With that all in the house made an attack on the three; and they were driven back into the corner, and the fire was quenched, and the fight went on through the whole night in the darkness, and but for Finn and the way he fought, they would have been put down.

And when the sun rose and lighted up the house on the morrow, a mist came into the head of each of the three, so that they fell as if dead on the floor.

But after awhile they rose up again, and there was nothing to be seen of the house or of the people of the house, but they had all vanished.  And their horses were there, and they took them and went on, very weak and tired, for a long way, till they came to the strand of Berramain.

And those three that fought against them were the three Shapes out of the Valley of the Yew Tree that came to avenge their sister, Cuillen of the Wide Mouth.

Now as to Cuillen, she was a daughter of the King of Munster, and her husband was the King of Ulster’s son.  And they had a son that was called Fear Og, the Young Man; and there was hardly in Ireland a man so good as himself in shape and in courage and in casting a spear.  And one time he joined in a game with the Fianna, and he did better than them all, and Finn gave him a great reward.  And after that he went out to a hunt they made, and it was by him and by none of the Fianna the first blood was got of pig or of deer.  And when they came back, a heavy sickness fell on the young man through the eyes and the envy of the Fianna, and it left him without life at the end of nine days.  And he was buried under a green hill, and the shining stone he used to hold in his hand, and he doing his feats, was put over his head.

And his mother, Cuillen, came to his grave keening him every day through the length of a year.  And one day she died there for grief after her son, and they put her into the same green hill.

But as to Finn, he was afraid of no earthly thing, and he killed many great serpents in Loch Cuilinn and Loch Neathach, and at Beinn Edair; and Shadow-Shapes at Loch Lein and Drom Cleib and Loch Liath, and a serpent and a cat in Ath Cliath.

CHAPTER XIV.  THE PIGS OF ANGUS

Angus Og, son of the Dagda, made a feast one time at Brugh na Boinne for Finn and the Fianna of the Gael.  Ten hundred of them were in it, and they wearing green clothing and crimson cloaks; and as to the people of Angus’ house, it is clothing of red silk they had.

And Finn was sitting beside Angus in the beautiful house, and it is long since the like of those two were seen in Ireland.  And any stranger would wonder to see the way the golden cups were going from hand to hand.