or one day when Patrick and his clerks were singing the Mass at the
Rath of the Red Ridge, where Finn was wont to be, he saw Keelta, a
chief of the Fianna, draw near with his companions, and Keelta's huge
hounds were with him. They were men so tall and great that fear fell
on the clerks, but Patrick met with and asked their chieftain's name.
"I am Keelta," he answered, "son of Ronan of the Fianna." "Was it not
a good lord you were with," said Patrick, "Finn, son of Cumhal?" And
Keelta said, "If the brown leaves falling in the wood were gold, if
the waves of the sea were silver, Finn would have given them all
away." "What was it kept you through your lifetime?" said Patrick.
"Truth that was in our hearts, and strength in our hands, and
fulfilment in our tongues," said Keelta. Then Patrick gave them food
and drink and good treatment, and talked with them. And in the morning
the two angels who guarded him came to him, and he asked them if it
were any harm before God, King of heaven and earth, that he should
listen to the stories of the Fianna. And the angels answered, "Holy
Clerk, these old fighting men do not remember more than a third of
their tales by reason of the forgetfulness of age, but whatever they
tell write it down on the boards of the poets and in the words of the
poets, for it will be a diversion to the companies and the high people
of the latter times to listen to them."[8] So spoke the angels, and
Patrick did as he bade them, and the stories are in the world to this
day.

[8] This is quoted with a few omissions, from Lady Gregory's
delightful version, in her _Book of Saints and Wonders_, of an
episode in _The Colloquy of the Ancients_ (Silva Gadelica).

STOPFORD A. BROOKE

ST PATRICK'S DAY, 1910

COIS NA TEINEADH

(_By the Fireside._)

Where glows the Irish hearth with peat
There lives a subtle spell--
The faint blue smoke, the gentle heat,
The moorland odours, tell

Of long roads running through a red
Untamed unfurrowed land,
With curlews keening overhead,
And streams on either hand;

Black turf-banks crowned with whispering sedge,
And black bog-pools below;
While dry stone wall or ragged hedge
Leads on, to meet the glow

From cottage doors, that lure us in
From rainy Western skies,
To seek the friendly warmth within,
The simple talk and wise;

Or tales of magic, love and arms
From days when princes