"Well, I will tell you how he got his name," she began. "He went to the house of the smith who was giving a feast for the great King Conor (Conor was the boy's uncle). The smith had let out a great hound, for the King forgot to tell him that Cuchullin was coming. The boy came and gave battle to the hound and slew him. When the smith found out that his hound was dead he grieved very much, because the dog had tended his flocks and herds. The boy then offered to watch the cattle and guard them till a hound of equal strength could be found. And because of that he was called Cu-Culann, or the dog of the smith. He had to fight both dogs and men in defence of the cattle. But, then, he was a very brave boy; and, oh, it is a fine thing to have courage!"
"And to use it well as that boy did," I put in. "I suppose he grew up to be as good and brave a man."
"Yes, he was a very famous knight. He gained many victories and protected the poor and weak."
I smiled as I watched her fine, mobile face alight with the admiration she felt for that knight of the far-off past.
In the middle of a great room which we entered Winifred stopped abruptly; and when she spoke it was with awe in her voice.
"In this room," she observed, "was quartered for almost a whole winter the great Finn. Do you know who Finn was?"
"Perhaps he is the same as the Fingal of the Scotch," I replied.
"Perhaps so," said Winifred, indifferently; "but I don't know anything about Fingal. This Finn founded an order called the Fianna Eirrinn. He married Grania, 'the golden-haired, the fleet and young' daughter of King Connae, who lived on the Hill of Tara."
It was quaint to hear Winifred telling these legends or bits of ancient history in exactly the same language in which some older person had told them to her. I asked her to explain what kind of an order it was that this legendary hero had founded; and she told me it was a military order of knights who had sworn to defend the kingdom against foreign foes. She added that Finn possessed the gifts of poetry, of healing, and of second-sight—the latter from a fairy into whose palace he had succeeded in thrusting one hand.