Note 115.2 — Chapter XIX · THE MEDUSA-WITCH IN MÄRCHEN.

Allied to the enchanted hair of these tales is the fetter that binds Fenri the wolf. It is spun from the sound of a cat’s footsteps, a woman’s beard, the roots of a stone, a bear’s sinews, a fish’s breath, and a bird’s spittle; and it is as soft and smooth as a silken string.115.2 So likewise when Finn MacCumhail hunted in high Keshcorran, Conaran, son of Imidel, a chief of the Tuatha De Danann, bade his three daughters, that were full of sorcery, take vengeance upon the hero. Accordingly the beldams went and sat in the entrance of a cave. “Upon three crooked and wry sticks of holly they hung as many heathenish bewitched hasps of yarn, which they began to reel off lefthandwise in front of the cave.” The attention of Finn and his companion, Conan Mael MacMorna, was attracted; they approached to view the women, and passed through the hasps; “whereupon a deadly tremor occupied them, and presently they lost their strength, so that by those valiant hags they were fast bound indissolubly. Another pair of the Fianna came, and with them the sons of Nemhuann: through the yarn they passed to where Finn and Conan were; they too lost their power, and by the same hags were lashed down in rigid bonds. These warriors then they carried away into the cave.” Oscar and MacLugach, and in short “the children of Smól and the Fianna all” were drawn to the spot, and when they saw the yarns their pith and valour departed: “there was not in any one man of them all so much as a newly delivered woman’s strength.” Both gentle and simple, they were bound, “so that as helplessly pinioned and tightly tethered culprit-prisoners the hags transported them into black, mysterious holes, into dark, perplexing labyrinths.” When the witches could find no further straggler of the Fianna, they were about to hew their prisoners to pieces. The great-souled Goll MacMorna, however, was yet at large. He attacked and destroyed two of the hags; the third he spared in consideration of her setting the prisoners free. But when another sister appeared to avenge those who were slain, he fought her also, and drove his sword through her heart.116.1