“How could it be that God and his clerics could be better men than Finn, the chief king of the Fenians, the generous one, who was without blemish? All the qualities that you and your clerics say are according to the rule of the King of the Stars, Finn’s Fenians had them all, and they must be now stoutly seated in God’s heaven. Were there a place above or below better than heaven, ’tis there Finn would go and all the Fenians he had.” Baffled in his attempt to initiate the pagan into his new doctrines, and curious to hear, Patrick relents and calls for a tale. The following is an example of the usual metre of the original mellifluous Gaelic:— Ossian, sweet to me thy voice, Now blessings choice on the soul of Finn, But tell to me how many deer Were slain at Slieve-na-man-finn. And warming to the task, the bard recites the glorious character and deeds of the vanished heroes. “The Fenians never used to tell untruth. There never sat cleric in church, though melodiously ye may think they chant psalms, more true to his word than the Fenians, the men who shrank never from fierce conflicts.” And then when he adds, “I never heard that any feat was performed by the King of the saints, or that _He_ reddened his hand,” the exasperated and dogmatic Patrick stops him short with the assertion, “Let us cease disputing on both sides, thou withered old man, who art devoid of sense; understand that God dwells in heaven of the orders, and Finn and his hosts are all in pain.” Ossian, pathetically, “Great then would be the shame for God not to release Finn from the shackles of pain; for if God himself were in bonds, my chief would fight on his behalf. Finn never suffered in his day any one to be in pain or difficulty without redeeming him by silver or gold, or by battle and fight, until he was victorious. “It is a good claim I have against your God, I to be among these clerics as I am, without food, without clothing or music, without bestowing gold on bards, without battling, without hunting, etc.” The idea of his well-meaning instructors was to starve the bard into submission, in the intolerant spirit of the Inquisition of later times, or of boycotting in more modern days. Elsewhere the bewildered Ossian laments as follows:— “Alas, O Patrick, I did think that God would not be angered thereat; I think long, and it is a great woe to me, not to speak of the way of Finn of the Deeds.” To which Patrick: “Speak not of Finn nor of the Fenians, for the Son of God will be angry with thee for it. He would never let thee into his court, and He would not send thee the bread of each day.” “I will, O Patrick, do his will. Of Finn or of the Fenians I will not talk, for fear of bringing anger upon them, O cleric, if it is God’s wont to be angry.”