[23] Ogham-craobh = “branching Ogham,” so called because the letters resembled the branching of twigs from a stem.  The Ogham alphabet was in use in Ireland in pre-Christian times, and many sepulchral inscriptions in it still remain.

CHAPTER XIII

The Chase of the Gilla Dacar

In the reign of Cormac mac Art, grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, the order of precedence and dignity in the court of the High King at Tara was as follows:  First came great Cormac, the kingly, the hospitable, warrior and poet, and he was supreme over all.  Next in order came the five kings of the five Provinces of Ireland, namely, Ulster, Munster, Connacht, Leinster, and Mid-Erinn.  After these ranked the captains of the royal host, of whom Finn, son of Cumhal, was the chief.

Now the privileges of the Fianna of Erinn were many and great; to wit, in every county in Ireland one townland, and in every townland a cartron of land, and in the house of every gentleman the right to have a young deer-hound or a beagle kept at nurse from November to May, together with many other taxes and royalties not to be recounted here.  But if they had these many and great privileges, yet greater than these were the toils and hardships which they had to endure, in guarding the coasts of all Ireland from oversea invaders and marauders, and in keeping down all robbers and outlaws and evil folk within the kingdom, for this was the duty laid upon them by their bond of service to the King.

Now the summer half of the year was wont to be ended by a great hunting in one of the forests of Ireland, and so it was that one All-hallowtide, when the great banquet of Finn in his Dun on the Hill of Allen was going forward, and the hall resounded with cheerful talk and laughter and with the music of tympan and of harp, Finn asked of the assembled captains in what part of Erinn they should proceed to beat up game on the morrow.  And it was agreed among them to repair to the territory of Thomond and Desmond in Munster; and from Allen they set out accordingly and came to the Hill of Knockany.  Thence they threw out the hunt and sent their bands of beaters through many a gloomy ravine and by many a rugged hill-pass and many a fair open plain.  Desmond’s high hills, called now Slievelogher, they beat, and the smooth, swelling hills of Slievenamuck, and the green slopes of grassy Slievenamon, and the towering rough crags of the Decies, and thence on to the dark woods of Belachgowran.

While the great hunt was going forward Finn with certain of his chief captains sat on a high mound to overlook it.  There, with Finn, were Goll and Art mac Morna, and Liagan the swift runner, and Dermot of the Love Spot, and Keelta, son of Ronan, and there also was Conan the Bald, the man of scurrilous tongue, and a score or so more.  Sweet it was to Finn and his companions to hear from the woods and wildernesses around them the many-tongued baying of the hounds and the cries and whistling of the beaters, the shouting of the strong men and the notes of the Fian hunting-horn.