CHAPTER I
 “I think,” said Cairell Whiteskin, “that although judgement was given against Fionn, it was Fionn had the rights of it.”
 “He had eleven hundred killed,” said Cona’n amiably, “and you may call that 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 all around 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. Come with me, my dear, and let us see how the youngsters are shaping in the school. 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 that weapon.”
 “Boys are good enough with slings,” Confro continued, “but except for eating their fill and running away from a fight, you can’t count on boys.”
 The two bulky men turned towards the school of the Fianna.
 It happened that Fionn mac Uail had summoned the gentlemen of the Fianna and their wives to a banquet. Everybody came, for a banquet given by Fionn was not a thing to be missed. There was Goll mor mac Morna and his people; Fionn’s son Oisi’n and his grandson Oscar. There was Dermod of the Gay Face, Caelte mac Ronan—but indeed there were too many to be told of, for all the pillars of war and battle-torches of the Gael were there.
 The banquet began.
 Fionn sat in the Chief Captain’s seat in the middle of the fort; and facing him, in the place of honour, he placed the mirthful Goll mac Morna; and from these, ranging on either side, the nobles of the Fianna took 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 been served with food to the limit of desire the butlers carried in shining, and jewelled drinking-horns, each having its tide of smooth, heady liquor. Then the young heroes grew merry and audacious, the ladies became gentle and kind, and the poets became wonders of knowledge and prophecy. Every eye beamed in that assembly, and on Fionn every eye was turned 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 tenderness and friendship.
 “Nothing is wanting,” he replied, “but a well-shaped poem.” A crier stood up then, holding in one hand a length of coarse iron links and in the other a chain of delicate, antique silver. He shook the iron chain so that the servants and followers of the household should be silent, and he shook the silver one so that the nobles and poets should hearken also.
 Fergus, called True-Lips, the poet of the Fianna-Finn, then sang of Fionn and his ancestors and their deeds. When he had finished Fionn and Oisi’n and Oscar and mac Lugac of the Terrible Hand gave him rare and costly presents, so that every person wondered at their munificence, and even the poet, accustomed to the liberality of kings and princes, was astonished at his gifts.
 Fergus then turned to the side of Goll mac Morna, and he sang of the Forts, the Destructions, the Raids, and the Wooings of clann-Morna; and as the poems succeeded each other, Goll grew more and more jovial and contented. 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 stepped forward.
 “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 doubly refined gold. Out of this treasure, and from the treasure of rings and bracelets and torques that were with him, Goll mac Morna paid Fergus for his songs, and, much as Fionn had given, Goll gave twice as much.
 But, as the banquet proceeded, Goll gave, whether it was to harpers or prophets or jugglers, more than any one else gave, so that Fionn became displeased, 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 in Lochlann but in Ireland.]
 The wonderful gift-giving of Goll continued, and an uneasiness and embarrassment began to creep through the great banqueting hall.
 Gentlemen looked at each other questioningly, and then spoke again on indifferent matters, but only with half of their minds. The singers, the harpers, and jugglers submitted to that constraint, so that every person felt 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 our master.
 That choice lay before Fionn, who never knew shame.
 “Goll,” said he, “how long have you been taking tribute from the people of 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,” Fionn continued.
 “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 of his brow.
 “I went into Britain,” said Goll, “and your father followed me there. I went into White Lochlann (Norway) and took it. Your father banished me thence also.”
 “I know it,” said Fionn.
 “I went into the land of the Saxons and your father chased me out of that land. And then, in Lochlann, at the battle of Cnocha your father and 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 of a 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 the Danish king, and I took out of his dungeon the men who had lain there for a year and were awaiting their deaths. I liberated fifteen prisoners, 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 I would 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 you killed my father.”
 “By my hand,” Goll replied, “if Fionn were to treat me as his father did I would treat Fionn the way I treated Fionn’s father.”
 Fionn closed his eyes and beat away the anger that was rising within him. 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 a harsh laugh.
 “How many of Fionn’s household has the wonderful Goll put down?” he cried.
 But Goll’s brother, bald Cona’n the Swearer, turned a savage eye on Cairell.
 “By my weapons,” said he, “there were never less than an hundred-and-one men with Goll, and the least of them could have put you down easily enough.”
 “Ah?” cried Cairell. “And are you one of the hundred-and-one, old scaldhead?”
