I might quote many such
descriptions of the appearance of the warriors--they are
multitudinous--but the picture of Etain is enough to illustrate what I
say--"Her hair before she loosed it was done in two long tresses,
yellow like the flower of the waterflag in summer or like red gold.
Her hands were white as the snow of a single night, and her eyes as
blue as the dark hyacinth, and her lips red as the berries of the
rowan-tree, and her body as white as the foam of the sea-waves. The
radiance of the moon was in her face and the light of wooing in her
eyes." So much for the Irish love of colour.[6]
[6] I give one example of the way colour was laid on to animals
just for the pleasure of it. "And the eagle and cranes were red
with green heads, and their eggs were pure crimson and blue";
and deep in the wood the travellers found "strange birds with
white bodies and purple heads and golden beaks," and afterwards
three great birds, "one blue and his head crimson, and another
crimson and his head green, and another speckled and his head
gold."
Their love of music was equally great; and was also connected with
Nature. "The sound of the flowing of streams," said one of their
bardic clan, "is sweeter than any music of men." "The harp of the
woods is playing music," said another.
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