ad the king--Find in Alend, Ailill in
Cruac, Cairpre in Tara; together they performed their deeds of valor,
the three brothers in every strife; together they used to give their
battle. They were three pillars of gold about their hills, abiding in
strength; great is their loss since the third son has fallen."

VII.

FIND AND OSSIN.

A.D. 200--290.

Seventeen centuries ago, two hundred summers after the death of Cuculain
the hero, came the great and wonderful time of Find the son of Cumal,
Ossin the son of Find, and Find's grandson Oscur. It was a period of
growth and efflorescence; the spirit and imaginative powers of the
people burst forth with the freshness of the prime. The life of the land
was more united, coming to a national consciousness.

The five kingdoms were now clearly defined, with Meath, in the central
plain, predominant over the others, and in a certain sense ruling all
Ireland from the Hill of Tara. The code of honor was fixed; justice had
taken well-defined forms; social life had ripened to genial urbanity.
The warriors were gathered together into something like a regular army,
a power rivaling the kings. Of this army, Find, son of Cumal, was the
most renowned leader--a warrior and a poet, who embodied in himself the
very genius of the time, its fresh naturalness, its ripeness, its
imagination. No better symbol of the spirit of his age could be found
than Find's own "Ode to Spring":

"May-day! delightful time! How beautiful the color! The blackbirds sing
their full lay. Would that Laigay were here! The cuckoos call in
constant strains. How welcome is ever the noble brightness of the
season. On the margin of the leafy pools the summer swallows skim the
stream. Swift horses seek the pools. The heath spreads out its long
hair. The white, gentle cotton-grass grows. The sea is lulled to rest.
Flowers cover the earth."

Find's large and imaginative personality is well drawn in one of the
poems of his golden-tongued son Ossin, though much of the beauty of
Ossin's form is lost in the change of tongue:

"Six thousand gallant men of war
We sought the rath o'er Badamar;
To the king's palace home we bent
Our way. His bidden guests we went.
'Twas Clocar Fair,
And Find was there,
The Fians from the hills around
Had gathered to the race-course ground.
From valley deep and wooded glen
Fair Munster sent its mighty men;
And Fiaca, Ow