The time has come, and Finn decided to take a wife. Many beautiful girls would happily agree to become the wife of Finn Mac Humala, but he wanted to choose one who would be famous not only for her beauty, but also for her intelligence and wisdom. To test the intelligence of his future wife, Finn came up with six questions and, when he went to visit her, asked them. The one who answers all six questions will be his wife, he announced. So, the glorious warrior Ullin had a daughter, her name was Grain, and she was famous for her beauty throughout the entire region. Slender, dark-haired, with lively beautiful eyes. It was she who found the answers to all six questions when Finn came to visit her father.
-What is more than blades of grass on the ground? - Finn asked her.
“Drops of dew,” answered Grain, “after all, on every blade of grass there is not one, but many dewdrops.”
-What is whiter than snow? - Finn asked.
“Truth,” answered Grain.
“What’s blacker than a raven’s wing?” he asked.
“Death,” she answered.
-What's redder than blood?
— The face of a worthy person when he has nothing to treat an unexpected guest.
-What is sharper than a sword?
- Reproach the enemy for cowardice.
-What is faster than the wind?
— A woman’s thoughts that fly from one man to another.
This is how Grain answered without thinking for a second. And Finn took both her hands in his and said:
“Truly, Grain, your beauty blinds, and your intelligence pierces the heart.” Nobody compares to you. Do you agree to become my wife?
“It is an honor for me to become the wife of Finn Mac Humal,” she replied.
And in the large hall of the Ullinsky house they began to prepare a magnificent wedding. All nine thousand heroes of the glorious Fyan Host came to rejoice at the wedding of their glorious leader. The rafters of the house trembled from the peals of their thunderous laughter, the walls shook from the clinking of their goblets. The feast lasted seven days.
Among the nine thousand warriors was Dirmed, Finn's nephew. After Finn himself and his son Osgar, Dirmed was third in the mighty Host of the Fians. But the fair-haired hero surpassed everyone in beauty. On his left cheek, near his eye, there was a birthmark, which he always covered with a strand of hair. It was not a simple birthmark, but a mark of love. As soon as the woman glanced at this mark, love for Dirmed immediately ignited in her heart.
So, in the midst of the feast, two white hounds of Grain's bride, lying near her chair, fought over a bone that had fallen under the table. Dirmed was the first to jump up to separate them. A trifle, and yet from this trifle all his misfortunes began that day. And all because, when he knelt down to separate the dogs, a strand of hair covering the love mark fell, and Grainne saw it, and when she saw it, she immediately became inflamed with love for Dirmed.
“Finn, the brave leader of the Fian Host, did me the great honor of offering to become his wife. But Dirmed is the most handsome young man I have ever seen, and youth itself glows in his eyes. No, I love Dirmed,” she said to herself.
And later, when Finn was heavy from drinking wine and dozed off, his head bowed on his chest, Grainne leaned over to Dirmed and confessed her love to him.
- Let's run away from here together! - she asked Dirmed. “Take me away right now, and we’ll hide so that Finn will never find us.”
Grain's beauty turned out to be no weaker than the mark of love on Dirmed's cheek, and she won his heart. Her words caused him a strong temptation, he was ready to take Grain away, but how could he betray his friend and leader of the Fyans, to whom he swore eternal loyalty?
“Do you really want me to be called the most dishonest among the Fians?” - he asked Grain.
“And I put gisan on you, and from now on you cannot part with me,” she answered.
Hearing this, Dirmed sighed heavily, because in those distant, distant times there was a law: if a woman imposes a vow of obedience on a man, he must fulfill all her wishes. Dirmed thought about how he could, without offending Grain, break his words of loyalty to Finn, and said:
“Oh, my love Grainne, the burden you want to place on me is heavy. But I will fulfill your wish and take you away from here. Only under the conditions that I set myself. I will not take you away from the house or from the yard. You will not come to me on horseback or on foot. If you manage to fulfill these conditions, we will leave.
With these words, Dirmed got up from the table and left the feast hall of Ullin’s house to a neighboring house, where he stayed for the night.
And in the morning Grain came to him with two white hounds and said:
- Let's go, Dirmed. You see, I fulfilled all your conditions.
Dirmed went out to her and saw how skillfully she carried them out: she came to him not on horseback or on foot, but on a goat. And she stopped not on the street or in the house, but on the threshold.
“Truly Finn was right in finding you the smartest and most beautiful of women!” - Dirmed exclaimed. - Well, it's time for us to go. And yet the anxiety does not leave me. I'm afraid that no matter where we go, Finn will find us. Do you know why? Because as soon as he puts the index finger of his left hand on his wisdom tooth, he will immediately know where we are. And then rage overwhelms him, he will not calm down until he takes revenge on us.
Grainne dismounted from the goat, and, accompanied by the thin white ones, they hurried away and did not rest their feet until they had crossed the many green hills and valleys that lay between Ullin's house and the hospitable forests of Kintail on the Kintyre peninsula. However, although they flew like birds, the pursuit turned out to be faster. As soon as Finn learned that Dirmed had run away with his bride, he touched the treasured tooth with his finger, and immediately learned that the fugitives had taken refuge in Kintail Forest. Then he, along with the entire Host of the Fyans, left the house of Ullin and went there, while anger and rage drove them on.
