by the latter.49 Oengus helped Fionn in a quarrel with Cormac mac Art, who taunted him with Conn's victory over Cumhal; whereupon Fionn and the rest forsook their strife with Oengus (the cause of this is unknown), and he guided them in a foray against Tara, aiding in the fight and alone driving the spoil.50 Again when the Féinn were in straits, a giant-like being assisted them and proved to be a chief of the síde, and in a tale from the Dindsenchas Sideng, daughter of Mongan of the síd, brought Fionn a flat stone with a golden chain, by means of which he slew three adversaries.51 Other magic things belonging to the Feinn were once the property of the gods. Manannan had a "crane-bag" made of a crane's skin, the bird being the goddess Aoife, transformed by a jealous rival; and in it he kept his treasures, though these were visible only when the tide was full. This bag became Cumhal's.52 Manannan's magic shield has already been described, and it also was later the property of Cumhal and Fionn.53 In the story of The Battle of Ventry (Cath Finntrága), at which the Tuatha Dé Danann helped the Féinn, weapons were sent to Fionn through Druidic sorcery from the síd of Tadg, son of Nuada, by Labraid Lamfhada, "the brother of thine own mother"; and these weapons shot forth balls of fire.54 Others were forged by a smith and his two brothers. Roc and the ocean-smith, who had only one leg and one eye.5 Whether these beings are borrowings from the Norse or supernatural creations of earlier Celtic myth is uncertain. Fionn had also a magic hood made in the Land of Promise, and of this hood it was said, "You will be hound, man, or deer, as you turn it, as you change it."56
We now approach the most moving episode of the whole cycle—The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Grainne (Tóruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne), the subject of a long tale with many mythical allusions, of several ballads and folk-tales, and of numerous references in earlier Celtic literature. Only the briefest outline can be given here, but all who would know that literature at its best should read the story itself. Early
