rd.

Now at this time the people of the royal burg of Tara were sorely
afflicted by a goblin of the Fairy Folk, who was wont to approach the
place at night-fall, there to work what harm to man, or beast, or
dwelling that he found in his evil mind to do. And he could not be
resisted, for as he came he played on a magic harp a strain so keen
and sweet, that each man who heard it must needs stand entranced and
motionless until the fairy music had passed away. The King proclaimed
a mighty reward to any man who would save Tara from the goblin, and
Finn thought in his heart, "I am the man to do that." So he said to
the King, "Shall I have my rightful heritage as captain of the Fianna
of Erin if I slay the goblin?" Conn said, "I promise thee that," and
he bound himself by the sureties of all the provincial Kings of
Ireland and of the Druid Kithro and his magicians.

Now there was among the following of Conn a man named Fiacha, who had
been as a youth a trusty friend and follower of Cumhal. He came to
Finn and brought with him a spear having a head of dark bronze with
glittering edges, and fastened with thirty rivets of Arabian gold, and
the spear-head was laced up within a leathern case. "By this weapon of
enchantment," said Fiacha, "you shall overcome the enchanter," and he
taught Finn what to do with it when the hour of need should come.

So Finn took the spear, and left the strings of the case loose, and he
paced with it towards night-fall around the ramparts of royal Tara.
And when he had once made the circuit of the rampart, and the light
had now almost quite faded from the summer sky, and the wide low
plains around the Hill of Tara were a sea of white mist, he heard far
off in the deepening gloom the first notes of the fairy harp. Never
such music was made by mortal hand, for it had in it sorrows that man
has never felt, and joys for which man has no name, and it seemed as
if a man listening to that music might burst from time into eternity
and be as one of the Immortals for evermore. And Finn listened, amazed
and rapt, till at last as the triumphant melody grew nearer and louder
he saw dimly a Shadow Shape playing as it were on a harp, and coming
swiftly towards him. Then with a mighty effort he roused himself from
dreams, and tore the cover from the spear-head and laid the metal to
his brow. And the demoniac energy that had been beaten into the blade
by the hammers of unearthly craftsmen in ancient days thrilled
thr