cheerful talk
and laughter and with the music of tympan and of harp, Finn asked of
the assembled captains in what part of Erinn they should proceed to
beat up game on the morrow. And it was agreed among them to repair to
the territory of Thomond and Desmond in Munster; and from Allen they
set out accordingly and came to the Hill of Knockany. Thence they
threw out the hunt and sent their bands of beaters through many a
gloomy ravine and by many a rugged hill-pass and many a fair open
plain. Desmond's high hills, called now Slievelogher, they beat, and
the smooth, swelling hills of Slievenamuck, and the green slopes of
grassy Slievenamon, and the towering rough crags of the Decies, and
thence on to the dark woods of Belachgowran.

While the great hunt was going forward Finn with certain of his chief
captains sat on a high mound to overlook it. There, with Finn, were
Goll and Art mac Morna, and Liagan the swift runner, and Dermot of the
Love Spot, and Keelta, son of Ronan, and there also was Conan the
Bald, the man of scurrilous tongue, and a score or so more. Sweet it
was to Finn and his companions to hear from the woods and wildernesses
around them the many-tongued baying of the hounds and the cries and
whistling of the beaters, the shouting of the strong men and the notes
of the Fian hunting-horn.

When they had sat there awhile one of Finn's men came running quickly
towards him and said--

"A stranger is approaching us from the westward, O Finn, and I much
mislike his aspect."

With that all the Fians looked up and beheld upon the hillside a huge
man, looking like some Fomorian marauder, black-visaged and ugly, with
a sour countenance and ungainly limbs. On his back hung a dingy black
shield, on his misshapen left thigh he wore a sharp broad-bladed
sword; projecting over his shoulder were two long lances with broad
rusty heads. He wore garments that looked as if they had been buried
in a cinder heap, and a loose ragged mantle. Behind him there shambled
a sulky, ill-shapen mare with a bony carcase and bowed knees, and on
her neck a clumsy iron halter. With a rope her master hauled her
along, with violent jerks that seemed as if they would wrench her head
from her scraggy neck, and ever and anon the mare would stand and jib,
when the man laid on her ribs such blows from a strong ironshod cudgel
that they sounded like the surges of the sea beating on a rocky coast.
Short as was the distance from where the man and hi