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Out of the very bottom of the bitter black north.

. Hush, I say!

. Does Cuchulain know that he is coming to kill him?

. How would he know that with his head in the clouds? He doesn’t care for common fighting. Why would he put himself out, and nobody in it but that young man? Now if it were a white fawn that might turn into a queen before morning—

. Come to the fowl. I wish it was as big as a pig; a fowl with goose grease and pig’s crackling.

. No hurry, no hurry. I know whose son it is. I wouldn’t tell anybody else, but I will tell you,—a secret is better to you than your dinner. You like being told secrets.

. Tell me the secret.

. That young man is Aoife’s son. Iam sure it is Aoife’s son, it flows in upon me that it is Aoife’s son. You have often heard me talking of Aoife, the great woman-fighter Cuchulain got the mastery over in the north?

. I know, I know. She is one of