And that is the story of the Hard Servant, and of Diarmuid's adventures
on the island Under-Wave.
CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF THE QUICKEN TREES
And it is often the Fianna would have been badly off without the help of
Diarmuid. It was he came to their help the time Miodac, the son of the
King of Lochlann, brought them into the enchanted House of the Quicken
Trees.
It was by treachery he brought them in, giving himself out to be a poet,
and making poems for Finn to make out the meaning of. A verse he made
about a great army that he saw riding over the plains to victory, and
robbing all before it, and the riders of it having no horses but plants
and branches. "I understand that," said Finn, "it was an army of bees
you saw, that was gathering riches from the flowers as it went." And
another verse Miodac made was about a woman in Ireland that was swifter
than the swiftest horse. "I know that," said Finn, "that woman is the
River Boinn; and if she goes slow itself, she is swifter in the end than
the swiftest horse, for her going never stops." And other verses he made
about Angus' house at Brugh na Boinn, but Finn made them all out.
And after that he said he had a feast ready for them, and he bade them
go into his House of the Quicken Trees till he would bring it. And they
did that, and went in, and it was a beautiful house, having walls of
every colour, and foreign coverings of every colour on the floor, and a
fire that gave out a very pleasant smoke.
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