and the mouth that was shaped in that head was able to openlike the lid of a pot. It was not teeth which were in that head, buthooks and fangs and prongs. Dreadful was that mouth to look at, terribleto look into, woeful to think about; and from it, or from the broad, loose nose that waggled above it, there came a sound which no word ofman could describe, for it was not a snarl, nor was it a howl, althoughit was both of these. It was neither a growl nor a grunt, although itwas both of these; it was not a yowl nor a groan, although it was bothof these: for it was one sound made up of these sounds, and there was init, too, a whine and a yelp, and a long-drawn snoring noise, and a deeppurring noise, and a noise that was like the squeal of a rusty hinge, and there were other noises in it also. 

"The gods be praised!" said the man who was in the branch above theking. 

"What for this time?" said the king. 

"Because that dog cannot climb a tree, " said the man. 

And the man on a branch yet above him groaned out "Amen!"

"There is nothing to frighten sheep like a dog, " said Mananna'n, "andthere is nothing to frighten these sheep like this dog. "

He put the dog on the ground then. 

"Little dogeen, little treasure, " said he, "go and kill the sheep. "

And when he said that the dog put an addition and an addendum on to thenoise he had been making before, so that the men of Ireland stuck theirfingers into their ears and turned the whites of their eyes upwards, andnearly fell off their branches with the fear and the fright which thatsound put into them. 

It did not take the dog long to do what he had been ordered. He wentforward, at first, with a slow waddle, and as the venomous sheep came tomeet him in bounces, he then went to meet them in wriggles; so that in awhile he went so fast that you could see nothing of him but a head anda wriggle. He dealt with the sheep in this way, a jump and a chop foreach, and he never missed his jump and he never missed his chop. When hegot his grip he swung round on it as if it was a hinge. The swing beganwith the chop, and it ended with the bit loose and the sheep giving itslast kick. At the end of ten minutes all the sheep were lying on theground, and the same bit was out of every sheep, and every sheep wasdead. 

"You can come down now, " said Mananna'n. 

"That dog can't climb a tree, " said the man in the branch above the kingwarningly. 

"Praise be to the gods!" said the man who was above him. 

"Amen!" said the warrior who was higher up than that. And the man in thenext tree said:

"Don't move a hand or a foot until the dog chokes himself to death onthe dead meat. "

The dog, however, did not eat a bit of the meat. He trotted to hismaster, and Mananna'n took him up and wrapped him in his cloak. 

"Now you can come down, " said he. 

"I wish that dog was dead!" said the king. 

But he swung himself out of the tree all the same, for he did not wishto seem frightened before Mananna'n. "You can go now and beat the menof Lochlann, " said Mananna'n. "You will be King of Lochlann beforenightfall. "

"I wouldn't mind that, " said the king. "It's no threat, " said Mananna'n. 

The son of Lir turned then and went away in the direction of Ireland totake up his one-day rights, and Fiachna continued his battle with theLochlannachs. 

He beat them before nightfall, and by that victory he became King ofLochlann and King of the Saxons and the Britons. 

He gave the Black Hag seven castles with their territories, and he gaveher one hundred of every sort of cattle that he had captured. She wassatisfied. 

Then he went back to Ireland, and after he had been there for some timehis wife gave birth to a son. 

CHAPTER VIII

"You have not told me one word about Duv Laca, " said the Flame Ladyreproachfully. 

"I am coming to that, " replied Mongan. 

He motioned towards one of the great vats, and wine was brought to him, of which he drank so joyously and so deeply that all people wondered athis thirst, his capacity, and his jovial spirits. 

"Now, I will begin again. "

Said Mongan: There was an attendant in Fiachna Finn's palace who wascalled An Da'v, and the same night that Fiachna's wife bore a son, thewife of An Da'v gave birth to a son also. This latter child was calledmac an Da'v, but the son of Fiachna's wife was named Mongan. 

"Ah!" murmured the Flame Lady. 

The queen was angry. She said it was unjust and presumptuous that theservant should get a child at the same time that she got one herself, but there was no help for it, because the child was there and could notbe obliterated. 

Now this also must be told. 

There was a neighbouring prince called Fiachna Duv, and he was the rulerof the Dal Fiatach. For a long time he had been at enmity and spitefulwarfare with Fiachna Finn; and to this Fiachna Duv there was born inthe same night a daughter, and this girl was named Duv Laca of the WhiteHand. 

"Ah!" cried the Flame Lady. 

"You see!" said Mongan, and he drank anew and joyously of the fairywine. 

In order to end the trouble between Fiachna Finn and Fiachna Duv thebabies were affianced to each other in the cradle on the day after theywere born, and the men of Ireland rejoiced at that deed and at thatnews. But soon there came dismay and sorrow in the land, for when thelittle Mongan was three days old his real father, Mananna'n the sonof Lir, appeared in the middle of the palace. He wrapped Mongan in hisgreen cloak and took him away to rear and train in the Land of Promise, which is beyond the sea that is at the other side of the grave. 

When Fiachna Duv heard that Mongan, who was affianced to his daughterDuv Laca, had disappeared, he considered that his compact of peace wasat an end, and one day he came by surprise and attacked the palace. He killed Fiachna Finn in that battle, and be crowned himself King ofUlster. 

The men of Ulster disliked him, and they petitioned Mananna'n to bringMongan back, but Mananna'n would not do this until the boy was sixteenyears of age and well reared in the wisdom of the Land of Promise. Thenhe did bring Mongan back, and by his means peace was made between Monganand Fiachna Duv, and Mongan was married to his cradle-bride, the youngDuv Laca. 

CHAPTER IX

One day Mongan and Duv Laca were playing chess in their palace. Monganhad just made a move of skill, and he looked up from the board to seeif Duv Laca seemed as discontented as she had a right to be. He sawthen over Duv Laca's shoulder a little black-faced, tufty-headed clericleaning against the door-post inside the room. 

