2. The island Elysium.—­The story of the voyage of Bran is found fragmentarily in the eleventh century LU, and complete in the fourteenth and sixteenth century MSS.  It tells how Bran heard mysterious music when asleep.  On waking he found a silver branch with blossoms, and next day there appeared a mysterious woman singing the glory of the land overseas, its music, its wonderful tree, its freedom from pain and death.  It is one of thrice fifty islands to the west of Erin, and there she dwells with thousands of “motley women.”  Before she disappears the branch leaps into her hand.  Bran set sail with his comrades and met Manannan crossing the sea in his chariot.  The god told him that the sea was a flowery plain, Mag Mell, and that all around, unseen to Bran, were people playing and drinking “without sin.”  He bade him sail on to the Land of Women.  Then the voyagers went on and reached the Isle of Joy, where one of their number remained behind.  At last they came to the Land of Women, and we hear of their welcome, the dreamlike lapse of time, the food and drink which had for each the taste he desired.  Finally the tale recounts their home-sickness, the warning they received not to set foot on Erin, how one of their number leaped ashore and turned to ashes, how Bran from his boat told of his wanderings and then disappeared for ever.[1234]

Another story tells how Connla was visited by a goddess from Mag Mell.  Her people dwell in a sid and are called “men of the sid.”  She invites him to go to the immortal land, and departs, leaving him an apple, which supports him for a month without growing less.  Then she reappears and tells Connla that “the Ever-Living Ones” desire him to join them.  She bids him come with her to the Land of Joy where there are only women.  He steps into her crystal boat and vanishes from his father and the Druid who has vainly tried to exercise his spells against her.[1235] In this tale there is a confusion between the sid and the island Elysium.

The eighteenth century poem of Oisin in Tir na n-Og is probably based on old legends, and describes how Niam, daughter of the king of Tir na n-Og, placed geasa on Oisin to accompany her to that land of immortal youth and beauty.  He mounted on her steed, which plunged forwards across the sea, and brought them to the land where Oisin spent three hundred years before returning to Ireland, and there suffering, as has been seen, from the breaking of the tabu not to set foot on the soil of Erin.[1236]

In Serglige Conculaind, “Cuchulainn’s Sickness,” the goddess Fand, deserted by Manannan, offers herself to the hero if he will help her sister’s husband Labraid against his enemies in Mag Mell.  Labraid lives in an island frequented by troops of women, and possessing an inexhaustible vat of mead and trees with magic fruit.  It is reached with marvellous speed in a boat of bronze.  After a preliminary visit by his charioteer Laeg, Cuchulainn