And one day he called to the serving-boy to come on a journey with him,
and to bring the pup in a chain. And they set out and passed by
Slieve-nam-ban, where the witches of the Sidhe do be spinning with their
spinning-wheels; and then they turned eastward into Gleann-na-Smol. And
Oisin raised a rock that was there, and he bade the lad take from under
it three things, a great sounding horn of the Fianna, and a ball of iron
they had for throwing, and a very sharp sword. And when Oisin saw those
things, he took them in his hands, and he said: "My thousand farewells
to the day when you were put here!" He bade the lad to clean them well
then; and when he had done that, he bade him to sound a blast on the
horn. So the boy did that, and Oisin asked him did he see anything
strange. "I did not," said the boy. "Sound it again as loud as you can,"
said Oisin. "That is as hard as I can sound it, and I can see nothing
yet," said the boy when he had done that. Then Oisin took the horn
himself, and he put it to his mouth, and blew three great blasts on it.
"What do you see now?" he said. "I see three great clouds coming," he
said, "and they are settling down in the valley; and the first cloud is
a flight of very big birds, and the second cloud is a flight of birds
that are bigger again, and the third flight is of the biggest and the
blackest birds the world ever saw."
"What is the dog doing?" said Oisin. "The eyes are starting from his
head, and there is not a rib of hair on him but is standing up.
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