"What are you doing there?" said Mongan. 

"What are you doing there yourself?" said the little black-faced cleric. 

"Indeed, I have a right to be in my own house, " said Mongan. 

"Indeed I do not agree with you, " said the cleric. 

"Where ought I be, then?" said Mongan. 

"You ought to be at Dun Fiathac avenging the murder of your father, "replied the cleric, "and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for nothaving done it long ago. You can play chess with your wife when you havewon the right to leisure. "

"But how can I kill my wife's father?" Mongan exclaimed. "By startingabout it at once, " said the cleric. "Here is a way of talking!" saidMongan. 

"I know, " the cleric continued, "that Duv Laca will not agree with aword I say on this subject, and that she will try to prevent you fromdoing what you have a right to do, for that is a wife's business, but aman's business is to do what I have just told you; so come with me nowand do not wait to think about it, and do not wait to play any morechess. Fiachna Duv has only a small force with him at this moment, and we can burn his palace as he burned your father's palace, andkill himself as he killed your father, and crown you King of Ulsterrightfully the way he crowned himself wrongfully as a king. "

"I begin to think that you own a lucky tongue, my black-faced friend, "said Mongan, "and I will go with you. "

He collected his forces then, and he burned Fiachna Duv's fortress, andhe killed Fiachna Duv, and he was crowned King of Ulster. 

Then for the first time he felt secure and at liberty to play chess. But he did not know until afterwards that the black-faced, tufty-headedperson was his father Mananna'n, although that was the fact. 

There are some who say, however, that Fiachna the Black was killed inthe year 624 by the lord of the Scot's Dal Riada, Condad Cerr, at thebattle of Ard Carainn; but the people who say this do not know what theyare talking about, and they do not care greatly what it is they say. 

CHAPTER X

"There is nothing to marvel about in this Duv Laca, " said the Flame Ladyscornfully. "She has got married, and she has been beaten at chess. Ithas happened before. "

"Let us keep to the story, " said Mongan, and, having taken some fewdozen deep draughts of the wine, he became even more jovial than before. Then he recommenced his tale:

It happened on a day that Mongan had need of treasure. He had manypresents to make, and he had not as much gold and silver and cattle aswas proper for a king. He called his nobles together and discussed whatwas the best thing to be done, and it was arranged that he should visitthe provincial kings and ask boons from them. 

He set out at once on his round of visits, and the first province hewent to was Leinster. 

The King of Leinster at that time was Branduv, the son of Echach. Hewelcomed Mongan and treated him well, and that night Mongan slept in hispalace. 

When he awoke in the morning he looked out of a lofty window, and hesaw on the sunny lawn before the palace a herd of cows. There were fiftycows in all, for he counted them, and each cow had a calf beside her, and each cow and calf was pure white in colour, and each of them had redears. 

When Mongan saw these cows, he fell in love with them as he had neverfallen in love with anything before. 

He came down from the window and walked on the sunny lawn among thecows, looking at each of them and speaking words of affection andendearment to them all; and while he was thus walking and talking andlooking and loving, he noticed that some one was moving beside him. Helooked from the cows then, and saw that the King of Leinster was at hisside. 

"Are you in love with the cows?" Branduv asked him. 

"I am, " said Mongan. 

"Everybody is, " said the King of Leinster. 

"I never saw anything like them, " said Mongan. 

"Nobody has, " said the King of Leinster. 

"I never saw anything I would rather have than these cows, " said Mongan. 

"These, " said the King of Leinster, "are the most beautiful cowsin Ireland, and, " he continued thoughtfully, "Duv Laca is the mostbeautiful woman in Ireland. "

"There is no lie in what you say, " said Mongan. 

"Is it not a queer thing, " said the King of Leinster, "that I shouldhave what you want with all your soul, and you should have what I wantwith all my heart?"

"Queer indeed, " said Mongan, "but what is it that you do want?"

"Duv Laca, of course, " said the King of Leinster. 

"Do you mean, " said Mongan, "that you would exchange this herd of fiftypure white cows having red ears--"

"And their fifty calves, " said the King of Leinster--

"For Duv Laca, or for any woman in the world?"

"I would, " cried the King of Leinster, and he thumped his knee as hesaid it. 

"Done, " roared Mongan, and the two kings shook hands on the bargain. 

Mongan then called some of his own people, and before any more wordscould be said and before any alteration could be made, he set his menbehind the cows and marched home with them to Ulster. 

CHAPTER XI

Duv Laca wanted to know where the cows came from, and Mongan told herthat the King of Leinster had given them to him. She fell in love withthem as Mongan had done, but there was nobody in the world could haveavoided loving those cows: such cows they were! such wonders! Monganand Duv Laca used to play chess together, and then they would go outtogether to look at the cows, and then they would go in together andwould talk to each other about the cows. Everything they did they didtogether, for they loved to be with each other. 

However, a change came. 

One morning a great noise of voices and trampling of horses and rattleof armour came about the palace. Mongan looked from the window. 

"Who is coming?" asked Duv Laca. 

But he did not answer her. 

"The noise must announce the visit of a king, " Duv Laca continued. 

But Mongan did not say a word. Duv Laca then went to the window. 

"Who is that king?" she asked. 

And her husband replied to her then. 

"That is the King of Leinster, " said he mournfully. 

"Well, " said Duv Laca surprised, "is he not welcome?"

"He is welcome indeed, " said Mongan lamentably. 

"Let us go out and welcome him properly, " Duv Laca suggested. 

"Let us not go near him at all, " said Mongan, "for he is coming tocomplete his bargain. "

"What bargain are you talking about?" Duv Laca asked. But Mongan wouldnot answer that. 

"Let us go out, " said he, "for we must go out. "

Mongan and Duv Laca went out then and welcomed the King of Leinster. They brought him and his chief men into the palace, and water wasbrought for their baths, and rooms were appointed for them, andeverything was done that should be done for guests. 

That night there was a feast, and after the feast there was a banquet, and all through the feast and the banquet the King of Leinster staredat Duv Laca with joy, and sometimes his breast was delivered of greatsighs, and at times he moved as though in perturbation of spirit andmental agony. 

"There is something wrong with the King of Leinster, " Duv Lacawhispered. 

"I don't care if there is, " said Mongan. 

"You must ask what he wants. "

"But I don't want to know it, " said Mongan. "Nevertheless, you musk askhim, " she insisted. 

So Mongan did ask him, and it was in a melancholy voice that he askedit. 

"Do you want anything?" said he to the King of Leinster. 

"I do indeed, " said Branduv. 

"If it is in Ulster I will get it for you, " said Mongan mournfully. 

"It is in Ulster, " said Branduv. 

Mongan did not want to say anything more then, but the King of Leinsterwas so intent and everybody else was listening and Duv Laca was nudginghis arm, so he said: "What is it that you do want?" "I want Duv Laca. "

"I want her too, " said Mongan. 

"You made your bargain, " said the King of Leinster, "my cows and theircalves for your Duv Laca, and the man that makes a bargain keeps abargain. "

"I never before heard, " said Mongan, "of a man giving away his ownwife. "

"Even if you never heard of it before, you must do it now, " said DuvLaca, "for honour is longer than life. "

Mongan became angry when Duv Laca said that. His face went red as asunset, and the veins swelled in his neck and his forehead. 

"Do you say that?" he cried to Duv Laca. 

"I do, " said Duv Laca. 

"Let the King of Leinster take her, " said Mongan. 

CHAPTER XII

Duv Laca and the King of Leinster went apart then to speak together, andthe eye of the king seemed to be as big as a plate, so fevered wasit and so enlarged and inflamed by the look of Duv Laca. He was soconfounded with joy also that his words got mixed up with his teeth, andDuv Laca did not know exactly what it was he was trying to say, andhe did not seem to know himself. But at last he did say somethingintelligible, and this is what he said. 

"I am a very happy man, " said he. 

"And I, " said Duv Laca, "am the happiest woman in the world. "

"Why should you be happy?" the astonished king demanded. 

"Listen to me, " she said. "If you tried to take me away from this placeagainst my own wish, one half of the men of Ulster would be dead beforeyou got me and the other half would be badly wounded in my defence. "

"A bargain is a bargain, " the King of Leinster began. 

"But, " she continued, "they will not prevent my going away, for they allknow that I have been in love with you for ages. "

"What have you been in with me for ages?" said the amazed king. 

"In love with you, " replied Duv Laca. 

"This is news, " said the king, "and it is good news. "

"But, by my word, " said Duv Laca, "I will not go with you unless yougrant me a boon. "

"All that I have, " cried Branduv, "and all that every-body has. "

"And you must pass your word and pledge your word that you will do whatI ask. "

"I pass it and pledge it, " cried the joyful king. 

"Then, " said Duv Laca, "this is what I bind on you. "

"Light the yolk!" he cried. 

"Until one year is up and out you are not to pass the night in any housethat I am in. "

"By my head and hand!" Branduv stammered. 

"And if you come into a house where I am during the time and term ofthat year, you are not to sit down in the chair that I am sitting in. "

"Heavy is my doom!" he groaned. 

"But, " said Duv Laca, "if I am sitting in a chair or a seat you areto sit in a chair that is over against me and opposite to me and at adistance from me. "

"Alas!" said the king, and he smote his hands together, and then he beatthem on his head, and then he looked at them and at everything about, and he could not tell what anything was or where anything was, for hismind was clouded and his wits had gone astray. 

"Why do you bind these woes on me?" he pleaded. 

"I wish to find out if you truly love me. "

"But I do, " said the king. "I love you madly and dearly, and with all myfaculties and members. "

"That is the way! love you, " said Duv Laca. "We shall have a notableyear of courtship and joy. And let us go now, " she continued, "for I amimpatient to be with you. "

"Alas!" said Branduv, as he followed her. "Alas, alas!" said the King ofLeinster. 

CHAPTER XIII

"I think, " said the Flame Lady, "that whoever lost that woman had noreason to be sad. "

Mongan took her chin in his hand and kissed her lips. 

"All that you say is lovely, for you are lovely, " said he, "and you aremy delight and the joy of the world. "

Then the attendants brought him wine, and he drank so joyously of thatand so deeply, that those who observed him thought he would surely burstand drown them. But he laughed loudly and with enormous delight, untilthe vessels of gold and silver and bronze chimed mellowly to his pealand the rafters of the house went creaking. 

Said he:

Mongan loved Duv Laca of the White Hand better than he loved his life, better than he loved his honour. The kingdoms of the world did not weighwith him beside the string of her shoe. He would not look at a sunsetif he could see her. He would not listen to a harp if he could hear herspeak, for she was the delight of ages, the gem of time, and the wonderof the world till Doom. 

She went to Leinster with the king of that country, and when she hadgone Mongan fell grievously sick, so that it did not seem he could everrecover again; and he began to waste and wither, and he began to looklike a skeleton, and a bony structure, and a misery. 

Now this also must be known. 

Duv Laca had a young attendant, who was her foster-sister as well as herservant, and on the day that she got married to Mongan, her attendantwas married to mac an Da'v, who was servant and foster-brother toMongan. When Duv Laca went away with the King of Leinster, her servant, mac an Da'v's wife, went with her, so there were two wifeless menin Ulster at that time, namely, Mongan the king and mac an Da'v hisservant. 

