like
the stars in time of frost; but she seemed to be some way sorrowful and
downhearted. Finn asked her did she see his hounds pass that way. "I did
not see them," she said; "and it is little I am thinking of your hounds
or your hunting, but of the cause of my own trouble." "What is it ails
you, woman of the white hands?" said Finn; "and is there any help I can
give you?" he said. "It is what I am fretting after," said she, "a ring
of red gold I lost off my finger in the lake. And I put you under bonds,
Finn of the Fianna," she said, "to bring it back to me out of the lake."

With that Finn stripped off his clothes and went into the lake at the
bidding of the woman, and he went three times round the whole lake and
did not leave any part of it without searching, till he brought back the
ring. He handed it up to her then out of the water, and no sooner had he
done that than she gave a leap into the water and vanished.

And when Finn came up on the bank of the lake, he could not so much as
reach to where his clothes were; for on the moment he, the head and the
leader of the Fianna of Ireland, was but a grey old man, weak and
withered.

Bran and Sceolan came up to him then, but they did not know him, and
they went on round the lake, searching after their master.

In Almhuin, now, when he was missed, Caoilte began asking after him.
"Where is Finn," he said, "of the gentle rule and of the spears?" But no
one knew where was he gone, and there was grief on the Fianna when they
could not find him. But it is what Conan said: "I never heard music
pleased me better than to hear the son of Cumhal is missing. And that he
may be so through the whole year," he said, "and I myself will be king
over you all." And downhearted as they were, it is hardly they could
keep from laughing when they heard Conan saying that.

Caoilte and the rest of the chief men of the Fianna set out then looking
for Finn, and they got word of him; and at last they came to Slieve
Cuilinn, and there they saw a withered old man sitting beside the lake,
and they thought him to be a fisherman. "Tell us, old man," said
Caoilte, "did you see a fawn go by, and two hounds after her, and a tall
fair-faced man along with them?" "I did see them," he said, "and it is
not long since they left me." "Tell us where are they now?" said
Caoilte. But Finn made no answer, for he had not the courage to say to
them that he himself was Finn their leader, being as he was an ailin