The Fenian Cycle
Oisín in Tír na nÓg
Laoi Oisín i dTír na nÓg
Niamh of the Golden Head carries Fionn’s son away to the Land of the Young. Three hundred years go by like three, and then he asks to go home.
I After Gabhra
In the days when Patrick had the power in Ireland, there was an old man in his house who had once been young among the Fianna. He was blind now, and withered, and all his strength was gone out of him. His name was Oisín, and he was the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill.
Tell us, Patrick said to him, and don’t grieve at the telling: how did you live on so long, after all the rest of the Fianna?
It is a sad thing for me to speak of, said Oisín. But I will tell you. 1
It began after Gabhra. That was the battle where his son Oscar fell, and so many of the Fianna with him that only a remnant was left. 2
On a misty morning the remnant went hunting along the shores of Loch Léin, in the south-west. The trees by the water were sweet with blossom, and the birds sang in them the whole time. The hounds roused a hornless doe, the best runner of her kind, and the hunt went after her in full cry along the lake.
Then they saw a rider coming towards them out of the west, and coming fast.
A young woman, on a white horse.
II Niamh of the Golden Head
The hunt stopped where it stood. Fionn and his men had never seen a woman so beautiful.
She had a royal crown on her head, and a mantle of dark brown silk, starred with red gold, that fell over her shoes to the grass. A ringlet of gold hung from every yellow tress of her hair. Her eyes were as blue and clear as a dewdrop on a blade of grass. Her cheek was redder than the rose, and her skin was whiter than the swan on the wave. Her horse was as fine as she was: a saddle worked with red gold, a bridle with a golden bit, a wreath of silver on its head and four shoes of yellow gold. There was not a better horse in the world.
She rode up to Fionn. King of the Fianna, she said, long and far has been my journey.
Who are you, young queen? said Fionn. Tell us your name, and your country.
Niamh Chinn Óir is my name, she said, Niamh of the Golden Head. I am the daughter of the King of Tír na nÓg.
And what brings you over the sea? Has your husband gone from you?
No husband has gone from me, she said. I was never promised to any man. I have given my love to your son.
To which of my sons?
To Oisín, she said. Many a king’s son has offered me his love, and I would take none of them. But word of Oisín came to my country, of his beauty and his mind, and I gave him mine.
By that hand on you, Patrick, said the old man, and it is no shame to tell it: there was not a part of me that was not in love with her.
He took her hand and made her welcome. She was his choice, he told her, above all the women of the world.
Then she laid a geis on him, a bond that true heroes do not break: to come away with her, on her horse, to the Land of the Young. 3
III The Strand
It is the most delightful country under the sun, Niamh told him. The trees there stoop down with their fruit, and carry blossom and green leaves along with it all the year round. There is no end to the honey and the wine. Time will bring no wasting on you, and you will never see death, or decay.
You will have a hundred swords, she said, and a hundred cloaks of silk, a hundred horses, the swiftest there are, and a hundred keen hounds. You will have the crown of the King of the Young, which he never gave to anyone under the sun, and a gold-hilted sword that no one ever escaped from alive. A hundred young women will wait on you, shining like the sun, with voices sweeter than the birds, and a hundred men will stand armed at your back. And I will be your wife.
I will give you no refusal, said Oisín. I will go with you gladly to Tír na nÓg.
He kissed his father, and said goodbye to the Fianna, and mounted behind Niamh on the white horse. Fionn’s face changed. He wept until the tears ran down over his face and his breast. It is my grief to see you go from me, he said. I have no hope that I will ever see you come back.
The horse went west to the strand. At the edge of the water it shook itself, and neighed three times, and went out over the sea. Behind them on the shore the Fianna raised three great shouts of sorrow. 4
IV Wonders on the Water
The sea drew back in front of them and swelled up in waves behind. The wind outran the waves, and the white horse outran the wind, and soon there was no land anywhere: only water before them and water behind.
They saw wonders on the way. They passed cities, and courts and castles, lime-white houses and bright palaces. A hornless doe went by them, leaping from the crest of one wave to the next, and after her ran a white hound with red ears. A young woman rode past on a brown horse, over the tops of the waves, with a golden apple in her right hand. Close behind her came a young man on a white horse, dressed in purple and red satin, with a gold-hilted sword in his right hand.
Oisín asked what these were.
Take no notice of anything you see, said Niamh, or of anything you have seen. They are nothing to what is waiting in Tír na nÓg.
Then they saw a fortress fairer than all the rest.
Whose is that? said Oisín.
The daughter of the King of the Land of the Living is queen in it now, said Niamh, but not by her own will. A giant carried her off by the strength of his arms: the Fomor of the Blows. She has put him under geasa that he may never make her his wife until she finds a hero to fight him.
V The Fomor of the Blows
No music I ever heard, said Oisín, was sweeter to me than that word. Let us go to her. It may be that it is fated for me to kill him.
The princess came out to meet them, as bright as the sun, in a robe of yellow silk, and gave them a hundred welcomes. She sat them in chairs of gold and set food and drink before them, and when they had eaten she told them her story. The tears fell on her cheeks as she told it. She could never go home to her own country, she said, while the giant was alive. Oisín swore to her by his hand that the giant would fall by him.
Before long the giant came, dressed in the skins of deer, with a club of iron in his hand. He gave them no greeting. He called for battle, and Oisín went out to meet him.
They fought for three nights and three days. At the end of it Oisín cut off his head, and the two women raised three shouts of joy.
Oisín was bruised and faint, and his blood was running fast. The daughter of the King of the Land of the Living poured a healing balm into his wounds, and he was whole again. Then they buried the giant in a grave deep and wide, and Oisín raised a stone over it and wrote his name on it in ogham. 5
That night they ate and were merry, and slept on beds of birds’ feathers. In the morning Niamh said it was time for them to go on without delay to her own country. They grieved to part from the princess, and she from them.
What became of her after that, the old man told Patrick, he never knew.
VI The Land of the Young
They turned their backs on the fortress, and the white horse ran under them faster than a March wind. Before long the sky darkened. The wind rose from every side, lightning broke over them, and the great mad sea raged all around. For a while they watched the black clouds and the stars showing between them. Then all at once the storm dropped, and the sun shone out over their heads.
Beside them lay a country all in bloom, with smooth, clear plains, and a king’s fort in it with every colour that eyes have ever seen: bright blue and green and white, purple and red and yellow. Beyond the fort were sunlit houses, built all of precious stones.
What country is that? said Oisín.
That is Tír na nÓg, said Niamh. Everything I promised you, you will see there for ever.
Three times fifty warriors came out to meet them, and a hundred young women in silk worked with gold. Then came the king himself, in a shirt of yellow silk and a golden cloak, with a bright crown on his head, and after him the queen, with fifty young women. The king took Oisín by the hand. A hundred thousand welcomes, he said. Your life here will be long and lasting, and you will be young for ever. There is no delight the heart ever imagined that is not here for you. And here is my daughter Niamh, who crossed the sea for you.
There was feasting for ten nights and ten days, and Oisín married Niamh of the Golden Head.
She bore him two sons and a daughter. Niamh named the boys for his father and his son, Fionn and Oscar. Oisín named the girl himself: Flower of Women.
He stayed in that country three hundred years, and more. To him they seemed about three. 6
Then one day it came into his mind that he would like to see Fionn again, and the Fianna.
VII Three Warnings
He asked leave of the king, and of Niamh, to go back to Ireland.
You will have leave, said Niamh, though it is a sad thing you ask. I am afraid you will never come back to me.
What is there to be afraid of, said Oisín, with the white horse under me? He will show me the way.
Then remember what I tell you, said Niamh. If you set your foot on level ground, you will never come back to this land where I am.
I tell you again: if you get down from the white horse, you will never come to Tír na nÓg again.
I tell you a third time: if you come down off that horse, you will be a blind, withered old man, with no strength and no spirit, and no running or leaping left in you.
It is a grief to me that you should ever go back to Ireland, she said. It is not what it was. You will never see Fionn of the hosts. There is nothing there now but fathers of orders, and troops of saints. And she gave him her kiss.
He looked into her face, and his tears fell. He promised to do everything she said. He kissed her, and his two sons, and his daughter, and they were all weeping. Then he turned his back on the Land of the Young, and the white horse ran with him over the sea as it had run with the two of them before.
Here the old man stopped. That is the truth, Patrick, he said. I never told you a lie. If I had bread now, as plenty as Fionn gave it to me, I would pray the King of Graces to save your soul for it.