One day as Mongan sat in the sun, brooding lamentably on his fate, macan Da'v came to him. 

"How are things with you, master?" asked Mac an Da'v. 

"Bad, " said Mongan. 

"It was a poor day brought you off with Mananna'n to the Land ofPromise, " said his servant. 

"Why should you think that?" inquired Mongan. 

"Because, " said mac an Da'v, "you learned nothing in the Land of Promiseexcept how to eat a lot of food and how to do nothing in a deal oftime. "

"What business is it of yours?" said Mongan angrily. 

"It is my business surely, " said mac an Da'v, "for my wife has gone offto Leinster with your wife, and she wouldn't have gone if you hadn'tmade a bet and a bargain with that accursed king. "

Mac an Da'v began to weep then. 

"I didn't make a bargain with any king, " said he, "and yet my wife hasgone away with one, and it's all because of you. "

"There is no one sorrier for you than I am, " said Mongan. 

"There is indeed, " said mac an Da'v, "for I am sorrier myself. "

Mongan roused himself then. 

"You have a claim on me truly, " said he, "and I will not have any onewith a claim on me that is not satisfied. Go, " he said to mac an Da'v, "to that fairy place we both know of. You remember the baskets I leftthere with the sod from Ireland in one and the sod from Scotland in theother; bring me the baskets and sods. "

"Tell me the why of this?" said his servant. 

"The King of Leinster will ask his wizards what I am doing, and this iswhat I will be doing. I will get on your back with a foot in each of thebaskets, and when Branduv asks the wizards where I am they will tell himthat I have one leg in Ireland and one leg in Scotland, and as long asthey tell him that he will think he need not bother himself about me, and we will go into Leinster that way. "

"No bad way either, " said mac an Da'v. 

They set out then. 

CHAPTER XIV

It was a long, uneasy journey, for although mac an Da'v was of stoutheart and goodwill, yet no man can carry another on his back from Ulsterto Leinster and go quick. Still, if you keep on driving a pig or a storythey will get at last to where you wish them to go, and the man whocontinues putting one foot in front of the other will leave his homebehind, and will come at last to the edge of the sea and the end of theworld. 

When they reached Leinster the feast of Moy Life' was being held, andthey pushed on by forced marches and long stages so as to be in time, and thus they came to the Moy of Cell Camain, and they mixed with thecrowd that were going to the feast. 

A great and joyous concourse of people streamed about them. There wereyoung men and young girls, and when these were not holding each other'shands it was because their arms were round each other's necks. Therewere old, lusty women going by, and when these were not talking togetherit was because their mouths were mutually filled with apples andmeat-pies. There were young warriors with mantles of green and purpleand red flying behind them on the breeze, and when these were notlooking disdainfully on older soldiers it was because the older soldiershappened at the moment to be looking at them. There were old warriorswith yard-long beards flying behind their shoulders llke wisps of hay, and when these were not nursing a broken arm or a cracked skull, it wasbecause they were nursing wounds in their stomachs or their legs. Therewere troops of young women who giggled as long as their breaths lastedand beamed when it gave out. Bands of boys who whispered mysteriouslytogether and pointed with their fingers in every direction at once, andwould suddenly begin to run like a herd of stampeded horses. There weremen with carts full of roasted meats. Women with little vats full ofmead, and others carrying milk and beer. Folk of both sorts with towersswaying on their heads, and they dripping with honey. Children havingbaskets piled with red apples, and old women who peddled shell-fish andboiled lobsters. There were people who sold twenty kinds of bread, withbutter thrown in. Sellers of onions and cheese, and others who suppliedspare bits of armour, odd scabbards, spear handles, breastplate-laces. People who cut your hair or told your fortune or gave you a hot bath ina pot. Others who put a shoe on your horse or a piece of embroidery onyour mantle; and others, again, who took stains off your sword or dyedyour finger-nails or sold you a hound. 

It was a great and joyous gathering that was going to the feast. 

Mongan and his servant sat against a grassy hedge by the roadside andwatched the multitude streaming past. 

Just then Mongan glanced to the right whence the people were coming. Then he pulled the hood of his cloak over his ears and over his brow. 

"Alas!" said he in a deep and anguished voice. 

Mac an Da'v turned to him. 

"Is it a pain in your stomach, master?"

"It is not, " said Mongan. "Well, what made you make that brutal andbelching noise?"

"It was a sigh I gave, " said Mongan. 

"Whatever it was, " said mac an Da'v, "what was it?"

"Look down the road on this side and tell me who is coming, " said hismaster. 

"It is a lord with his troop. "

"It is the King of Leinster, " said Mongan. "The man, " said mac an Da'vin a tone of great pity, "the man that took away your wife! And, " heroared in a voice of extraordinary savagery, "the man that took away mywife into the bargain, and she not in the bargain. "

"Hush, " said Mongan, for a man who heard his shout stopped to tie asandie, or to listen. 

"Master, " said mac an Da'v as the troop drew abreast and moved past. 

"What is it, my good friend?"

"Let me throw a little small piece of a rock at the King of Leinster. "

"I will not. "

"A little bit only, a small bit about twice the size of my head. "

"I will not let you, " said Mongan. 

When the king had gone by mac an Da'v groaned a deep and dejected groan. 

"Oco'n!" said he. "Oco'n-i'o-go-deo'!" said he. 

The man who had tied his sandal said then: "Are you in pain, honestman?"

"I am not in pain, " said mac an Da'v. 

"Well, what was it that knocked a howl out of you like the yelp of asick dog, honest man?"

"Go away, " said mac an Da'v, "go away, you flat-faced, nosey person. ""There is no politeness left in this country, " said the stranger, and hewent away to a certain distance, and from thence he threw a stone at macan Da'v's nose, and hit it. 

