The small, golden-haired boy lay on his back watching a yellow butterfly flitting in and out of the dappled sunlight. He reached up and tried to touch the beautiful winged creature. "Oh, I wish I could fly away into the air like a butterfly," he thought. "If I were a bird, I could see the whole wide world," he said aloud to the gossamer butterfly.

Mac Cumhail sat up with little wisps of grass clinging to his bright hair. His brows drew together at the sound of Bovmal's call in the distance. He sighed as he rose to his feet and dawdled along the dirt path toward the little, stone house where he and his two aunts lived. His small face puckered into a frown and he wished he could hide in the tree trunk with the rabbits so that he could play all day without interruption.

The lad was at home in the woods as the small animals he played with, but, the aunts never let him out of their presence for very long. He could see the worry in Bovmal's clear blue eyes as he approached her. He was sorry he had made his aunt worry, but he wished that she did not always have to be calling him back home.

Every morning before he left the little house, Bovmal would lean down, look straight into his eyes and say, "Do not go farther than the stream to the north, or the big rock to the west. Stop when you come to the tall tree on the other side of the glen, or the hill that looks like the back of a bear, and," she added, "never, ever go near the long path that goes through the forest.

Mac Cumhail thought that human children must be very big nuisances, because they had to be watched so very carefully. The aunts had never spoke of the fierce man who had caused them to leave their homes and the danger he would bring to the boy, if he knew of his whereabouts. So, every morning Mac Cumhail gave the same promise to Bovmal, and every day he forgot and roamed farther away from the small house.

The horse was as curious about the boy, as the boy was about him. It cocked it's head and looked at Mac Cumhail with alert eyes and ears. Then, suddenly, it turned and bounded away with a mad trampling of hoofs and flying mane and tail.







Mac Cumhail wanted to make friends with the horse so he ran after it as fast as his chubby legs could carry him. He came to a wide meadow just in time to see the horse disappear into the woods at the other side. When he arrived there, the horse was gone. Mac Cumhail looked and listened but he couldn't tell which way the horse had gone. He looked around and nothing was familiar. He had gone much farther from the house than he was allowed. He turned and hurried back in the direction he had come.

When he reached the meadow again, he saw an old woman with a basket in her hands. She stopped what she was doing and looked at him with a suspicious look on her face. "And, who might ye be?" she asked him. Her voice sounded crackley and funny, he thought. Before he could answer, Lia Lara came rushing toward them. "It is only a poor woodland boy, who means you no harm, a chara, "Lia said to the old woman. "I have never heard of anyone living in these woods, "the old lady said as she squinted her eyes to see them more clearly.

Lia Lara reached into the bag that was fastened to her belt and removed a necklace of shells. "I live in the forest seeking the shells of snails to make jewelry," Lia answered and smiled at the old woman. "Here, take this, as a sign of friendship." Lia placed it in the old woman's scrawny hand.

"Hmm," the old lady said, and held the shells close to her eyes. Satisfied, she shoved the necklace into her bag, turned and scuttled away. "It's a mighty strange place for a woman to live alone with a small child," she muttered. She glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes sharp and questioning. "It is so far from the town." Then she called back, "Thank'e for the necklace," and passed out of sight under the trees.

Mac Cumhail looked up at Lia Lara with a shameful expression on his face. He knew he had disobeyed Bovmal and he thought Lia was going to scold him, but Lia stood quietly until the old woman had gone out of sight, then she took him by the hand and pulled him along until they reached the house.

The aunts would not talk to him. They were very nervous for the rest of the day and for several days after. Time passed and when no one came to their remote spots in the woods, they returned to their former happy mood. But, they did not forget that the boy had broken his promise and had gone too far away from the house. Mac Cumhail knew they were very upset with him. For many weeks he was not out of their sight.

Mac Cumhail tried not to worry the aunts, but they worried about many things that little boys did not. He was adventurous and brave and had no knowledge of the danger he might face in his travels. He only knew that he was precious to them and they loved him very much, and, he loved them.

Mac Cumhail would love solitude all of his life. It was in his childhood that his solitary life began. There was so many things to see and do that he never missed the companionship of children. His playmates were the birds and animals of the forest. His toys were sticks and stones. The wild sounds of the wilderness were more familiar to him than the human voice. He learned to know of danger by listening to the sounds of the animals. His music was the music of the wind in the trees. He learned the thousand moods of the weather and when a change was on its way. He was always discovering a new animal friend. He loved the forest, his animal friends and the little stone house, but most of all, he loved the aunts. Gentle, thoughtful Bovmal and lively, happy Lia Lara. They were as stable as the stones that made the walls of the sturdy forest house. He did not know why they worried so much for him.

The aunts never forgot about Morna and his clan.