he questioned Finn the
same as the others had done, and Finn told him the whole story. "And it
is to you she is come," he said; "and here she is to you out of my hand,
and all the war and the battles she brings with her; but it will not
fall heavier on you," he said, "than on the rest of the Fianna."

And she was with Lugaidh's Son a month and a year without being asked
for. But one day the three battalions of the Fianna were on the Hill of
the Poet in Leinster, and they saw three armed battalions equal to
themselves coming, against them, and they asked who was bringing them.
"It is Mal, son of Aiel, is bringing them," said Finn, "to avenge his
wife on the Fianna. And it is a good time they are come," he said, "when
we are gathered together at the one spot."

Then the two armies went towards one another, and Mal, son of Aiel,
took hold of his arms, and three times he broke through the Fianna, and
every time a hundred fell by him. And in the middle of the battle he and
Lugaidh's Son met, and they fought against one another with spear and
sword. And whether the fight was short or long, it was Mal fell by
Lugaidh's Son at the last.

And Aoife stood on a hill near by, as long as the battle lasted. And
from that out she belonged to Lugaidh's Son, and was a mother of
children to him.

BOOK TWO: FINN'S HELPERS

CHAPTER I. THE LAD OF THE SKINS

Besides all the men Finn had in his household, there were some that
would come and join him from one place or another. One time a young man
wearing a dress of skins came to Finn's house at Almhuin, and his wife
along with him, and he asked to take service with Finn.

And in the morning, as they were going to their hunting, the Lad of the
Skins said to Finn: "Let me have no one with me but myself, and let me
go into one part of the country by myself, and you yourself with all
your men go to another part." "Is it on the dry ridges you will go,"
said Finn, "or is it in the deep bogs and marshes, where there is danger
of drowning?" "I will go in the deep boggy places," said he.

So they all went out from Almhuin, Finn and the Fianna to one part, and
the Lad of the Skins to another part, and they hunted through the day.
And when they came back at evening, the Lad of the Skins had killed more
than Finn and all his men together.

When Finn saw that, he was glad to have so good a servant. But Conan
said to him: "The Lad of the Skins will destroy ourselves and the whole
of the