Suddenly something sharp stabbed Finan, and he cried out.
A man, a woman, and a little child came rushing from one of the household yards, flapping their garments and screaming: "The bees! The bees!"
They had just found their precious hive empty. The bees had swarmed, and unless they could find them there would be no more sweet-smelling mead made from honey in that household that year.
Another bee stung Finan. And there they were clinging to a low apple bough just above his head. They hung in a great cluster, like a bunch of dark grapes.
"Dame," said a cowherd, who was in the road, to the people who were crying out for their bees, "yonder lad knows where the bees are."
Finan rubbed his head and looked up at the angry, humming swarm.
"Aye," he said, and laughed.
"Throw gravel on the swarming bees," called the cowherd, Cædmon.
The man and woman and Finan took handfuls of gravel from the roadside and flung them over the bees, and sang again and again, "Never to the wood, fly ye wildly more!"