BY his arts Conaran changed the sight of Fionn’s eyes, and he did the same for Cona’n.
In a few minutes Fionn stood up from his place on the mound. Everything was about him as before, and he did not know that he had gone into Faery. He walked for a minute up and down the hillock. Then, as by chance, he stepped down the sloping end of the mound and stood with his mouth open, staring. He cried out:
“Come down here, Cona’n, my darling.”
Cona’n stepped down to him.
“Am I dreaming?” Fionn demanded, and he stretched out his finger before him.
“If you are dreaming,” said Congn, “I’m dreaming too. They weren’t here a minute ago,” he stammered.
Fionn looked up at the sky and found that it was still there. He stared to one side and saw the trees of Kyle Conor waving in the distance. He bent his ear to the wind and heard the shouting of hunters, the yapping of dogs, and the clear whistles, which told how the hunt was going.
“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.
But the Chief insisted.
“I want to make sure that it is whiskers they are wearing.”
“Let them wear whiskers or not wear them,” Cona’n counselled. “But let us have nothing to do with them.”
“One must not be frightened of anything,” Fionn stated.
“I am not frightened,” Cona’n explained. “I only want to keep my good opinion of women, and if the three yonder are women, then I feel sure I shall begin to dislike females from this minute out.”
“Come on, my love,” said Fionn, “for I must find out if these whiskers are true.”
He strode resolutely into the cave. He pushed the branches of holly aside and marched up to Conaran’s daughters, with Cona’n behind him.
