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.