What we could do,
O Finn, we did; Saba is gone."
Finn then struck his hand on his breast but spoke no word, and he went
to his own chamber. No man saw him for the rest of that day, nor for
the day after. Then he came forth, and ordered the matters of the
Fianna as of old, but for seven years thereafter he went searching for
Saba through every remote glen and dark forest and cavern of Ireland,
and he would take no hounds with him save Bran and Sceolaun. But at
last he renounced all hope of finding her again, and went hunting as
of old. One day as he was following the chase on Ben Gulban in Sligo,
he heard the musical bay of the dogs change of a sudden to a fierce
growling and yelping as though they were in combat with some beast,
and running hastily up he and his men beheld, under a great tree, a
naked boy with long hair, and around him the hounds struggling to
seize him, but Bran and Sceolaun fighting with them and keeping them
off. And the lad was tall and shapely, and as the heroes gathered
round he gazed undauntedly on them, never heeding the rout of dogs at
his feet. The Fians beat off the dogs and brought the lad home with
them, and Finn was very silent and continually searched the lad's
countenance with his eyes. In time, the use of speech came to him, and
the story that he told was this:--
He had known no father, and no mother save a gentle hind with whom he
lived in a most green and pleasant valley shut in on every side by
towering cliffs that could not be scaled, or by deep chasms in the
earth.
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