Oisin and Tír na nÓg

Our journey starts towards the end of the Fenian cycle, with the story of how it became possible for St Patrick to record many of the tales of Fionn MacCumhaill and the Fianna from Oisín, Fionn’s son.

The trigger for me was a Ladybird style book, Irish Legends for Children, loaned to me by Maureen Shaw, a fellow participant at the Waverley folk club in Newport, Isle of Wight. The book included six tales: Children of Lir, Deirdre of the Sorrows, Setanta, The Salmon of Knowledge, Fionn and the Dragon and Oisín and Tír Na Nóg (at the time of writing, I have still only read The Salmon of Knowledge and Oisín and Tír Na Nóg). The latter story was the one that first jumped out at me, and provided me with my way in.

The gist of the story is this:

Fionn and his band saw a fair lady — Niamh of the Golden Hair — riding towards them on a white horse with a silver bridle. The maiden was fair indeed and asked if there was one among them called Oisín. Indeed there was, and she bade him come with her to the land of eternal youth — Tír Na Nóg. He got on the horse and they road over the waves to a beautiful land. After a time, Oisín grew homesick, and pleaded to go home. He could return on the horse that brought him, as long as he did not place his foot on the earth of Ireland. He rode back, and came to where his father’s house had been; but there was nothing there. In the distance, some men were working, struggling to move a rock. Oisín asked after his father, Fionn, to hear he had been dead 300 years. Oisín leant to help the men but the strap on the bridle broke and Oisín fell to the floor, aging 300 years at once. The men were aghast, but helped him and took him to St Patrick. Whereupon Oisín told him the tales of Fionn and the Fianna.

Note

In my recent tellings, I colour the story with Oísin lifting the stone with a side reference to stones of strength, as describd in the Blúiríní Béaloidis podcast series, no.38.

Warning

Via Richard, who can throw a wobbly in to any tale: What happened to the horse?

That telling that I first came across is still very much in copyright, but there are many versions from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that tell the tale that we can use to derive our own understanding of the story.

For example, this concise version from 1866, which captures the key points:

In Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, by Patrick Kennedy, 1866

https://archive.org/details/legendaryfictio00kenngoog/page/n260/mode/2up?q=oisin Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts by Patrick Kennedy

Publication date 1866 p240-1

THE OLD AGE OF OISIN.

After the fatal battle of Gavra the only surviving warrior, Oisin, son of Fion, was borne away on thie Atlantic waves by the Lady Niav of resplendent beauty, and for a hundred and fifty years he enjoyed her sweet society in the Land of Youth below the waters. Getting at last tired of this monotony of happiness, he expressed a wish to revisit the land where his youth and manhood had been spent, and the loving Niav was obliged to consent. She wept bitterly on seeing him mount the white steed, and warned him that if his feet touched earth, he would never see her nor Tir-na-n-Oge again, and that his strength would be no more than that of a newly-born child.

Alas ! Fion and his heroes were scarcely remembered on the plains and by the streams of Erinn. The fortress of Almuin was a mound and moat overgrown with docks and thistles, and moss had covered the huge casting-stones of the Fianna. Where strong mounds and ditches once secured armed warriors from their foes, he found unchecked entrance, and prayers and hymns recited and sung in stone buildings surmounted by cross and spire. He saw fewer spears and many more sickles than in the days of Fion, and near the Pass of Wattles (Dublin) he found Patrick the missionary raising a lowly house of worship. As he sorrowfully rode up the Glen of Thrushes (Giann-a-Smoii), a crowd of men striving to raise a huge stone on a low waggon, craved his aid. Stooping, he heaved the mass on to the car, but in doing so the girth snapped, the saddle turned round, away flew the white steed, and the last of the heroes lay on the liill-side, a grizzly-haired, feeble man.

He was conveyed to Bal a Cliath, and St. Patrick gave him a kind reception, and kept him in his house. Many an attempt did he make to convert him to Christianity, but with little success ; and the conferences generally ended with Oisin’s laments for the lost heroes. The saint, pitying the desolation of the brave old man, would then introduce some remark on past events, which would be sure to draw from the bard a rhymed narrative of a Fenian battle, or hunting, or invasion by the king of the world — at least of Greece — or an enchantment worked on Fion or Fergus by some Danaan Druid, such as the ones just told. The winding up would be a fresh lament over his own desolate state, and the faded glories of the once renowned Fianna.

In a more elaborate version by Lady Augusta Gregory, dated to 1904, the tale is told in two parts. First, we have Oisín’s first meeting with Niamh, the fairy princess, and his introduction to Tír na Nóg, the Land of Youth:

In Gods and fighting men by Lady Gregory, 1904

https://archive.org/details/godsfightingmens00gregrich/page/430/mode/2up?q=oisin Gods and fighting men : the story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fiana of Ireland by Gregory, Lady, 1852-1932; Finn, MacCumaill, 3rd cent; Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939

Publication date 1904

p431-433

BOOK TEN: THE END OF THE FIANNA

CHAPTER II. THE CALL OF OISIN

ONE misty morning, what were left of the Fianna were gathered together to Finn, and it is sorrowful and down-hearted they were after the loss of so many of their comrades.

And they went hunting near the borders of Loch Lein, where the bushes were in blossom and the birds were singing ; and they were waking up the deer that were as joyful as the leaves of a tree in summer-time.

And it was not long till they saw coming towards them from the west a beautiful young woman, riding on a very fast slender white horse. A queen’s crown she had on her head, and a dark cloak of silk down to the ground, having stars of red gold on it ; and her eyes were blue and as clear as the dew on the grass, and a gold ring hanging down from every golden lock of her hair ; and her cheeks redder than the rose, and her skin whiter than the swan upon the wave, and her lips as sweet as honey that is mixed through red wine.

And in her hand she was holding a bridle having a golden bit, and there was a saddle worked with red gold under her. And as to the horse, he had a wide smooth cloak over him, and a silver crown on the back of his head, and he was shod with shining gold.

She came to where Finn was, and she spoke with a very kind, gentle voice, and she said : “ It is long my journey was, King of the Fianna.” And Finn asked who was she, and what was her country and the cause of her coming. “ Niamh of the Golden Head is my name,” she said ; “ and I have a name beyond all the women of the world, for I am the daughter of the King of the Country of the Young.” “ What was it brought you to us from over the sea, Queen ? “ said Finn then. “ Is it that your husband is gone from you, or what is the trouble that is on you ? “ “ My husband is not gone from me,” she said, “ for I never went yet to any man. But O King of the Fianna,” she said, “ I have given my love and my affection to your own son, Oisin of the strong hands.” “ Why did you give your love to him beyond all the troops of high princes that are under the sun?” said Finn. “ It was by reason of his great name, and of the report I heard of his bravery and of his comeliness,” she said. “ And though there is many a king’s son and high prince gave me his love, I never consented to any till I set my love on Oisin.”

When Oisin heard what she was saying, there was not a limb of his body that was not in love with beautiful Niamh ; and he took her hand in his hand, and he said : “ A true welcome before you to this country, young queen. It is you are the shining one,” he said ; “ it is you are the nicest and the comeliest ; it is you are better to me than any other woman ; it is you are my star and my choice beyond the women of the entire world.” “ I put on you the bonds of a true hero,” said Niamh then, “ you to come away with me now to the Country of the Young.” And it is what she said :

“It is the country is most delightful of all that are under the sun ; the trees are stooping down with fruit and with leaves and with blossom.

“ Honey and wine are plentiful there, and everything the eye has ever seen ; no wasting will come on you with the wasting away of time ; you will never see death or lessening.

“ You will get feasts, playing and drinking ; you will get sweet music on the strings ; you will get silver and gold and many jewels.

“ You will get, and no lie in it, a hundred swords ; a hundred cloaks of the dearest silk ; a hundred horses, the quickest in battle ; a hundred willing hounds.

“You will get the royal crown of the King of the Young that he never gave to any one under the sun. It will be a shelter to you night and day in every rough fight and in every battle.

“ You will get a right suit of armour ; a sword, gold-hilted, apt for striking ; no one that ever saw it got away alive from it.

“ A hundred coats of armour and shirts of satin ; a hundred cows and a hundred calves ; a hundred sheep having golden fleeces ; a hundred jewels that are not of this world.

“ A hundred glad young girls shining like the sun, their voices sweeter than the music of birds ; a hundred armed men strong in battle, apt at feats, waiting on you, if you will come with me to the Country of the Young.

“ You will get everything I have said to you, and delights beyond them, that I have no leave to tell ; you will get beauty, strength and power, and I myself will be with you as a wife.”

And after she had made that song, Oisin said : “ O pleasant golden-haired queen, you are my choice beyond the women of the world ; and I will go with you willingly,” he said.

And with that he kissed Finn his father and bade him farewell, and he bade farewell to the rest of the Fianna, and he went up then on the horse with Niamh.

And the horse set out gladly, and when he came to the strand he shook himself and he neighed three times, and then he made for the sea. And when Finn and the Fianna saw Oisin facing the wide sea, they gave three great sorrowful shouts. And as to Finn, he said : “ It is my grief to see you going from me ; and I am with-out a hope,” he said, “ ever to see you coming back to me again.”

After a brief review of the final days of the Fianna, the story continues with Oisín’s return from Tír na Nóg to Erin’s isle, his sudden aging, and an account he provides to St Patrick of his time in Tír na Nóg. It also identifies the children he had by Niamh: two sons, Finn and Osgar, and a daughter referred to as The Flower:

In Gods and fighting men by Lady Gregory, 1904

https://archive.org/details/godsfightingmens00gregrich/page/436/mode/2up?q=oisin Gods and fighting men : the story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fiana of Ireland by Gregory, Lady, 1852-1932; Finn, MacCumaill, 3rd cent; Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939

Publication date 1904 p436-442

BOOK ELEVEN : OISIN AND PATRICK. CHAPTER I. OISIN’S STORY

As to Oisin, it was a long time after he was brought away by Niamh that he came back again to Ireland. Some say it was hundreds of years he was in the Country of the Young, and some say it was thousands of years he was in it ; but whatever time it was, it seemed short to him.

