Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/79

 Rh There arose some quarrel or fighting between the hounds that the Fenians had, when she was only a puppy, and

Three score hounds and twenty puppies Bran did kill, and she a puppy, Two wild-geese, as much as they all.

It was Finn himself who killed Bran. They went out hunting, and there was made a fawn of Finn's mother. ( [sic]Who made a fawn of her? Oh, how do I know? It was with some of their pishtrogues.) Bran was pursuing her.

said Finn. "Oh, young son," said she, "how shall I escape?—

"If I go in the sea beneath I never shall come back again, And if I go in the air above My swiftness is no match for Bran."

"Go out between my two legs," said Finn.

She went between his two legs, and Bran followed her; and as Bran went out under him, Finn squeezed his two knees on her and killed her.

Bran had a daughter. That pup was a black hound, and the Fenians reared it; and they told the woman who had a charge of the pup to give it the milk of a cow without a single spot, and to give it every single drop, and not to keep back one tint from her. The woman did not do that, but kept a portion of the milk without giving it to the pup.

The first day that the Fenians loosed out the young hound, there was a glen full of wild-geese and other birds; and when the black hound was loosed amongst them, she caught them all except a very few that went 3