heroes. And these poems Patrick would have
written down. And always Oisin was mourning for the brave old days of
Finn McCool or for the days of Tir-na-n-Oge, which seemed to him now
still farther off.

"Old as he was now, with the heavy weight of more than three hundred
years upon him, blind and weak, there was one thing in which Oisin
felt himself a better man that St. Patrick or any of his band. St.
Patrick and all those who were with him fasted much, and when they ate
it was frugally, of bread and the herbs of the field, and but little
meat. But this was not enough for Oisin. He remembered how he and his
fellow-huntsmen used to follow the deer and kill it, and dress it, and
cook it on the moor in the fresh, cool evening, and feast till it was
time to sleep, and then wake and follow the deer again. And so the
food which was given to him in St. Patrick's house seemed poor and
scanty to him.

"He said this to the cook and others in the house, and they made sport
of him, because so old a man as he should wish to eat so much. Then he
told them tales of the days of his father, how great and strong the
men of Erin were then, how much more fertile the land was, and of the
great beasts and the great trees and plants and vines that it brought
forth. In those days, he said, the leg of a lark was as large as a leg
of mutton now, a berry of the wild ash was as large as a sheep, and an
ivy leaf as broad as a shield.

"They all laughed at him the more when he said these things, and they
did not believe a word of it all. 'Alas!' he said, 'how can I show you
that what I say is true? The dear heroes whom I knew are all gone. I
am left alone to mourn for them, among men who do not even believe how
great they were. Everything that I have found is changed, but there
may be something that is not changed. Will one of you go with me in a
war chariot and drive where I shall tell him, and let me see if I can
find anything as I knew it once?'

"Then one of them said that he would go with him. The next morning
they set out. Oisin told the man where to drive, till they came to a
place where Oisin said: 'Look around you and tell me what you can see
on the plain.'

"'I see a stone pillar,' the man answered.

"'Drive the chariot to it,' said Oisin, 'and dig at the foot of the
pillar, on the south side of it.'

"The man did as Oisin told him, and when he had dug for a while Oisin
asked him if he had found anything. 'There is something long