said Finn.  “I will do the watching for all the Fianna of Ireland and of Alban,” said one of them.  “I will take the weight of every fight and every battle that will come to them, the way they can keep themselves in quiet,” said the second.  “I will meet every troublesome thing that might come to my master,” said the third; “and let all the wants of the world be told to me and I will satisfy them.  And I have a pipe with me,” he said; “and all the men of the world would sleep at the sound of it, and they in their sickness.  And as to the hound,” he said, “as long as there are deer in Ireland he will get provision for the Fianna every second night.  And I myself,” he said, “will get it on the other nights.”  “What will you ask of us to be with us like that?” said Finn.  “We will ask three things,” they said:  “no one to come near to the place where we have our lodging after the fall of night; nothing to be given out to us, but we to provide for ourselves; and the worst places to be given to us in the hunting.”  “Tell me by your oath now,” said Finn, “why is it you will let no one see you after nightfall?” “We have a reason,” said they; “but do not ask it of us, whether we are short or long on the one path with you.  But we will tell you this much,” they said, “every third night, one of us three is dead and the other two are watching him, and we have no mind for any one to be looking at us.”

So Finn promised that; but if he did there were some of the Fianna were not well pleased because of the ways of those three men, living as they did by themselves, and having a wall of fire about them, and they would have made an end of them but for Finn protecting them.

About that time there came seven men of poetry belonging to the people of Cithruadh, asking the fee for a poem, three times fifty ounces of gold and the same of silver to bring back to Cithruadh at Teamhair.  “Whatever way we get it, we must find some way to get that,” said a man of the Fianna.  Then the three young men from Iruath said:  “Well, men of learning,” they said, “would you sooner get the fee for your poem to-night or to-morrow?” “To-morrow will be time enough,” said they.

And the three young men went to the place where the hound had his bed a little way off from the rath, and the hound threw out of his mouth before them the three times fifty ounces of gold and three times fifty of silver, and they gave them to the men of poetry, and they went away.

Another time Finn said:  “What can the three battalions of the Fianna do to-night, having no water?” And one of the men of Iruath said:  “How many drinking-horns are with you?” “Three hundred and twelve,” said Caoilte.  “Give me the horns into my hand,” said the young man, “and whatever you will find in them after that, you may drink it.”  He filled the horns then with beer and they drank it, and he did that a second and a third time; and with the third time of filling they were talkative and their wits confused.  “This is a wonderful mending of the feast,” said Finn.  And they gave the place where all that happened the name of the Little Rath of Wonders.