CHAPTER XV

The road was now not so crowded as it had been. Minutes would pass andonly a few travellers would come, and minutes more would go when nobodywas in sight at all. 

Then two men came down the road: they were clerics. 

"I never saw that kind of uniform before, " said mac an Da'v. 

"Even if you didn't, " said Mongan, "there are plenty of them about. Theyare men that don't believe in our gods, " said he. 

"Do they not, indeed?" said mac an Da'v. "The rascals!" said he. "What, what would Mananna'n say to that?"

"The one in front carrying the big book is Tibraide'. He is the priestof Cell Camain, and he is the chief of those two. "

"Indeed, and indeed!" said mac an Da'v. "The one behind must be hisservant, for he has a load on his back. "

The priests were reading their offices, and mac an Da'v marvelled atthat. 

"What is it they are doing?" said he. 

"They are reading. "

"Indeed, and indeed they are, " said mac an Da'v. "I can't make out aword of the language except that the man behind says amen, amen, everytime the man in front puts a grunt out of him. And they don't like ourgods at all!" said mac an Da'v. 

"They do not, " said Mongan. 

"Play a trick on them, master, " said mac an Da'v. Mongan agreed to playa trick on the priests. 

He looked at them hard for a minute, and then he waved his hand at them. 

The two priests stopped, and they stared straight in front of them, andthen they looked at each other, and then they looked at the sky. Theclerk began to bless himself, and then Tibraide' began to bless himself, and after that they didn't know what to do. For where there had been aroad with hedges on each side and fields stretching beyond them, therewas now no road, no hedge, no field; but there was a great broad riversweeping across their path; a mighty tumble of yellowy-brown waters, very swift, very savage; churning and billowing and jockeying amongrough boulders and islands of stone. It was a water of villainous depthand of detestable wetness; of ugly hurrying and of desolate cavernoussound. At a little to their right there was a thin uncomely bridge thatwaggled across the torrent. 

Tibraide' rubbed his eyes, and then he looked again. "Do you see what Isee?" said he to the clerk. 

"I don't know what you see, " said the clerk, "but what I see I never didsee before, and I wish I did not see it now. "

"I was born in this place, " said Tibraide', "my father was born herebefore me, and my grandfather was born here before him, but until thisday and this minute I never saw a river here before, and I never heardof one. "

"What will we do at all?" said the clerk. "What will we do at all?"

"We will be sensible, " said Tibraide' sternly, "and we will go about ourbusiness, " said he. "If rivers fall out of the sky what has that to dowith you, and if there is a river here, which there is, why, thank God, there is a bridge over it too. "

"Would you put a toe on that bridge?" said the clerk. "What is thebridge for?" said Tibraide' Mongan and mac an Da'v followed them. 

When they got to the middle of the bridge it broke under them, and theywere precipitated into that boiling yellow flood. 

Mongan snatched at the book as it fell from Tibraide''s hand. 

"Won't you let them drown, master?" asked mac an Da'v. 

"No, " said Mongan, "I'll send them a mile down the stream, and then theycan come to land. "

Mongan then took on himself the form of Tibraide' and he turned mac anDa'v into the shape of the clerk. 

"My head has gone bald, " said the servant in a whisper. 

"That is part of it, " replied Mongan. "So long as we know, " said mac anDa'v. 

They went on then to meet the King of Leinster. 

CHAPTER XVI

They met him near the place where the games were played. 

"Good my soul, Tibraide'!" cried the King of Leinster, and he gaveMongan a kiss. Mongan kissed him back again. 

"Amen, amen, " said mac an Da'v. 

"What for?" said the King of Leinster. 

And then mac an Da'v began to sneeze, for he didn't know what for. 

"It is a long time since I saw you, Tibraide', " said the king, "but atthis minute I am in great haste and hurry. Go you on before me to thefortress, and you can talk to the queen that you'll find there, she thatused to be the King of Ulster's wife. Kevin Cochlach, my charioteer, will go with you, and I will follow you myself in a while. "

The King of Leinster went off then, and Mongan and his servant went withthe charioteer and the people. 

Mongan read away out of the book, for he found it interesting, and hedid not want to talk to the charioteer, and mac an Da'v cried amen, amen, every time that Mongan took his breath. The people who were goingwith them said to one another that mac an Da'v was a queer kind ofclerk, and that they had never seen any one who had such a mouthful ofamens. 

But in a while they came to the fortress, and they got into it withoutany trouble, for Kevin Cochlach, the king's charioteer, brought them in. Then they were led to the room where Duv Laca was, and as he went intothat room Mongan shut his eyes, for he did not want to look at Duv Lacawhile other people might be looking at him. 

"Let everybody leave this room, while I am talking to the queen, " saidhe; and all the attendants left the room, except one, and she wouldn'tgo, for she wouldn't leave her mistress. 

Then Mongan opened his eyes and he saw Duv Laca, and he made a greatbound to her and took her in his arms, and mac an Da'v made a savage andvicious and terrible jump at the attendant, and took her in his arms, and bit her ear and kissed her neck and wept down into her back. 

"Go away, " said the girl, "unhand me, villain, " said she. 

"I will not, " said mac an Da'v, "for I'm your own husband, I'm your ownmac, your little mac, your macky-wac-wac. " Then the attendant gave alittle squeal, and she bit him on each ear and kissed his neck and weptdown into his back, and said that it wasn't true and that it was. 

CHAPTER XVII

But they were not alone, although they thought they were. The hag thatguarded the jewels was in the room. She sat hunched up against the wail, and as she looked like a bundle of rags they did not notice her. Shebegan to speak then. 

