THE HIGH DEEDS OF FINN
CHAPTER IX
The Boyhood of Finn mac Cumhal
In Ireland long ago, centuries before the English appeared in that
country, there were kings and chiefs, lawyers and merchants, men of
the sword and men of the book, men who tilled their own ground and men
who tilled the ground of others, just as there are now. But there was
also, as ancient poets and historians tell us, a great company or
brotherhood of men who were bound to no fixed calling, unless it was
to fight for the High King of Ireland whenever foes threatened him
from within the kingdom or without it. This company was called the
Fianna of Erinn. They were mighty hunters and warriors, and though
they had great possessions in land, and rich robes, and gold
ornaments, and weapons wrought with beautiful chasing and with
coloured enamels, they lived mostly a free out-door life in the light
hunting-booths which they made in the woods where the deer and the
wolf ranged. There were then vast forests in Ireland, which are all
gone now, and there were also, as there still are, many great and
beautiful lakes and rivers, swarming with fish and water-fowl. In the
forests and on the mountain sides roamed the wild boar and the wolf,
and great herds of deer, some of giant size, whose enormous antlers
are sometimes found when bogs are being drained.
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