“Well!” said Fionn to himself.
“By my hand!” quoth Cona’n to his own soul.
And the two men stared into the hillside as though what they were looking at was too wonderful to be looked away from.
“Who are they?” said Fionn.
“What are they?” Cona’n gasped. And they stared again.
For there was a great hole like a doorway in the side of the mound, and in that doorway the daughters of Conaran sat spinning. They had three crooked sticks of holly set up before the cave, and they were reeling yarn off these. But it was enchantment they were weaving.
“One could not call them handsome,” said Cona’n.
“One could,” Fionn replied, “but it would not be true.”
“I cannot see them properly,” Fionn complained. “They are hiding behind the holly.”
“I would be contented if I could not see them at all,” his companion grumbled.