CHAPTER VII
"Then my soul rose to the height of Doom, and I intended all that might happen to me, and agreed to it.
"'To-morrow,' I said, 'I will go out among ye, and I will die,' and at that the wolves howled joyfully, hungrily, impatiently.
"I slept, and I saw myself changing into a boar in dream, and I felt in dream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream I stretched my powerful neck and braced my eager limbs. I awoke from my dream, and I was that which I had dreamed.
"The night wore away, the darkness lifted, the day came; and from without the cave the wolves called to me:
"Come out, O Skinny Stag. Come out and die.'
"And I, with joyful heart, thrust a black bristle through the hole of the cave, and when they saw that wriggling snout, those curving tusks, that red fierce eye, the wolves fled yelping, tumbling over each other, frantic with terror; and I behind them, a wild-cat for leaping, a giant for strength, a devil for ferocity; a madness and gladness of lusty unsparing life; a killer, a champion, a boar who could not be defied.
"I took the lordship of the boars of Ireland.
"Wherever I looked among my tribes I saw love and
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