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 him. Never before, in all his wanderings and adventures, Fionn thought to himself, had he seen such a terrifying ugly fellow. The Gilla Decair was bad-looking enough, but he was beautiful compared to this strange being, who was gigantic in size.

The nearer he came the more astonished Fionn was that a giant of such surpassing ugliness should be in the country without his knowledge. For the skin of the giant's face was the colour of yellow leather; his legs were as thick as the trunks of big pine-trees, but not straight as they are; and on his huge misshapen feet were shoes as big as curraghs. A tunic of a dirty grey-brown colour covered him to the middle of his legs, and the tails of this were ornamented up to his waist with a thick layer of mud. As he moved these tails knocked and flapped against his legs with such force that the noise they made could be heard fully half-a-mile away, and with each step that he took Fionn could hear the mud and water squelching in his shoes, and could see how it squirted up and over him. Yet in the midst of all this mass of ugliness and dirt Fionn was