“A hundred glad young girls shining like the sun, their voices sweeter than the music of birds; a hundred armed men strong in battle, apt at feats, waiting on you, if you will come with me to the Country of the Young.

“You will get everything I have said to you, and delights beyond them, that I have no leave to tell; you will get beauty, strength and power, and I myself will be with you as a wife.”

And after she had made that song, Oisin said:  “O pleasant golden-haired queen, you are my choice beyond the women of the world; and I will go with you willingly,” he said.

And with that he kissed Finn his father and bade him farewell, and he bade farewell to the rest of the Fianna, and he went up then on the horse with Niamh.

And the horse set out gladly, and when he came to the strand he shook himself and he neighed three times, and then he made for the sea.  And when Finn and the Fianna saw Oisin facing the wide sea, they gave three great sorrowful shouts.  And as to Finn, he said:  “It is my grief to see you going from me; and I am without a hope,” he said, “ever to see you coming back to me again.”

CHAPTER III.  THE LAST OF THE GREAT MEN

And indeed that was the last time Finn and Oisin and the rest of the Fianna of Ireland were gathered together, for hunting, for battle, for chess-playing, for drinking or for music; for they all wore away after that, one after another.

As to Caoilte, that was old and had lost his sons, he used to be fretting and lonesome after the old times.  And one day that there was very heavy snow on the ground, he made this complaint:—­

“It is cold the winter is; the wind is risen; the fierce high-couraged stag rises up; it is cold the whole mountain is to-night, yet the fierce stag is calling.  The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings does not lay his side to the ground; he no less than the stag of the top of cold Echtge hears the music of the wolves.

“I, Caoilte, and brown-haired Diarmuid and pleasant light-footed Osgar, we used to be listening to the music of the wolves through the end of the cold night.  It is well the brown deer sleeps with its hide to the hollow, hidden as if in the earth, through the end of the cold night.

“To-day I am in my age, and I know but a few men; I used to shake my spear bravely in the ice-cold morning.  It is often I put silence on a great army that is very cold to-night.”

And after a while he went into a hill of the Sidhe to be healed of his old wounds.  And whether he came back from there or not is not known; and there are some that say he used to be talking with Patrick of the Bells the same time Oisin was with him.  But that is not likely, or Oisin would not have made complaints about his loneliness the way he did.

But a long time after that again, there was a king of Ireland making a journey.  And he and his people missed their way, and when night-time came on, they were in a dark wood, and no path before them.