he Battle, and Ilar, the Eagle." "What is it you came for?" "To
enter into service, and your friendship," said they. "What good will it
do us, you to be with us?" said Finn. "We are three," said they, "and
you can make a different use of each one of us." "What uses are those?"
said Finn. "I will do the watching for all the Fianna of Ireland and of
Alban," said one of them. "I will take the weight of every fight and
every battle that will come to them, the way they can keep themselves in
quiet," said the second. "I will meet every troublesome thing that might
come to my master," said the third; "and let all the wants of the world
be told to me and I will satisfy them. And I have a pipe with me," he
said; "and all the men of the world would sleep at the sound of it, and
they in their sickness. And as to the hound," he said, "as long as there
are deer in Ireland he will get provision for the Fianna every second
night. And I myself," he said, "will get it on the other nights." "What
will you ask of us to be with us like that?" said Finn. "We will ask
three things," they said: "no one to come near to the place where we
have our lodging after the fall of night; nothing to be given out to us,
but we to provide for ourselves; and the worst places to be given to us
in the hunting." "Tell me by your oath now," said Finn, "why is it you
will let no one see you after nightfall?" "We have a reason," said they;
"but do not ask it of us, whether we are short or long on the one path
with you. But we will tell you this much," they said, "every third
night, one of us three is dead and the other two are watching him, and
we have no mind for any one to be looking at us."

So Finn promised that; but if he did there were some of the Fianna were
not well pleased because of the ways of those three men, living as they
did by themselves, and having a wall of fire about them, and they would
have made an end of them but for Finn protecting them.

About that time there came seven men of poetry belonging to the people
of Cithruadh, asking the fee for a poem, three times fifty ounces of
gold and the same of silver to bring back to Cithruadh at Teamhair.
"Whatever way we get it, we must find some way to get that," said a man
of the Fianna. Then the three young men from Iruath said: "Well, men of
learning," they said, "would you sooner get the fee for your poem
to-night or to-morrow?" "To-morrow will be time enough," said they.

And the three young me