He wanted to talk to someone. And that is why the farmer who saw the strange beast nosing round the spring meadow found himself impelled to approach. With each step forward the farmer took, the more he found himself grow elongated. The spell of the animal was one of the obliteration of self. Still the islander was driven forward. At last the horse lifted a keen sad eye, brown as a turf bank. The man stood there, quite alone, reflected in a deep pool. A ripple of anticipation went across the flanks of the horse. But, try as he might, Fionn could not enter the farmer. There were two things at odds – Fionn could not return to another man’s shape, only his own.

He whinnied his despair.

Nor could he really abandon the physical presence of the horse. He had become an animal for all time. He farted loudly.

Ya bould crature, said the farmer, I thought you had me.

The night was white and warm as milk just squeezed fresh from the udder. The Leitrim man had been entertaining Aengus for days with tales of the salmon, but Aengus grew tired of his company and wished the fellow would move on now that he had learnt from him all he needed to know.

In his heart, Aengus was set on capturing a further salmon, but wanted to carry out the act alone, seeing what had happened the last time. Every time a fish broke the waters of the river he’d turn the conversation to anything but what was uppermost in his mind. And invariably what he chose to speak of was intended to go against the grain of his companion. And so they argued over the concept of possession.

As dawn broke, a cow, staring impassive and steadfast ahead, floated past on a raft. A man, the island farmer, equally wrapped up in what lay beyond, sat at its front legs. This vision, in the mist of dawn, silenced the two men.

What was that? asked Aengus.

It was the cow, replied the Leitrim man.

The raft moved out of sight, the mist lifted and in the river the last of the Milky Way hovered. I never thought to see the cow here, the Leitrim man observed. Aengus, chided by such knowledge, let the new information filter through, but he was deeply troubled by the sight of that majestic creature, camouflaged to pass unseen on pastureland, float by. He was not to know that he had espied Fionn in a different role, and what plagued him was the cow’s refusal to turn and admit, even by a quiet lowing, to his existence.

He stood up, unsure and afflicted by some grave loss.

This is the water on which the cow first appeared, nodded the Leitrim man.