Page:Heroes of the dawn.djvu/104

 "For your sake I will break through old customs, and I choose you, Aina, to be my wife."

When Miluchra heard his decision her blue eyes grew hard and steel-like with jealous rage, and she went away, vowing vengeance on Fionn for his refusal of her love. For a long time she meditated on the form her revenge should take, then one day she called her kinsfolk together, and asked them to make her a magic lake on the mountain called Slieve Gullion—a lake that would take youth and strength from whoever entered its water.

The weeks passed by, and one autumn day it happened that Fionn was alone on the plain of Allen. Suddenly a fawn darted out from the wood a short distance away, and Fionn, calling Bran and Sgeolan to him, started in pursuit. Northwards the fawn fled, but all through the long chase Fionn and his dogs kept it in sight. At length they came to Slieve Gullion, and the fawn, with its pursuers close on it now, steadily mounted the hillside; but, as they were passing through a dense