You will have food and drink from me without stint, said Patrick. Your words are sweet to me. Go on with your story.
VIII Gleann an Smóil
He came to land in Ireland and looked all around him, and his heart began to misgive him. There was no word anywhere of Fionn.
Before long a great company of men and women came riding towards him from the west, little people on horses as small as themselves. 7 They greeted him kindly, and every one of them stared at the size of him.
He asked them if Fionn was alive, or any of the Fianna, or what had happened to them.
We have heard of Fionn, they said, and there was never his equal. The poets have written many books about him and his Fianna. But they lived many ages ago, and they are all gone long since. We have heard, too, that Fionn had a son, and that a young woman came over the sea and took him away to Tír na nÓg. His father sought him long, but he was never seen again.
When Oisín heard that, a great grief came down on him. He rode to Almu in Leinster, where his father’s fort had stood. There was nothing there but weeds, and chickweed, and nettles.
He went on through the places where the Fianna used to be. In Gleann an Smóil he came on three hundred men and more, trying to raise a great flag of marble. They could not hold it, and the men beneath it were being crushed, some of them senseless under the weight. Help us, they called to him. Be quick, their steward cried, or they will all be dead.
It is a shame, said Oisín, that so many of you together cannot lift it. If Oscar were alive he would throw it with one hand.
He leaned out from the saddle to his right side, took hold of the flag, and threw it seven perches. With the strain the golden girth broke, and he came down on the ground on his two feet.
The white horse shook itself, and neighed, and was gone back the way it had come, as fast as a cloud-shadow on a March day. The sight went out of Oisín’s eyes, and the bloom from his face, and the strength from his body, and he fell to the earth a blind, withered old man. 8
It was Patrick who had the power in Ireland then, and it was to Patrick they brought him.
That is the whole of it, Patrick, the old man said: my going, and my long stay, and how I came back from the Land of Youth.
What the tale keeps
Three hundred years in the Land of the Young, and they seemed like three. The Otherworld of this tale lies out over the western sea, where time keeps its own count, and the danger is all in the coming home: to people grown small, and nettles on the hill where Fionn’s fort stood.
Oisín kept every warning he was given. What brought him down was his own strength, still the strength of the Fianna, leaning from the saddle to lift a stone off men who were being crushed beneath it.
And all of it is told in Patrick’s house, by a blind old man who has to ask for his bread. The saint promises him food and drink, and says: go on with your story. So the last of the Fianna was heard.
Notes
- The poem is told in Oisín’s own voice. It opens with Patrick’s request, “relate to us now without grief how thou hast lived after all the other Fenians” (Tomás Ó Flannghaile’s literal translation, 1896), and now and then the old man breaks off to speak to the saint directly. ↩
- The last of the Fianna outliving their world is far older than this poem. The Acallam na Senórach, written about 1200, opens when the Fianna “for the most part were extinguished” and only Oisín and Caílte are left, each with a few men. Oisín goes to his mother, Blái daughter of Derc, in her síd, and Caílte comes to Patrick at Druim Derg. (Standish Hayes O’Grady, The Colloquy with the Ancients, 1892) ↩
- “Commands that true heroes do not disregard I impose on thee now, O generous Oisín, to come with me on my horse” (Tomás Ó Flannghaile, 1896). Joyce keeps the Irish word: “I place you under gesa, which true heroes never break through” (P. W. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 1879). ↩
- The poem never names the white horse, and neither do Joyce (1879) or Lady Gregory (1904). Modern retellings sometimes call it Embarr. That name belongs to Aonbharr, the horse of Manannán, which Lugh rides over sea and land in the Fate of the Children of Tuireann. ↩
- “I raised his head-stone over his grave, and wrote his name upon it in the Ogham-of-Branches.” (Tomás Ó Flannghaile, 1896) His version calls the giant “Fovor-of-the-Blows of Druim-loghach”; Joyce (1879) calls him the Fomor of the Blows and puts his fortress in the Land of Virtues. Lady Gregory’s retelling (1904) leaves the giant out. ↩
- The poem says only “three hundred years apparently and more” (Tomás Ó Flannghaile, 1896). Joyce adds, “it appeared to me that only three years had passed” (1879). In a folk version printed by Jeremiah Curtin (1890), Niamh asks him how long he thinks he has been with her. “About three years,” said Oisin. “It is three hundred years,” said she. Lady Gregory (1904): “whatever time it was, it seemed short to him.” ↩
- In the poem they only wonder at “the size of my body” (Tomás Ó Flannghaile, 1896). It is Joyce who makes them “a company of little men and women, all mounted on horses as small as themselves” (Old Celtic Romances, 1879). ↩
- Other tellings bring him down other ways. In Lady Gregory’s (1904) he sees “the stone trough that the Fianna used to be putting their hands in, and it full of water”, and in his longing he forgets, and gets down from the horse. In Jeremiah Curtin’s folk version (1890) a stone in a field at Knock Patrick, in Munster, hides the great horn of the Fenians, and reaching down for it Oisín slips “till one foot touched the earth”. ↩
Where the tale comes from
Later literary work. An Irish poem of about 1750, attributed to Mícheál Coimín of Co. Clare and built on much older lore of Oisín outliving the Fianna. It passed from hand to hand in manuscript for a century before Bryan O’Looney printed it in 1859.
