the gods for two or ten thousand years;
this mare with the dainty pace and the vicious eye might be sidling
under a load of oaken odes in honour of her owner's family, with a
few bundles of tales of wonder added in case they might be useful; and
perhaps the restive piebald was backing the history of Ireland into a
ditch.

On such a journey all people spoke together, for all were friends, and
no person regarded the weapon in another man's hand other than as an
implement to poke a reluctant cow with, or to pacify with loud wallops
some hoof-proud colt.

Into this teem and profusion of jolly humanity Fionn slipped, and if his
mood had been as bellicose as a wounded boar he would yet have found
no man to quarrel with, and if his eye had been as sharp as a jealous
husband's he would have found no eye to meet it with calculation or
menace or fear; for the Peace of Ireland was in being, and for six weeks
man was neighbour to man, and the nation was the guest of the High King.
Fionn went in with the notables.

His arrival had been timed for the opening day and the great feast of
welcome. He may have marvelled, looking on the bright city, with its
pillars of gleaming bronze and the roofs that were painted in many
colours, so that each house seemed to be covered by the spreading wings
of some gigantic and gorgeous bird. And the palaces themselves, mellow
with red oak, polished within and without by the wear and the care of
a thousand years, and carved with the patient skill of unending
generations of the most famous artists of the most artistic country of
the western world, would have given him much to marvel at also. It
must have seemed like a city of dream, a city to catch the heart, when,
coming over the great plain, Fionn saw Tara of the Kings held on its
hill as in a hand to gather all the gold of the falling sun, and to
restore a brightness as mellow and tender as that universal largess.

In the great banqueting hall everything was in order for the feast. The
nobles of Ireland with their winsome consorts, the learned and artistic
professions represented by the pick of their time were in place. The
Ard-Ri, Corm of the Hundred Battles, had taken his place on the raised
dais which commanded the whole of that vast hall. At his Right hand his
son Art, to be afterwards as famous as his famous father, took his seat,
and on his left Goll mor mac Morna, chief of the Fianna of Ireland, had
the seat of honour. As the High King to