Mananaan Mac Lir who rules the ocean took the little Sun-God, Lugh, in his arms and held him up so that he could see the whole of Ireland with the waves whispering about it everywhere.  
“Say farewell to the mountains and rivers and the big trees and the flowers in the grass, O Lugh, for you are coming away with me.”
 
The child stretched out his hands and cried—
 
“Good-bye, mountains and flowers and rivers; some day I will come back to you.”
 
4
Then Mananaan wrapped Lugh in his cloak and stepped into his boat, the Ocean-Sweeper, and without oar or sail they journeyed over the sea till they crossed the waters at the edge of the world and came to the country of Mananaan—a beautiful country shining With the colours of the dawn.
 
Lugh stayed in that country with Mananaan. He raced the waves along the strand; he gathered apples sweeter than honey from trees with crimson blossoms, and wonderful birds came to play with him. Mananaan’s daughter, Niav, took him through woods where there were milk-white deer with horns of gold, and black-maned lions and spotted panthers, and unicorns that shone like silver, and strange beasts that no one ever heard of; and all the animals were glad to see him, and he played with them and called them by their names. Every day he grew taller and stronger and more beautiful, but he did not any day ask Mananaan to take him back to Ireland.
 
5
Every night when darkness had come into the sky, Mananaan wrapped himself in his mantle of power and crossed the sea and walked all round Ireland, stepping from rock to rock. No one saw him, because his mantle made him invisible, but he saw everything and knew that trouble had found the De Danaanans. The ugly, misshapen folk of the Fomor had come into Ireland and spread themselves over the country like a pestilence. They had stolen the Cauldron of Plenty and carried it away to their own land, where Balor of the Evil Eye reigned. They had taken the Spear of Victory also, and the only one of the four great Jewels of Sovereignity remaining to the De Danaanans was the Stone of Destiny. It was hidden deep in the earth of Ireland, and because of it the Fomorians could not altogether conquer the country, nor could they destroy the De Danaanans, though they drove them from their pleasant palaces and hunted them through the glens and valleys like outlaws.
 
Mananaan himself had the fourth Jewel, the Sword of Light: he kept it and waited.
 
6
When Lugh was full grown Mananaan said to him—
 
“It is three times seven years as mortals count time since I brought you to Tir-nan-oge, and in all that time I have never given you a gift. To-day I will give you a gift.”
 
He brought out the Sword of Light and gave it to Lugh, and when Lugh took it in his hand he remembered how he had cried to the hills and rivers of Ireland, “Some day I will come back to you,” and he said to Mananaan—
 
“I want to go back to Ireland.”
 
“You will not find joyousness there, O Lugh, or the music of harp strings, or feasting. The De Danaanans are shorn of their strength. Ogmai, their champion, carries logs to warm Fomorian hearths; Angus wanders like an outcast; and Nuada, the King, has but one dun where those who had once the lordship of the world meet in secret like hunted folk.”
 
“I have a good sword,” said Lugh. “I will go to my kinsfolk.”
 
 
Lugh saying Farewell to the Irish Hills.
 
7
“O Lugh,” said Mananaan, “they have never known you. Will you leave me and Niav and this land where sorrow has never touched you, for the sake of stranger kinsfolk?”
 
Lugh answered—
 
“I remember the hills and the woods and the rivers of Ireland, and though all my kinsfolk were gone from it and the sea covered everything but the tops of the mountains, I would go back.”
 
“You have the hardiness that wins victory,” said Mananaan. “I will set you on my own white horse and give you companions as high-hearted as yourself. I will put my helmet on your head and my breastplate over your heart; you shall drive the Fomorians out of Ireland as chaff is driven by the wind.”
 
8
When Lugh put on the helmet of Mananaan, brightness shot into the sky as if a new sun had risen; when he put on the breastplate, a great wave of music swelled and sounded through Tir-nan-oge; when he mounted the white horse, a mighty wind swept past him, and lo! the companions Mananaan had promised, rode beside him. Their horses were white like his, and gladness that age cannot wither shone in their faces. When they came to the sea that is about Tir-nan-oge, the little crystal waves lifted themselves up to look at Lugh, and when he and his comrades sped over the sea as lightly as blown foam, the little waves followed them till they came to Ireland, and the three great waves of Ireland thundered a welcome—the wave of Thoth, the wave of Rury, and the long, snow-white, foaming wave of Cleena.
 
No one saw the Faery Host coming into Ireland. At the place where their horses leaped from sea to land there was a great wood of pine trees.
 
“Let us go into the wood,” said Lugh, and they rode between the tall, straight tree-trunks into the silent heart of the wood.
 
9
“Rest here,” said Lugh, “till morning; I will go to the dun of Nuada and get news of my kinsfolk.”
 
He put his shining armour from him and wrapped himself in a dark cloak and went on foot to the dun of Nuada. He struck the brazen door, and the Guardian of the Door spoke to him from within—
 
“What do you seek?”
 
“My way into the dun.”
 
“No one enters here who has not his craft. What can you do?”
 
“I have the craft of a carpenter.”
 
“We have a carpenter within; he is Luchtae, son of Luchaid.”
 
“I have the craft of a smith.”
 
“We have a smith within, Colum of the three new ways of working.”
 
“I have the craft of a champion.”
 
“We have a champion within, he is Ogmai himself.”
 
“I have the craft of a harper.”
 
“We have a harper within, even Abhcan, son of Bicelmos; the Men of the three Gods chose him in the faery hills.”
 
10
“I have the craft of a poet and historian.”
 
“We have a poet and historian within, even En, son of Ethaman.”
 
“I have the craft of a............