He must swiftly milk a fat cow and carry milk-pail and cow for twenty years in the seat of his drawers. One thousand rams he must sequester about his trunks with no offence to the men of Erin, or he is unknown to Finn. One hundred head of cattle he must accommodate with wisdom about his person when walking all Erin, the half about his armpits and the half about his trews, his mouth never halting from the discoursing of sweet poetry. If he be delivered of a warrior or a blue spear, he is not taken. Two young fosterlings he must carry under the armpits to his jacket through the whole of Erin, and six arm-bearing warriors in his seat together. Likewise he must hide beneath a twig, or behind a dried leaf, or under a red stone, or vanish at full speed into the seat of his hempen drawers without changing his course or abating his pace or angering the men of Erin. When pursued by a host, he must stick a spear in the world and hide behind it and vanish in its narrow shelter or he is not taken for want of sorcery. If he cry out or eat grass-stalks or desist from the constant recital of sweet poetry and melodious Irish, he is not taken but is wounded. For five days he must sit on the brow of a cold hill with twelve-pointed stag-antlers hidden in his seat, without food or music or chessmen.
If he sink beneath a peat-swamp or lose a hog, he is not accepted of Finn's people. With the eyelids to him stitched to the fringe of his eye-bags, he must be run by Finn's people through the bogs and the marsh-swamps of Erin with two odorous prickle-backed hogs ham-tied and asleep in the seat of his hempen drawers. Neck-high sticks he must pass by vaulting, knee-high sticks by stooping. Weapon-quivering hand or twig-crackling foot at full run, neither is taken. Should branches disturb his hair or pull it forth like sheep-wool on a hawthorn, he is not taken but is caught and gashed. No man is taken till he is run by warriors through the woods of Erin with his hair bunched-loose about him for bough-tangle and briar-twitch. If he be spear-holed past his shield, or spear-killed, he is not taken for want of shield-skill. Then must nine warriors fly their spears at him, one with the other and together. No man is taken till a black hole is hollowed in the world to the depth of his two oxters and he put into it to gaze from it with his lonely head and nothing to him but his shield and a stick of hazel.
Till a man has accomplished twelve books of poetry, the same is not taken for want of poetry but is forced away. “Sweet to me your voice, said Caolcrodha Mac Morna, brother to sweet-worded sweet-toothed Goll from Sliabh Riabhach and Brosnacha Bladhma, relate then the attributes that are to Finn's people.
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