Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/43

 on withered leaves? As to the children of Calatin, thou canst no more fight with them than with gnats.'

'Fight with the children of Calatin?' he exclaimed. 'There are but six of them, all born at one birth, like rats, and did I not fight against their twenty-seven brothers and their father all together?'

He was ashamed when he knew that he had been valiant against phantoms, and he turned from these enchantments to those of singers and poets. He heard them singing and chanting of men who were now, as he would be some day, kept alive on the lips of men by fame after death. He tried to think what it would be like to be dead, and to be known only in a song or poem. But when he had thought how glorious to have beautiful maidens singing, and noble poets writing poems about him, he could think no further, and therefore it seemed to him as good to be famous after death as it was to do deeds worthy of fame. Yet to sit there, listening to music, was not worthy of fame, and up he leapt in a rage that the trumpets of the three kings should be sounding just outside. They were about to attack this very house when Cohoolin emerged. At sight of him they turned their chariots, and drove away. Furiously he pursued them until he came in sight of a far larger army beyond a river. This was the real army of the three hostile kings, and in an hour he would have been amongst them had he continued the chase. Now, however, he saw a small band of Ulster men approaching him on their way to Conachoor, and they were right in the path of the flying enemy. Yet neither did these few men slip aside out of the way of the host, nor did the host take notice of the men, but kept on in its flight. The Ulster men were hid among them for a moment, and then reappeared as if they had passed through smoke. Cohoolin