Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

THE FIXE. 75
Eirinn." Then they came, and they sat Avithin. " You
wall not let a man on our side," said Konn, " unless
there comes one that belongs to our own company."
The woman came in again, saying, " The middle son of
the king of the people of Danan is coming, and his
five hundred brave heroes with him." They came,
and more of them staid without on a knoll. She
came in again, saying, " The youngest son of the king
of the people of Danan is coming, and liis five hundred
swift lieroes with him." She came in again, saying,
"That Gallaidh was coming, and five hundred full
heroes." — " This side of the house be ours, and that
be theirs, unless there come of the men of Eirinn."
The people of Danan made seven ranks of themselves,
and the fourth part of them could not cram in. They
were still without a word. There came a gillie home
with a boar that had found death from leanness and
without a good seeming, and he throws that in front
of Fionn with an insult. One of Fionn's gillies caught
hold of him, and he tied his four smalls, and threw
him below the board, and they spat on him. " Loose
me, and let me stand up ; I was not in fault, though
it was I that did it, and I will bring thee to a boar as
good as thou ever ate." — " I will do that," said Fionn ;
" but though thou shouldst travel the five-fifths of
Eirinn, unless thou comest before the day comes, I will
catch thee." They loosed him ; he went away, and
giUies with him. They were not long when they got
a good boar. They came with it, and they cooked it,
and they were eating it. "A bad provider of flesh
art thou," said Gallaidh to Fionn. " Thou shalt not
have that any longer to say ;" and the jaw-bone was in
his hand. He raised the bone, and he killed seven
men from every row of the people of Danan, and this
made them stop. Then a gillie came home, and the