“I never thought that Dirmed, the joy of my heart, would deceive me so basely and treacherously,” Finn said, and the thick veins bulged on his neck with anger.
The Fians very quickly reached the top of the highest hill, from which the vast forests of Kintail were visible in full view. Then Finn unfastened his hunting horn and blew a loud trumpet. Trumpet sounds echoed throughout the peninsula from south to north and from west to east.
And I must tell you that among the Fian Host there was a rule that when the foghead sounds, that is, the hunting call of Finn, everyone must answer it. Hearing the foghead, Dirmed realized that he must obey the immutable law of the Fyans.
“It can’t be helped, my love,” he told Grain. - Duty commands me to answer nafoghead. I must appear before Finn.
Seeing that Dirmed was about to leave, Grain said:
- I'm going with you, my love. And if Finn is preparing death for you, I will meet it with you.
And they went up to the top of the hill and met there with Finn, with his sons Osgar and Osian and with other heroes of the Host. When Finn saw Dirmed and Grainne approaching him hand in hand, the anger in his heart softened a little.
“Dirmed is still so young, it’s too early for him to die,” he thought. But then he remembered that his nephew had deceived him, and rage seized him with renewed vigor. “No, he has to die,” Finn decided.
But he shuddered at the thought that Dirmed would fall by his hand, and came up with another plan to take revenge on Dirmed.
In Kintail Forest there lived an old woman named Meila Lly, which means "Grey Eyebrow". She kept a herd of pigs, their leader was a ferocious boar, like a wild boar. Many heroes have already hunted him, but not one has returned back alive. This boar knew how to attack and defend itself. So it occurred to Finn to send Dirmed to hunt a boar. So his nephew will be doomed to death, and he himself will be avenged, Finn decided.
He met Dirmed and ordered him to go into the forest and kill the boar. Realizing that inevitable death awaited him, Dirmed said goodbye to Osgar and Osian, his cousins and friends of his youth, and left the Fians with a heavy heart.
The last person with whom he exchanged words before parting was his beautiful beloved Grainne. Picking up the spear, Dirmed went down the hill and disappeared into the thicket of the forest.
Some time passed, and everyone waiting at the top of the hill realized that Dirmed had already met with the boar - the sounds of battle reached them. They heard the branches cracking and breaking in the forest, the loud sniffles and wheezes of an angry beast. Then suddenly there was silence, followed by the triumphant cry of a man. Dirmed killed the boar.
Finn and his sons immediately rushed into the forest. There they saw Dirmed, safe and sound. He was resting after the battle, sitting next to a lifeless boar, from which black blood flowed from hundreds of wounds inflicted by a spear.
“It’s not for nothing that they call you Dirmed the Reliable Shield,” Finn said to his nephew. However, behind this praise lay a dull irritation that his plan had failed.
The boar had poisonous bristles on its back. It is enough to prick even one hair and the person is dead. Finn knew this and therefore said:
“Now measure your booty, nephew.” Walk along its spine and tell us how many feet it is from scruff to tail.
Not sensing trouble, Dirmed walked barefoot along the boar's back to measure it, as Finn had ordered. And what luck! Not a single poisonous hair pierced his foot.
“Exactly sixteen feet,” Dirmed announced.
“Measure again,” Finn ordered, “maybe you’re wrong.”
And Dirmed walked along the boar’s broad back for the second time. But halfway there, a poisonous hair dug into a mole on his right heel. And immediately a deadly poison entered his body, and Dirmed fell to the ground dead.
Finn suddenly felt remorse, and he exclaimed:
- Oh, Dirmed! Tell me what can heal you?
— A sip of water from Finn’s palms.
Finn rushed to the stream that flowed between the trees and scooped up handfuls of water. But then he remembered that Dirmed had taken his bride away from him, and he angrily opened his palms so that the water would run through his fingers to the ground.
And yet he took water into his palms for the second time. But again the struggle in his heart between his former love for his nephew and anger when he learned of his betrayal separated his palms, and the water flowed away again.
When Finn, having finally overcome himself, brought water to his nephew, Dirmed was already dead.
“I killed my own nephew, the son of my sister, for the sake of a woman who no longer loves me,” Finn reproached himself with grief. “I destroyed the valiant hero, third in the glorious Army of the Fyans, with my will.”
Osgar and Osian, Goll the Bogatyr and the huntsman Konen - everyone who grew up with Dirmed and spent their youth with him mourned him.
When Grainne learned that Dirmed was no longer alive, her heart stopped in pain, and she too died.
Dirmed and Grainne were buried with full honors on the shores of the quiet, bright lake of Lough Dug. They were lowered into a long boat. Nearby they placed Dirmed's battle spear, a sharp sword and the famous shield, as well as other things to which he was accustomed. And at Grain’s feet they laid her white hounds, because, unable to bear the longing for their mistress, they also died.
Then a high mound was built over their grave. To this day he is called Dirmed.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru