It was to the woods of Slieve Bladhma they brought him, and they nursed him secretly, because of his father’s enemies, the sons of Morna, and they kept him there a long time.

And Muirne, his mother, took another husband that was king of Carraighe; but at the end of six years she came to see Finn, going through every lonely place till she came to the wood, and there she found the little hunting cabin, and the boy asleep in it, and she lifted him up in her arms and kissed him, and she sang a little sleepy song to him; and then she said farewell to the women, and she went away again.

And the two women went on caring him till he came to sensible years; and one day when he went out he saw a wild duck on the lake with her clutch, and he made a cast at her that cut the wings off her that she could not fly, and he brought her back to the cabin, and that was his first hunt.

And they gave him good training in running and leaping and swimming.  One of them would run round a tree, and she having a thorn switch, and Finn after her with another switch, and each one trying to hit at the other; and they would leave him in a field, and hares along with him, and would bid him not to let the hares quit the field, but to keep before them whichever way they would go; and to teach him swimming they would throw him into the water and let him make his way out.

But after a while he went away with a troop of poets, to hide from the sons of Morna, and they hid him in the mountain of Crotta Cliach; but there was a robber in Leinster at that time, Fiacuil, son of Codhna, and he came where the poets were in Fidh Gaible and killed them all.  But he spared the child and brought him to his own house, that was in a cold marsh.  But the two women, Bodhmall and Liath, came looking for him after a while, and Fiacuil gave him up to them, and they brought him back to the same place he was before.

He grew up there, straight and strong and fair-haired and beautiful.  And one day he was out in Slieve Bladhma, and the two women along with him, and they saw before them a herd of the wild deer of the mountain.  “It is a pity,” said the old women, “we not to be able to get a deer of those deer.”  “I will get one for you,” said Finn; and with that he followed after them, and caught two stags of them and brought them home to the hunting cabin.  And after that he used to be hunting for them every day.  But at last they said to him:  “It is best for you to leave us now, for the sons of Morna are watching again to kill you.”

So he went away then by himself, and never stopped till he came to Magh Life, and there he saw young lads swimming in a lake, and they called to him to swim against them.  So he went into the lake, and he beat them at swimming.  “Fair he is and well shaped,” they said when they saw him swimming, and it was from that time he got the name of Finn, that is, Fair.  But they got to be jealous of his strength, and he went away and left them.