Celts -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Fairy tales -- Great Britain; Folklore -- Great Britain; Tales -- Great Britain
The next night a Big Hag came ashore, and the tooth in the door of her
mouth would make a distaff. She sounded a challenge on her shield: "You
killed," she said, "my husband and my son." "I did kill them," said Fin.
They fought; and it was worse for Fin to guard himself from the tooth
than from the hand of the Big Hag. When she had nearly done for him Bran
struck her with the venomous shoe, and killed her as he had done to the
rest. Fin took with him the head, and left it in front of the house. The
King awoke in great anxiety, and called out, "My kingdom is lost, and my
dwarf and my lapdog are killed!" "They are not," said Fin, answering
him; and when they went out and saw the head, the King said, "I and my
kingdom will have peace ever after this. The mother herself of the brood
is killed; but tell me who you are. It was foretold for me that it would
be Fin-mac-Coul that would give me relief, and he is only now eighteen
years of age. Who are you, then, or what is your name?" "There never
stood," said Fin, "on hide of cow or horse, one to whom I would deny my
name. I am Fin, the Son of Coul, son of Looach, son of Trein, son of
Fin, son of Art, son of the young High King of Erin; and it is time for
me now to go home. It has been with much wandering out of my way that I
have come to your kingdom; and this is the reason why I have come, that
I might find out what injury I have done to you, or the reason why you
sent the three heroes to ask combat from me, and bring destruction on my
Men." "You never did any injury to me," said the King; "and I ask a
thousand pardons. I did not send the heroes to you. It is not the truth
they told. They were three men who were courting three fairy women, and
these gave them their shirts; and when they have on their shirts, the
combat of a hundred men is upon the hand of every one of them. But they
must put off the shirts every night, and put them on the backs of
chairs; and if the shirts were taken from them they would be next day as
weak as other people."
Fin got every honour, and all that the King could give him, and when he
went away, the King and the Queen and the people went down to the shore
to give him their blessing.
Fin now went away in his coracle, and was sailing close by the side of
the shore, when he saw a young man running and calling out to him. Fin
came in close to land with his coracle, and asked what he wanted. "I
am," said the young man, "a good servant wanting a master." "What work
can you do?" said Fin. "I am," said he, "the best soothsayer that there
is." "Jump into the boat then." The soothsayer jumped in, and they went
forward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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