through fields of corn and by apple orchards where red fruit hung down to their hands.  But by noontide their way began to mount upwards among blue hills that they had marked from the city walls toward the west, and of man’s husbandry they saw no more, but tall red-stemmed pine trees bordered the way on either side, and silence and loneliness increased.  At length they reached a broad table-land deep in the heart of the mountains, where nothing grew but long coarse grass, drooping by pools of black and motionless water, and where great boulders, bleached white or stained with slimy lichens of livid red, lay scattered far and wide about the plain.  Against the sky the mountain line now showed like a threat of bared and angry teeth, and as they rode towards it Oisin perceived a huge fortress lying in the throat of a wide glen or mountain pass.  White as death was the stone of which it was built, save where it was streaked with black or green from the foulness of wet mosses that clung to its cornices and battlements, and none seemed stirring about the place nor did any banner blow from its towers.

Then said Niam, “This, O Oisin, is the Dun of the giant Fovor of the Mighty Blows.  In it he keeps prisoner a princess of the Fairy Folk whom he would fain make his bride, but he may not do so, nor may she escape, until Fovor has met in battle a champion who will undertake her cause.  Approach, then, to the gate, if thou art fain to undertake this adventure, and blow the horn which hangs thereby, and then look to thy weapons, for soon indeed will the battle be broken upon thee.”

Then Oisin rode to the gate and thrice he blew on the great horn which hung by it, and the clangour of it groaned drearily back from the cliffs that overhung the glen.  Not thus indeed sounded the Dord of Finn as its call blew lust of fighting and scorn of death into the hearts of the Fianna amid the stress of battle.  At the third blast the rusty gates opened, grinding on their hinges, and Oisin rode into a wide courtyard where servitors of evil aspect took his horse and Niam’s, and led them into the hall of Fovor.  Dark it was and low, with mouldering arras on its walls, and foul and withered rushes on the floor, where dogs gnawed the bones thrown to them at the last meal, and spilt ale and hacked fragments of flesh littered the bare oaken table.  And here rose languidly to greet them a maiden bound with seven chains, to whom Niam spoke lovingly, saying that her champion was come and that her long captivity should end.  And the maiden looked upon Oisin, whose proud bearing and jewelled armour made the mean place seem meaner still, and a light of hope and of joy seemed to glimmer upon her brow.  So she gave them refreshment as she could, and afterwards they betook them once more to the courtyard, where the place of battle was set.