hat he might let Diarmid be,
and there was peace for many years, and Diarmid prospered mightily,
and had four sons and one daughter.

THE GREEN BOAR

But one day a restless spirit seized on Grania, and she told Diarmid
that it was a shame to them that the two greatest men in Erin, Cormac
and Fionn, had never visited their house, and she wished to give a
splendid feast and to bid them to it. And this was done: for a year
Grania and her daughter were preparing the feast, and when it was
ready the guests came, and stayed feasting for a year.

It was on the last day of the year that in his sleep Diarmid heard the
voice of a dog that caused him to start and to wake Grania. 'What is
the matter?' said she, and Diarmid told her. 'May you be kept safely,'
answered Grania; 'lie down again.' So Diarmid lay down, but no sleep
would come to him, and by-and-by he heard the hound's voice again, but
again Grania kept him from seeking it. This time he fell into a deep
slumber, and a third time the hound bayed, and he woke and said to
Grania, 'Now it is day, and I will go.' 'Well, then,' said she, 'take
your large sword and the red javelin.' But Diarmid answered, 'No, I
will take the little sword that bites, and the small javelin, and my
favourite hound on a chain.'

So he went without stopping to the top of a mountain, where Fionn
stood alone. Diarmid asked if he was hunting, and Fionn said no, but
that after midnight a company of Fenians had come out, and one of the
hounds had crossed the track of the wild boar of Ben Gulbain, which
had slain thirty Fenians that morning.

'He is even now coming up this mountain against us,' added he, 'so let
us leave the place.'

'I will never leave the place for him,' answered Diarmid.

'Know you not that when you were a child a wizard prophesied that you
should live as long as a green boar without ears or tail, and that it
was by him that you should fall at last?'

'No, I knew nothing of these things, but for all that I will not leave
the mountain,' answered Diarmid. And Fionn went his way, and Diarmid
stood alone on the top. 'It was to slay me that you made this hunt, O
Fionn; and if it is fated that I die here, die I must.'

The wild boar came tearing up the mountain, and behind him followed
the Fenians. Diarmid slipped his hound, but it profited him nothing,
for he did not await the boar, but fled before him. 'Woe unto him that
doeth not the counsel of a good wife,' said Diarmid to