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'Who else would have cut down the trees, and have made a palisade of them, and cut seven doors in it? Speak, O Diarmid, is the truth with me or with Oscar? 'With you, O Fionn, said Diarmid, 'and truly I and Grania are here.
"When you hear the great man of the Shi' coming, take the wrappings off the head of the spear and bend your face over it; the heat of the spear, the stench of it, all its pernicious and acrid qualities will prevent you from going to sleep." "Are you sure of that?" said Fionn. "You couldn't go to sleep close to that stench; nobody could," Fiacuil replied decidedly.
Fionn's mother, Muirne, went to wide Allen of Leinster to visit her son, and she brought her young sister Tuiren with her. The mother and aunt of the great captain were well treated among the Fianna, first, because they were parents to Fionn, and second, because they were beautiful and noble women.
To be alone was no trouble to him who, however surrounded, was to be lonely his life long; for this will be said of Fionn when all is said, that all that came to him went from him, and that happiness was never his companion for more than a moment. But he was not now looking for loneliness. He was seeking the instruction of a crowd, and therefore when he met a crowd he went into it.
It was a long while before the Fenians knew who that could be walking by the side of Fionn, but when they did they laughed and mocked till Grania bowed her head for shame. 'This time, O Fionn, you will guard her well, said Ossian. For seven years the sons of Diarmid exercised themselves in all the skill of a warrior, and then they came back to Grania's house.
Into this gloomy drain Fionn descended and made progress, but when he had penetrated deeply in the dank forest he heard a sound of thumping and squelching footsteps, and he saw coming towards him a horrible, evil-visaged being; a wild, monstrous, yellow-skinned, big-boned giant, dressed in nothing but an ill-made, mud-plastered, drab-coloured coat, which swaggled and clapped against the calves of his big bare legs.
We do not know what Fionn had done to Conaran, but it must have been bad enough, for the king of the Shi' of Cesh Cotran was filled with joy at the sight of Fionn thus close to him, thus unprotected, thus unsuspicious. This Conaran had four daughters.
As the ship drew by the shore the watchers observed a tall man swing from the side by means of his spear shafts, and in a little while this gentleman was announced to Fionn, and was brought into his presence. A sturdy, bellicose, forthright personage he was indeed.
Finegas rose from where he sat by the osier basket. "I will be back in a short time," he said heavily. "While I am away you may roast the salmon, so that it will be ready against my return." "I will roast it indeed," said Fionn. The poet gazed long and earnestly on him. "You will not eat any of my salmon while I am away?" he asked. "I will not eat the littlest piece," said Fionn.
'The guilt of that was not mine, O Fionn, but Grania besought me, else I would not have failed to keep my charge for all the bonds in the world. And well do I deserve you should give me a drink, for many is the day since I came among the Fenians in which I have perilled my life for your sake. Therefore you should not do me this foul treachery.
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