u
agree to that?"

"I do," said Iollan.

"Give me your pledge," said Uct Dealv, "that if I save you from this
danger you will keep me as your sweetheart until the end of life and
time."

"I give that pledge," said Iollan.

Uct Dealv went then to the house of Fergus Fionnliath, and she broke the
enchantment that was on the hound, so that Tuiren's own shape came back
to her; but in the matter of two small whelps, to which the hound had
given birth, the enchantment could not be broken, so they had to remain
as they were. These two whelps were Bran and Sceo'lan. They were sent
to Fionn, and he loved them for ever after, for they were loyal and
affectionate, as only dogs can be, and they were as intelligent as human
beings. Besides that, they were Fionn's own cousins.

Tuiren was then asked in marriage by Lugaidh who had loved her so long.
He had to prove to her that he was not any other woman's sweetheart,
and when he proved that they were married, and they lived happily ever
after, which is the proper way to live. He wrote a poem beginning:

"Lovely the day. Dear is the eye of the dawn--"

And a thousand merry people learned it after him.

But as to Fergus Fionnliath, he took to his bed, and he stayed there for
a year and a day suffering from blighted affection, and he would have
died in the bed only that Fionn sent him a special pup, and in a week
that young hound became the Star of Fortune and the very Pulse of his
Heart, so that he got well again, and he also lived happily ever after.

OISIN'S MOTHER

CHAPTER I

EVENING was drawing nigh, and the Fianna-Finn had decided to hunt no
more that day. The hounds were whistled to heel, and a sober, homeward
march began. For men will walk soberly in the evening, however they go
in the day, and dogs will take the mood from their masters. They were
pacing so, through the golden-shafted, tender-coloured eve, when a
fawn leaped suddenly from covert, and, with that leap, all quietness
vanished: the men shouted, the dogs gave tongue, and a furious chase
commenced.

Fionn loved a chase at any hour, and, with Bran and Sceo'lan, he
outstripped the men and dogs of his troop, until nothing remained in the
limpid world but Fionn, the two hounds, and the nimble, beautiful fawn.
These, and the occasional boulders, round which they raced, or over
which they scrambled; the solitary tree which dozed aloof and beautiful
in the path, the occasional clump of trees that