"Terrible are the things I see, " said she. "Terrible are the things Isee. "

Mongan and his servant gave a jump of surprise, and their two wivesjumped and squealed. Then Mongan puffed out his cheeks till his facelooked like a bladder, and he blew a magic breath at the hag, so thatshe seemed to be surrounded by a fog, and when she looked through thatbreath everything seemed to be different to what she had thought. Thenshe began to beg everybody's pardon. 

"I had an evil vision, " said she, "I saw crossways. How sad it is that Ishould begin to see the sort of things I thought I saw. "

"Sit in this chair, mother, " said Mongan, "and tell me what you thoughtyou saw, " and he slipped a spike under her, and mac an Da'v pushed herinto the seat, and she died on the spike. 

Just then there came a knocking at the door. Mac an Da'v opened it, andthere was Tibraide, standing outside, and twenty-nine of his men werewith him, and they were all laughing. 

"A mile was not half enough, " said mac an Da'v reproachfully. 

The Chamberlain of the fortress pushed into the room and he stared fromone Tibraide' to the other. 

"This is a fine growing year, " said he. "There never was a yearwhen Tibraide''s were as plentiful as they are this year. There is aTibraide' outside and a Tibraide' inside, and who knows but there aresome more of them under the bed. The place is crawling with them, " saidhe. 

Mongan pointed at Tibraide'. 

"Don't you know who that is?" he cried. 

"I know who he says he is, " said the Chamberlain. 

"Well, he is Mongan, " said Mongan, "and these twenty-nine men aretwenty-nine of his nobles from Ulster. "

At that news the men of the household picked up clubs and cudgels andevery kind of thing that was near, and made a violent and woeful attackon Tibraide''s men The King of Leinster came in then, and when he wastold Tibraide' was Mongan he attacked them as well, and it was withdifficulty that Tibraide' got away to Cell Camain with nine of his menand they all wounded. 

The King of Leinster came back then. He went to Duv Laca's room. 

"Where is Tibraide'?" said he. 

"It wasn't Tibraide was here, " said the hag who was still sitting onthe spike, and was not half dead, "it was Mongan. "

"Why did you let him near you?" said the king to Duv Laca. 

"There is no one has a better right to be near me than Mongan has, " saidDuv Laca, "he is my own husband, " said she. 

And then the king cried out in dismay: "I have beaten Tibraide''speople. " He rushed from the room. 

"Send for Tibraide' till I apologise, " he cried. "Tell him it was all amistake. Tell him it was Mongan. "

CHAPTER XVIII

Mongan and his servant went home, and (for what pleasure is greater thanthat of memory exercised in conversation?) for a time the feeling of anadventure well accomplished kept him in some contentment. But at theend of a time that pleasure was worn out, and Mongan grew at firstdispirited and then sullen, and after that as ill as he had been on theprevious occasion. For he could not forget Duv Laca of the White Hand, and he could not remember her without longing and despair. 

It was in the illness which comes from longing and despair that he satone day looking on a world that was black although the sun shone, andthat was lean and unwholesome although autumn fruits were heavy on theearth and the joys of harvest were about him. 

"Winter is in my heart, " quoth he, "and I am cold already. "

He thought too that some day he would die, and the thought was notunpleasant, for one half of his life was away in the territories of theKing of Leinster, and the half that he kept in himself had no spice init. 

He was thinking in this way when mac an Da'v came towards him over thelawn, and he noticed that mac an Da'v was walking like an old man. 

He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when hewalked, so he went stiffly. One of his feet turned pitifully outwards, and the other turned lamentably in. His chest was pulled inwards, andhis head was stuck outwards and hung down in the place where his chestshould have been, and his arms were crooked in front of him with thehands turned wrongly, so that one palm was shown to the east of theworld and the other one was turned to the west. 

"How goes it, mac an Da'v?" said the king. 

"Bad, " said mac an Da'v. 

"Is that the sun I see shining, my friend?" the king asked. 

"It may be the sun, " replied mac an Da'v, peering curiously at thegolden radiance that dozed about them, "but maybe it's a yellow fog. "

"What is life at all?" said the king. 

"It is a weariness and a tiredness, " said mac an Da'v. "It is a longyawn without sleepiness. It is a bee, lost at midnight and buzzing ona pane. It is the noise made by a tied-up dog. It is nothing worthdreaming about. It is nothing at all. "

"How well you explain my feelings about Duv Laca, " said the king. 

"I was thinking about my own lamb, " said mac an Da'v. "I was thinkingabout my own treasure, my cup of cheeriness, and the pulse of my heart. "And with that he burst into tears. 

"Alas!" said the king. 

"But, " sobbed mac an Da'v, "what right have I to complain? I am onlythe servant, and although I didn't make any bargain with the King ofLeinster or with any king of them all, yet my wife is gone away as ifshe was the consort of a potentate the same as Duv Laca is. "

Mongan was sorry then for his servant, and he roused himself. 

"I am going to send you to Duv Laca. "

"Where the one is the other will be, " cried mac an Da'v joyously. 

"Go, " said Mongan, "to Rath Descirt of Bregia; you know that place?"

"As well as my tongue knows my teeth. "

"Duv Laca is there; see her, and ask her what she wants me to do. "

Mac an Da'v went there and returned. 

"Duv Laca says that you are to come at once, for the King of Leinster isjourneying around his territory, and Kevin Cochlach, the charioteer, ismaking bitter love to her and wants her to run away with him. "

Mongan set out, and in no great time, for they travelled day and night, they came to Bregla, and gained admittance to the fortress, but justas he got in he had to go out again, for the King of Leinster had beenwarned of Mongan's journey, and came back to his fortress in the nick oftime. 

When the men of Ulster saw the condition into which Mongan fell theywere in great distress, and they all got sick through compassion fortheir king. The nobles suggested to him that they should march againstLeinster and kill that king and bring back Duv Laca, but Mongan wouldnot consent to this plan. 

