what they
agreed; that as but fifteen of his people were brought away from Finn,
he himself with fifteen others would go on their track; Oisin to be left
at the head of the Fianna to guard Ireland.

And they said farewell to one another, and a grand ship was made ready
for Finn and his people, and there was food put in it for using and gold
for giving away. The young men and the heroes took to their seats then,
and took hold of the oars, and they set out over the restless hills and
the dark valleys of the great sea.

And the sea rose up and bellowed, and there was madness on the broken
green waters; but to Finn and his people it was a call in the morning
and a sleepy time at night to be listening to the roaring and the
crooning that was ever and always about the sides of the ship.

They went on like that for three days and three nights, and saw no
country or island. But at the end of that time a man of them went up
into the head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough
grey cliff. They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of
the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an
eel's back. And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to
the foot of the rock.

Fergus of the True Lips said then to Diarmuid: "It is no brave thing you
are doing, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, to hold back like this, for it
was with Manannan the Powerful, son of Lir, you were reared and got your
learning, in the Land of Promise and in the coasts of the harbours, and
with Angus Og, the Dagda's son. And are you without any share of their
skill and their daring now," he said, "that would bring Finn and his
people up this rock?"

Diarmuid's face reddened when he heard those words, and he took hold of
Manannan's staves of power that were with him, and he reddened again,
and he rose on the staves and gave a leap, and got a standing-place for
his two feet on the overhanging rock. He looked down from that on Finn
and his people, but whatever wish he had to bring them up to where he
was, he was not able to do it.

He left the rock behind him then, and he was not gone far when he saw a
wild tangled place before him, with thick woods that were of all he had
ever walked the most leafy and the fullest of the sounds of wind and
streams and birds, and of the humming of bees.

He went on walking the plain, and as he was looking about him, he saw a
great tree with many twigs and branches, and a r