Yet what befell him afterwards is known. As his birth was strange so
was his end, for he saw the wonders of the Land of Youth with mortal
eyes and lived to tell them with mortal lips.
When the white horse with its riders reached the sea it ran lightly
over the waves and soon the green woods and headlands of Erinn faded
out of sight. And now the sun shone fiercely down, and the riders
passed into a golden haze in which Oisin lost all knowledge of where
he was or if sea or dry land were beneath his horse's hoofs. But
strange sights sometimes appeared to them in the mist, for towers and
palace gateways loomed up and disappeared, and once a hornless doe
bounded by them chased by a white hound with one red ear, and again
they saw a young maid ride by on a brown steed, bearing a golden apple
in her hand, and close behind her followed a young horseman on a white
steed, a purple cloak floating at his back and a gold-hilted sword in
his hand. And Oisin would have asked the princess who and what these
apparitions were, but Niam bade him ask nothing nor seem to notice any
phantom they might see until they were come to the Land of Youth.
[Illustration: "They rode up to a stately palace"]
At last the sky gloomed above them, and Niam urged their steed faster.
The wind lashed them with pelting rain, thunder roared across the sea
and lightning blazed, but they held on their way till at length they
came once more into a region of calm and sunshine.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228