And whatever happened him through the time he was away, it is a withered old man he was found after coming back to Ireland, and his white horse going away from him, and he lying on the ground.

And it was S. Patrick had power at that time, and it was to him Oisin was brought ; and he kept him in his house, and used to be teaching him and questioning him. And Oisin was no way pleased with the way Ireland was then, but he used to be talking of the old times, and fretting after the Fianna.

And Patrick bade him to tell what happened him the time he left Finn and the Fianna and went away with Niamh. And it is the story Oisin told : — “ The time I went away with golden-haired Niamh, we turned our backs to the land, and our faces westward, and the sea was going away before us, and filling up in waves after us. And we saw wonderful things on our journey,” he said, “ cities and courts and duns and lime-white houses, and shining sunny-houses and palaces. And one time we saw beside us a hornless deer running hard, and an eager white red-eared hound following after it. And another time we saw a young girl on a horse and having a golden apple in her right hand, and she going over the tops of the waves ; and there was following after her a young man riding a white horse, and having a crimson cloak and a gold-hilted sword in his right hand.”

“ Follow on with your story, pleasant Oisin,” said Patrick, “for you did not tell us yet what was the country you went to.”

“ The Country of the Young, the Country of Victory, it was,” said Oisin. “ And O Patrick,” he said, “ there is no lie in that name ; and if there are grandeurs in your Heaven the same as there are there, I would give my friendship to God.

“ We turned our backs then to the dun,” he said, “and the horse under us was quicker than the spring wind on the backs of the mountains. And it was not long till the sky darkened, and the wind rose in every part, and the sea was as if on fire, and there was nothing to be seen of the sun.

“ But after we were looking at the clouds and the stars for a while the wind went down, and the storm, and the sun brightened. And we saw before us a very delightful country under full blossom, and smooth plains in it, and a king’s dim that was very grand, and that had every colour in it, and sunny-houses beside it, and palaces of shining stones, made by skilled men. And we saw coming out to meet us three fifties of armed men, very lively and handsome. And I asked Niamh was this the Country of the Young, and she said it was. ‘ And indeed, Oisin,’ she said, ‘ I told you no lie about it, and you will see all I promised you before you for ever.’

“ And there came out after that a hundred beautiful young girls, having cloaks of silk worked with gold, and they gave me a welcome to their own country. And after that there came a great shining army, and with it a strong beautiful king, having a shirt of yellow silk and a golden cloak over it, and a very bright crown on his head. And there was following after him a young queen, and fifty young girls along with her.

“ And when all were come to the one spot, the king took me by the hand, and he said out before them all : ‘ A hundred thousand welcomes before you, Oisin, son of Finn. And as to this country you are come to,’ he said, ‘ I will tell you news of it without a lie. It is long and lasting your life will be in it, and you yourself will be young for ever. And there is no delight the heart ever thought of,’ he said, ‘ but it is here against your coming. And you can believe my words, Oisin,’ he said, ‘ for I myself am the King of the Country of the Young, and this is its comely queen, and it was golden-headed Niamh our daughter that went over the sea looking for you to be her husband for ever.’ I gave thanks to him then, and I stooped myself down before the queen, and we went forward to the royal house, and all the high nobles came out to meet us, both men and women, and there was a great feast made there through the length of ten days and ten nights.

“ And that is the way I married Niamh of the Golden Hair, and that is the way I went to the Country of the Young, although it is sorrowful to me to be telling it now, O Patrick from Rome,” said Oisin.

“ Follow on with your story, Oisin of the destroying arms,” said Patrick, “and tell me what way did you leave the Country of the Young, for it is long to me till I hear that ; and tell us now had you any children by Niamh, and was it long you were in that place.”

“ Two beautiful children I had by Niamh,” said Oisin, “ two young sons and a comely daughter. And Niamh gave the two sons the name of Finn and of Osgar, and the name I gave to the daughter was The Flower.

“ And I did not feel the time passing, and it was a long time I stopped there,” he said, “ till the desire came on me to see Finn and my comrades again. And I asked leave of the king and of Niamh to go back to Ireland. ‘ You will get leave from me,’ said Niamh ; ‘ but for all that,’ she said, ‘ it is bad news you are giving me, for I am in dread you will never come back here again through the length of your days.’ But I bade her have no fear, since the white horse would bring me safe back again from Ireland. ‘ Bear this in mind, Oisin,’ she said then, ‘ if you once get off the horse while you are away, or if you once put your foot to ground, you will never come back here again. And O Oisin’ she said, ‘ I tell it to you now for the third time, if you once get down from the horse, you will be an old man, blind and withered, without liveliness, without mirth, without running, without leaping. And it is a grief to me, Oisin,’ she said, ‘you ever to go back to green Ireland ; and it is not now as it used to be, and you will not see Finn and his people, for there is not now in the whole of Ireland but a Father of Orders and armies of saints ; and here is my kiss for you, pleasant Oisin/ she said, ‘ for you will never come back any more to the Country of the Young.’

“ And that is my story, Patrick, and I have told you no lie in it,” said Oisin. “ And O Patrick,” he said, “ if I was the same the day I came here as I was that day, I would have made an end of all your clerks, and there would not be a head left on a neck after me.”

“ Go on with your story,” said Patrick, “ and you will get the same good treatment from me you got from Finn, for the sound of your voice is pleasing to me.”

So Oisin went on with his story, and it is what he said : “ I have nothing to tell of my journey till I came back into green Ireland, and I looked about me then on all sides, but there were no tidings to be got of Finn. And it was not long till I saw a great troop of riders, men and women, coming towards me from the west. And when they came near they wished me good health ; and there was wonder on them all when they looked at me, seeing me so unlike themselves, and so big and so tall.

“ I asked them then did they hear if Finn was still living, or any other one of the Fianna, or what had happened them. ‘We often heard of Finn that lived long ago,’ said they, ‘ and that there never was his equal for strength or bravery or a great name ; and there is many a book written down,’ they said, ‘by the sweet poets of the Gael, about his doings and the doings of the Fianna, and it would be hard for us to tell you all of them. And we heard Finn had a son,’ they said, ‘ that was beautiful and shining, and that there came a young girl looking for him, and he went away with her to the Country of the Young.’

“ And when I knew by their talk that Finn was not living or any of the Fianna, it is downhearted I was, and tired, and very sorrowful after them. And I made no delay, but I turned my face and went on to Almhuin of Leinster. And there was great wonder on me when I came there to see no sign at all of Finn’s great dun, and his great hall, and nothing in the place where it was but weeds and nettles.”

And there was grief on Oisin then, and he said : “ Och, Patrick ! Och, ochone, my grief ! It is a bad journey that was to me ; and to be without tidings of Finn or the Fianna has left me under pain through my lifetime.”

“Leave off fretting, Oisin,” said Patrick, “and shed your tears to the God of grace. Finn and the Fianna are slack enough now, and they will get no help for ever.” “It is a great pity that would be,” said Oisin, “ Finn to be in pain for ever ; and who was it gained the victory over him, when his own hand had made an end of so many a hard fighter ? “

“ It is God gained the victory over Finn,” said Patrick, “ and not the strong hand of an enemy ; and as to the Fianna, they are condemned to hell along with him, and tormented for ever.”

“ O Patrick,” said Oisin, “ show me the place where Finn and his people are, and there is not a hell or a heaven there but I will put it down. And if Osgar, my own son, is there,” he said, “ the hero that was bravest in heavy battles, there is not in hell or in the Heaven of God a troop so great that he could not destroy it.”

“ Let us leave off quarrelling on each side now,” said Patrick; “and go on, Oisin, with your story. What happened you after you knew the Fianna to be at an end?”

“ I will tell you that, Patrick,” said Oisin. “ I was turning to go away, and I saw the stone trough that the Fianna used to be putting their hands in, and it full of water. And when I saw it I had such a wish and such a feeling for it that I forgot what I was told, and I got off the horse. And in the minute all the years came on me, and I was lying on the ground, and the horse took fright and went away and left me there, an old man, weak and spent, without sight, without shape, without comeliness, without strength or understanding, without respect.

“ There, Patrick, is my story for you now,” said Oisin, “ and no lie in it, of all that happened me going away and coming back again from the Country of the Young.”

The book concludes with several more chapters describing Oisín’s time spent living with St Patrick, along with some of the arguments that took place between them.

The following version, dating from 1910, provides a rather more comprehensive account of Oisín’s time in the Land of Youth, and the reasons for his growing disenchantment with it.

In High Deeds of Finn by Thomas Rolleston, 1910

https://archive.org/details/high-deeds-of-finn-and-other-bardic-romances-of-ancient-ireland/page/149/mode/2up?q=oisin The High Deeds of Finn And Other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland by Rolleston, T. W., 1857-1920, Reid, Stephen, 1873-1948

Publication date 1910 pp150-162

CHAPTER XV

Oisin in the Land of Youth

It happened that on a misty summer morning as Finn and Oisin with many companions were hunting on the shores of Loch Lena they saw coming towards them a maiden, beautiful exceedingly, riding on a snow-white steed. She wore the garb of a queen; a crown of gold was on her head, and a dark brown mantle of silk, set with stars of red gold, fell around her and trailed on the ground. Silver shoes were on her horse’s hoofs, and a crest of gold nodded on his head. When she came near she said to Finn, ‘From very far away I have come, and now at last I have found thee, Finn, son of Cumhal.’

Then Finn said, ‘What is thy land and race, maiden, and what dost thou seek from me?’

‘My name,’ she said, ‘is Niam of the Golden Hair. I am the daughter of the King of the Land of Youth, and that which has brought me here is the love of thy son Oisin.’ Then she turned to Oisin and she spoke to him in the voice of one who has never asked anything but it was granted to her, “Wilt thou go with me, Oisin, to my father’s land?’

And Oisin said, “That will I, and to the world’s end’; for the fairy spell had so wrought upon his heart that he cared no more for any earthly thing but to have the love of Niam of the Head of Gold.

Then the maiden spoke of the Land Oversea to which she had summoned her lover, and as she spoke a dreamy stillness fell on all things, nor did a horse shake his bit nor a hound bay, nor the least breath of wind stir in the forest trees till she had made an end. And what she said seemed sweeter and more wonderful as she spoke it than anything they could afterwards remember to have heard, but so far as they could remember it, it was this: —

‘Delightful is the land beyond all dreams,
Fairer than aught thine eyes have ever seen.
There all the year the fruit is on the tree,
And all the year the bloom is on the flower.

‘There with wild honey drip the forest trees;
The stores of wine and mead shall never fail.
Nor pain nor sickness knows the dweller there,
Death and decay come near him never more.

‘The feast shall cloy not, nor the chase shall tire,
Nor music cease for ever through the hall;
The gold and jewels of the Land of Youth
Outshine all splendours ever dreamed by man.

‘Thou shalt have horses of the fairy breed,
Thou shalt have hounds that can outrun the wind;
A hundred chiefs shall follow thee in war,
A hundred maidens sing thee to thy sleep.

‘A crown of sovranty thy brow shall wear,
And by thy side a magic blade shall hang.
Thou shalt be lord of all the Land of Youth,
And lord of Niam of the Head of Gold.’

As the magic song ended, the Fians beheld Oisin mount the fairy steed and hold the maiden in his arms, and ere they could stir or speak she turned her horse’s head and shook the ringing bridle and down the forest glade they fled, as a beam of light flies over the land when clouds drive across the sun; and never did the Fianna behold Oisin, son of Finn, on earth again. Yet what befell him afterwards is known. As his birth was strange so was his end, for he saw the wonders of the Land of Youth with mortal eyes and lived to tell them with mortal lips.

When the white horse with its riders reached the sea it ran lightly over the waves and soon the green woods and headlands of Erinn faded out of sight. And now the sun shone fiercely down, and the riders passed into a golden haze in which Oisin lost all knowledge of where he was or if sea or dry land were beneath his horse’s hoofs. But strange sights sometimes appeared to them in the mist, for towers and palace gateways loomed up and disappeared, and once a hornless doe bounded by them chased by a white hound with one red ear, and again they saw a young maid ride by on a brown steed, bearing a golden apple in her hand, and close behind her followed a young horseman on a white steed, a purple cloak floating at his back and a gold-hilted sword in his hand. And Oisin would have asked the princess who and what these apparitions were, but Niam bade him ask nothing nor seem to notice any phantom they might see until they were come to the Land of Youth.

At last the sky gloomed above them, and Niam urged their steed faster. The wind lashed them with pelting rain, thunder roared across the sea and lightning blazed, but they held on their way till at length they came once more into a region of calm and sunshine. And now Oisin saw before him a shore of yellow sand, lapped by the ripples of a summer sea. Inland, there rose before his eye wooded hills amid which he could discern the roofs , and towers of a noble city. The white horse bore them swiftly to the shore and Oisin and the maiden lighted down. And Oisin marvelled at everything around him, for never was water so blue or trees so stately as those he saw, and the forest was alive with the hum of bees and the song of birds, and the creatures that are wild in other lands, the deer and the red squirrel and the wood-dove, came, without fear, to be caressed. Soon, as they went forward, the walls of a city came in sight, and folk began to meet them on the road, some riding, some afoot, all of whom were either youths or maidens, all looking as joyous as if the morning of happy life had just begun for them, and no old or feeble person was to be seen. Niam led her companion through a towered gateway built of white and red marble, and there they were met by a glittering company of a hundred riders on black steeds and a hundred on white, and Oisin mounted a black horse and Niam her white, and they rode up to a stately palace where the King of the Land of Youth had his dwelling. And there he received them, saying in a loud voice that all the folk could hear, ‘Welcome, Oisin, son of Finn. Thou art come to the Land of Youth, where sorrow and weariness and death shall never touch thee. This thou hast won by thy faithfulness and valour and by the songs that thou hast made for the men of Erinn, whereof the fame is come to us, for we have here indeed all things that are delightful and joyous, but poesy alone we had not. But now we have the chief poet of the race of men to live with us, immortal among immortals, and the fair and cloudless life that we lead here shall be praised in verses as fair; even as thou, Oisin, did’st praise and adorn the short and toilsome and chequered life that men live in the world thou hast left forever. And Niam my daughter shall be thy bride, and thou shalt be in all things even as myself in the Land of Youth.’

Then the heart of Oisin was filled with glory and joy, and he turned to Niam and saw her eyes burn with love as she gazed upon him. And they were wedded the same day, and the joy they had in each other grew sweeter and deeper with every day that passed. All that Niam had promised in her magic song in the wild wood when first they met, seemed faint beside the splendour and beauty of the life in the Land of Youth. In the great palace they trod on silken carpets and ate off plates of gold; the marble walls and doorways were wrought with carved work, or hung with tapestries, where forest glades, and still lakes, and flying deer were done in colours of unfading glow. Sunshine bathed that palace always, and cool winds wandered through its dim corridors, and in its courts there played fountains of bright water set about with flowers. When Oisin wished to ride, a steed of fiery but gentle temper bore him wherever he would through the pleasant land; when he longed to hear music, there came upon his thought, as though borne on the wind, crystal notes such as no hand ever struck from the strings of any harp on earth.

But Oisin’s hand now never touched the harp, and the desire of singing and of making poetry never waked in him, for no one thing seemed so much better than the rest, where all perfection bloomed and glowed around him, as to make him long to praise it and to set it apart.

When seven days had passed, he said to Niam, ‘I would fain go a-hunting.’ Niam said, ‘So be it, dear love; to-morrow we shall take order for that.’ Oisin lay long awake that night, thinking of the sound of Finn’s hunting-horn, and of the smell of green boughs when they kindled them to roast the deer-flesh in Fian ovens in the wildwood.

So next day Oisin and Niam fared forth on horseback, with their company of knights and maidens, and dogs leaping and barking with eagerness for the chase. Anon they came to the forest, and the hunters with the hounds made a wide circuit on this side and on that, till at last the loud clamour of the hounds told that a stag was on foot, and Oisin saw them streaming down an open glen, the stag with its great antlers laid back and flying like the wind. So he shouted the Fian hunting-cry and rode furiously on their track. All day long they chased the stag through the echoing forest, and the fairy steed bore him unfaltering over rough ground and smooth, till at last as darkness began to fall the quarry was pulled down, and Oisin cut its throat with his hunting-knife. Long it seemed to him since he had felt glad and weary as he felt now, and since the woodland air with its odours of pine and mint and wild garlic had tasted so sweet in his mouth; and truly it was longer than he knew. But when he bade make ready the wood-oven for their meal, and build a bothy of boughs for their repose, Niam led him seven steps apart and seven to the left hand, and yet seven back to the place where they had killed the deer, and lo, there rose before him a stately Din with litten windows and smoke drifting above its roof. When they entered, there was a table spread for a great company, and cooks and serving-men busy about a wide hearth where roast and boiled meats of every sort were being prepared. Casks of Greek wine stood open around the walls, and cups of gold were on the board. So they all ate and drank their sufficiency, and all night Oisin and Niam slept on a bed softer than swans-down in a chamber no less fair than that which they had in the City of the Land of Youth.

Next day, at the first light of dawn, they were on foot; and soon again the forest rang to the baying of hounds and the music of the hunting-horn. Oisin’s steed bore him all day, tireless and swift as before, and again the quarry fell at night’s approach, and again a palace rose in the wilderness for their night’s entertainment, and all things in it even more abundant and more sumptuous than before. And so for seven days they fared in that forest, and seven stags were slain. Then Oisin grew wearied of hunting, and as he plunged his sharp black hunting-knife into the throat of the last stag, he thought of the sword of magic temper that hung idle by his side in the City of Youth, or rested from its golden nail in his bed-chamber, and he said to Niam, ‘Has thy father never a foe to tame, never a wrong to avenge? Surely the peasant is no man whose hand forgets the plough, nor the warrior whose hand forgets the sword hilt.” Niam looked on him strangely for a while and as if she did not understand his words, or sought some meaning in them which yet she feared to find. But at last she said, ‘If deeds of arms be thy desire, Oisin, thou shalt have thy sufficiency ere long.’ And so they rode home, and slept that night in the palace of the City of Youth. At daybreak on the following morn Niam roused Oisin, and she buckled on him his golden-hilted sword and his corselet of blue steel inlaid with gold. Then he put on his head a steel and gold helmet with dragon crest, and slung on his back a shield of bronze wrought all over with cunning hammer-work of serpentine lines that swelled and sank upon the surface, and coiled in mazy knots, or flowed in long sweeping curves like waves of the sea when they gather might and volume for their leap upon the sounding shore. In the glimmering dawn, through the empty streets of the fair city, they rode forth alone and took their way through fields of corn and by apple orchards where red fruit hung down to their hands. But by noontide their way began to mount upwards among blue hills that they had marked from the city walls toward the west, and of man’s husbandry they saw no more, but tall red-stemmed pine trees bordered the way on either side, and silence and loneliness increased. At length they reached a broad table-land deep in the heart of the mountains, where nothing grew but long coarse grass, drooping by pools of black and motionless water, and where great boulders, bleached white or stained with slimy lichens of livid red, lay scattered far and wide about the plain. Against the sky the mountain line now showed like a threat of bared and angry teeth, and as they rode towards it Oisin perceived a huge fortress lying in the throat of a wide glen or mountain pass. White as death was the stone of which it was built, save where it was streaked with black or green from the foulness of wet mosses that clung to its cornices and battlements, and none seemed stirring about the place nor did any banner blow from its towers.

Then said Niam, ‘This, O Oisin, is the Dun of the giant Fovor of the Mighty Blows. In it he keeps prisoner a princess of the Fairy Folk whom he would fain make his bride, but he may not do so, nor may she escape, until Fovor has met in battle a champion who will undertake her cause. Approach, then, to the gate, if thou art fain to undertake this adventure, and blow the horn which hangs thereby, and then look to thy weapons, for soon indeed will the battle be broken upon thee.’