"For, " said he, "the thing I lost through my own folly I shall get backthrough my own craft. "

And when he said that his spirits revived, and he called for mac anDa'v. 

"You know, my friend, " said Mongan, "that I can't get Duv Laca backunless the King of Leinster asks me to take her back, for a bargain is abargain. "

"That will happen when pigs fly, " said mac an Da'v, "and, " said he, "Idid not make any bargain with any king that is in the world. "

"I heard you say that before, " said Mongan. 

"I will say it till Doom, " cried his servant, "for my wife has goneaway with that pestilent king, and he has got the double of your badbargain. "

Mongan and his servant then set out for Leinster. 

When they neared that country they found a great crowd going on the roadwith them, and they learned that the king was giving a feast in honourof his marriage to Duv Laca, for the year of waiting was nearly out, andthe king had sworn he would delay no longer. 

They went on, therefore, but in low spirits, and at last they saw thewalls of the king's castle towering before them, and a noble companygoing to and fro on the lawn. 

CHAPTER XIX

THEY sat in a place where they could watch the castle and composethemselves after their journey. 

"How are we going to get into the castle?" asked mac an Da'v. 

For there were hatchetmen on guard in the big gateway, and there werespearmen at short intervals around the walls, and men to throw hotporridge off the roof were standing in the right places. 

"If we cannot get in by hook, we will get in by crook, " said Mongan. 

"They are both good ways, " said Mac an Da'v, "and whichever of them youdecide on I'll stick by. "

Just then they saw the Hag of the Mill coming out of the mill which wasdown the road a little. 

Now the Hag of the Mill was a bony, thin pole of a hag with odd feet. That is, she had one foot that was too big for her, so that when shelifted it up it pulled her over; and she had one foot that was too smallfor her, so that when she lifted it up she didn't know what to do withit. She was so long that you thought you would never see the end of her, and she was so thin that you thought you didn't see her at all. One ofher eyes was set where her nose should be and there was an ear in itsplace, and her nose itself was hanging out of her chin, and she hadwhiskers round it. She was dressed in a red rag that was really a holewith a fringe on it, and she was singing "Oh, hush thee, my one love" toa cat that was yelping on her shoulder. 

She had a tall skinny dog behind her called Brotar. It hadn't a tooth inits head except one, and it had the toothache in that tooth. Every fewsteps it used to sit down on its hunkers and point its nose straightupwards, and make a long, sad complaint about its tooth; and after thatit used to reach its hind leg round and try to scratch out its tooth;and then it used to be pulled on again by the straw rope that was roundits neck, and which was tied at the other end to the hag's heaviestfoot. 

There was an old, knock-kneed, raw-boned, one-eyed, little-winded, heavy-headed mare with her also. Every time it put a front leg forwardit shivered all over the rest of its legs backwards, and when it put ahind leg forward it shivered all over the rest of its legs frontwards, and it used to give a great whistle through its nose when it was out ofbreath, and a big, thin hen was sitting on its croup. Mongan looked onthe Hag of the Mill with delight and affection. 

"This time, " said he to mac an Da'v, "I'll get back my wife. "

"You will indeed, " said mac an Da'v heartily, "and you'll get mine backtoo. "

"Go over yonder, " said Mongan, "and tell the Hag of the Mill that I wantto talk to her. "

Mac an Da'v brought her over to him. 

"Is it true what the servant man said?" she asked. 

"What did he say?" said Mongan. 

"He said you wanted to talk to me. "

"It is true, " said Mongan. 

"This is a wonderful hour and a glorious minute, " said the hag, "forthis is the first time in sixty years that any one wanted to talk to me. Talk on now, " said she, "and I'll listen to you if I can remember how todo it. Talk gently, " said she, "the way you won't disturb the animals, for they are all sick. "

"They are sick indeed, " said mac an Da'v pityingly. 

"The cat has a sore tail, " said she, "by reason of sitting too close toa part of the hob that was hot. The dog has a toothache, the horse has apain in her stomach, and the hen has the pip. "

"Ah, it's a sad world, " said mac an Da'v. 

"There you are!" said the hag. 

"Tell me, " Mongan commenced, "if you got a wish, what it is you wouldwish for?"

The hag took the cat off her shoulder and gave it to mac an Da'v. 

"Hold that for me while I think, " said she. 

"Would you like to be a lovely young girl?" asked Mongan. 

"I'd sooner be that than a skinned eel, " said she. 

"And would you like to marry me or the King of Leinster?" "I'd like tomarry either of you, or both of you, or whichever of you came first. "

"Very well, " said Mongan, "you shall have your wish. "

He touched her with his finger, and the instant he touched her alldilapidation and wryness and age went from her, and she became sobeautiful that one dared scarcely look on her, and so young that sheseemed but sixteen years of age. 

"You are not the Hag of the Mill any longer, " said Mongan, "you areIvell of the Shining Cheeks, daughter of the King of Munster. "

He touched the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that couldnestle in your palm. Then he changed the old mare into a brisk, piebaldpalfrey. Then he changed himself so that he became the living image ofAe, the son of the King of Connaught, who had just been married to Ivellof the Shining Cheeks, and then he changed mac an Da'v into the likenessof Ae's attendant, and then they all set off towards the fortress, singing the song that begins: My wife is nicer than any one's wife, Anyone's wife, any one's wife, My wife is nicer than any one's wife, Whichnobody can deny. 

CHAPTER XX

The doorkeeper brought word to the King of Leinster that the son of theKing of Connaught, Ae the Beautiful, and his wife, Ivell of the ShiningCheeks, were at the door, that they had been banished from Connaughtby Ae's father, and they were seeking the protection of the King ofLeinster. 

