which it was unlawful to transgress, but this was discovered by Dethcaen.  She discovered it while he was yet a babe.  With her own hands Dethcaen washed his garments and bathed his tiny limbs; lightly and cheerfully she sprang from her couch at night when she heard his voice, and raised him from the cradle and wrapped him tenderly, and put him into the hands of his mother.  She watched him when he slumbered; there was great stillness in the palace of Sualtam when the child slept.  She repeated for him many tales and taught him nothing base.  When he was three years old, men came with hounds to hunt the stream which ran past Dun Dalgan. [Footnote:  Now Dundalk, capital of the County of Louth.] Early in the morning Setanta heard the baying of the hounds and the shouting of the men.  They were hunting a great water-dog which had his abode in this stream.  Setanta leaped from his couch and ran to the river.  Well he knew that stream and all its pools and shallows; he knew where the water-dog had his den.  Thither by circuit he ran and stood before the month of the same, having a stone in either hand.  The hunted water-dog drew nigh.  Maddened with fear and rage he gnashed his teeth and growled, and then charged at the child.  There, O Setanta, with the stroke of one stone thou didst slay the water-dog!  The dog was carried in procession with songs to the dun of Sualtam, who that night gave a great feast and called many to rejoice with him, because his only son had done bravely.  A prophet who was there said, “Thou shalt do many feats in thy time, O Setanta, and the last will resemble the first.”

Setanta played along the sand and by the frothing waves of the sea-shore under the dun.  He had a ball and an ashen hurle shod with bronze; joyfully he used to drive his ball along the hard sand, shouting among his small playmates.  The captain of the guard gave him a sheaf of toy javelins and taught him how to cast, and made for him a sword of lath and a painted shield.  They made for him a high chair.  In the great hall of the dun, when supper was served, he used to sit beside the champion of that small realm, at the south end of the table over against the king.  Ever as evening drew on and the candles were lit, and the instruments of festivity and the armour and trophies on the walls and pillars shone in the cheerful light, and the people of Sualtam sat down rejoicing, there too duly appeared Setanta over against his father by the side of the champion, very fair and pure, yellow-haired, in his scarlet bratta fastened with a little brooch of silver, serene and grave beyond his years, shining there like a very bright star on the edge of a thunder-cloud, so that men often smiled to see them together.