The boy stood with his back to the tree waiting for the hounds to attack
From the Story of Saba
Finn throughout all his life never ceased to mourn for Saba, nor to search for her. Six years after her disappearance, while hunting in the forest, he came upon a wild boy with straggly hair and fierce eyes. His only clothing was the skins of beasts. The hounds had found him, and when Finn came up, the boy was standing with his back to a tree, waiting to strangle the hounds if they came at him.
The sight reminded Finn of his own boyhood days. He called off the dogs and took the boy home with him. At first the little fellow was too timid and unused to language to speak. Gradually, however, his fear left him and he became able to tell of his life in the forest.
He could remember a woman who had dwelt with him in a cave. A dark man had come and pleaded with her for several days, but always she had refused to do what the man asked. At last he had become angry, had left the cave and had never returned. The little boy remembered that he had never seen the woman again. After that he had been tended by a beautiful deer.
Then Finn knew that the woman was Saba and that the wild boy was his own son. He understood what the boy could not. The Black Druid had enticed his wife away and tried once more to get her to marry him. When she persistently refused him, he had turned her back into a deer.
Once more Finn searched the forest, hoping that he might again find the gentle deer, which had come to him before. His quest was without result. Possibly the Druid saw to it that she should never get near him, but it was more likely that some hunter had killed her. Finn mourned her as dead and gave his attention to the raising of his boy.
He named the child Ossian, which means Little Faun. He taught him the poetry of the day and trained him in feats of arms. Ossian grew up to be a worthy son of his father. In all the later battles we read of what a splendid fighter he was. He and his son, Oscar, were always in the front in time of danger.
But Ossian was not only a great warrior. He inherited his father’s love for poetry and the ability to write it. We have great numbers of stories about the deeds of Finn and the Fenians, and the greater number are written by the poet, Ossian.