It happened at the end of twenty-one years, Finn and the Fianna were at their hunting in the hills, and they saw a Red-Haired Man coming towards them, and he spoke to no one, but came and stood before Finn.  “What is it you are looking for?” said Finn.  “I am looking for a master for the next twenty-one years,” he said.  “What wages are you asking?” said Finn.  “No wages at all, but only if I die before the twenty-one years are up, to bury me on Inis Caol, the Narrow Island.”  “I will do that for you,” said Finn.

So the Red-Haired Man served Finn well through the length of twenty years.  But in the twenty-first year he began to waste and to wither away, and he died.

And when he was dead, the Fianna were no way inclined to go to Inis Caol to bury him.  But Finn said he would break his word for no man, and that he himself would bring his body there.  And he took an old white horse that had been turned loose on the hills, and that had got younger and not older since it was put out, and he put the body of the Red-Haired Man on its back, and let it take its own way, and he himself followed it, and twelve men of the Fianna.

And when they came to Inis Caol they saw no trace of the horse or of the body.  And there was an open house on the island, and they went in.  And there were seats for every man of them inside, and they sat down to rest for a while.

But when they tried to rise up it failed them to do it, for there was enchantment on them.  And they saw the Red-Haired Man standing before them in that moment.

“The time is come now,” he said, “for me to get satisfaction from you for the death of my mother and my two brothers that were killed by Glasan in the house of the dead bodies.”  He began to make an attack on them then, and he would have made an end of them all, but Finn took hold of the Dord Fiann, and blew a great blast on it.

And before the Red-Haired Man was able to kill more than three of them, Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne, that had heard the sound of the Dord Fiann, came into the house and made an end of him, and put an end to the enchantment.  And Finn, with the nine that were left of the Fianna, came back again to Almhuin.

CHAPTER III.  THE HOUND

One day the three battalions of the Fianna came to Magh Femen, and there they saw three young men waiting for them, having a hound with them; and there was not a colour in the world but was on that hound, and it was bigger than any other hound.

“Where do you come from, young men?” said Finn.  “Out of the greater Iruath in the east,” said they; “and our names are Dubh, the Dark, and Agh, the Battle, and Ilar, the Eagle.”  “What is it you came for?” “To enter into service, and your friendship,” said they.  “What good will it do us, you to be with us?” said Finn.  “We are three,” said they, “and you can make a different use of each one of us.”  “What uses are those?”