he Carl then
picked up the head and threw it at the body with such aim and force
that the neck part of the head jammed into the neck part of the body and
stuck there, as good a head as ever, you would have said, but that it
bad got twisted the wrong way round. The Carl then lashed his opponent
hand and foot.

"Now, dear heart, do you still claim tribute and lordship of Ireland?"
said he.

"Let me go home," groaned Cael, "I want to go home."

"Swear by the sun and moon, if I let you go home, that you will send to
Fionn, yearly and every year, the rent of the land of Thessaly."

"I swear that," said Cael, "and I would swear anything to get home."

The Carl lifted him then and put him sitting into his ship. Then he
raised his big boot and gave the boat a kick that drove it seven leagues
out into the sea, and that was how the adventure of Cael of the Iron
finished.

"Who are you, sir?" said Fionn to the Carl.

But before answering the Carl's shape changed into one of splendour and
delight.

"I am ruler of the Shi' of Rath Cruachan," he said.

Then Fionn mac Uail made a feast and a banquet for the jovial god, and
with that the tale is ended of the King of Thessaly's son and the Carl
of the Drab Coat.

THE ENCHANTED CAVE OF CESH CORRAN

CHAPTER I

Fionn mac Uail was the most prudent chief of an army in the world, but
he was not always prudent on his own account. Discipline sometimes
irked him, and he would then take any opportunity that presented for an
adventure; for he was not only a soldier, he was a poet also, that is, a
man of science, and whatever was strange or unusual had an irresistible
at-traction for him. Such a soldier was he that, single-handed, he could
take the Fianna out of any hole they got into, but such an inveterate
poet was he that all the Fianna together could scarcely retrieve him
from the abysses into which he tumbled. It took him to keep the Fianna
safe, but it took all the Fianna to keep their captain out of danger.
They did not complain of this, for they loved every hair of Fionn's head
more than they loved their wives and children, and that was reasonable
for there was never in the world a person more worthy of love than Fionn
was.

Goll mac Morna did not admit so much in words, but he admitted it in
all his actions, for although he never lost an opportunity of killing
a member of Fionn's family (there was deadly feud between clann-Baiscne
and clann-Morna), yet a call fr