nd I
never will eat it because of being without food for one day." "If you
are come into our house to refuse our food," said the grey man, "we will
surely go against yourselves, Finn and Caoilte and Oisin."
With that all in the house made an attack on the three; and they were
driven back into the corner, and the fire was quenched, and the fight
went on through the whole night in the darkness, and but for Finn and
the way he fought, they would have been put down.
And when the sun rose and lighted up the house on the morrow, a mist
came into the head of each of the three, so that they fell as if dead on
the floor.
But after awhile they rose up again, and there was nothing to be seen of
the house or of the people of the house, but they had all vanished. And
their horses were there, and they took them and went on, very weak and
tired, for a long way, till they came to the strand of Berramain.
And those three that fought against them were the three Shapes out of
the Valley of the Yew Tree that came to avenge their sister, Cuillen of
the Wide Mouth.
Now as to Cuillen, she was a daughter of the King of Munster, and her
husband was the King of Ulster's son. And they had a son that was called
Fear Og, the Young Man; and there was hardly in Ireland a man so good as
himself in shape and in courage and in casting a spear. And one time he
joined in a game with the Fianna, and he did better than them all, and
Finn gave him a great reward. And after that he went out to a hunt they
made, and it was by him and by none of the Fianna the first blood was
got of pig or of deer. And when they came back, a heavy sickness fell on
the young man through the eyes and the envy of the Fianna, and it left
him without life at the end of nine days. And he was buried under a
green hill, and the shining stone he used to hold in his hand, and he
doing his feats, was put over his head.
And his mother, Cuillen, came to his grave keening him every day through
the length of a year. And one day she died there for grief after her
son, and they put her into the same green hill.
But as to Finn, he was afraid of no earthly thing, and he killed many
great serpents in Loch Cuilinn and Loch Neathach, and at Beinn Edair;
and Shadow-Shapes at Loch Lein and Drom Cleib and Loch Liath, and a
serpent and a cat in Ath Cliath.
CHAPTER XIV. THE PIGS OF ANGUS
Angus Og, son of the Dagda, made a feast one time at Brugh na Boinne for
Finn and the Fian
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