"How long have you been here?" was the next query. "Seven years,"
the poet answered.

"It is a long time," said wondering Fionn.

"I would wait twice as long for a poem," said the inveterate
bard.

"Have you caught good poems?" Fionn asked him.

"The poems I am fit for," said the mild master. "No person can
get more than that, for a man's readiness is his limit."

"Would you have got as good poems by the Shannon or the Suir or
by sweet Ana Life'?"

"They are good rivers," was the answer. "They all belong to good
gods."

"But why did you choose this river out of all the rivers?"

Finegas beamed on his pupil.

"I would tell you anything," said he, "and I will tell you that."

Fionn sat at the kindly man's feet, his hands absent among tall
grasses, and listening with all his ears. "A prophecy was made to
me," Finegas began. "A man of knowledge foretold that I should
catch the Salmon of Knowledge in the Boyne Water."