Ossian Collection > Waifs and strays of Celtic tradition > Volume 4

2 28 The Fians.
Fionn knelt to the wife of the man with the fur garment.
She said to him : " O King, why do you kneel to me ?"
" It is," said the King, " to ask you to allow your
husband to go with me to a far-away region."
" I will, do so," she said, " on condition that you bring
him back to me, whether he be dead or alive."
They went, and when they were returning, the man
with the fur skins said to Fionn : " This is our death ;
none of us will return alive home with you. Put a
mark on my clothes that you may know me from the
others. I and my companions were once playing when
the ball went in to an old woman who was making
pottery, or delf ; the ball smashed the delf. She asked
payment ; we had nothing to pay her with, and we took
out the ball in spite of her. She placed us under spells:
' Though you are going together so affectionately and
friendly at present, the one will kill the other of you,'
she said. The time is now come, and do you put a
mark on my clothes."
Fionn did this, and no sooner was it done than war
broke out in the sky, and the one killed the other. Fionn
threw the other two overboard, and took back the man
with the fur garments. His wife met Fionn. " Yes,"
she said, " you have brought him home."
" I have fulfilled my promise," Fionn said.
" He is not alive, I feel," she said.
They went to the shore, and Fionn showed her the
body. She lifted its head on her knees, saying :
" I would know you by your teeth,
And your beautiful wavy hair ;
It is a truth, and no lie.
That you are Ceudach, son of the King of the Colla men."
She asked permission of Fionn to remain this evening
at the shore, as she then was. She was not long there,
when she saw two men of gigantic size coming towards