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"Or what?" said Goll with a great laugh. Fionn shook his head sternly and said no more. "What is your judgement?" Cormac demanded of his fellow-judges. Flahri pronounced first. "I give damages to clann-Morna." "Why?" said Cormac. "Because they were attacked first." Cormac looked at him stubbornly. "I do not agree with your judgement," he said. "What is there faulty in it?" Flahri asked.
Among the three hundred dogs which Fionn owned there were two to whom he gave an especial tenderness, and who were his daily and nightly companions. These two were Bran and Sceo'lan, but if a person were to guess for twenty years he would not find out why Fionn loved these two dogs and why he would never be separated from them.
They did not tongue it, nor bell it, but they added silence to silence and speed to speed, until the lean grey bodies were one pucker and lashing of movement. Fionn marvelled. "They do not want the other dogs to hear or to come on this chase," he murmured, and he wondered what might be passing within those slender heads. "The fawn runs well," his thought continued. "What is it, a Vran, my heart?
Servants were shouting to one another, and women were running to and fro aimlessly, wringing their hands and screaming; and, when they saw the Champion, those nearest to him ran away, and there was a general effort on the part of every person to get behind every other person. But Fionn caught the eye of his butler, Gariv Crona'n, the Rough Buzzer, and held it. "Come you here," he said.
"A dark stern man came often after us, and he used to speak with the deer. Sometimes he talked gently and softly and coaxingly, but at times again he would shout loudly and in a harsh, angry voice. But whatever way he talked the deer would draw away from him in dread, and he always left her at last furiously." "It is the Dark Magician of the Men of God," cried Fionn despairingly.
So we urged our lady to let us go out to meet you, but to remain herself in the Dun." "It was good urging," Fionn assented. "She would not be advised," the servant wailed. "She cried to us, 'Let me go to meet my love'." "Alas!" said Fionn. "She cried on us, 'Let me go to meet my husband, the father of the child that is not born." "Alas!" groaned deep-wounded Fionn.
"A third of all you earn and a seat at your council." "I grant that," said Fionn, "and now, tell me your plan?" "You remember my spear with the thirty rivets of Arabian gold in its socket?" "The one," Fionn queried, "that had its head wrapped in a blanket and was stuck in a bucket of water and was chained to a wall as well the venomous Birgha?" "That one," Fiacuil replied.
When they reached Ben Edair it was decided to pitch camp so that the troops might rest in view of the warlike plan which Fionn had imagined for the morrow.
They all came forthwith, and after they had eaten and drunk she pointed to the weapons and arms of Diarmid, and said they were theirs, and by them they should learn all arts of brave men, till they should reach their full strength, and after that they should avenge themselves on Fionn. The sayings of Grania were whispered in the ears of Fionn, and a great fear fell upon him.
Fionn may have borrowed his hammer from Thor long ago, or both may have got theirs from Vulcan, or all three may have brought hammers with them from the land where some primeval smith wielded the first sledge-hammer; but may not all these 'smith-gods be the smiths who made iron weapons for those who fought with the skin-clad warriors who shot flint-arrows, and who are now bogles, fairies, and demons?
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