The High Deeds of Finn MacCool by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

fight. Then Finn wheeled his horse across the path of the hunt as they came up, and shouted to the Fianna to call off their hounds.
    The horsemen reined in, pulling the horses back on their haunches, and seeing what was behind their Captain, called off their hounds in a hurry, for they knew Bran and Skolawn when their hackles rose like that, and knew that any hound who took up their challenge would be a hound lost to the pack. But Goll Mac Morna looked at the trembling hind and said, ‘This is surely a strange quarry that you have run to bay.’
    â€˜It is in my mind that she was striving to reach Almu,’ Finn said, half laughing at the foolishness of his own thought, yet holding to it all the same, ‘and a poor thing it would be if a man were to hunt the guest who seeks his gates.’
    So the hunting party rode on, across the level country and up the Hill of Almu. And sure enough, the hind went ahead of them, and she playing with Bran and Skolawn by the way. And when they came to the gates, in she went, and that evening at supper she lay at Finn’s feet, with the two great hounds one on either side of her.
    In the midst of that night, Finn woke with a start. His sleeping hut was white with moonlight that floodedin through the open door, and standing in the heart of the moonlight, like the gold in the heart of a white flower, was the most beautiful maiden that ever his eyes had touched upon. She wore a gown of soft saffron wool clasped at the shoulder with yellow gold, and out of it her neck rose white, and her slim bare arms were white, and her hair was so warmly golden that even the moon could not wash the gold out of it. Only her eyes were soft and dark and shadowed with long black lashes as the eyes of the hind had been.
    â€˜Who are you?’ said Finn, wonderingly, and came to his elbow under the silken coverlid, ‘and what is it that you do here? For you are no woman of Almu that I have ever seen before.’
    â€˜If you wish for a name to call me by, then call me Saba,’ said the maiden. ‘I am the hind that you hunted today.’
    â€˜This is beyond my understanding,’ said Finn, rubbing his hand across his forehead. ‘Am I dreaming? If so, I hope its a dream I’ll be remembering in the morning.’
    â€˜You are not dreaming,’ the maiden said. ‘Listen, and you shall understand. Three of your mortal years ago, the Dark Druid of my own people tried to force his love on me and have me for his wife, and because I would have none of him, he used his magic to put upon me the hind’s shape that I have worn ever since. But a slave of his who took pity on me and had good cause to hate him, told me that if I could win to the Dun of Almu, within the white walls of Finn Mac Cool, I should be safe from the spells of our dark master, and my true shape would come to me again. But for long and long, I could not come close to theDun, for fear of your dogs and your hunters, until today I found the chance to let myself be run down by you and no other hunter, and by your dogs Bran and Skolawn, who have enchantment in them also, and the hearts of men, and who would know me for what I am and do me no harm.’
    â€˜Here you are safe indeed,’ Finn said, ‘and none shall harm you or seek to force his love on you nor bind you with any bond against your will. But can you be happy among mortal folk, and you with never one of your kind to speak with or to touch your hand?’
    For he knew that her own people of whom she spoke were the Danann People, the Proud Ones, the Fairy Kind.
    â€˜I will tell you that at another time. Now it is enough to be safe,’ said Saba, and she smiled a little, and turned and went out of the sleeping hut. And as she went, she seemed to take the whiteness of the moonlight with her.
    So Saba remained in the Dun of Almu. And Finn grew to love her, until the day came when he asked her to drink the bride-cup with him. And he did