Then Oisin rode to the gate and thrice he blew on the great horn which hung by it, and the clangour of it groaned drearily back from the cliffs that overhung the glen. Not thus indeed sounded the Dord of Finn as its call blew lust of fighting and scorn of death into the hearts of the Fianna amid the stress of battle. At the third blast the rusty gates opened, grinding on their hinges, and Oisin rode into a wide courtyard where servitors of evil aspect took his horse and Niam’s, and led them into the hall of Fovor. Dark it was and low, with mouldering arras on its walls, and foul and withered rushes on the floor, where dogs gnawed the bones thrown to them at the last meal, and spilt ale and hacked fragments of flesh littered the bare oaken table. And here rose languidly to greet them a maiden bound with seven chains, to whom Niam spoke lovingly, saying that her champion was come and that her long captivity should end. And the maiden looked upon Oisin, whose proud bearing and jewelled armour made the mean place seem meaner still, and a light of hope and of joy seemed to glimmer upon her brow. So she gave them refreshment as she could, and afterwards they betook them once more to the courtyard, where the place of battle was set.

Here, at the further side, stood a huge man clad in rusty armour, who when he saw Oisin rushed upon him, silent and furious, and swinging a great battleaxe in his hand. But doubt and langour weighed upon Oisin’s heart, and it seemed to him as if he were in an evil dream, which he knew was but a dream, and would be less than nothing when the hour of awakening should come. Yet he raised his shield and gripped the fairy sword, striving to shout the Fian battle-cry as he closed with Fovor. But soon a heavy blow smote him to the ground, and his armour clanged harshly on the stones. Then a cloud seemed to pass from his spirit, and he leaped to his feet quicker than an arrow flies from the string, and thrusting fiercely at the giant his sword-point gashed the under side of Fovor’s arm when it was raised to strike, and Oisin saw his enemy’s blood. Then the fight raged hither and thither about the wide courtyard, with trampling of feet and clash of steel and ringing of armour and shouts of onset as the heroes closed; Oisin, agile as a wild stag, evading the sweep of the mighty axe and rushing in with flickering blade at every unguarded moment, his whole soul bent on one fierce thought, to drive his point into some gap at shoulder or neck in Fovor’s coat of mail. At length, when both were weary and wounded men, with hacked and battered armour, Oisin’s blade cut the thong of Fovor’s headpiece and it fell clattering to the ground. Another blow laid the giant prostrate, and Oisin leaned, dizzy and panting, upon his sword, while Fovor’s serving-men took off their master in a litter, and Niam came to aid her lord. Then Oisin stripped off his armour in the great hall, and Niam tended to his wounds, healing them with magic herbs and murmured incantations, and they saw that one of the seven rusty chains that had bound the princess hung loose from its iron staple in the wall.

All night long Oisin lay in deep and healing slumber, and next day he arose, whole and strong, and hot to renew the fray. And the giant was likewise healed and his might and fierceness returned to him. So they fought till they were breathless and weary, and then to it again, and again, till in the end Oisin drove his sword to the hilt in the giant’s shoulder where it joins the collar bone, and he fell aswoon, and was borne away as before. And another chain of the seven fell from the girdle of the captive maiden.

Thus for seven days went on the combat, and Oisin had seven nights of healing and rest, with the tenderness and beauty of Niam about his couch; and on the seventh day the maiden was free, and her folk brought her away, rejoicing, with banners and with music that made a brightness for a while in that forlorn and evil place.

But Oisin’s heart was high with pride and victory, and a longing uprose in his heart with a rush like a springtide for the days when some great deed had been done among the Fianna, and the victors were hailed and lauded by the home-folk in the Dun of Allen, men and women leaving their toil or their pleasure to crowd round the heroes, and to question again and again, and to learn each thing that had passed; and the bards noting all to weave it into a glorious tale for after days; and more than all the smile and the look of Finn as he learned how his children had borne themselves in the face of death. And so Oisin said to Niam, ‘Let me, for a short while, return to the land of Erinn, that I may see there my friends and kin and tell them of the glory and joy that are mine in the Land of Youth.’ But Niam wept and laid her white arms about his neck, entreating him to think no more of the sad world where all men live and move under a canopy of death, and where summer is slain by winter, and youth by old age, and where love itself, if it die not by falsehood and wrong, perishes many a time of too complete a joy. But Oisin said, “The world of men compared with thy world is like this dreary waste compared with the city of thy father; yet in that city, Niam, none is better or worse than another, and I hunger to tell my tale to ignorant and feeble folk that my words can move, as words of mine have done of old, to wonder and delight. Then I shall return to thee, Niam, and to thy fair and blissful land; and having brought over to mortal men a tale that never man has told before, I shall be happy and at peace for ever in the Land of Youth.’

So they fared back to the golden city, and next day Niam brought to Oisin the white steed that had borne them from Erinn, and bade him farewell. ‘This our steed,’ she said, ‘will carry thee across the sea to the land where I found thee, and whithersoever thou wilt, and what folk are there thou shalt see, and what tale thou hast to tell can be told. But never for even a moment must thou alight from his back, for if thy foot once touch again the soil of earth, thou shalt never win to me and to the Land of Youth again. And sorely do I fear some evil chance. Was not the love of Niam of the Head of Gold enough to fill a mortal’s heart? But if thou must go, then go, and blessing and victory be thine.’

Then Oisin held her long in his arms and kissed her, and vowed to make no long stay and never to alight from the fairy steed. And then he shook the golden reins and the horse threw its head aloft and snorted and bore him away in a pace like that of flowing water for speed and sone ® Anon they came to the margin of the blue sea, and still the white steed galloped on, brushing the crests of the waves into glittering spray. The sun glared upon the sea and Oisin’s head swam with the heat and motion, and in mist and dreams he rode where no day was, nor night, nor any thought of time, till at last his horse’s hoofs ploughed through wet, yellow sands, and he saw black rocks rising up at each side of a little bay, and inland were fields green or brown, and white cottages thatched with reeds, and men and women, toil-worn and clad in earth-coloured garments, went to and fro about their tasks or stopped gazing at the rider in his crimson cloak and at the golden trappings of his horse. But among the cottages was a small house of stone such as Oisin had never seen in the land of Erinn; stone was its roof as well as the walls, very steep and high, and near-by from a rude frame of timber there hung a bell of bronze. Into this house there passed one whom from his shaven crown Oisin guessed to be a druid, and behind him two lads in white apparel. The druid having seen the horseman turned his eyes again to the ground and passed on, regarding him not, and the lads did likewise. And Oisin rode on, eager to reach the Dun upon the Hill of Allen and to see the faces of his kin and his friends.

At length, coming from the forest path into the great clearing where the Hill of Allen was wont to rise broad and green, with its rampart enclosing many white-walled dwellings, and the great hall towering high in the midst, he saw but grassy mounds overgrown with rank weeds and whin bushes, and among them pastured a peasant’s kine.

Then a strange horror fell upon him, and he thought some enchantment from the land of Faery held his eyes and mocked him with false visions. He threw his arms abroad and shouted the names of Finn and Oscar, but none replied, and he thought that perchance the hounds might hear him, and he cried upon Bran and Sceolaun, and strained his ears if they might catch the faintest rustle or whisper of the world from the sight of which his eyes were holden, but he heard only the sigh of the wind in the whins. Then he rode in terror from that place, setting his face towards the eastern sea, for he meant to traverse Ireland from side to side and end to end in the search of some escape from his enchantment. But when he came near to the eastern sea and was now in the place which is called the Valley of the Thrushes,* he saw in a field upon the hillside a crowd of men striving to roll aside a great boulder from their tilled land, and an overseer directing them. Towards them he rode, meaning to ask them concerning Finn and the Fianna. As he came near, they all stopped their work to gaze upon him, for to them he appeared like a messenger of the Fairy Folk or an angel from heaven. Taller and mightier he was than the men-folk they knew, with sword-blue eyes and brown ruddy cheeks; in his mouth, as it were, a shower of pearls, and bright hair clustered beneath the rim of his helmet. And as Oisin looked upon their puny forms, marred by toil and care, and at the stone which they feebly strove to heave from its bed, he was filled with pity, and thought to himself, ‘Not such were even the churls of Erinn when I left them for the Land of Youth,’ and he stooped from his saddle to help them. His hand he set to the boulder, and with a mighty heave he lifted it from where it lay and set it rolling down the hill. And the men raised a shout of wonder and applause, but their shouting changed in a moment into cries of terror and dismay, and they fled, jostling and overthrowing each other to escape from the place of fear; for a marvel horrible to see had taken place. For Oisin’s saddle-girth had burst as he heaved the stone, and he fell headlong to the ground. In an instant the white steed had vanished from their eyes like a wreath of mist, and that which rose, feeble and staggering, from the ground was no youthful warrior but a man stricken with extreme old age, white-bearded and withered, who stretched out groping hands and moaned with feeble and bitter cries. And his crimson cloak and yellow silken tunic were now but coarse homespun stuff tied with a hempen girdle, and the gold-hilted sword was a rough oaken staff such as a beggar carries who wanders the roads from farmer’s house to house.