 “One indeed, my thick-witted, thin-livered Cairell, and I undertake to prove on your hide that what my brother said was true and that what your brother said was false.”
 “You undertake that,” growled Cairell, and on the word he loosed a furious buffet at Con’an, which Cona’n returned with a fist so big that every part of Cairell’s face was hit with the one blow. The two then fell 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, and they leaped at Cona’n, and two of Goll’s sons rushed at them. Then Oscar himself leaped up, and with a hammer in either hand he went battering into 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 of Cona’n. He looked appealingly at his brother Art og mac Morna, and that powerful champion flew to his aid and wounded Oscar. Oisi’n, Oscar’s father, could not abide that; he dashed in and quelled Art Og. Then Rough 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 giving and taking blows. Here two champions with their arms round each other’s necks were stamping round and round in a slow, sad dance. Here were two crouching against each other, looking for a soft place to hit. Yonder a big-shouldered person lifted another man in his arms and threw him at a small group that charged him. In a retired corner a gentleman stood in a thoughtful attitude while he tried to pull out a tooth that had been knocked 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 I want to knock out another one.”
 Pressed against the wall was a bevy of ladies, some of whom were screaming and some laughing and all of whom were calling on the men to go 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 three hundred of the Fianna, and by this force all Goll’s people were put out of 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 on the 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-look at Fionn, he left the hall and charged irresistibly into the fray.
 Fionn then arose. He took his accoutrements from the wall also and strode out. Then he raised the triumphant Fenian shout and went into the combat.
 That was no place for a sick person to be. It was not the corner which a slender-fingered woman would choose to do up her hair; nor was it the spot an ancient man would select to think quietly in, for the tumult of sword on sword, of axe on shield, the roar of the contending parties, the crying of wounded men, and the screaming of frightened women destroyed peace, and over all was the rallying cry of Goll mac Morna and the 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 intone long, heavy rhymes and incantations, until the rhythmic beating of their voices covered even the noise of war, so that the men stopped hacking and hewing, and let their weapons drop from their hands. These were picked up by the poets and a reconciliation was effected between the two parties.
 But Fionn affirmed that he would make no peace with clann-Morna until the matter had been judged by the king, Cormac mac Art, and by his daughter Ailve, and by his son Cairbre of Ana Life’ and by Fintan the chief poet. Goll agreed that the affair should be submitted to that court, and a day was appointed, a fortnight from that date, to meet at Tara of the Kings for judgement. Then the hall was cleansed and the banquet recommenced.
 Of Fionn’s people eleven hundred of men and women were dead, while of Goll’s people eleven men and fifty women were dead. But it was through fright the women died, for not one of them had a wound or a bruise or a mark.

 CHAPTER III
 AT the end of a fortnight Fionn and Goll and the chief men of the Fianna attended at Tara. The king, his son and daughter, with Flahri, Feehal, and Fintan mac Bocna sat in the place of judgement, and Cormac called on the 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 into truth 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 way are we to obtain evidence?” the king demanded.
 “I,” said Goll, “will trust to the evidence of Fergus True-Lips. He is Fionn’s poet, and will tell no lie against his master; he is a poet, and will tell no lie against any one.”
 “I agree to that,” said Fionn.
 “I require, nevertheless,” Goll continued, “that Fergus should swear before the Court, by his gods, that he will do justice between us.”
 Fergus was accordingly sworn, and gave his evidence. He stated that Fionn’s brother Cairell struck Cona’n mac Morna, that Goll’s two sons came to help Cona’n, that Oscar went to help Cairell, and with that Fionn’s people and the clann-Morna rose at each other, and what had started as a brawl ended as a battle with eleven hundred of Fionn’s people and sixty-one of Goll’s people dead.
 “I marvel,” said the king in a discontented voice, “that, considering the 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 slaughter was done by him.”
 “The press was too great,” Fionn grumbled. “I could not get at him in time 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 owes obedience to his captain, and that, given the time and the place, Fionn was 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 of fists, 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 be free from payment of damages.”
 “And as regards Fionn?” said Cormac.
 “I hold that on account of his great losses Fionn is to be exempt from payment of damages, and that his losses are to be considered as damages.”
 “I agree in that judgement,” said Fintan.
 The king and his son also agreed, and the decision was imparted to the Fianna.
