Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/10

 panting of the horses blew them along; if the chariots stopped they stopped also.

At sunset only three birds were visible flying without haste before the tired horses. Soon even these were hid in the snow that began to fall in the darkness. The sound of the snow drowned the voices of the birds, and the men could pursue no longer. They took shelter at a hut standing all alone in the snow.

As they were sitting in the hut one of the chiefs heard a little noise of something that was not snow. So he went out and walked on towards where the sound had seemed to come from. He had not gone far when he saw a great handsome house which he entered. The lord of the house was a young warrior; his wife was a woman like a queen, attended by fifty maidens. They saluted the chief kindly and the man told him that the queenly woman was Dectora.

When the chief returned he told Conachoor about the great house, but not about Dectora and the fifty maidens.

In the morning they found in the hut a newborn boy with a face like Conachoor's. Outside there was nothing but snow upon the ground, snow falling through the air, and snow in the sky: neither the great house and its people, nor the birds, were to be seen. The baby cried and the chief who had gone out in the night spoke and told them that he had seen Dectora and her maidens and that the child was hers. So the king gave the child to another sister to nurse him. They called him Setanta, and the aged Morann prophesied concerning him. He would be a great warrior; men and bards would sing of his deeds and praise him both while he was alive and after he was dead.

The boy grew up strong and without fear. His