So in the morning he rose up and went to the cairn and stopped on it, playing his harp till the coming of the mists of the evening.  And while he was there he saw the three wolves coming towards him, and they lay down before him, listening to the music.  But Cascerach found no way to make an attack on them, and they went back into the cave at the end of the day.

Cascorach went back then to Caoilte and told him what had happened.  “Go up to-morrow to the same place,” said Caoilte, “and say to them it would be better for them to be in the shape of women for listening to music than in the shape of wolves.”

So on the morrow Cascorach went out to the same cairn, and set his people about it, and the wolves came there and stretched themselves to listen to the music.  And Cascorach was saying to them:  “If you were ever women,” he said, “it would be better for you to be listening to the music as women than as wolves.”  And they heard that, and they threw off the dark trailing coverings that were about them, for they liked well the sweet music of the Sidhe.

And when Caoilte saw them there side by side, and elbow by elbow, he made a cast of his spear, and it went through the three women, that they were like a skein of thread drawn together on the spear.  And that is the way he made an end of the strange, unknown three.  And that place got the name of the Valley of the Shapes of the Wolves.

CHAPTER IX.  THE WEDDING AT CEANN SLIEVE

Finn and the Fianna made a great hunting one time on the hill of Torc that is over Loch Lein and Feara Mor.  And they went on with their hunting till they came to pleasant green Slieve Echtge, and from that it spread over other green-topped hills, and through thick tangled woods, and rough red-headed hills, and over the wide plains of the country.  And every chief man among them chose the place that was to his liking, and the gap of danger he was used to before.  And the shouts they gave in the turns of the hunt were heard in the woods all around, so that they started the deer in the wood, and sent the foxes wandering, and the little red beasts climbing rocks, and badgers from their holes, and birds flying, and fawns running their best.  Then they let out their angry small-headed hounds and set them hunting.  And it is red the hands of the Fianna were that day, and it is proud they were of their hounds that were torn and wounded before evening.

It happened that day no one stopped with Finn but only Diorraing, son of Domhar.  “Well, Diorraing,” said Finn, “let you watch for me while I go asleep, for it is early I rose to-day, and it is an early rising a man makes when he cannot see the shadow of his five fingers between himself and the light of day, or know the leaves of the hazel from the leaves of the oak.”  With that he fell into a quiet sleep that lasted till the yellow light of the evening.  And the rest of the Fianna, not knowing where he was gone, gave over the hunt.