He learned to jump by chasing hares in a bumpy field. Up went the
hare and up went Fionn, and away with the two of them, hopping
and popping across the field. If the hare turned while Fionn was
after her it was switch for Fionn; so that in a while it did not
matter to Fionn which way the hare jumped for he could jump that
way too. Long-ways, sideways or baw-ways, Fionn hopped where the
hare hopped, and at last he was the owner of a hop that any hare
would give an ear for.

He was taught to swim, and it may be that his heart sank when he
fronted the lesson. The water was cold. It was deep. One could
see the bottom, leagues below, millions of miles below. A small
boy might shiver as he stared into that wink and blink and twink
of brown pebbles and murder. And these implacable women threw him
in!

Perhaps he would not go in at first. He may have smiled at them,
and coaxed, and hung back. It was a leg and an arm gripped then;
a swing for Fionn, and out and away with him; plop and flop for
him; down into chill deep death for him, and up with a splutter;
with a sob; with a grasp at everything that caught nothing; with
a wild flurry; with a raging despair; with a bubble and snort as
he was hauled again down, and down, and down, and found as
suddenly that he had been hauled out.

Fionn learned to swim until he could pop into the water like an
otter and slide through it like an eel.

He used to try to chase a fish the way he chased hares in the
bumpy field--but there are terrible spurts in a fish. It may be