"I slept, and I saw myself changing into a boar in dream, and I
felt in dream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream
I stretched my powerful neck and braced my eager limbs. I awoke
from my dream, and I was that which I had dreamed.

"The night wore away, the darkness lifted, the day came; and from
without the cave the wolves called to me: "'Come out, O Skinny
Stag. Come out and die.'

"And I, with joyful heart, thrust a black bristle through the
hole of the cave, and when they saw that wriggling snout, those
curving tusks, that red fierce eye, the wolves fled yelping,
tumbling over each other, frantic with terror; and I behind them,
a wild cat for leaping, a giant for strength, a devil for
ferocity; a madness and gladness of lusty, unsparing life; a
killer, a champion, a boar who could not be defied.

"I took the lordship of the boars of Ireland.

"Wherever I looked among my tribes I saw love and obedience:
whenever I appeared among the strangers they fled away. And the
wolves feared me then, and the great, grim bear went bounding on
heavy paws. I charged him at the head of my troop and rolled him
over and over; but it is not easy to kill the bear, so deeply is
his life packed under that stinking pelt. He picked himself up
and ran, and was knocked down, and ran again blindly, butting
into trees and stones. Not a claw did the big bear flash, not a
tooth did he show, as he ran whimpering like a baby, or as he
stood with my nose rammed against his mouth, snarling up into his