ught with beautiful chasing and with
coloured enamels, they lived mostly a free out-door life in the light
hunting-booths which they made in the woods where the deer and the
wolf ranged. There were then vast forests in Ireland, which are all
gone now, and there were also, as there still are, many great and
beautiful lakes and rivers, swarming with fish and water-fowl. In the
forests and on the mountain sides roamed the wild boar and the wolf,
and great herds of deer, some of giant size, whose enormous antlers
are sometimes found when bogs are being drained. The Fianna chased
these and the wolves with great dogs, whose courage and strength and
beauty were famous throughout Europe, and which they prized and loved
above all things. To the present day in Ireland there still remain
some of this breed of Irish hounds, but the giant deer and the wolf
are gone, and the Fianna of Erinn live only in the ancient books that
were written of them, and in the tales that are still told of them in
the winter evenings by the Irish peasant's fireside.

The Fianna were under the rule of one great captain or chief, and at
the time I tell of his name was Cumhal, son of Trenmor. Now a tribe or
family of the Fianna named the Clan Morna, or Sons of Morna, rose in
rebellion against Cumhal, for they were jealous and greedy of his
power and glory, and sought to have the captaincy for themselves. They
defeated and slew him at the battle of Cnucha, which is now called
Castleknock, near the City of the Hurdle Ford, which is the name that
Dublin still bears in the Irish tongue. Goll, son of Morna, slew
Cumhal, and they spoiled him of the Treasure Bag of the Fianna, which
was a bag made of a crane's skin and having in it jewels of great
price, and magic weapons, and strange things that had come down from
far-off days when the Fairy Folk and mortal men battled for the
lordship of Ireland. The Bag with its treasures was given to Lia, the
chief of Luachar in Connacht, who had the keeping of it before, for he
was the treasurer of Cumhal, and he was the first man who had wounded
Cumhal in the battle when he fell.

Cumhal's wife was named Murna, and she bore him two sons. The elder
was named Tulcha, and he fled from the country for fear of Goll and
took service with the King of Scotland. The younger was born after
Cumhal's death, and his name was called Demna. And because his mother
feared that the sons of Morna would find him out and kill him, she
gave hi