His form and beauty changed, and showers of tears flowed down, till they wet his breast and his bright visage, and he said, “My woe art thou, O Oisin, in going from me!”
Patrick, ’twas a melancholy story our parting from each other in that place, the parting of the father from his own son—’tis mournful, weak, and faint to be relating it! I kissed my father sweetly and gently, and the same affection I got from him. I bade adieu to all the Fianna, and the tears flowed down my cheeks. We turned our backs to the land and our faces directly due west; the smooth sea ebbed before us and filled in billows after us. We saw wonders in our travels, cities, courts, and castles, lime-white mansions and fortresses, brilliant summer-houses and palaces. We also saw, by our sides, a hornless fawn leaping nimbly, and a red-eared white dog, urging it boldly in the chase. We beheld also, without fiction, a young maid on a brown steed, a golden apple in her right hand, and she going on the top of the waves. We saw after her a young rider on a white steed, under a purple, crimson mantle of satin, and a gold-headed sword in his right hand.
“Who are yon two whom I see, O gentle princess? Tell me the meaning, of that woman of most beautiful countenance and the comely rider of the white steed.”
“Heed not what thou wilt see, O gentle Oisin, nor what thou hast yet seen; there is in them but nothing, till we reach the land of the ‘King of Youth.’”
We saw from us afar a sunny palace of beautiful front; its form and appearance were the most beauteous that were to be found in the world.
“What exceeding fine royal mansion, and also the best that eye hath seen, is this that we are travelling near to, or who is high chief of that place?”
“The daughter of the King of the ‘Land of Life’ is Queen, yet in that fortress she was taken by Fomhor Builleach, of Dromloghach, with violent strength of arms and activity. Obligation she put upon the brave never to make her a wife till she got a champion or true hero to stand battle with him hand to hand.”
ake success and blessings, O golden-headed Niamh. I have never heard better music than the gentle voice of thy sweet mouth; great grief to us is a woman of her condition. I will go now to visit her to the fortress, and it may be for us it is fated that that great hero should fall by me, in feats of activity as is wont to me.”