But for all that, it is not very friendly to Finn Angus was afterwards, at the time he was following after Diarmuid and Grania through the whole length of Ireland.

CHAPTER XV.  THE HUNT OF SLIEVE CUILINN

Finn was one time out on the green of Almhuin, and he saw what had the appearance of a grey fawn running across the plain.  He called and whistled to his hounds then, but neither hound nor man heard him or came to him, but only Bran and Sceolan.  He set them after the fawn, and near as they kept to her, he himself kept nearer to them, till at last they reached to Slieve Cuilinn in the province of Ulster.

But they were no sooner at the hill than the fawn vanished from them, and they did not know where was she gone, and Finn went looking for her eastward, and the two hounds went towards the west.

It was not long till Finn came to a lake, and there was sitting on the brink of it a young girl, the most beautiful he had ever seen, having hair of the colour of gold, and a skin as white as lime, and eyes like the stars in time of frost; but she seemed to be some way sorrowful and downhearted.  Finn asked her did she see his hounds pass that way.  “I did not see them,” she said; “and it is little I am thinking of your hounds or your hunting, but of the cause of my own trouble.”  “What is it ails you, woman of the white hands?” said Finn; “and is there any help I can give you?” he said.  “It is what I am fretting after,” said she, “a ring of red gold I lost off my finger in the lake.  And I put you under bonds, Finn of the Fianna,” she said, “to bring it back to me out of the lake.”

With that Finn stripped off his clothes and went into the lake at the bidding of the woman, and he went three times round the whole lake and did not leave any part of it without searching, till he brought back the ring.  He handed it up to her then out of the water, and no sooner had he done that than she gave a leap into the water and vanished.

And when Finn came up on the bank of the lake, he could not so much as reach to where his clothes were; for on the moment he, the head and the leader of the Fianna of Ireland, was but a grey old man, weak and withered.

Bran and Sceolan came up to him then, but they did not know him, and they went on round the lake, searching after their master.

In Almhuin, now, when he was missed, Caoilte began asking after him.  “Where is Finn,” he said, “of the gentle rule and of the spears?” But no one knew where was he gone, and there was grief on the Fianna when they could not find him.  But it is what Conan said:  “I never heard music pleased me better than to hear the son of Cumhal is missing.  And that he may be so through the whole year,” he said, “and I myself will be king over you all.”  And downhearted as they were, it is hardly they could keep from laughing when they heard Conan saying that.