Between its shining shores and Ireland,
strange islands--dwelt in by dreadful or by fair and gracious
creatures, whose wonders Maeldun and Brendan visited--lay like jewels
on the green and sapphire waters. Out of this vast ocean emerged also
their fiercest enemies. Thither, beyond these islands into the
Unknown, over the waves on a fairy steed, went Oisin with Niam;
thither, in after years, sailed St Brendan, till it seemed he touched
America. In the ocean depths were fair cities and well-grassed lands
and cattle, which voyagers saw through water thin and clear. There,
too, Brian, one of the sons of Turenn, descended in his water-dress
and his crystal helmet, and found high-bosomed maidens weaving in a
shining hall. Into the land beneath the wave, Mananan, the proud god
of the sea brought Dermot and Finn and the Fianna to help him in his
wars, as is told in the story of the _Gilla Dacar_. On these western
seas, near the land, Lir's daughters, singing and floating, passed
three hundred years. On other seas, in the storm and in the freezing
sleet that trouble the dark waves of Moyle, between Antrim and the
Scottish isles, they spent another three centuries. Half the story of
the Sons of Usnach has to do with the crossing of seas and with the
coast. Even Cuchulain, who is a land hero, in one of the versions of
his death, dies fighting the sea-waves.
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