 “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 each other well.
 Yet, now that the years have gone by, I think the fault lay with Goll and not with Fionn, and that the judgement given did not consider everything. For at that table Goll should not have given greater gifts than his master and host did. And it was not right of Goll to take by force the position of greatest gift-giver of the Fianna, for there was never in the world one greater at giving gifts, or giving battle, or making poems than Fionn was.
 That side of the affair was not brought before the Court. But perhaps it was suppressed out of delicacy for Fionn, for if Goll could be accused of ostentation, Fionn was open to the uglier charge of jealousy. It was, nevertheless, Goll’s forward and impish temper which commenced the brawl, and the verdict of time must be to exonerate Fionn and to let the blame go where it is merited.
 There is, however, this to be added and remembered, that whenever Fionn was in a tight corner it was Goll that plucked him out of it; and, later on, when time did his worst on them all and the Fianna were sent to hell as unbelievers, it was Goll mac Morna who assaulted hell, with a chain in his great fist and three iron balls swinging from it, and it was he who attacked the hosts of great devils and brought Fionn and the Fianna-Finn out with him.

CHAPTER I
 One day something happened to Fionn, the son of Uail; that is, he departed from the world of men, and was set wandering in great distress of mind through Faery. He had days and nights there and adventures there, and was able to bring back the memory of these.
 That, by itself, is wonderful, for there are few people who remember that they have been to Faery or aught of all that happened to them in that state.
 In truth we do not go to Faery, we become Faery, and in the beating of a pulse we may live for a year or a thousand years. But when we return the memory is quickly clouded, and we seem to have had a dream or seen a vision, although we have verily been in Faery.
 It was wonderful, then, that Fionn should have remembered all that happened to him in that wide-spun moment, but in this tale there is yet more to marvel at; for not only did Fionn go to Faery, but the great army which he had marshalled to Ben Edair [The Hill of Howth] were translated also, and neither he nor they were aware that they had departed 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 they reached Ben Edair it was decided to pitch camp so that the troops might rest in view of the warlike plan which Fionn had imagined for the morrow. The camp was chosen, and each squadron and company of the host were lodged into an appropriate place, so there was no overcrowding and no halt or interruption of the march; for where a company halted that was 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 a level, grassy plateau overlooking the sea, where a consultation began as to the next day’s manoeuvres, and during this discussion they looked often 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 the east.
 Now and again, in a lull of the discussion, a champion would look and remark on the hurrying vessel; and it may have been during one of these moments 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 a vessel well equipped for war.
 As the ship drew by the shore the watchers observed a tall man swing from the side by means of his spear shafts, and in a little while this gentleman was announced to Fionn, and was brought into his presence.
 A sturdy, bellicose, forthright personage he was indeed. He was equipped in a wonderful solidity of armour, with a hard, carven helmet on his head, a splendid red-bossed shield swinging on his shoulder, a wide-grooved, straight sword clashing along his thigh. On his shoulders under the shield he carried a splendid scarlet mantle; over his breast was a great brooch of burnt gold, and in his fist he gripped a pair of thick-shafted, unburnished spears.
 Fionn and the champions looked on this gentleman, and they admired exceedingly his bearing and equipment.
 “Of what blood are you, young gentleman?” Fionn demanded, “and from which of the four corners of the world do you come?”
 “My name is Cael of the Iron,” the stranger answered, “and I am son to the King of Thessaly.”
 “What errand has brought you here?”
 “I do not go on errands,” the man replied sternly, “but on the affairs that 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 island until 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 the haft of his spear violently on the ground.
 “By my hand,” said Cona’n, “we have never heard of a warrior, however great, but his peer was found in Ireland, and the funeral songs of all such have been chanted by the women of this land.”
 “By my hand and word,” said the harsh stranger, “your talk makes me think of a small boy or of an idiot.”
 “Take heed, sir,” said Fionn, “for the champions and great dragons of the Gael are standing by you, and around us there are fourteen battles of the Fianna of Ireland.”
 “If all the Fianna who have died in the last seven years were added to all that are now here,” the stranger asserted, “I would treat all of these and those grievously, and would curtail their limbs and their lives.”
 “It is no small boast,” Cona’n murmured, staring at him.
