Now this will tell you what you ought to know about Ireland, and why it is we end our lectures with her.  We saw Wales near the border of things; looking out from that cliff’s edge on to the unknown and unseen, and aware of mysterious things beyond.  Now we shall see Ireland, westward again, down where the little waves run in and tumble; sunlit waves along shining sands; and with boats putting out at any time; and indeed, so lively an intercourse going forward always, that you never can be quite sure whether it is in mortal Ireland or immortal Fairyland you are,—­

     “So your soul goes straying in a land more fair;
     Half you tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there.”

For the wonder of Ireland is, that it is the West Pole of things; there is no place else nearer the Unseen; its next-door neighbor-land westward is this Great Plain, whither sail the Happy Dead in their night-dark coracles,—­to return, of course, in due season; and all the peoplings of Ireland were from this Great Plain.  So you see why the Crest-Wave, passing from dying Europe, “went west” by way of Ireland.

I will tell you about that Great Plain:  it is

“A marvelous land, full of music, where primrose blossoms on the hair, and the body is white as snow.

“There none speaks of mine and thine; white are the teeth and black the brows; eyes flash with many-colored lights, and the hue of the fox-glove is on every cheek. . . .

“Though fair are the plains of Ireland, few of them are so fair as the Great Plain.  The ale of Ireland is heady, but headier far the ale of the Great Country.  What a wonder of a land it is!  No youth there grows to old age.  Warm streams flow through it; the choicest mead and wine.  Men there are always comely and blemishless.”

Well; Ith set sail from the Great Plain, with three times thirty warriors, and landed at Corcaguiney in the south-west of Ireland; and at that time the island inhabited less by men than by Gods; it was the Tuatha De Danaan, the Race of the Danaan Gods, that held the kingship there.  Little wonder, then, that the first name of Ireland we get in the Greek writings is “Sacred Ierne, populous with the Hibernians.”

Well now, he found MacCuill, MacCecht, and MacGrene the Son of the Sun, arranging to divide the kingdom between them; and they called on him to settle how the division should be.—­“Act,” said he, “according to the laws of justice, for the country you dwell in is a good one; it is rich in fruit and honey, in wheat and in fish; and in heat and cold it is temperate.”  From that they thought he would be designing to conquer it from them, and so forestalled his designs by killing him; but his companions escaped, and sailed back to the Great Plain.  That was why the Milesians came to conquer Ireland.  The chiefs of them were Eber Finn, and Eber Donn, and Eremon, and Amargin the Druid:  the sons of Mile, the son of Bile the son of Bregon; thus their grandfather was the brother of that Ith whom the Gods of Ireland slew.