The Journey to Faery

When the white horse with its riders reached the sea, it ran lightly over the waves, and soon the green woods and headlands of Erin 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. Oisin would have asked the princess who and what these apparitions were, but Niam bade him ask nothing until they were come to the Land of Youth.

The Broken Spell

But when he came near to the eastern sea, 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, he was filled with pity, and thought to himself, "Not such were even the churls of Erin when I left them for the Land of Youth " and he stooped from his saddle to help them.

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 said: "I was Oisin, the son of Finn, and I pray ye tell me where he dwells, for his dun 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 Erin?" Oisin said: "Surely of Finn mac Cumhal mac Trenmor, captain of the Fianna of Erin." 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 ago. 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,' 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, only 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.