Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens Page A

“It had your armour and your face, and the dogs, Bran and Sceólan, were with it.”
    â€œThey were with me,” said Fionn.
    â€œThey seemed to be with it,” said the servant humbly.
    â€œTell us this tale,” cried Fionn.
    â€œWe were distrustful,” the servant continued. “We had never known Fionn to return from a combat before it had been fought, and we knew you could not have reached Ben Edair or encountered the Lochlannachs. So we urged our lady to let us go out to meet you, but to remain herself in the Dun.”
    â€œIt was good urging,” Fionn assented.
    â€œShe would not be advised,” the servant wailed. “She cried to us, ‘Let me go to meet my love.’”
    â€œAlas!” said Fionn.
    â€œShe cried on us, ‘Let me go to meet my husband, the father of the child that is not born.’”
    â€œAlas!” groaned deep-wounded Fionn.
    â€œShe ran towards your appearance that had your arms stretched out to her.”
    At that wise Fionn put his hand before his eyes, seeing all that happened.
    â€œTell on your tale,” said he.
    â€œShe ran to those arms, and when she reached them the figure lifted its hand. It touched her with a hazel rod, and, while we looked, she disappeared, and where she had been there was a fawn standing and shivering. The fawn turned and bounded towards the gate of the Dun, but the hounds that were by flew after her.”
    Fionn stared on him like a lost man.
    â€œThey took her by the throat—” the shivering servant whispered.
    â€œAh!” cried Fionn in a terrible voice.
    â€œAnd they dragged her back to the figure that seemed to be Fionn. Three times she broke away and came bounding to us, and three times the dogs took her by the throat and dragged her back.”
    â€œYou stood to look!” the Chief snarled.
    â€œNo, master, we ran, but she vanished as we got to her; the great hounds vanished away, and that being that seemed to be Fionn disappeared with them. We were left in the rough grass, staring about us and at each other, and listening to the moan of the wind and the terror of our hearts.”
    â€œForgive us, dear master,” the servant cried. But the great captain made him no answer. He stood as though he were dumb and blind, and now and again he beat terribly on his breast with his closed fist, as though he would kill that within him which should be dead and could not die. He went so, beating on his breast, to his inner room in the Dun, and he was not seen again for the rest of that day, nor until the sun rose over Moy Lifé in the morning.

Chapter 5
    F or many years after that time, when he was not fighting against the enemies of Ireland, Fionn was searching and hunting through the length and breadth of the country in the hope that he might again chance on his lovely lady from the Shí. Through all that time he slept in misery each night and he rose each day to grief. Whenever he hunted he brought only the hounds that he trusted, Bran and Sceólan, Lomaire, Brod, and Lomlu; for if a fawn was chased each of these five great dogs would know if that was a fawn to be killed or one to be protected, and so there was small danger to Saeve and a small hope of finding her.
    Once, when seven years had passed in fruitless search, Fionn and the chief nobles of the Fianna were hunting Ben Gulbain. All the hounds of the Fianna were out, for Fionn had now given up hope of encountering the Flower of Allen. As the hunt swept along the sides of the hill there arose a great outcry of hounds from a narrow place high on the slope and, over all that uproar there came the savage baying of Fionn’s own dogs.
    â€œWhat is this for?” said Fionn, and with his companions he pressed to the spot whence the noise came.
    â€œThey are fighting all the hounds of the Fianna,” cried a champion.
    And they were. The five wise hounds were in a circle and were giving battle to an hundred