m to a Druidess and another wise woman of Cumhal's household,
and bade them take him away and rear him as best they could. So they
took him into the wild woods on the Slieve Bloom Mountains, and there
they trained him to hunt and fish and to throw the spear, and he grew
strong, and as beautiful as a child of the Fairy Folk. If he were in
the same field with a hare he could run so that the hare could never
leave the field, for Demna was always before it. He could run down and
slay a stag with no dogs to help him, and he could kill a wild duck on
the wing with a stone from his sling. And the Druidess taught him the
learning of the time, and also the story of his race and nation, and
told him of his right to be captain of the Fianna of Erinn when his
day of destiny should come.

One day, while still a boy, he was roaming through the woods when he
came to the mansion of a great lord, where many boys, sons of the
chief men of Ireland, were being trained in manly arts and exercises.
He found them playing at hurling, and they invited him to join them.
He did so, but the side he was on won too easily, so they divided
again, and yet again, giving fewer and fewer to Demna's side, till at
last he alone drove the ball to the goal through them all, flashing
among them as a salmon among a shoal of minnows. And then their anger
and jealousy rose and grew bitter against the stranger, and instead of
honouring him as gallant lads of gentle blood should have done they
fell upon him with their hurling clubs and sought to kill him. But
Demna felled seven of them to the ground and put the rest to flight,
and then went his way home. When the boys told what had happened the
chief asked them who it was that had defeated and routed them
single-handed. They said, "It was a tall shapely lad, and very fair
(_finn_)." So the name of Finn, the Fair One, clung to him
thenceforth, and by that name he is known to this day.

By and by Finn gathered round him a band of youths who loved him for
his strength and valour and for his generous heart, and with them he
went hunting in the forests. And Goll, and the sons of Morna, who were
now captains of the Fianna under the High King, began to hear tales of
him and his exploits, and they sent trackers to inquire about him, for
they had an inkling of who this wonderful fair-haired youth might be.
Finn's foster mothers heard of this. "You must leave this place," they
said to him, "and see our faces no more, for i