Branduv came to the door himself to welcome them, and the minute helooked on Ivell of the Shining Cheeks it was plain that he liked lookingat her. 

It was now drawing towards evening, and a feast was prepared for theguests with a banquet to follow it. At the feast Duv Laca sat beside theKing of Leinster, but Mongan sat opposite him with Ivell, and Mongan putmore and more magic into the hag, so that her cheeks shone and her eyesgleamed, and she was utterly bewitching to the eye; and when Branduvlooked at her she seemed to grow more and more lovely and more and moredesirable, and at last there was not a bone in his body as big as aninch that was not filled with love and longing for the girl. 

Every few minutes he gave a great sigh as if he had eaten too much, andwhen Duv Laca asked him if he had eaten too much he said he had butthat he had not drunk enough, and by that he meant that he had not drunkenough from the eyes of the girl before him. 

At the banquet which was then held he looked at her again, and everytime he took a drink he toasted Ivell across the brim of his goblet, andin a little while she began to toast him back across the rim of hercup, for he was drinking ale, but she was drinking mead. Then he sent amessenger to her to say that it was a far better thing to be the wifeof the King of Leinster than to be the wife of the son of the King ofConnaught, for a king is better than a prince, and Ivell thought thatthis was as wise a thing as anybody had ever said. And then he sent amessage to say that he loved her so much that he would certainly burstof love if it did not stop. 

Mongan heard the whispering, and he told the hag that if she did what headvised she would certainly get either himself or the King of Leinsterfor a husband. 

"Either of you will be welcome, " said the hag. 

"When the king says he loves you, ask him to prove it by gifts; ask forhis drinking-horn first. "

She asked for that, and he sent it to her filled with good liquor; thenshe asked for his girdle, and he sent her that. 

His people argued with him and said it was not right that he should giveaway the treasures of Leinster to the wife of the King of Connaught'sson; but he said that it did not matter, for when he got the girl hewould get his treasures with her. But every time he sent anything to thehag, mac an Da'v snatched it out of her lap and put it in his pocket. 

"Now, " said Mongan to the hag, "tell the servant to say that you wouldnot leave your own husband for all the wealth of the world. "

She told the servant that, and the servant told it to the king. WhenBranduv heard it he nearly went mad with love and longing and jealousy, and with rage also, because of the treasure he had given her and mightnot get back. He called Mongan over to him, and spoke to him verythreateningly and ragingly. 

"I am not one who takes a thing without giving a thing, " said he. 

"Nobody could say you were, " agreed Mongan. 

"Do you see this woman sitting beside me?" he continued, pointing to DuvLaca. 

"I do indeed, " said Mongan. 

"Well, " said Branduv, "this woman is Duv Laca of the White Hand that Itook away from Mongan; she is just going to marry me, but if you willmake an exchange, you can marry this Duv Laca here, and I will marrythat Ivell of the Shining Cheeks yonder. "

Mongan pretended to be very angry then. 

"If I had come here with horses and treasure you would be in your rightto take these from me, but you have no right to ask for what you are nowasking. "

"I do ask for it, " said Branduv menacingly, "and you must not refuse alord. "

"Very well, " said Mongan reluctantly, and as if in great fear; "if youwill make the exchange I will make it, although it breaks my heart. "

He brought Ivell over to the king then and gave her three kisses. 

"The king would suspect something if I did not kiss you, " said he, andthen he gave the hag over to the king. After that they all got drunk andmerry, and soon there was a great snoring and snorting, and very soonall the servants fell asleep also, so that Mongan could not get anythingto drink. Mac an Da'v said it was a great shame, and he kicked some ofthe servants, but they did not budge, and then he slipped out to thestables and saddled two mares. He got on one with his wife behind himand Mongan got on the other with Duv Laca behind him, and they rode awaytowards Ulster like the wind, singing this song: The King of Leinsterwas married to-day, Married to-day, married to-day, The King of Leinsterwas married to-day, And every one wishes him joy. 

In the morning the servants came to waken the King of Leinster, and whenthey saw the face of the hag lying on the pillow beside the king, andher nose all covered with whiskers, and her big foot and little footsticking away out at the end of the bed, they began to laugh, and pokeone another in the stomachs and thump one another on the shoulders, sothat the noise awakened the king, and he asked what was the matter withthem at all. It was then he saw the hag lying beside him, and he gave agreat screech and jumped out of the bed. 

"Aren't you the Hag of the Mill?" said he. 

"I am indeed, " she replied, "and I love you dearly. "

"I wish I didn't see you, " said Branduv. 

That was the end of the story, and when he had told it Mongan began tolaugh uproariously and called for more wine. He drank this deeply, asthough he was full of thirst and despair and a wild jollity, but whenthe Flame Lady began to weep he took her in his arms and caressed her, and said that she was the love of his heart and the one treasure of theworld. 

After that they feasted in great contentment, and at the end of thefeasting they went away from Faery and returned to the world of men. 

They came to Mongan's palace at Moy Linney, and it was not until theyreached the palace that they found they had been away one whole year, for they had thought they were only away one night. They livedthen peacefully and lovingly together, and that ends the story, butBro'tiarna did not know that Mongan was Fionn. 

The abbot leaned forward. 

"Was Mongan Fionn?" he asked in a whisper. 

"He was, " replied Cairide'. 

"Indeed, indeed!" said the abbot. 

After a while he continued: "There is only one part of your story that Ido not like. "

"What part is that?" asked Cairide'. 

"It is the part where the holy man Tibraide' was ill treated by thatrap--by that--by Mongan. "

Cairide' agreed that it was ill done, but to himself he said gleefullythat whenever he was asked to tell the story of how he told the story ofMongan he would remember what the abbot said.