Chapter 9
All desires save one are fleeting, but that one lasts for ever.
Fionn, with all desires, had the lasting one, for he would go
anywhere and forsake anything for wisdom; and it was in search of
this that he went to the place where Finegas lived on a bank of the
Boyne Water. But for dread of the clann-Morna he did not go as
Fionn. He called himself Deimne on that journey.
We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not
answered we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer
on its back as a snail carries its shell. Fionn asked every
question he could think of, and his master, who was a poet, and so
an honourable man, answered them all, not to the limit of his
patience, for it was limitless, but to the limit of his
ability.
"Why do you live on the
