ou 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.

_Fintan_: It would be better, I tell you, a score
of king's daughters to be ate and devoured, than
the high stars in their courses to be proved wrong.
But it must be right, it surely must be right. I
gave the prophecy according to her birth hour,
that was one hour before the falling back of the sun.

_Dall Glic_: It was not, but an hour before the
rising of the sun.

_Fintan_: Not at all! It was the Nurse herself
told me it was at evening she was born.

_Queen_: There is the Nurse now. Let you ask
her account.

_Fintan: (To Nurse.)_ It was yourself laid down
it was evening!

_Nurse_: Sure I wasn't in the place at all till
Samhuin time, when she was near three months
in the world.

_Fintan_: Then it was some other hag the very
spit of you! I wish she didn't tell a lie.

_Nurse_: Sure that one was banished out of this
on the head of telling lies. An hour ere sunrise,
a