every wooded height;
Fair and bright the plain below.

A bright shaft has smit the streams,
With gold gleams the water-flag;
Leaps the fish, and on the hills
Ardour thrills the flying stag.

Carols loud the lark on high,
Small and shy, his tireless lay,
Singing in wildest, merriest mood
Of delicate-hued, delightful May.[20]

[20] I am much indebted to the beautiful prose translation of
this song, published by Dr Kuno Meyer in _Eriu_ (the Journal of
the School of Irish Learning), Vol. I. Part II. In my poetic
version an attempt has been made to render the riming and
metrical effect of the original, which is believed to date from
about the ninth century.

CHAPTER X

The Coming of Finn

And now we tell how Finn came to the captaincy of the Fianna of Erinn.

At this time Ireland was ruled by one of the mightiest of her native
kings, Conn, son of Felimy, who was surnamed Conn of the Hundred
Battles. And Conn sat in his great banqueting hall at Tara, while the
yearly Assembly of the lords and princes of the Gael went forward,
during which it was the inviolable law that no quarrel should be
raised and no weapon drawn, so that every man who had a right to come
to that Assembly might come there and sit next his deadliest foe in
peace. Below him sat at meat the provincial kings and the chiefs of
clans, and the High King's officers and fighting-men of the Fianna,
with Goll and the sons of Morna at their head. And there, too, sat
modestly a strange youth, tall and fair, whom no one had seen in that
place before. Conn marked him with the eye of a king that is
accustomed to mark men, and by and by he sent him a horn full of wine
from his own table and bade the youth declare his name and lineage.
"I am Finn, son of Cumhal," said the youth, standing among them, tall
as a warriors spear, and a start and a low murmur ran through the
Assembly while the captains of the Fianna stared upon him like men who
see a vision of the dead. "What seek you here?" said Conn, and Finn
replied, "To be your man, O King, and to do you service in war as my
father did." "It is well," said the King. "Thou art a friend's son and
the son of man of trust." So Finn put his hand in the Kind's and swore
fealty and service to him, and Conn set him beside his own son Art,
and all fell to talking again and wondering what new things that day
would bring forth, and the feasting went merrily forwa