- Bryan O’Looney first printed the Irish text, with a literal translation, in the Transactions of the Ossianic Society (vol. 4, Dublin, 1859). He believed it was the work of “the learned Michael Comyn”, written about 1749. He knew a man who could not read, but could repeat verses of it, and knew it by no other name than Comyn’s Lay.
- Tomás Ó Flannghaile’s edition (1896) says that Mícheál Coimín was born about 1688 at Kilcorcoran, near Miltown Malbay in Co. Clare, and died in 1760, and that “the date of the poem may be given approximately as 1750”. For more than a hundred years, he writes, it existed only in manuscript, passing from hand to hand through Kerry, Galway, Mayo and “the western counties generally”.
- T. W. Rolleston, in Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race (1911): “Doubtless Comyn worked on earlier traditional material”, for “the ancient Ossianic poems tell us of the prolongation of Oisin’s life, so that he could meet St. Patrick”. But “the episodes of Niam’s courtship and the sojourn in the Land of Youth are known to us at present only in the poem of Michael Comyn.”
- Storytellers were still telling it in the nineteenth century, their own way. In the folk version Jeremiah Curtin printed in Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland (1890), the daughter of the King of Tír na nÓg has a pig’s head, and only marriage to a son of Fionn can take it off her. Oisín marries her, and “that moment the pig’s head was gone”.
- P. W. Joyce retold the poem in prose, still in Oisín’s voice, in Old Celtic Romances (1879), and Lady Gregory told it again in Gods and Fighting Men (1904), where Patrick keeps the old man in his house, “teaching him and questioning him”. W. B. Yeats told it his own way in The Wanderings of Oisin (1889): his Niamh carries Oisín to three islands, and he spends a hundred years on each.
- The fear at the heart of the tale is far older than the poem. In the Old Irish Voyage of Bran, one of Bran’s men leaps ashore after a year in the Otherworld that was many years: “As soon as he touched the earth of Ireland, forthwith he was a heap of ashes, as though he had been in the earth for many hundred years.” (Kuno Meyer, 1895)
Sources
- Laoidh Oisín ar Thír na n-Óg: The Lay of Oisín on the Land of Youth · Mícheál Coimín, ed. and tr. Bryan O'Looney, Transactions of the Ossianic Society 4 (Dublin, 1859)
- Laoi Oisín ar Thír na n-Óg: The Lay of Oisín in the Land of Youth · Mícheál Coimín, ed. with literal and verse translations by Tomás Ó Flannghaile (Dublin, 1896)
- Old Celtic Romances · P. W. Joyce (London, 1879)
- Gods and Fighting Men: "The Call of Oisin", "Oisin's Story", "Oisin in Patrick's House" and "The Arguments" · Lady Gregory (1904)
- Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland: "Oisin in Tir na n-Og" · Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, 1890)
- Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race, chapter VI: "Tales of the Ossianic Cycle" · T. W. Rolleston (London, 1911)
- Silva Gadelica, vol. 2: "The Colloquy with the Ancients" · ed. and tr. Standish Hayes O'Grady (London, 1892)
- The Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal · Kuno Meyer (1895)
- Placenames Database of Ireland · logainm.ie