And his crimson cloak and yellow silken tunic were now but coarse
homespun stuff tied with a hempen girdle, and the gold-hilted sword
was a rough oaken staff such as a beggar carries who wanders the roads
from farmer's house to house.
[24] Glanismole, near Dublin.
When the people saw that the doom that had been wrought was not for
them they returned, and found the old man prone on the ground with
his face hidden in his arms. So they lifted him up and asked who he
was and what had befallen him. Oisin gazed round on them with dim
eyes, and at last he said, "I was Oisin the son of Finn, and I pray ye
tell me where he now dwells, for his Dun on the Hill of Allen is now a
desolation, and I have neither seen him nor heard his hunting horn
from the Western to the Eastern Sea." Then the men gazed strangely on
each other and on Oisin, and the overseer asked, "Of what Finn dost
thou speak, for there be many of that name in Erinn?" Oisin said,
"Surely of Finn mac Cumhal mac Trenmor, captain of the Fianna of
Erinn." Then the overseer said, "Thou art daft, old man, and thou hast
made us daft to take thee for a youth as we did a while agone. But we
at least have now our wits again, and we know that Finn son of Cumhal
and all his generation have been dead these three hundred years.
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