When the people saw that the doom that had been wrought was not for them they returned, and found the old man prone on the ground with his face hidden in his arms. So they lifted him up and asked who he was and what had befallen him. Oisin gazed round on them with dim eyes, and at last he said, ‘I was Oisin the son of Finn, and I pray ye tell me where he now dwells, for his Din on the Hill of Allen is now a desolation, and I have neither seen him nor heard his hunting horn from the Western to the Eastern Sea.’ Then the men gazed strangely on each other and on Oisin, and the overseer asked, ‘Of what Finn dost thou speak, for there be many of that name in Erinn?’ Oisin said, ‘Surely of Finn Mac Cumhal Mac Trenmor, captain of the Fianna of Erinn.’ Then the overseer said, ‘Thou art daft, old man, and thou hast made us daft to take thee for a youth as we did a while agone. But we at least have now our wits again, and we know that Finn son of Cumhal and all his generation have been dead these three hundred years. At the battle of Gowra fell Oscar, son of Oisin, and Finn at the battle of Brea, as the historians tell us; and the lays of Oisin, whose death no man knows the manner of, are sung by our harpers at great men’s feasts. But now the Talkenn [Talkenn or 'Adze-head' was a name given to St Patrick by the Irish. Probably it referred to the shape of his tonsure.], St Patrick, has come into Ireland and has preached to us the One God and Christ His Son, by whose might these old days and ways are done away with, and Finn and his Fianna, with their feasting and hunting and songs of war and of love, have no such reverence among us as the monks and virgins of holy Patrick, and the psalms and prayers that go up daily to cleanse us from sin and to save us from the fire of judgment.’ But Oisin replied, half hearing and still less comprehending what was said to him, ‘If thy God have slain Finn and Oscar, I would say that God is a strong man.’ Then they all cried out upon him, and some picked up stones, but the overseer bade them let him be until the Talkenn had spoken with him, and till he should order what was to be done.

So they brought him to Patrick, who entreated him gently and hospitably, and to Patrick he told the story of all that had befallen him. But Patrick bade his scribes write all carefully down, that the memory of the heroes whom Oisin had known, and of the joyous and free life they had led in the woods and glens and wild places of Erinn, should never be forgotten among men. And Oisin, during the short span of life that yet remained to him, told to Patrick many tales of the Fianna and their deeds, but of the three hundred years that he had spent with Niam in the Land of Youth he rarely spoke, for they seemed to him but as a vision or a dream of the night, set between a sunny and a rainy day.

The bibliographic notes to the story lead us to an 18th century Gaelic poem recounting the tale, and its 19th century translation:

Oisin in the Land of Youth is based, as regards the outlines of this remarkable story, on the LAOI OISiN AR TIR NA N-OG, written by Michael Comyn about 1750, and edited with a translation by Thomas Flannery in 1896 (Gill & Son, Dublin). Comyn’s poem was almost certainly based on earlier traditional sources, either oral or written or both, but these have not hitherto been discovered.

The following version is also presented as a personal account from Oisín to St Patrick as to how Oisín survived from the time of the Fianna to St Patrick’s time. It includes an extended account of the journey to Tír na Nóg.

In Old Celtic romances by Patrick Joyce, 1920 (1907)

https://archive.org/details/oldcelticromance00joyciala/page/384/mode/2up?q=oisin Old Celtic romances by Joyce, P. W. (Patrick Weston), 1827-1914

Publication date 1920 [pref. 1907]

p385-399

OISIN IN TIR NA NOGE [Tirnanoge, the Land of Youth. (See note 19 at the end.)]; OR, THE LAST OF THE FENA.

[According to an ancient legend, Finn’s son, Oisin, the hero-poet, survived to the time of St. Patrick, two hundred years (the legend makes it three hundred) after the other Fena. On a certain occasion, when the saint asked him how he had lived to such a great age, the old hero related the following story.]

A SHORT time after the fatal battle of Gavra, [Gavra, now Garristown, in the north-west of the county Dublin. (For an account of this battle, see note 28 at the end.] where so many of our heroes fell, we were hunting on a dewy morning near the brink of Lough Lein [Lough Lein, the Lakes of Killarney] where the trees and hedges around us were all fragrant with blossoms, and the little birds sang melodious music on the branches. We soon roused the deer from the thickets, and as they bounded over the plain, our hounds followed after them in full cry.

We were not long so engaged, when we saw a rider coming swiftly towards us from the west ; and we soon perceived that it was a maiden on a white steed. We all ceased from the chase on seeing the lady, who reined in as she approached. And Finn and the Fena were greatly surprised, for they had never before seen so lovely a maiden. A slender golden diar’em encircled her head ; and she wore a brown robe of silk, spangled with stars of red gold, which was fastened in front by a golden brooch, and fell from her shoulders till it swept the ground. Her yellow hair flowed far down over her robe in bright, golden ringlets. Her blue eyes were as clear as the drops of dew on the grass; and while her small, white hand held the bridle and curbed her steed with a golden bit, she sat more gracefully than the swan on Lough Lein. The white steed was covered with a smooth, flowing mantle. He was shod with four shoes of pure yellow gold, and in all Erin a better or more beautiful steed could not be found.

As she came slowly to the presence of Finn, he addressed her courteously in these words —

“ Who art thou, O lovely youthful princess ? Tell us thy name and the name of thy country, and relate to us the cause of thy coming.”

She answered in a sweet and gentle voice, “ Noble king of the Fena, I have had a long iourney this dav, for my country lies far off in the Western Sea. I am the daughter of the king of Tirnanoge, and my name is Niam of the Golden Hair.”

“ And what is it that has caused thee to come so far across the sea ? Has thy husband forsaken thee; or what other evil has befallen thee ? “

“My husband has not forsaken me, for I have never been married or betrothed to any man. But I love thy noble son, Oisin ; and this is what has brought me to Erin. It is not without reason that I have given him my love, and that I have undertaken this long journey : for I have often heard of his bravery, his gentleness, and the nobleness of his person. Many princes and high chiefs have sought me in marriage ; but I was quite indifferent to all men, and never consented to wed, till my heart was moved with love for thy gentle son, Oisin.”

When I heard these words, and when I looked on the lovely maiden with her glossy, golden hair, I was all over in love with her. I came near, and, taking her small hand in mine, I told her she was a mild star of brightness and beauty, and that I preferred her to all the princesses in the world for my wife.

“ Then,” said she, “ I place you under gesa, [note 12] which true heroes never break through, to come with me on my white steed to Tirnanoge, the land of never-ending youth. It is the most delightful and the most re-nowned country under the sun. There is abundance of gold and silver and jewels, of honey and wine ; and the trees bear fruit and blossoms and green leaves together all the year round. You will get a hundred swords and a hundred robes of silk and satin, a hundred swift steeds, and a hundred slender, keen-scenting hounds. You will get herds of cows without number, and flocks of sheep with fleeces of gold; a coat of mail that cannot be pierced, and a sword that never missed a stroke and from which no one ever escaped alive. There are feasting and harmless pastimes each day. A hundred warriors fully armed shall always t await you at call, and harpers shall delight you with their sweet music. You will wear the diadem of the king of Tirnanoge, which he never yet gave to any one under the sun, and which will guard you day and night, in tumult and battle and danger of every kind. Lapse of time shall bring neither decay nor death, and you shall be for ever young, and gifted with unfading beauty and strength. All these delights you shall enjoy, and many others that I do not mention ; and I myself will be your wile if you come with me to Tirnanoge.”

I replied that she was my choice above all the maidens in the world, and that I would willingly go with her to the Land of Youth.

When my father, Finn, and the Fena heard me say this, and knew that I was going from them, they raised three shouts of grief and lamentation. And Finn came up to me and took my hand in his. saying sadly —

“Woe is me, my son, that you are going away from me, for I do not expect that you will ever return to me ! “

The manly beauty of his countenance became quite dimmed with sorrow ; and though I promised to return after a little time, and fully believed that I should see him again, I could not check my tears, as I gently kissed my father’s cheek. I then bade farewell to my dear companions, and mounted the white steed, while the lady kept her seat before me. She gave the signal, and the steed galloped swiftly and smoothly towards the west, till he reached the strand ; and when his gold-shod hoofs touched tha waves, he shook himself and neighed three times. He made no delay, but plunged forward at once, moving over the face of the sea with the speed of a cloud-shadow on a March day. The wind overtook the waves and we overtook the wind, so that we straight-way lost sight of land; and we saw nothing but billows tumbling before us and billows tumbling behind us.

Other shores came into view, and we saw many wonderful things on our journey — islands and cities, lime-white mansions, bright greenans [Greenan, a summer-house ; a house in a bright, sunny spot] and lofty palaces. A hornless fawn once crossed our course, bounding nimbly along from the crest of one wave to the crest of another ; and close after, in full chase, a white hound with red ears. We saw also a lovely young maiden on a brown steed, with a golden apple in her hand ; and as she passed swiftly by, a young warrior on a white steed plunged after her, wearing a long, flowing mantle of yellow silk, and holding a gold-hilted sword in his hand.

I knew naught of these things, and, marvelling much, I asked the princess what they meant; but she answered —

“ Heed not what you see here, Oisin ; for all these wonders are as nothing compared with what you shall see in Tirnanoge.”

At last we saw at a great distance, rising over the waves on the very verge of the sea, a palace more splendid than all the others ; and, as we drew near, its front glittered like the morning sun. I asked the lady what royal house this was, and who was the prince that ruled over it.

“ This country is the Land of Virtues,” she replied. “ Its king is the giant, Fomor of the Blows, and its queen the daughter ot the king of the Land of Life.19 This Fomor brought the lady away by force from her own country, and keeps her in his palace ; but she has put him under gesa12 that he cannot break through, never to ask her to marry him till she can find a champion to fight him in single combat. But she still remains in bondage ; for no hero has yet come hither who has the courage to meet the giant.”

“A blessing on you, golden-haired Niam,” I replied ; “ I have never heard music sweeter than your voice; and although I feel pity for this princess, yet your story is pleasant to me to hear ; for of a certainty I will go to the palace, and try whether I cannot kill this Fomor, and free the lady.”

So we came to land ; and as we drew nigh to the palace, the lovely young queen met us and bade us welcome. She led us in and placed us on chairs of gold; after which choice food was placed before us, and drinking-horns filled with mead, and golden goblets of sweet wine.

When we had eaten and drunk, the mild young princess told us her story, while tears streamed from her soft, blue eyes ; and she ended by saying —

“ I shall never return to my own country and to my father’s house, so long as this great and cruel giant is alive ! “

When I heard her sad words, and saw her tears falling, I was moved with pity; and telling her to cease from her grief, I gave her my hand as a pledge that I would meet the giant, and either slay him .or fall myself in her defence.