 “It is no boast at all,” said Cael, “and, to show my quality and standing, 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 your fourteen battalions who can outrun or outwrestle or outfight me, I will take 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 he stare, that dismay began to seize on the champions, and even Fionn felt that his breath had halted.
 “It is spoken like a hero,” he admitted after a moment, “and if you cannot be matched on those terms it will not be from a dearth of applicants.”
 “In running alone,” Fionn continued thoughtfully, “we have a notable champion, 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 stranger sneered. “He will be asked to outrun me,” he thundered. “Produce this runner, and we shall discover if he keeps as great heart in his feet as he has made you think.”
 “He is not with us,” Cona’n lamented.
 “These notable warriors are never with us when the call is made,” said the grim stranger.
 “By my hand,” cried Fionn, “he shall be here in no great time, for I will fetch him myself.”
 “Be it so,” said Cael. “And during my absence,” Fionn continued, “I leave this as a compact, that you make friends with the Fianna here present, and that you observe all the conditions and ceremonies of friendship.”
 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 mac Romin would surely be there; “and if he is not there,” said the champion to 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 to an intricate, gloomy wood, where the trees grew so thickly and the undergrowth was such a sprout and tangle that one could scarcely pass through it. He remembered that a path had once been hacked through the wood, and he sought for this. It was a deeply scooped, hollow way, and it ran or wriggled through the entire length of the wood.
 Into this gloomy drain Fionn descended and made progress, but when he had penetrated deeply in the dank forest he heard a sound of thumping and 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. On his stamping feet there were great brogues of boots that were shaped like, but were bigger than, a boat, and each time he put a foot down it squashed and squirted a barrelful of mud from the sunk road.
 Fionn had never seen the like of this vast person, and he stood gazing on him, lost in a stare of astonishment.
 The great man saluted him.
 “All alone, Fionn?” he cried. “How does it happen that not one Fenian of the Fianna is at the side of his captain?” At this inquiry Fionn got back his wits.
 “That is too long a story and it is too intricate and pressing to be told, 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 the challenge the latter had issued, and that he, Fionn, was off to Tara of the 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 the course by the time your Caelte begins to think of starting.”
 “Then,” said Fionn, “I no longer know where to turn, or how to protect the honour of Ireland.”
 “I know how to do these things,” the other man commented with a slow nod of 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 of Rona’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 that are plastered on each of your coat-tails, to say nothing of your weighty boots.”
 “By my hand,” the man cried, “there is no person in Ireland but myself can 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 vast stranger; and there were some who hid their faces in their mantles so that they should not be seen to laugh, and there were some who rolled along the ground in merriment, and there were others who could only hold their mouths open and crook their knees and hang their arms and stare dumbfoundedly upon the stranger, as though they were utterly dazed.
 Cael of the Iron came also on the scene, and he examined the stranger with 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 you in the race.”
 Cael of the Iron grew purple in the face, and he almost swallowed his tongue through wrath.
 “Until the end of eternity,” he roared, “and until the very last moment of 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 eardrums of the warriors present almost burst inside of their heads.
 “Be reassured, my darling, I am no beggarman, and my quality is not more gross 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 shall run with me or you shall run to your ship with me behind you. What length 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 place to the Hill of the Rushes, Slieve Luachra of Munster, is exactly sixty miles. 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 the morning 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 they reached 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 hut to pass the night in.”
 “I’Il build nothing,” Cael replied, looking on the Carl with great disfavour.
 “No!”
 “I won’t build house or hut for the sake of passing one night here, for I hope never to see this place again.”
 “I’Il build a house myself,” said the Carl, “and the man who does not help in the building can stay outside of the house.”
 The Carl stumped to a near-by wood, and he never rested until he had felled and tied together twenty-four couples of big timber. He thrust these under one arm and under the other he tucked a bundle of rushes for his bed, and with that one load he rushed up a house, well thatched and snug, and with the timber that remained over he made a bonfire on the floor of the house.
 His companion sat at a distance regarding the work with rage and aversion.
 “Now Cael, my darling,” said the Carl, “if you are a man help me to look for something to eat, for there is game here.”
 “Help yourself,” roared Cael, “for all that I want is not to be near you.”
 “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 run down. 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 the rushes, and in two turns he fell asleep.
 But Cael lay out on the side of the hill, and if he went to sleep that night he slept fasting. It was he, however, who awakened the Carl in the morning.
