great snorts and made great jumps and behaved like a first-rate
horse. For this same Fiacuil was the husband of Bovmall, Fionn's
aunt. He had taken to the wilds when clann-Baiscne was broken,
and he was at war with a world that had dared to kill his Chief.



CHAPTER VII

A new life for Fionn in the robber's den that was hidden in a
vast cold marsh.

A tricky place that would be, with sudden exits and even suddener
entrances, and with damp, winding, spidery places to hoard
treasure in, or to hide oneself in.

If the robber was a solitary he would, for lack of someone else,
have talked greatly to Fionn. He would have shown his weapons and
demonstrated how he used them, and with what slash he chipped his
victim, and with what slice he chopped him. He would have told
why a slash was enough for this man and why that man should be
sliced. All men are masters when one is young, and Fionn would
have found knowledge here also. lie would have seen Fiacuil's
great spear that had thirty rivets of Arabian gold in its socket,
and that had to be kept wrapped up and tied down so that it would
not kill people out of mere spitefulness. It had come from Faery,
out of the Shi' of Aillen mac Midna, and it would be brought back
again later on between the same man's shoulder-blades.

What tales that man could tell a boy, and what questions a boy