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 Fianna and keep guard over Ireland. As soon as Fionn had given all his instructions to Oisin, he and his men boarded the ship, which passed over the high waves as swiftly as a sea-gull flies.

Three days and three nights they journeyed without seeing land, but on the morning of the fourth day one of the Fians climbed a mast, and far over the tossing sea descried an island, with huge cliffs rising sheer from the ocean. Soon the ship drew near to the island, and stopped of its own accord; but the Fians, seeing how little foothold the high slippery rocks afforded, wondered how they would ever climb them. Then Fergus Truelips, one of the Fians' Druids, spoke and said to Diarmuid, grandson of Duibhne:

"Though in your youth you were the companion of Angus Oge, and the wise and kingly Manannan brought you up in his Land of Promise, there teaching you many druidical and magic arts, yet you seem impotent to help in the hour of need, and lack that skill and courage one would expect from you, who have had the immortal gods for your friends