Fintan: It is not any fault of myself or any
miscounting of my own! I am certain sure of
that much. Is it that the stars of heaven are
gone astray, they that are all one with a clock—
unless it might be on a stormy night when they
are wild-looking around the moon.
King: Go on with your story and stop your
raving.
Fintan: The first time ever I came to this place
I made a prophecy.
Dall Glic: You did, about the child was in the
cradle.
Fintan: And that was but new in the world.
It is what I said, that she was born under a certain
star, and that in a score of years all but two,
whatever acting was going on in that star at the
time she was born, she would get her crosses in the
same way.
Dall Glic: The cross you foretold to her was
to be ate by a Dragon. You laid down it would
come upon a twelvemonth from this very day.
Fintan: That's it. That was according to
my reckoning. There was no mistake in that.
And I thought better of the Seven Stars than
they to make a fool of me, after all the respect
I had showed them, giving my life to watching
themselves and the plans they have laid down
for men and for mortals.
King: It seems as if I myself was the best prophet
and that there is no Dragon at all.
Fintan: What a bad opinion you have of me
that I would be so far out as that! It would be
a deception and a disappointment out of measure,
there to come no Dragon, and I after foretelling
and prophesying him.
King: Troth, it would be no disappointment
at all to ourselves.