Hold fast to your arms till the hard fight is well
ended. Do not give up your opportunity, but with that follow after
gentleness."
That was good advice Finn gave, and he was well able to do that; for it
was said of him that he had all the wisdom of a little child that is
busy about the house, and the mother herself not understanding what he
is doing; and that is the time she has most pride in him.
And as to Lugaidh's Son, that advice stayed always with him, and he
changed his ways, and after a while he got a great name among the poets
of Ireland and of Alban, and whenever they would praise Finn in their
poems, they would praise him as well.
And Aoife, daughter of the King of Lochlann, that was married to Mal,
son of Aiel, King of Alban, heard the great praise the poets were giving
to Lugaidh's Son, and she set her love on him for the sake of those
stories.
And one time Mal her husband and his young men went hunting to
Slieve-mor-Monaidh in the north of Alban. And when he was gone Aoife
made a plan in her sunny house where she was, to go over to Ireland,
herself and her nine foster-sisters. And they set out and went over the
manes of the sea till they came to Beinn Edair, and there they landed.
And it chanced on that day there was a hunting going on, from Slieve
Bladhma to Beinn Edair. And Finn was in his hunting seat, and his
fosterling, brown-haired Duibhruinn, beside him. And the little lad was
looking about him on every side, and he saw a ship coming to the
strand, and a queen with modest looks in the ship, and nine women along
with her.
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