 “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 another hour of it due to me. But if you are in a hurry, my delight, you can start running now with a blessing. I will trot on your track when I waken up.”
 Cael began to race then, and he was glad of the start, for his antagonist made so little account of him that he did not know what to expect when the Carl would begin to run.
 “Yet,” said Cael to himself, “with an hour’s start the beggarman will have to move his bones if he wants to catch on me,” and he settled down to a good, pelting race.

 CHAPTER V
 At the end of an hour the Carl awoke. He ate the second half of the boar, and he tied the unpicked bones in the tail of his coat. Then with a 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 went forward in great two-legged jumps, and at times he moved in immense one-legged, mud-spattering hops, and at times again, with wide-stretched, far-flung, terrible-tramping, space-destroying legs he ran.
 He left the swallows behind as if they were asleep. He caught up on a red deer, jumped over it, and left it standing. The wind was always behind him, for he outran it every time; and he caught up in jumps and bounces on Cael of the Iron, although Cael was running well, with his fists up and his head back and his two legs flying in and out so vigorously 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 of his 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 a rest.”
 “Keep your filth, beggarman,” the other replied, “for I would rather be hanged than gnaw on a bone that you have browsed.”
 “Why don’t you run, my pulse?” said the Carl earnestly; “why don’t you try 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 a terrified spider.
 “I am running,” he gasped.
 “But try and run like this,” the Carl admonished, and he gave a wriggling bound and a sudden outstretching and scurrying of shanks, and he 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 run until I burst,” he shrieked, “and when I burst, may I burst to a great distance, and may I trip that beggar-man up with my burstings and make him break his leg.”
 He settled then to a determined, savage, implacable trot. He caught up on the Carl at last, for the latter had stopped to eat blackberries from the bushes on the road, and when he drew nigh, Cael began to jeer and sneer 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 Carl rebuked 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,” he burbled.
 “Look at your coat, tub of grease?”
 The Carl did so.
 “My faith,” said he, “where are the two tails of my coat?” “I could smell one of them and it wrapped around a little tree thirty miles back,” said Cael, “and the other one was dishonouring a bush ten miles behind that.”
 “It is bad luck to be separated from the tails of your own coat,” the Carl grumbled. “I’ll have to go back for them. Wait here, beloved, and eat blackberries until I come back, and we’ll both start fair.”
 “Not half a second will I wait,” Cael replied, and he began to run towards Ben Edair as a lover runs to his maiden or as a bee flies to his hive.
 “I haven’t had half my share of blackberries either,” the Carl lamented as he started to run backwards for his coat-tails.
 He ran determinedly on that backward journey, and as the path he had travelled was beaten out as if it had been trampled by an hundred bulls yoked neck to neck, he was able to find the two bushes and the two coat-tails. He sewed them on his coat.
 Then he sprang up, and he took to a fit and a vortex and an exasperation of running for which no description may be found. The thumping of his big boots grew as con-tinuous as the pattering of hailstones on a roof, and the wind of his passage blew trees down. The beasts that were ranging beside his path dropped dead from concussion, and the steam that snored from his nose blew birds into bits and made great lumps of cloud fall out of the sky.
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 He again caught up on Cael, who was running with his head down and his toes up.
 “If you won’t try to run, my treasure,” said the Carl, “you will never get 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 in a flash.
 “I will run until I burst,” sobbed Cael, and he screwed agitation and despair into his legs until he hummed and buzzed like a blue-bottle on a window.
 Five miles from Ben Edair the Carl stopped, for he had again come among blackberries.
 He ate of these until he was no more than a sack of juice, and when he heard the humming and buzzing of Cael of the Iron he mourned and lamented 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 went bounding stoutly and nimbly for Ben Edair.

 CHAPTER VI
 It would be hard to tell of the terror that was in Fionn’s breast and in the hearts of the Fianna while they attended the conclusion of that race.
 They discussed it unendingly, and at some moment of the day a man upbraided Fionn because he had not found Caelte the son of Rona’n as had been 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 and watch for the coming of the racers.”
 And he sent lithe men with him so that they might run back in endless succession 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 the brains 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 you imagine 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 flickered before his eyes. His hands began to twitch and a desire crept over him to seize on champions by the neck, and to shake and worry and rage among them 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 drooping open, and such a wildness and bristle lowering from that great glum brow that the champions shivered as though already in the chill of death, and were 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 on the 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 been carven 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 and gloomed 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, gaunt forehead. For it seemed as if the watcher stared with his whole face, aye, and with his hands; but Fionn brooded weightedly on distance with his 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,” said Fionn. “There is a trample,” he said.
