“Without battles, without taking of spoils; without playing at nimble feats; without going courting or hunting, two trades that were my delight.”

Patrick.  “Leave off, old man, leave your foolishness; let what you have done be enough for you from this out.  Think on the pains that are before you; the Fianna are gone, and you yourself will be going.”

Oisin.  “If I go, may yourself not be left after me, Patrick of the hindering heart; if Conan, the least of the Fianna, were living, your buzzing would not be left long to you.”

“Or if this was the day I gave ten hundred cows to the headless woman that came to the Valley of the Two Oxen; the birds of the air brought away the ring I gave her, I never knew where she went herself from me.”

Patrick.  “That is little to trouble you, Oisin; it was but for a while she was with you; it is better for you to be as you are than to be among them again.”

Oisin.  “O Son of Calphurn of the friendly talk, it is a pity for him that gives respect to clerks and bells; I and Caoilte my friend, we were not poor when we were together.

“The music that put Finn to his sleep was the cackling of the ducks from the lake of the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of Doire an Cairn, the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries.

“The whistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories, or from the rough branches of the ridge by the stream; the grouse of the heather of Cruachan; the call of the otter of Druim-re-Coir.

“The song of the blackbird of Doire an Cairn indeed I never heard sweeter music, if I could be under its nest.

“My grief that I ever took baptism; it is little credit I got by it, being without food, without drink, doing fasting and praying.”

Patrick.  “In my opinion it did not harm you, old man; you will get nine score cakes of bread, wine and meat to put a taste on it; it is bad talk you are giving.”

Oisin.  “This mouth that is talking with you, may it never confess to a priest, if I would not sooner have the leavings of Finn’s house than a share of your own meals.”

Patrick.  “He got but what he gathered from the banks, or whatever he could kill on the rough hills; he got hell at the last because of his unbelief.”

Oisin.  “That was not the way with us at all, but our fill of wine and of meat; justice and a right beginning at the feasts, sweet drinks and every one drinking them.

“It is fretting after Diarmuid and Goll I am, and after Fergus of the True Lips, the time you will not let me be speaking of them, O new Patrick from Rome.”

Patrick.  “We would give you leave to be speaking of them, but first you should give heed to God.  Since you are now at the end of your days, leave your foolishness, weak old man.”

Oisin.  “O Patrick, tell me as a secret, since it is you have the best knowledge, will my dog or my hound be let in with me to the court of the King of Grace?”