"With all pleasure in life," said she; "only, as they're far back in his head, you must put your finger a good way in."

Cucullin was surprised to find such a powerful set of grinders in one so young; but he was still much more so on finding, when he took his hand from Fin's mouth, that he had left the very finger upon which his whole strength depended, behind him. He gave one loud groan, and fell down at once with terror and weakness. This was all Fin wanted, who now knew that his most powerful and bitterest enemy was completely at his mercy. He instantly started out of the cradle, and in a few minutes the great Cucullin, that was for such a length of time the terror of him and all his followers, lay a corpse before him. Thus did Fin, through the wit and invention of Oonagh, his wife, succeed in overcoming his enemy by stratagem, which he never could have done by force: and thus also is it proved that the women, if they bring us into many an unpleasant scrape, can sometimes succeed in getting us out of others that are as bad.


Footnotes

[63] A common name for the cloud or rack that hangs, as a forerunner of wet weather, about the peak of a mountain.

[64] There is upon the top of this hill an opening that bears a very strong resemblance to the crater of an extinct volcano.


KINGS, QUEENS, PRINCESSES,
EARLS, ROBBERS.

THE TWELVE WILD GEESE. [65]