 The watcher became then an eye, a rigidity, an intense out-thrusting and ransacking of thin-spun distance. At last he spoke.
 “There is a dust,” he said.
 And at that the champions gazed also, straining hungrily afar, until their eyes became filled with a blue darkness and they could no longer see 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 tears and winks, and they saw trees that stood up and sat down, and fields that 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 became pin-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 in the distance, but straining upon the eye of the watcher as though they would penetrate it and look through it.
 “It is the Carl,” he said, “carrying something on his back, and behind him again there is a dust.”
 “Are you sure?” said Fionn in a voice that rumbled and vibrated like thunder.
 “It is the Carl,” said the watcher, “and the dust behind him is Cael of the Iron trying to catch him up.”
 Then the Fianna gave a roar of exultation, and each man seized his neighbour and kissed him on both cheeks; and they gripped hands about Fionn, and they danced round and round in a great circle, roaring with laughter and relief, in the ecstasy which only comes where grisly fear has been and whence that bony jowl has taken itself away.

 CHAPTER VIII
 The Carl of the Drab Coat came bumping and stumping and clumping into the camp, and was surrounded by a multitude that adored him and hailed him 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 and crannies and deep-down profundities of my stomach. Meal, meal!” he lamented.
 Meal was brought.
 The Carl put his coat on the ground, opened it carefully, and revealed a 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 of meal, and be mixed the two up and through, and round and down, until the pile of white-black, red-brown slibber-slobber reached up to his shoulders. Then he commenced to paw and impel and project and cram the mixture into his mouth, and between each mouthful he sighed a contented sigh, 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 or a savage, steep-winged griffin was hovering about them, and looking away they saw Cael of the Iron charging on them with a monstrous extension and scurry of his legs. He had a sword in his hand, and there was nothing in his face but redness and ferocity.
 Fear fell llke night around the Fianna, and they stood with slack knees and hanging hands waiting for death. But the Carl lifted a pawful of his oozy slop and discharged this at Cael with such a smash that the man’s head spun off his shoulders and hopped along the ground. The Carl then picked up the head and threw it at the body with such aim and force that the neck part of the head jammed into the neck part of the body and stuck there, as good a head as ever, you would have said, but that it bad got twisted the wrong way round. The Carl then lashed his opponent hand 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 to Fionn, 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 he raised his big boot and gave the boat a kick that drove it seven leagues out into the sea, and that was how the adventure of Cael of the Iron finished.
 “Who are you, sir?” said Fionn to the Carl.
 But before answering the Carl’s shape changed into one of splendour and delight.
 “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, and with that the tale is ended of the King of Thessaly’s son and the Carl of the Drab Coat.
 

 CHAPTER II
 Now the king of the Shi’ of Cesh Corran, Conaran, son of Imidel, was also watching the hunt, but Fionn did not see him, for we cannot see the people of Faery until we enter their realm, and Fionn was not thinking of Faery at that moment. Conaran did not like Fionn, and, seeing that the great champion was alone, save for Cona’n and the two hounds Bran and 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 bad enough, for the king of the Shi’ of Cesh Cotran was filled with joy at the sight of Fionn thus close to him, thus unprotected, thus unsuspicious.
 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 humour and twisted temperaments.
 Their hair was black as ink and tough as wire: it stuck up and poked out and hung down about their heads in bushes and spikes and tangles. Their eyes were bleary and red. Their mouths were black and twisted, and in each of these mouths there was a hedge of curved yellow fangs. They had long scraggy necks that could turn all the way round like the neck of a hen. Their arms were long and skinny and muscular, and at the end of each finger they had a spiked nail that was as hard as horn and as sharp as a briar. Their bodies were covered with a bristle of hair and fur and fluff, so that they looked like dogs in some parts and like cats in others, and in other parts again they looked like chickens. They had moustaches poking under their noses and woolly wads growing out of their ears, so that when you looked at them the first time you never wanted to look at them again, and if you had to look at them a second time you were 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 her yet.
 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, as was usual with her when she was satisfied.
