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Updated: July 7, 2025
"That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great master," said Ranald, "after the fashion of the Children of Diarmid! Does not the valley of Glenorquhy, to this very hour, cry shame on the violence offered to a helpless infant whom her kinsmen were conveying to the court of the Sovereign?
'I will pledge that no evil will come to you to-day. So Diarmid rose, and stood upon the topmost bough of the tree, and leapt light and birdlike, by the shafts of his spears, and passed out far beyond Fionn and the Fenians of Erin. And he and Oscar went their way, and no tidings were heard of them till they reached Grania and Angus on the banks of the Boyne.
He found them warm in a hut with a fire in it, watching a wild boar roasting on a spit, and Grania's soul almost left her body for joy at seeing Diarmid. They told their stories before the fire, and when morning broke Angus rose and said to Diarmid, 'I must now depart, O son of O'Dowd, and this counsel I leave you. Go not into a tree having but one trunk, when you fly before Fionn.
'You need not do that, answered Grania, 'for my father's horses are in a fenced meadow by themselves, and have chariots behind them. Go and bring two horses and a chariot, and I will wait for you here. And Diarmid did what Grania bade him, and he brought two of the horses, and they journeyed together as far as Athlone.
And Fionn trembled when he heard those words, and brought back the water, but as he came to his side the life went out of Diarmid. And the company of the Fenians raised three exceeding great cries; while Oscar looked fiercely at Fionn, and told him it had been better for the Fenians had Fionn himself died, and not Diarmid.
To each man and maid there was set down a plate of earthenware, a horn spoon, a knife and fork that is, for all who fed at the high table, over which the blue Kilmarnock bonnet of the master presided. For the minute or so while he said grace or "returned thanks," Diarmid took off his bonnet, but resumed it the moment after.
And that trick he did thrice, standing on the tun as it came and went. But the strangers only scoffed, and they told him they could do a much better trick than that, and one of them jumped on the tun. Then, before it could move, Diarmid gave the tun a kick, and the young man fell, and the tun rolled over and crushed him.
It was on the last day of the year that in his sleep Diarmid heard the voice of a dog that caused him to start and to wake Grania. 'What is the matter? said she, and Diarmid told her. 'May you be kept safely, answered Grania; 'lie down again. So Diarmid lay down, but no sleep would come to him, and by-and-by he heard the hound's voice again, but again Grania kept him from seeking it.
'I will not open the door until I find out where Fionn himself is. And so it befel at six of the doors, and Diarmid would not open them, lest his friends should come under the wrath of Fionn.
Then Diarmid lost sight of the girl for a minute, but when he saw her again she was far out on the perilous goat-track which led down to the bothy itself. Diarmid scanned the distance with his eye he knew the length of time it would have taken a hillsman to go from point to point.
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