Anon they came to the forest, and the hunters with the hounds made a wide circuit on this side and on that, till at last the loud clamour of the hounds told that a stag was on foot, and Oisin saw them streaming down an open glen, the stag with its great antlers laid back and flying like the wind.

So he shouted the Fian hunting-cry and rode furiously on their track.

All day long they chased the stag through the echoing forest, and the fairy steed bore him unfaltering over rough ground and smooth, till at last as darkness began to fall the quarry was pulled down, and Oisin cut its throat with his hunting-knife.

Long it seemed to him since he had felt glad and weary as he felt now, and since the woodland air with its odours of pine and mint and wild garlic had tasted so sweet in his mouth; and truly it was longer than he knew.

But when he bade make ready the wood-oven for their meal, and build a bothy of boughs for their repose, Niam led him seven steps apart and seven to the left hand, and yet seven back to the place where they had killed the deer, and lo, there rose before him a stately Dun with litten windows and smoke drifting above its roof.