 “When the chance comes take it,” Conaran continued, and he smiled a black, beetle-browed, unbenevolent smile.
 “It’s a good word,” quoth Cuillen, and she swung her jaw loose and made it 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 like her sister’s, only that it was worse, and the wen that grew on her nose joggled 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 which would have been a deadly thing for anybody else to see.
 “But Fionn cannot see us,” Caevo’g objected, and her brow set downwards and her chin set upwards and her mouth squeezed sidewards, so that her face looked like a badly disappointed nut.
 “And we are worth seeing,” Cuillen continued, and the disappointment that was set in her sister’s face got carved and twisted into hers, but it was worse in her case.
 “That is the truth,” said Iaran in a voice of lamentation, and her face took on a gnarl and a writhe and a solidity of ugly woe that beat the other two and made even her father marvel.
 “He cannot see us now,” Conaran replied, “but he will see us in a minute.”
 “Won’t Fionn be glad when he sees us!” said the three sisters.
 And then they joined hands and danced joyfully around their father, and they 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 they applied it to every kind of circumstance.

 CHAPTER III
 BY his arts Conaran changed the sight of Fionn’s eyes, and he did the same for Cona’n.
 In a few minutes Fionn stood up from his place on the mound. Everything was about him as before, and he did not know that he had gone into Faery. He walked for a minute up and down the hillock. Then, as by chance, he stepped down the sloping end of the mound and stood with his mouth 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 before him.
 “If you are dreaming,” said Congn, “I’m dreaming too. They weren’t here a minute ago,” he stammered.
 Fionn looked up at the sky and found that it was still there. He stared to one side and saw the trees of Kyle Conor waving in the distance. He bent his ear to the wind and heard the shouting of hunters, the yapping of 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 were looking 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, and in that doorway the daughters of Conaran sat spinning. They had three crooked sticks of holly set up before the cave, and they were reeling yarn 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 behind the holly.”
 “I would be contented if I could not see them at all,” his companion grumbled.
 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 let us 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 good opinion of women, and if the three yonder are women, then I feel sure I shall begin to dislike females from this minute out.”
 “Come on, my love,” said Fionn, “for I must find out if these whiskers are true.”
 He strode resolutely into the cave. He pushed the branches of holly aside 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 the heroes. Their fists seemed to grow heavy as lead, and went dingle-dangle at the ends of their arms; their legs became as light as straws and began to bend in and out; their necks became too delicate to hold anything 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 twist and 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. “Who wants whiskers?” he groaned.
 But Fionn was thinking of other things.
 “If there was any way of warning the Fianna not to come here,” Fionn murmured.
 “There is no way, my darling,” said Caevo’g, and she smiled a smile that would have killed Fionn, only that he shut his eyes in time.
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 After a moment he murmured again:
 “Conan, my dear love, give the warning whistle so that the Fianna will keep out of this place.”
 A little whoof, like the sound that would be made by a baby and it asleep, came from Cona’n.
 “Fionn,” said he, “there isn’t a whistle in me. We are done for,” said he.
 “You are done for, indeed,” said Cuillen, and she smiled a hairy and twisty and fangy smile that almost finished Cona’n.
 By that time some of the Fianna had returned to the mound to see why Bran and Sceo’lan were barking so outrageously. They saw the cave and went into it, but no sooner had they passed the holly branches than their strength went from them, and they were seized and bound by the vicious hags. Little by little all the members of the Fianna returned to the hill, and each of them was drawn into the cave, and each was bound by 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, and they 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 and was almost death to see. As the men were captured they were carried by the hags into dark mysterious holes and black perplexing labyrinths.
 “Here is another one,” cried Caevo’g as she bundled a trussed champion along.
 “This one is fat,” said Cuillen, and she rolled a bulky Fenian along like a wheel.
 “Here,” said Iaran, “is a love of a man. One could eat this kind of man,” she murmured, and she licked a lip that had whiskers growing inside as well as out.
 And the corded champion whimpered in her arms, for he did not know but eating might indeed be his fate, and he would have preferred to be coffined anywhere in the world rather than to be coffined inside of that face. So far for them.

 CHAPTER V
 Within the cave there was silence except for the voices of the hags and the scarcely audible moaning of the Fianna-Finn, but without there was a dreadful uproar, for as each man returned from the chase his dogs came with 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 could scent their masters and their masters’ danger, and perhaps they could get from the cave smells till then unknown and full of alarm.
