nn till you play for me," said
the Grey Man.

He weakened the spells then, and gave them food and drink, and it
pleased him greatly the way Daire played the music, and he called to
Glanluadh and to Ailne to come and to listen to the sweetness of it. And
they were well pleased with it, and it is glad Glanluadh was, seeing
them not so discouraged as they were.

Now as to the Fianna, they were searching for Finn and for Daire in
every place they had ever stopped in. And when they came to this place
they could hear Daire's sweet music; and at first they were glad when
they heard it, and then when they knew the way he himself and Finn were,
they made an attack on Ailne's dun to release them.

But the Grey Man heard their shouts, and he put the full power of his
spells again on Finn and on Daire. And the Fianna heard the music as if
stammering, and then they heard a great noise like the loud roaring of
waves, and when they heard that, there was not one of them but fell into
a sleep and clouds of death, under those sorrowful spells.

And then the Grey Man and Ailne came out quietly from where they were,
and they brought the whole of the men of the Fianna that were there into
the dun. And they put hard bonds on them, and put them where Finn and
Daire were. And there was great grief on Finn and Daire when they saw
them, and they were all left there together for a while.

Then Glanluadh said to the Grey Man: "If Daire's music is pleasing to
you, let him play it to us now." "If you have a mind for music," said
the Grey Man, "Daire must play it for us, and for Finn and his army as
well."

They went then to where they were, and bade Daire to play. "I could
never play sweet music," said Daire, "the time the Fianna are in any
trouble; for when they are in trouble, I myself am in trouble, and I
could not sound any sweet string," he said, "while there is trouble on
any man of them." The Grey Man weakened the spells then on them all, and
Daire played first the strings of sweetness, and of the noise of
shouting, and then he sang his own grief and the grief of all the
Fianna. And at that the Grey Man said it would not be long before he
would put the whole of the Fianna to death; and then Daire played a tune
of heavy shouts of lamentation. And then at Finn's bidding he played the
music of sweet strings for the Fianna.

They were kept, now, a long time in that prison, and they got very hard
treatment; and sometimes Ailne's brother wo