While we were yet speaking, we saw the giant coming towards the palace, large of body, and ugly and hateful in appearance, carrying a load of deerskins on his back, and holding a great iron club in his hand. He threw down his load when he saw us, turned a surly look on the princess, and, without greeting us or showing the least mark of courtesy, he forthwith challenged me to battle in a loud, rough voice. It was not my wont to be dismayed by a call to battle, or to be terrified at the sight of an enemy ; and I went forth at once without the least fear in my heart. But though I had fought many battles in Erin against wild boars and enchanters and foreign invaders, never before did I find it so hard to preserve my life. We fought for three days and three nights without food or drink or sleep ; for the giant did not give me a moment for rest, and neither did I give him. At length, when I looked at the two princesses weeping in great fear, and when I called to mind my father’s deeds in battle, the fury of my valour arose ; and with a sudden onset I felled the giant to the earth ; and instantly, before he could recover himself, I cut off his head.

When the maidens saw the monster lying on the ground dead, they uttered three cries of joy; and they came to me, and led me into the palace. For I was indeed bruised all over, and covered with gory wounds ; and a sudden dizziness of brain and feebleness of body seized me. But the daughter of the king of the Land of Life applied precious balsam and healing herbs to my wounds ; and in a short time I was healed, and my cheerfulness of mind returned.

Then I buried the giant in a deep and wide grave ; and I raised a great earn over him, and placed on it a stone with his name graved in Ogam.

We rested that night, and at the dawn of next morning Niam said to me that it was time for us to resume our journey to Tirnanoge. So we took leave of the daughter of the king of the Land of Life ; and though her heart was joyful after her release, she wept at our departure, and we were not less sorry at parting from her. When we had mounted the white steed, he galloped towards the strand; and as soon as his hoofs touched the wave, he shook himself and neighed three times. We plunged forward over the clear, green sea with the speed of a March wind on a hill-side; and soon we saw nothing but billows tumbling before us and billows tumbling behind us. We saw again the fawn chased by the white hound with red ears ; and the maiden with the golden apple passed swiftly by, followed by the young warrior in yellow silk on his white steed. And again we passed many strange islands and cities and white palaces.

The sky now darkened, so that the sun was hidden from our view. A storm arose, and the sea was lighted up with constant flashes. But though the wind blew from every point of the heavens, and the waves rose up and roared around us, the white steed kept his course straight on, moving as calmly and swiftly as before, through the foam and blinding spray, without being delayed or disturbed in the least, and without turning either to the right or to the left.

At length the storm abated, and after a time the sun again shone brightly; and when I looked up, I saw a country near at hand, all green and full of flowers, with beautiful smooth plains, blue hills, and bright lakes and waterfalls. Not far from the shore stood a palace of surpassing beauty and splendour. It was covered all over with gold and with gems of every colour — blue, green, crimson, and yellow ; and on each side were greenans shining with precious stones, built by artists the most skilful that could be found. I asked Niam the name of that delightful country, and she replied —

“ This is my native country, Tirnanoge ; and there is nothing I have promised you that you will not find in it.”

As soon as we reached the shore, we dismounted ; and now we saw advancing from the palace a troop of noble-looking warriors, all clad in bright garments, who came forward to meet and welcome us. Following these we saw a stately glittering host, with the king at their head wearing a robe of bright yellow satin covered with gems, and a crown that sparkled with gold and diamonds. The queen came after, attended by a hundred lovely young maidens ; and as they advanced towards us, it seemed to me that this king and queen exceeded all the kings and queens of the world in beauty and gracefulness and majesty.

After they had kissed their daughter, the king took my hand, and said aloud in the hearing of the host —

“This is Oisin, the son of Finn, for whom my daughter, Niam, travelled over the sea to Erin. This is Oisin, who is to be the husband of Niam of the Golden Hair. We give you a hundred thousand welcomes, brave Oisin. You will be for ever young in this land. All kinds of delights and innocent pleasures are awaiting you, and my daughter, the gentle, golden-haired Niam, shall be your wife ; for I am the king of Tirnanoge.”

I gave thanks to the king, and I bowed low to the queen; after which we went into the palace, where we found a banquet prepared. The feasting and rejoicing lasted for ten days, and on the last day, I was wedded to the gentle Niam of the Golden Hair.

I lived in the Land of Youth more than three hundred years ; but it appeared to me that only three years had passed since the day I parted from my friends. At the end of that time, I began to have a longing desire to see my father, Finn, and all my old companions, and I asked leave of Niam and of the king to visit Erin. The king gave permission, and Niam said —

“I will give consent, though I feel sorrow in my heart, for I fear much you will never return to me.;> I replied that I would surely return, and that she need not feel any doubt or dread, for that the white steed knew the way, and would bring me back in safety. Then she addressed me in these words, which seemed very strange to me —

“I will not refuse this request, though your journey afflicts me with great grief and fear. Erin is not now as it was when you left it. The great king Finn and his Feua are all gone ; and you will find, instead of them, a holy father and hosts of priests and saints. Now, think well on what I say to you, and keep my words in your mind. If once you alight from the white steed, you will never come back to me. Again I warn you, if you place your feet on the green sod in Erin, you will never return to this lovely land. A third time, O Oisin, my beloved husband, a third time I say to you, if you alight from the white steed, you will never see me again.”

I promised that I would faithfully attend to her words, and that I would not alight from the white steed. Then, as I looked into her gentle face and marked her grief, my heart was weighed down with sadness, and my tears flowed plentifully ; but even so, my mind was bent on coming back to Erin.

When I had mounted the white steed, he galloped straight towards the shore. We moved as swiftly as before over the clear sea. The wind overtook the waves and we overtook the wind, so that we straightway left the Land of Youth behind ; and we passed by many islands and cities, till at length we landed on the green shores of Erin.

As I travelled on through the country, I looked closely around me; but I scarcely knew the old places, for everything seemed strangely altered. I saw no sign of Finn and his host, and I began to dread that Niam’s saying was coming true. At length, I espied at a distance a company of little men and women, [The gigantic race of the Fena had all passed away, and Erin was now inhabited by people who looked very small in Oisin's eyes] all mounted on horses as small as themselves ; and when I came near, they greeted me kindly and courteously. They looked at me with wonder and curiosity, and they marvelled much at my great size, and at the beauty and majesty of my person.

I asked them about Finn and the Fena ; whether they were still living, or if any sudden disaster had swept them away. And one replied —

“ We have heard of the hero Finn, who ruled the Fena of Erin in times of old, and who never had an equal for bravery and wisdom. The poets of the Gaels have written many books concerning his deeds and the deeds of the Feua, which we cannot now relate ; but they are all gone long since, for they lived many ages ago. We have heard also, and we have seen it written in very old books, that Finn had a son named Oisin. Now this Oisin went with a young fairy maiden to Tirnanoge, and his father and his friends sorrowed greatly after him, and sought him long ; but he was never seen again.”

When I heard all this, I was filled with amazement, and my heart grew heavy with great sorrow. I silently turned my steed away from the wondering people, and set forward straightway for Allen of the mighty deeds, on the broad, green plains of Leinster. It was a miserable journey to me ; and though my mind, being full of sadness at all I saw and heard, forecasted further sorrows, I was grieved more than ever when I reached Allen. For there, indeed, I found the hill deserted and lonely, and my father’s palace all in ruins and overgrown with grass and weeds.

I turned slowly away, and afterwards fared through the land in every direction in search of my friends. But I met only crowds of little people, all strangers, who gazed on me with wonder ; and none knew me. I visited every place throughout the country where I knew the Fena had lived; but I found their houses all like Allen, solitary and in ruins.

At length I came to Glenasmole, [Glenasmole, a fine valley about seven miles south of Dublin. through which the river Dodder Sows.] where many a time I had hunted in days of old with the Fen a, and there I saw a crowd of people in the glen. As soon as they saw me, one of them came forward and said —

“Come to us, thou mighty hero, and help us out of our strait ; for thou art a man of vast strength.”

I went to them, and found a number of men trying in vain to raise a large, flat stone. It was half lifted from the ground ; but those who were under it were not strong enough either to raise it further or to free themselves from its weight. And they were in great distress, and on the point of being crushed to death.

I thought it a shameful thing that so many men should be unable to lift this stone, which Oscar, if he were alive, would take in his right hand and fling over the heads of the feeble crowd. After I had looked a little while, I stooped forward and seized the flag with one hand ; and, putting forth my strength I flung it seven perches from its place, and relieved the little men. But with the great strain the golden saddle-girth broke, and, bounding forward to keep myself from falling, I suddenly came to the ground on my two feet.

The moment the white steed felt himself free, he shook himself and neighed. Then, starting off with the speed of a cloud-shadow on a March day, he left me standing helpless and sorrowful. Instantly a woeful change came over me : the sight of my eyes began to fade, the ruddy beauty of my face fled, I lost all my strength, and I fell to the earth, a poor, withered old man, blind and wrinkled and feeble.

The white steed was never seen again. I never recovered my sight, my youth, or my strength ; and I have lived in this manner, sorrowing without ceasing for my gentle, golden-haired wife, Niam, and thinking ever of my father, Finn, and of the lost companions of my youth.

NOTE 12.— Gesa.

“ Gesa “ (pronounced gessa, the g hard, as in gef) is plural : singular gets, plural geasa or gesa. Gesa means solemn vows, conjurations, injunctions, prohibitions. “ I put you under gesa “ means, I adjure you solemnly, so solemnly that you dare not disobey. It would appear that individuals were often under gesa or solemn vows to observe, or to refrain from, certain lines of conduct — the vows being either taken on themselves voluntarily, or imposed on them, with their consent, by others. Thus Dermat O’Dyna was under gesa never to pass through a wicket gate when entering or leaving a palace (page 282); Finn was under gesa not to sleep at Allen more than nine nights in succession (page 337) ; Dermat put Oisin under gesa not to loose any one whom he bound (page 312). It would appear, also, that if one person went through the form of putting another under gesa to grant any reasonable request, the abjured person could not refuse without loss of honour and reputation. Thus Midac places Finn under gesa to come to the banquet in the Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees (page 189); and the witch-lady places gesa on Finn to search for the ring in the lake (page 354). And sometimes, on very solemn or urgent occasions, the gesa seem to have been imposed with spells, so as to draw down ill luck as well as loss of honour on the person who disregarded the injunction (page 281).

