he love of thy son Oisin." Then she turned to Oisin and she spoke to
him in the voice of one who has never asked anything but it was
granted to her, "Wilt thou go with me, Oisin, to my father's land?"

And Oisin said, "That will I, and to the world's end"; for the fairy
spell had so wrought upon his heart that he cared no more for any
earthly thing but to have the love of Niam of the Head of Gold.

Then the maiden spoke of the Land Oversea to which she had summoned
her lover, and as she spoke a dreamy stillness fell on all things, nor
did a horse shake his bit nor a hound bay, nor the least breath of
wind stir in the forest trees till she had made an end. And what she
said seemed sweeter and more wonderful as she spoke it than anything
they could afterwards remember to have heard, but so far as they could
remember it, it was this:--

"Delightful is the land beyond all dreams,
Fairer than aught thine eyes have ever seen.
There all the year the fruit is on the tree,
And all the year the bloom is on the flower.

"There with wild honey drip the forest trees;
The stores of wine and mead shall never fail.
Nor pain nor sickness knows the dweller there,
Death and decay come near him never more.

"The feast shall cloy not, nor the chase shall tire,
Nor music cease for ever through the hall;
The gold and jewels of the Land of Youth
Outshine all splendours ever dreamed by man.

"Thou shalt have horses of the fairy breed,
Thou shalt have hounds that can outrun the wind;
A hundred chiefs shall follow thee in war,
A hundred maidens sing thee to thy sleep.

"A crown of sovranty thy brow shall wear,
And by thy side a magic blade shall hang.
Thou shalt be lord of all the Land of Youth,
And lord of Niam of the Head of Gold."

As the magic song ended, the Fians beheld Oisin mount the fairy steed
and hold the maiden in his arms, and ere they could stir or speak she
turned her horse's head and shook the ringing bridle and down the
forest glade they fled, as a beam of light flies over the land when
clouds drive across the sun; and never did the Fianna behold Oisin,
son of Finn, on earth again.

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