"Though [but] one rider is seen
In Moy Mell of many powers,
There are many steeds on its surface
Although thou seest them not.
* * * * *
A beautiful game, most delightful
They play [sitting] at the luxurious wine,
Men and gentle women under a bush
Without sin, without crime.
* * * * *
A wood with blossom and fruit,
On which is the vine's veritable fragrance;
A wood without decay, without defect,
On which are leaves of golden hue."
Then, prophesying of the death of Mongan, he sang—
"He will drink a drink from Loch Ló,
While he looks at the stream of blood;
The white hosts will take him under a wheel of clouds,
To the gathering where there is no sorrow."
I know of few things in literature comparable to this lovely description, at once so mystic and so sensuous, of the joys of the other world. To my mind it breathes the very essence of Celtic glamour, and is shot through and through with the Celtic love of form, beauty, landscape, company, and the society of woman. How exquisite the idea of being transported from this world to an isle around which sea-horses glisten, where from trees covered with blossoms the birds call in harmony to the Hours, a land whose haze is incomparable! What a touch! Where hair of crystal drops from the mane of the wave as it washes against the land; where the chariots of silver and of bronze assemble on the plain of sports, in the country against which laughter peals, and the day of lasting weather showers silver on the land. And then to play sitting at the luxurious wine—
"Men and gentle women under a bush
Without sin, without crime!"
I verily believe there is no Gael alive even now who would not in his heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and Milton to grasp at the Moy Mell of the unknown Irish pagan.
In another perhaps equally ancient story, that of the elopement of Connla, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles,[8] with a lady who is a denizen of this mysterious land, we find the unknown visitor giving nearly the same account of it as that given to Bran.
"Whence hast thou come, O Lady?" said the Druid.
"I have come," said she, "from the lands of the living in which there is neither death, nor sin, nor strife;[9] we enjoy perpetual feasts without anxiety, and benevolence without contention. A large Sidh [Shee, "fairy-mound">[ is where we dwell, so that it is hence we are called the Sidh [Shee] people."
The Druids appear, as I have already remarked, to have acted as intermediaries between the inhabitants of the other world and of this, and in the story of Connla one of them chants against the lady so that her voice was not heard, and he drives her away through his incantation. She comes back, however, at the end of a month, and again summons the prince.