CHAPTER X.
The Coming of Finn And now we tell how Finn came to the captaincy of the Fianna of Erinn.
At this time Ireland was ruled by one of the mightiest of her native kings, Conn, son of Felimy, who was surnamed Conn of the Hundred Battles.

And Conn sat in his great banqueting hall at Tara, while the yearly Assembly of the lords and princes of the Gael went forward, during which it was the inviolable law that no quarrel should be raised and no weapon drawn, so that every man who had a right to come to that Assembly might come there and sit next his deadliest foe in peace.

Below him sat at meat the provincial kings and the chiefs of clans, and the High King's officers and fighting-men of the Fianna, with Goll and the sons of Morna at their head.

And there, too, sat modestly a strange youth, tall and fair, whom no one had seen in that place before.

Conn marked him with the eye of a king that is accustomed to mark men, and by and by he sent him a horn full of wine from his own table and bade the youth declare his name and lineage.
"I am Finn, son of Cumhal," said the youth, standing among them, tall as a warriors spear, and a start and a low murmur ran through the Assembly while the captains of the Fianna stared upon him like men who see a vision of the dead.