“It is Deòin, whom I love, and who has given me life.”
“And these ... that are neither green phantoms out of trees, nor yet men as we are?”
“These are the offspring of our love.”
Molios drew back in horror.
But Cathal threw up his arms, and with glad eyes cried:
“O green flame of life, pulse of the world.
O Love! O Youth! O Dream of Dreams.”
“O bitter grief,” Molios cried, “O bitter grief, that I did not slay thee utterly on that day of the days! Flame to thy flesh, and a stake through thy belly—that is the doom thou shouldst have had! My ban upon thee, Cathal, that was a monk, and now art a wild man of the woods: upon thee, and thy Annir-Coille, and all thy brood, I put the ban of fear and dread and sorrow, a curse by day and a curse by night!”
But with that a great dizziness swam into the brain of the saint, and he fell forward, and lay his length upon the moss, and there was no sight to his eyes, or hearing to his ears, or knowledge upon him at all until the rising of the sun.
When the yellow light was upon his face he rose. There was no face to see anywhere. Looking in the dew for the myriad feet that had been there, he saw none.
The old man knelt and prayed.