Arthur of Britain and his people were sitting on a hunting mound just at that time, and the nine men of the Fianna made an attack on them and killed all of them but Arthur, that Goll, son of Morna, put his two arms about and saved from death.  Then they turned to go back to Ireland, bringing Arthur with them, and the three hounds.  And as they were going, Goll chanced to look around him and he saw a dark-grey horse, having a bridle with fittings of worked gold.  And then he looked to the left and saw a bay mare that was not easy to get hold of, and it having a bridle of silver rings and a golden bit.  And Goll took hold of the two, and he gave them into Oisin’s hand, and he gave them on to Diarmuid.

They went back to Finn then, bringing his three hounds with them, and the King of Britain’s son as a prisoner; and Arthur made bonds with Finn, and was his follower till he died.

And as to the horse and the mare, they gave them to Finn; and the mare bred eight times, at every birth eight foals, and it is of that seed came all the horses of the fair Fianna of the Gael, for they had used no horses up to that time.

And that was not the only time Finn was robbed of some of his hounds.  For there was a daughter of Roman was woman-Druid to the Tuatha de Danaan, and she set her love on Finn.  But Finn said, so long as there was another woman to be found in the world, he would not marry a witch.  And one time, three times fifty of Finn’s hounds passed by the hill where she was; and she breathed on the hounds and shut them up in the hill, and they never came out again.  It was to spite Finn she did that, and the place got the name of Duma na Conn, the Mound of the Hounds.

And as to Adhnuall, one of the hounds Finn thought most of, and that was brought back from the King of Britain’s son, this is the way he came to his death afterwards.

There was a great fight one time between the Fianna and Macoon, son of Macnia, at some place in the province of Leinster, and a great many of the Fianna were killed.  And the hound Adhnuall went wandering northward from the battle and went astray; and three times he went round the whole of Ireland, and then he came back to the place of the battle, and to a hill where three young men of the Fianna that had fallen there were buried after their death, and three daughters of a King of Alban that had died for love of them.  And when Adhnuall came to that hill, he gave three loud howls and he stretched himself out and died.

CHAPTER II.  THE CAVE OF CEISCORAN

Finn called for a great hunt one time on the plains of Magh Chonaill and in the forest parts of Cairbre of the Nuts.  And he himself went up to the top of Ceiscoran, and his two dogs Bran and Sceolan with him.

And the Fianna were shouting through the whole country where they were hunting, the way the deer were roused in their wild places and the badgers in their holes, and foxes in their wanderings, and birds on the wing.