is mine.”  A man came in from the ramparts;—­“What news with you?” asks Mongan.—­“There is a warrior like the men of old time approaching from the south, and a headless spear-shaft in his hand.”—­“I told you he would be coming,” said Mongan.  Before the words were out from between his teeth, the warrior had leaped the three ramparts into the middle of the dun, and in a moment was there between Mongan and the file in the hall.—­“What is it is troubling you?” said he.

—­“I and the file yonder have made a wager about the death of Fothad Airgtech,” said Mongan.  “The file said he died at Dubtar in Leinster; I said it was false.”

—­“Then the file has lied,” said the warrior.

—­“Thou wilt repent of that,” cried Forgoll.

—­“That is not a good speech,” said the warrior.  “I will prove what I say.”  Then he turned to Mongan.  “We were with thee, Finn MacCool,” said he,—­

—­“Hush!” said Mongan; "it is wrong for thee to reveal a secret."

—­“Well then,” said the warrior, “we were with Finn coming from Alba.  We met Fothad Airgtech near here, on the banks of Larne Water.  We fought a battle with him.  I cast my spear at him, so that it went through his body, and the iron head quitted the shaft, and went into earth beyond, and remained there.  This is the shaft of that spear,” said he, holding up the headless shaft he had with him.  “The bare rock from which I hurled it will be found, and the iron head is in the earth a little to the east of it; and the grave of Fothad Airgtech a little to the east of that again.  A stone chest is round his body; in the chest are his two bracelets of silver, and his two arm-rings, and his collar of silver.  Over the grave is a stone pillar, and on the end of the pillar that is in the earth is Ogham writing, and it says, ’Here is Fothad Airgtech.  He was fighting with Finn when Cailte slew him.’”

Cailte had been one of the most renowned of Finn’s companions; he had come now from the Great Plain to save his old master.  You will note that remark of the latter’s when Cailte let the fact escape him that he, Mongan, had been Finn:  “Hush! it is wrong for the to reveal a secret.”  That was the feeling of the Christian redactors.  Reincarnation was not a thing for baptized lips to speak about.

But we are anticipating things:  the coming of Patrick did not bring about the great literary revival which sent all these stories down to us.  Patrick Christianized Ireland:  converted the kings and established the church; and left the bulk of the people pagan-hearted and pagan-visioned still,—­as, glory be to God, they have been ever since.  I mean by that that under all vicissitudes the Irish have never quite lost sight of the Inner Life at the heart of things, as most of the rest of us have.  Time and men and circumstance, sorrow and ignorance and falsity, have conspired to destroy the race; but there is a vision there, however thwarted and hedged