 From the troop of dogs there arose a baying and barking, a snarling and howling and growling, a yelping and squealing and bawling for which no words can be found. Now and again a dog nosed among a thousand smells and scented his master; the ruff of his neck stood up like a hog’s bristles 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 the cave, and then he halted and sneaked back again with all his ruffles smoothed, his tail between his legs, his eyes screwed sideways in miserable apology and alarm, and a long thin whine of woe dribbling out of his nose.
 The three sisters took their wide-channelled, hard-tempered swords in their hands, and prepared to slay the Fianna, but before doing so they gave one more look from the door of the cave to see if there might be a straggler of the Fianna who was escaping death by straggling, and they saw one coming towards them with Bran and Sceo’lan leaping beside him, while all the other dogs began to burst their throats with barks and split their noses with snorts and wag their tails off at sight of the tall, valiant, white-toothed champion, Goll mor mac Morna. “We will kill that 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 meet the son of Morna, and when he saw these three Goll whipped the sword from his thigh, swung his buckler round, and got to them in ten great leaps.
 Silence fell on the world during that conflict. The wind went down; the clouds stood still; the old hill itself held its breath; the warriors within ceased to be men and became each an ear; and the dogs sat in a vast circle round the combatants, with their heads all to one side, their noses poked forward, their mouths half open, and their tails forgotten. Now and again a dog whined in a whisper and snapped a little snap on the air, but except for that there was neither sound nor movement.
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 It was a long fight. It was a hard and a tricky fight, and Goll won it by bravery and strategy and great good luck; for with one shrewd slice of 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 and toes to his left: and that stroke was known afterwards as one of the three great sword-strokes of Ireland. The third hag, however, had managed to get behind Goll, and she leaped on to his back with the bound of a panther, and hung here with the skilful, many-legged, tight-twisted clutching of a spider. But the great champion gave a twist of his hips and 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 his honour and bravery.
 “I put my life under your protection,” said she. “And if you let me go free I will lift the enchantment from the Fianna-Finn and will give them all back to you again.”
 “I agree to that,” said Goll, and he untied her straps. The harridan did as she had promised, and in a short time Fionn and Oisi’n and Oscar and Cona’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 courage of the world went into him and he felt that he could fight twenty. But while they were talking over the adventure and explaining how it had happened, a vast figure strode over the side of the hill and descended among them. It was Conaran’s fourth daughter.
 If the other three had been terrible to look on, this one was more terrible than the three together. She was clad in iron plate, and she had a wicked sword by her side and a knobby club in her hand She halted by the bodies of her sisters, and bitter tears streamed down into her beard.
 “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 time in 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 great hag?”
 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, for there was no man there but was terrified by the sight of that mighty and valiant harridan.
 Fionn rose to his feet. “I will take this combat myself,” he said sternly.
 And he swung his buckler forward and stretched his right hand to the sword. But at that terrible sight Goll mae Morna blushed deeply and leaped from the ground.
 “No, no,” he cried; “no, my soul, Fionn, this would not be a proper combat 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 who killed the two sisters of this valiant hag, and it is against me the feud lies.”
 “That will do for me,” said the horrible daughter of Conaran. “I will kill Goll mor mac Morna first, and after that I will kill Fionn, and after 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 him with equal alacrity. In a moment the heavens rang to the clash of swords on bucklers. It was hard to with-stand the terrific blows of that mighty female, for her sword played with the quickness of lightning and smote like the heavy crashing of a storm. But into that din and encirclement Goll pressed and ventured, steady as a rock in water, agile as a creature of the sea, and when one of the combatants retreated it was the hag that gave backwards. As her foot moved a great shout of joy rose from the Fianna. A snarl went over the huge face of the monster and she leaped forward again, but she met Goll’s point in the road; it went through her, and in another moment Goll took her head from its shoulders and swung it on high before Fionn.
 As the Fianna turned homewards Fionn spoke to his great champion and enemy.
 “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 later on, nor did it prevent Fionn from killing Goll later on again, and the last did not prevent Goll from rescuing Fionn out of hell when the Fianna-Finn were sent there under the new God. Nor is there any reason to complain or to be astonished at these things, for it is a mutual world we llve in, a give-and-take world, and there is no great harm in it.