So he shouted the Fian
hunting-cry and rode furiously on their track. All day long they
chased the stag through the echoing forest, and the fairy steed bore
him unfaltering over rough ground and smooth, till at last as darkness
began to fall the quarry was pulled down, and Oisin cut its throat
with his hunting-knife. Long it seemed to him since he had felt glad
and weary as he felt now, and since the woodland air with its odours
of pine and mint and wild garlic had tasted so sweet in his mouth; and
truly it was longer than he knew. But when he bade make ready the
wood-oven for their meal, and build a bothy of boughs for their
repose, Niam led him seven steps apart and seven to the left hand, and
yet seven back to the place where they had killed the deer, and lo,
there rose before him a stately Dun with litten windows and smoke
drifting above its roof. When they entered, there was a table spread
for a great company, and cooks and serving-men busy about a wide
hearth where roast and boiled meats of every sort were being prepared.
Casks of Greek wine stood open around the walls, and cups of gold were
on the board. So they all ate and drank their sufficiency, and all
night Oisin and Niam slept on a bed softer than swans-down in a
chamber no less fair than that which they had in the City of the Land
of Youth.
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