On his eighth day in prison, Fin said to the old little woman, “Go now to the king, and say that I have a petition. I ask not my head, as I would not get it; but say that my right arm is rotting. I ask to be free in the garden for one hour; let him send with me men, if he chooses.”
The old woman told the request; and the king said, “I will grant that with willingness; for it will not take his head from me.”
Thirty armed men were sent, and Fin was set free in the garden. While walking, he asked the chief of the thirty, “Have you musical instruments?”
“We have not,” said the chief; “we forgot them. If they were here, we would give music; for I pity you, Fin MacCool.”
“When I was at home,” said Fin, “having the care and charge over men, we had music; and, if it please you, I will play some of the music of Erin.”
“I would be more than glad if you would do that,” said the chief.
The Fenians of Erin had a horn called the borabu; and when one of them went wandering he took the borabu with him, as Fin had done this time. It was the only instrument on which he could play. Fin blew the horn, and the sound of it came to Beann Dyeermud from the Eastern World. Dyeermud himself was in deep sleep at the moment; but the sound entered his right ear and came out through the left. The spring that he made then took him across seven ridges of land before he was firm on his feet. Dyeermud, wiping his eyes, said, “Great is the trouble that is on you, Fin; for the sound of the borabu has never yet entered my right ear unless you were in peril.”
Then, going at a spring to Cuas a Wudig, he found the remains of an old currachan, and, drawing out a chisel, knife, and axe, made a fine boat of the old one. With one kick of his right foot, he sent the boat seven leagues from land, and, following with a bound, dropped into it. He hoisted sails, not knowing whither to go, north, south, east, or west, but held on his way, and ploughed the mighty ocean before him, till, as good luck would have it, he reached the same harbor to which the woman had come with Fin MacCool.
Dyeermud saw the boat which had brought them, and said, laughing heartily, “I have tidings of Fin; he’s in this kingdom in some place, for this is the boat that brought him from Erin.”
Dyeermud cast anchor, and, landing, drew his sword; and a man seeing his look at that moment would have wished to be twenty miles distant. On he went, walking, till he had passed through a broad tract of country. On the high-road, he saw men, women, and children all going one way, and none any other. High and low, they were hurrying and hastening; the man behind outstripping the man in front.