Geis or gesa also means a charm or spell.

NOTE 19. — Land of the Living : Land of Life, etc.

The ancient Irish had a sort of dim, vague belief that there was a land where people were always youthful, and free from care and trouble, suffered no disease, and lived for ever. This country they called by various names : — Tir-na-mbeo, the land of the [ever-]living; Tir-na-nog, the land of the [ever-]youthful ; Moy-Mett, the pkin of pleasure, etc. It had its own inhabitants — fairies ; but mortals were sometimes brought there ; and while they lived in it, were gifted with the everlasting youth and beauty of the fairy people themselves, and partook of their pleasures. As to the exact place whera Tirnanoge was situated, the references are shadowy and variable , but they often place it far out in the Atlantic Ocean, as far as the eye can reach from the high cliffs of the western coast. And here it is identical with O’Brasil, of which mention has been made in note 13.

I have already remarked (see note 1) that the fairies were also supposed to live in palaces in the interior of pleasant green hills, and that they were hence called Aes-shee or Deena-shee, i.e. people of the shee or fairy hills ; and hence also the word “ banshee “ i.e. a woman (bean) of the fairy hills. Tirnanoge was often regarded as identical with these bright, subterranean palaces. In my boyhood days, the peasantry believed that the great limestone cavern near Mitchelstown, in the county Cork, was one of the entrances to Tirnanoge.

NOTE 28.— Battle of Gavra.

When Carbri of the Liffey, son of Cormac Mac Art, ascended the throne of Ireland, one of his first acts was to disband and outlaw the Clann Baskin ; and he took into his service in their place their rivals and deadly enemies, the Clann Morna from Connaught. Whereupon the Clann Baskin marched southwards, and entered the service of Fercorb, king of Munster, Finn’s grandson, in direct disobedience to king Carbri’s commands. This led to the bloody battle of Gavra, celebrated in Ossianic literature, which was fought A.D. 284, at Garristown, in the north-west of the county Dublin, where the rival clanns slaughtered each other almost to annihilation. In the heat of the battle, Carbri and Oscar met in single combat ; and, after a long and terrible fight, the heroic Oscar fell pierced by Carbri’s spear, and died on the evening of the same day. But Carbri himself was dreadfully wounded ; and, while retiring from vhe field, his own kinsman, Semeon, whom he had previously banished from Tara, fell on him, and despatched him with a single blow. This battle is the subject of a poem which the bards ascribe to Oisin, and which has been published, with translation, in the first volume of the Ossianic Transactions. In this poem there is an affecting description of the death of Oscar, surrounded by his few surviving companions, and in presence of his father Oisin.

In this next version, the fairy princess Niamh is unnamed, and sets out to find and marry Oisin in order to remove a curse placed on her by her own father. When the time comes to leave the Land of Youth, Oisin is warned explicitly that the time he has spent there is much longer than he may have thought. In this variant, the stone that is to be Oisín’s undoing also has a story attached to it.

In Myths and folk-lore of Ireland, Jeremiah Curtin, 1890

https://archive.org/details/mythsfolkloreofi00curtuoft/page/326/mode/2up?q=oisin Myths and folk-lore of Ireland by Curtin, Jeremiah, 1835-1906 1890 p327-334

OISIN IN TIR NA N-OG.

THERE was a king in Tir na n-Og (the land of Youth) who held the throne and crown for many a year against all comers ; and the law of the kingdom was that every seventh year the champions and best men of the country should run for the office of king.

Once in seven years they all met at the front of the palace and ran to the top of a hill two miles distant. On the top of that hill was a chair and the man that sat first in the chair was king of Tir na n-Og for the next seven years. After he had ruled for ages, the king became anxious ; he was afraid that some one might sit in the chair before him, and take the crown off his head. So he called up his Druid one day and asked : “ How long shall I keep the chair to rule this land, and will any man sit in it before me and take the crown off my head?”

“ You will keep the chair and the crown forever,” said the Druid, “ unless your own son-in-law takes them from you.”

The king had no sons and but one daughter, the finest woman in Tir na n-Og; and the like of her could not be found in Erin or any kingdom in the world. When the king heard the words of the Druid, he said, “I’ll have no son-in-law, for I’ll put the daughter in a way no man will marry her.”

Then he took a rod of Druidic spells, and calling the daughter up before him, he struck her with the rod, and put a pig’s head on her in place of her own.

Then he sent the daughter away to her own place in the castle, and turning to the Druid said :

“ There is no man that will marry her now.” When the Druid saw the face that was on the princess with the pig’s head that the father gave her, he grew very sorry that he had given such information to the king; and some time after he went to see the princess.

“Must I be in this way forever?” asked she of the Druid.

“ You must,” said he, “ till you marry one of the sons of Fin MacCumhail in Erin. If you marry one of Fin’s sons, you ‘ll be freed from the blot that is on you now, and get back your own head and countenance.”

When she heard this she was impatient in her mind, and could never rest till she left Tir na n-Og and came to Erin. When she had inquired she heard that Fin and the Fenians of Erin were at that time living on Knock an Ar, and she made her way to the place without delay and lived there a while; and when she saw Oisin, he pleased her; and when she found out that he was a son of Fin MacCumhail, she was always making up to him and coming towards him. And it was usual for the Fenians in those days to go out hunting on the hills and mountains and in the woods of Erin, and when one of them went he always took five or six men with him to bring home the game.

On a day Oisin set out with his men and dogs to the woods ; and he went so far and killed so much game that when it was brought together, the men were so tired, weak, and hungry that they couldn’t carry it, but went away home and left him with the three dogs, Bran, Sciolan, and Buglen [Celebrated dogs of Fin MacCumhail.], to shift for himself.

Now the daughter of the king of Tir na n-Og, who was herself the queen of Youth, followed closely in the hunt all that day, and when the men left Oisin she came up to him; and as he stood looking at the great pile of game and said, “ I am very sorry to leave behind anything that I’ve had the trouble of killing,” she looked at him and said, “ Tie up a bundle for me, and I’ll carry it to lighten the load off you.”

Oisin gave her a bundle of the game to carry, and took the remainder himself. The evening was very warm and the game heavy, and after they had gone some distance, Oisin said, “Let us rest a while.” Both threw down their burdens, and put their backs against a great stone that was by the roadside. The woman was heated and out of breath, and opened her dress to cool herself. Then Oisin looked at her and saw her beautiful form and her white bosom.

“Oh, then,” said he, “it’s a pity you have the pig’s head on you ; for I have never seen such an appearance on a woman in all my life before.”

“ Well,” said she, “ my father is the king of Tir na n-Og, and I was the finest woman in his kingdom and the most beautiful of all, till he put me under a Druidic spell and gave me the pig’s head that’s on me now in place of my own. And the Druid of Tir na n-Og came to me afterwards, and told me that if one of the sons of Fin MacCumhail would marry me, the pig’s head would vanish, and I should get back my face in the same form as it was before my father struck me with the Druid’s wand. When I heard this I never stopped till I came to Erin, where I found your father and picked you out among the sons of Fin MacCumhail, and followed you to see would you marry me and set me free.”

“ If that is the state you are in, and if marriage with me will free you from the spell, I’ll not leave the pig’s head on you long.”

So they got married without delay, not waiting to take home the game or to lift it from the ground. That moment the pig’s head was gone, and the king’s daughter had the same face and beauty that she had before her father struck her with the Druidic wand.

“ Now,” said the queen of Youth to Oisin, “ I cannot stay here long, and unless you come with me to Tir na n-Og we must part.”

“ Oh,” said Oisin, “ wherever you go I ‘ll go, and wherever you turn I ‘ll follow.”

Then she turned and Oisin went with her, not going back to Knock an Ar to see his father or his son. That very day they set out for Tir na n-Og and never stopped till they came to her father’s castle ; and when they came, there was a welcome before them, for the king thought his daughter was lost. That same year there was to be a choice of a king, and when the appointed day came at the end of the seventh year all the great men and the champions, and the king himself, met together at the front of the castle to run and see who should be first in the chair on the hill ; but before a man of them was half way to the hill, Oisin was sitting above in the chair before them. After that time no one stood up to run for the office against Oisin, and he spent many a happy year as king in Tir na n-Og. At last he said to his wife : “ I wish I could be in Erin to-day to see my father and his men.”

“ If you go,” said his wife, “ and set foot on the land of Erin, you’ll never come back here to me, and you ‘ll become a blind old man. How long do you think it is since you came here? “

“ About three years,” said Oisin.

“ It is three hundred years,” said she, “ since you came to this kingdom with me. If you must go to Erin, I’ll give you this white steed to carry you ; but if you come down from the steed or touch the soil of Erin with your foot, the steed will come back that minute, and you ‘ll be where he left you, a poor old man.”

“ I’ll come back, never fear,” said Oisin. “ Have I not good reason to come back? But I must see my father and my son and my friends in Erin once more ; I must have even one look at them.”

She prepared the steed for Oisin and said, “ This steed will carry you wherever you wish to go.”

Oisin never stopped till the steed touched the soil of Erin; and he went on till he came to Knock Patrick in Munster, where he saw a man herding cows. In the field, where the cows were grazing there was a broad flat stone.

“ Will you come here,” said Oisin to the herds-man, “ and turn over this stone? “

“Indeed, then, I will not,” said the herdsman; “ for I could not lift it, nor twenty men more like me.”

Oisin rode up to the stone, and, reaching down, caught it with his hand and turned it over. Underneath the stone was the great horn of the Fenians (borabii), which circled round like a seashell, and it was the rule that when any of the Fenians of Erin blew the borabu, the others would assemble at once from whatever part of the country they might be in at the time.

“Will you bring this horn to me! “ asked Oisin of the herdsman.

“ I will not,” said the herdsman ; “ for neither I nor many more like me could raise it from the ground.”

