Page:Heroes of the dawn.djvu/90

 turned round and attacked them. The Fians cheered their hounds on, thinking they would soon conquer the boar, but, to their grief and anger, it killed one after another of the hounds, until there was left only Bran, the wise and beautiful hound that was Fionn's joy and delight, and one of the greatest treasures he ever possessed.

Bran circled round and round the boar, waiting for an opportunity to spring on it. At last she made a leap, and fastened her teeth in the boar's shoulder, and though the boar shook himself and ran to and fro, he could not free himself from Bran. Then he screamed horribly with rage and pain, and at that moment a man, grotesquely ugly and gigantic, appeared suddenly on the hillside. Where he came from the Fians did not know, and they looked at him in astonishment.

"Call your hound from my boar at once, Fionn," he said, "or I will kill her."

Hearing him speak like that the Fians grew very angry. A number of their best dogs had been slain by this fierce boar; now the strange man spoke of killing Bran, who was the very