dy bed where
the shades dance all in green and gloom, and the brown flood sings
along.'

"And as he carried me to the palace he sang a song of the river, and a
song of Doom, and a song in praise of the King of the Waters.

"When the king's wife saw me she desired me. I was put over a fire and
roasted, and she ate me. And when time passed she gave birth to me, and
I was her son and the son of Cairill the king. I remember warmth and
darkness and movement and unseen sounds. All that happened I remember,
from the time I was on the gridiron until the time I was born. I forget
nothing of these things."

"And now," said Finnian, "you will be born again, for I shall baptize
you into the family of the Living God." ---- So far the story of Tuan,
the son of Cairill.

No man knows if he died in those distant ages when Finnian was Abbot of
Moville, or if he still keeps his fort in Ulster, watching all things,
and remembering them for the glory of God and the honour of Ireland.

THE BOYHOOD OF FIONN

He was a king, a seer and a poet. He was a lord with a manifold and
great train. He was our magician, our knowledgable one, our soothsayer.
All that he did was sweet with him. And, however ye deem my testimony
of Fionn excessive, and, although ye hold my praising overstrained,
nevertheless, and by the King that is above me, he was three times
better than all I say.--Saint PATRICK.

CHAPTER I

Fionn [pronounce Fewn to rhyme with "tune"] got his first training among
women. There is no wonder in that, for it is the pup's mother teaches it
to fight, and women know that fighting is a necessary art although men
pretend there are others that are better. These were the women druids,
Bovmall and Lia Luachra. It will be wondered why his own mother did not
train him in the first natural savageries of existence, but she could
not do it. She could not keep him with her for dread of the clann-Morna.
The sons of Morna had been fighting and intriguing for a long time to
oust her husband, Uail, from the captaincy of the Fianna of Ireland,
and they had ousted him at last by killing him. It was the only way
they could get rid of such a man; but it was not an easy way, for what
Fionn's father did not know in arms could not be taught to him even by
Morna. Still, the hound that can wait will catch a hare at last, and
even Manana'nn sleeps. Fionn's mother was beautiful, long-haired Muirne:
so she is always referred to. She was the d