With that Oisin moved near the horn, and reaching down took it in his hand; but so eager was he to blow it, that he forgot everything, and slipped in reaching till one foot touched the earth. In an instant the steed was gone, and Oisin lay on the ground a blind old man. The herdsman went to Saint Patrick, who lived near by, and told him what had happened.

Saint Patrick sent a man and a horse for Oisin, brought him to his own house, gave him a room by himself, and sent a boy to stay with him to serve and take care of him. And Saint Patrick commanded his cook to send Oisin plenty of meat and drink, to give him bread and beef and butter every day.

Now Oisin lived a while in this way. The cook sent him provisions each day, and Saint Patrick himself asked him all kinds of questions about the old times of the Fenians of Erin. Oisin told him about his father, Fin MacCumhail, about himself, his son Osgar, Goll MacMorna, Conan Maol, Diarmuid, and all the Fenian heroes; how they fought, feasted, and hunted, how they came under Druidic spells, and how they were freed from them.

The chapter also goes on to include another tale, in which Oisín helps St Patrick defeat an unknown foe that was destroying each night a new building that St Patrick was trying to have built.

In Myths and folk-lore of Ireland by Jeremiah Curtin, 1890

https://archive.org/details/mythsfolkloreofi00curtuoft/page/326/mode/2up?q=oisin Myths and folk-lore of Ireland by Curtin, Jeremiah, 1835-1906 1890 p334-342

At the same time, Saint Patrick was putting up a great building; but what his men used to put up in the daytime was levelled at night, and Saint Patrick lamented over his losses in the hearing of Oisin. Then Oisin said in the hearing of Saint Patrick, “ If I had my strength and my sight, I’d put a stop to the power that is levelling your work.”

“ Do you think you ‘d be able to do that,” said Saint Patrick, “ and let my building go on? “

“ I do, indeed,” said Oisin.

So Saint Patrick prayed to the Lord, and the sight and strength came back to Oisin. He went to the woods and got a great club and stood at the building on guard. What should come in the night but a great beast in the form of a bull, which began to uproot and destroy the work. But if he did Oisin faced him, and the battle began hot and heavy between the two ; but in the course of the night Oisin got the upper hand of the bull and left him dead before the building. Then he stretched out on the ground himself and fell asleep.

Now Saint Patrick was waiting at home to know how would the battle come out, and thinking Oisin too long away he sent a messenger to the building; and when the messenger came he saw the ground torn up, a hill in one place and a hollow in the next. The bull was dead and Oisin sleeping after the desperate battle. He went back and told what he saw.

“ Oh,” said Saint Patrick, “ it ‘s better to knock the strength out of him again ; for he ‘ll kill us all if he gets vexed.”

Saint Patrick took the strength out of him, and when Oisin woke up he was a blind old man and the messenger went out and brought him home.

Oisin lived on for a time as before. The cook sent him his food, the boy served him, and Saint Patrick listened to the stories of the Fenians of Erin.

Saint Patrick had a neighbor, a Jew, a very rich man but the greatest miser in the kingdom, and he had the finest haggart of corn in Erin. Well, the Jew and Saint Patrick got very intimate with one another and so great became the friendship of the Jew for Saint Patrick at last, that he said he J d give him, for the support of his house, as much corn as one man could thrash out of the haggart [Haggart, hay-yard.] in a day.

When Saint Patrick went home after getting the promise of the corn, he told in the hearing of Oisin about what the Jew had said.

“ Oh, then,” said Oisin, “ if I had my sight and strength, I ‘d thrash as much corn in one day as would do your whole house for a twelvemonth and more.”

“ Will you do that for me? “ said Saint Patrick.

“ I will,” said Oisin.

Saint Patrick prayed again to the Lord, and the sight and strength came back to Oisin. He went to the woods next morning at daybreak, Oisin did, pulled up two fine ash-trees and made a flail of them. After eating his breakfast he left the house and never stopped till he faced the haggart of the Jew. Standing before one of the stacks of wheat he hit it a wallop of his flail and broke it asunder. He kept on in this way till he slashed the whole haggart to and fro, and the Jew running like mad up and down the highroad in front of the haggart, tearing the hair from his head when he saw what was doing to his wheat, and the face gone from him entirely he was so in dread of Oisin.

When the haggart was thrashed clean, Oisin went to Saint Patrick and told him to send his men for the wheat ; for he had thrashed out the whole haggart. When Saint Patrick saw the countenance that was on Oisin, and heard what he had done he was greatly in dread of him, and knocked the strength out of him again, and Oisin became an old, blind man as before.

Saint Patrick’s men went to the haggart and there was so much wheat they did n’t bring the half of it away with them and they did n’t want it.

Oisin again lived for a while as before and then he was vexed because the cook did n’t give him what he wanted. He told Saint Patrick that he was n’t getting enough to eat. Then Saint Patrick called up the cook before himself and Oisin and asked her what she was giving Oisin to eat. She said : “ I give him at every meal what bread is baked on a large griddle and all the butter I make in one churn, and a quarter of beef besides.”

“ That ought to be enough for you,” said Saint Patrick.

“ Oh, then,” said Oisin, turning to the cook, “ I have often seen the leg of a blackbird bigger than the quarter of beef you give me, I have often seen an ivy leaf bigger than the griddle on which you bake the bread for me, and I have often seen a single rowan berry [the mountain ash berry] bigger than the bit of butter you give me to eat.”

“ You lie ! “ said the cook, “ you never did.”

Oisin said not a word in answer. Now there was a hound in the place that was going to have her first whelps, and Oisin said to the boy who was tending him : “ Do you mind and get the first whelp she ‘ll have and drown the others.”

Next morning the boy found three whelps, and coming back to Oisin, said : “ There are three whelps and ‘tis unknown which of them is the first.”

At Saint Patrick’s house they had slaughtered an ox the day before, and Oisin said : “ Go now and bring the hide of the ox and hang it up in this room.” When the hide was hung up Oisin said, “ Bring here the three whelps and throw them up against the hide.” The boy threw up one of the whelps against the oxhide. “ What did he do?” asked Oisin.

“ What did he do,” said the boy, “ but fall to the ground.”

“ Throw up another,” said Oisin. The boy threw another. “ What did he do? “ asked Oisin.

“ What did he do but to fall the same as the first.”

The third whelp was thrown and he held fast to the hide, didn’t fall. “What did he do?” asked Oisin. “ Oh,” said the boy, “ he kept his hold.”

“ Take him down,” said Oisin ; “ give him to the mother : bring both in here ; feed the mother well and drown the other two.”

The boy did as he was commanded, and fed the two well, and when the whelp gre/.v up the mother was banished, the whelp chaine/i up and fed for a year and a day. And when the year and a day were spent, Oisin said, “ We ‘ll go hunting tomorrow, and we ‘ll take the dog with us.”

They went next day, the boy guiding Oisin, holding the dog by a chain. They went first to the place where Oisin had touched earth and lost the magic steed from Tir na n-Og. The borabu of the Fenians of Erin was lying on the ground there still. Oisin took it up and they went on to Glen na Smuil (Thrushs’s Glen), When at the edge of the glen Oisin began to sound the borabu. Birds and beasts of every kind came hurrying forward. He blew the horn till the glen was full of them from end to end.

“What do you see now? “ asked he of the boy.

“ The glen is full of living things.”

“ What is the dog doing? “

“ He is looking ahead and his hair is on end.”

“ Do you see anything else? “

“ I see a great bird all black settling down on the north side of the glen.”

“ That ‘s what I want,” said Oisin ; “ what is the dog doing now?”

“ Oh, the eyes are coming out of his head, and there is n’t a rib of hair on his body that is n’t standing up.”

“ Let him go now,” said Oisin. The boy let slip the chain and the dog rushed through the glen killing everything before him. When all the others were dead he turned to the great blackbird and killed that. Then he faced Oisin and the boy and came bounding toward them with venom and fierceness. Oisin drew out of his bosom a brass ball and said : “ If you don’t throw this into the dog’s mouth he ‘ll destroy us both ; knock the dog with the ball or he’ll tear us to pieces.”

“ Oh,” said the boy, “ I ‘ll never be able to throw the ball, I ‘m so in dread of the dog.”

“ Come here at my back, then,” said Oisin, “ and straighten my hand towards the dog.” The boy directed the hand and Oisin threw the ball into the dog’s mouth and killed him on the spot.

“ What have we done? “ asked Oisin.

“ Oh, the dog is knocked,” said the boy.

“ We are all right then,” said Oisin, “ and do you lead me now to the blackbird of the earn, I don’t care for the others.”

They went to the great bird, kindled a fire and cooked all except one of its legs. Then Oisin ate as much as he wanted and said ; “ I ‘ve had a good meal of my own hunting and it ‘s many and many a day since I have had one. Now let us go on farther.”

They went into the woods, and soon Oisin asked the boy; “ Do you see anything wonderful? “

“ I see an ivy with the largest leaves I have ever set eyes on.”

“ Take one leaf of that ivy,” said Oisin.

The boy took the leaf. Near the ivy they found a rowan berry, and then went home taking the three things with them, the blackbird’s leg, the ivy leaf, and the rowan berry. When they reached the house Oisin called for the cook, and Saint Patrick made her come to the fore. When she came Oisin pointed to the blackbird’s leg and asked, “ Which is larger, that leg or the quarter of beef you give me?”

“ Oh, that is a deal larger,” said the cook.

“ You were right in that case,” said Saint Patrick to Oisin.

Then Oisin drew out the ivy leaf and asked, “ Which is larger, this or the griddle on which you made bread for me? “

“ That is larger than the griddle and the bread together,” said the cook.

“ Right again,” said Saint Patrick.

Oisin now took out the rowan berry and asked : “ Which is larger, this berry or the butter of one churning which you give me?”

“ Oh, that is bigger,” said the cook, “ than both the churn and the butter.”

“ Right, every time,” said Saint Patrick.

Then Oisin raised his arm and swept the head off the cook with a stroke from the edge of his hand, saying, “ You ‘ll never give the lie to an honest man again.”