THE LAND OF YOUTH
The last of the heroes left in Ireland was Ossian, the greatest of the warriors who were also bards. He was a son of Finn, but lived on into Patrick's time and would sit talking to the saint and even listening to him. The saint had sprinkled holy water on the hero, yet for a little while he was not sure that he ought to be talking to such a one except about Christianity, of which Ossian was too old to know anything. But two angels answered his doubts. They told him that he should write down the words of Ossian, especially his tales of the times of old, because they would give gladness to after times.
Ossian was now as gentle as any Christian. He could not ride, or run, or sing clear, but most of his time sat leaning forward on his spear, like some old apple-tree that has lost all but one of its branches and has long borne no fruit save pearls of mistletoe. He belonged to a race whose deeds and stature and way of life seemed more fitting to the earth than Christian men's, more in harmony with mountains, forests, stormy seas, and heavens. He would listen to tales of religion, but it was impossible to make him a Christian; he was altogether too old and gigantic, and his memory was too full. When Patrick or some duller priest tried to stir him by saying that Finn and his brothers and companions were not in Heaven, he replied: 'If they be not there, what should I do there? Why should I go there?' He was never tired of describing the godlike Finn. When a priest told him that not even a midge could slip into Heaven without God's knowledge, he recalled the generosity and hospitality of Finn. If the leaves of autumn were gold, he said, and the sea waves silver, Finn would have given all away. Thousands of men could enter his hall, feast at his board, and leave without being questioned. The heroes, he said, used to speak truth and keep their promise as well as any priest. Patrick stood looking at him, his head not much above the end of the bloodstains on Ossian's spear. He would have been willing that all men should be giants if they had been as noble as the sons of Finn. He knew little men who were far more monstrous.
Whatever a priest said, Ossian was too old and mild to be often sad, except when the wind was from the east. Then the long and cold nights wearied him, and he remembered the chase and the warfare with the long-haired sons of Finn. He knew then that he could no longer hunt, or fight, or play, or swim in the torrents, that he was a poor old man without strength or music. He was left alone on the earth, and would have been glad to be with Finn his father and Oscar his son, wherever they were. It still irked him that he had not been there to aid his father in the battle when every inch of the great Finn was stretched cold and still beside the Boyne. Nor did he share the last battle of the Fena, when Oscar slew Cairbre and died himself, and only the swift-footed one of the tribe escaped. It was his own fault that Ossian had missed these battles. Strange it was that such an adventure of youth should have been the means of drawing out his life to so great an age! He told Patrick the tale.
On a misty spring morning Finn and the Fena, and Ossian among them, were hunting among the Lakes of Killarney. They were in full chase when they were suddenly aware of a single rider galloping on a white horse towards them. The stag and the hounds ran on, but all men stopped to see the beautiful woman riding out of the West. She reined in the horse a little way from the motionless hunters. Her eyes had the blue of the dewdrop reflecting a cloudless sky; her cheeks were crimsoned white like snow at dawn; her curled golden hair concealed the diadem and rings of gold which were meant to adorn it. She wore a mantle of brown precious silk, golden-starred and clasped with a brooch of gold, flowing down over the red-golden saddle and the white horsecloth to the gold hooves and the green grass. She was slender and her white hand small, yet she rode the galloper with more grace than the swans rode the water. 'I have ridden,' she said, 'from a far country.'
Finn asked her name and country, and she said she was Niav of the Golden Hair, daughter of the King of Tirnanoge, beyond the west sea. She had come because she could love no other man but the high-spirited and famous Ossian, son of Finn. When Ossian heard her pronounce his name he loved her. As she governed the great horse with her little hand, so she governed him from that time with a sweet voice that sounded strangely among the company of hunters. Whatever her voice said he was bound to love Niav, but presently she began to utter things that might have made the voice of the jay seem sweet. For when Ossian had spoken his love and given her a true gentle welcome to his country, she said:
'Thou must come with me on my horse to Tirnanoge, the Land of Youth. It is the loveliest and most famous country under the sun. Leaf, blossom and fruit cover the trees at one time and for ever. Gold, silver and all that delights the eyes, abound there. It flows with wine and honey. Thou shalt have there a hundred swiftest steeds, a hundred perfect hounds. Thou shalt have a coat of impenetrable mail and a sword that cannot be resisted or escaped. Thou shalt have jewels not of this world. Thy herds shall be without number. Thy flocks shall have golden fleeces. Each day shall be one of feasting and harp-playing. A hundred warriors in full armour and a hundred harpers with sweetest music shall be at thy call. Thou shalt wear the diadem of the king of Tirnanoge, which no other but he ever wore, and it shall preserve thee from all perils of day and night. Thou shalt have beauty and strength everlastingly. Decline shall never come to thee, and thou shalt not know decay or death, and I shall be thy wife in Tirnanoge.'
Finn and the Fena burst out into lamentation when they saw Ossian turning towards that maiden and towards the West. Finn took his hand and said:
'Alas, my son, thou art going away, and I fear thou wilt not return.'
Though Ossian said: 'After a little I will come back to see thee,' his father did not stop weeping as they embraced, nor yet when he mounted the white horse behind Niav. They galloped away westward, smoothly and swiftly to the sea-shore. They spoke not a word, because Niav had said, 'Let us be silent until we reach the sea.' The only sound was the mourning of Finn and the Fena.
Shaking himself and neighing three times as he touched the water, the horse raced forward as if the waves had been grass. He was swifter than a March wind on the mountain-tops. Now on this hand and now on that the riders saw strange coasts of islands and continents, with cities and white palaces and strong places shining on the green land above the water. They were far out beyond the course of ships, but once a hornless fawn tripped beside them, running before a white hound with red ears; and they saw a lovely maiden, on a brown steed, carrying a golden apple, and following her a young warrior on a white steed, clad in a mantle of crimson satin, and bearing a golden-hilted sword. Ossian asked who were the riders.
'There is nothing in these things,' said Niav, 'they are nothing compared with the marvels of Tirnanoge.'
They rode on until they saw in the farthest distance a sunny palace above the waves, and Ossian asked whose palace it was and who was the prince.
'It is the Land of Virtues,' said Niav, 'ruled over by the giant Fomor. His queen is the daughter of the King of the Land of Life. He carried her away by force and keeps her by force in the palace, where she waits for a champion to fight the giant. No man has been found of great enough courage.'
'I,' said Ossian, 'will be her champion and rescue the Queen.'
The beautiful young queen welcomed them and gave them chairs of gold, choice food, golden goblets of wine and mead; and Ossian promised to be her champion, to kill the giant or to be killed in the attempt. The giant approached, ugly and huge, bearing a great bar of iron for a club, and without bowing or saluting, offered to fight Ossian. For three days they fought; and Niav and the Queen stood by weeping. At last Ossian struck down the giant, and as he lay smote off his head. For a minute there seemed two giants instead of one, the gnarled head rolling its eyes and thrusting its tongue between its fangs, and the mountainous heaving body. Niav and the Queen raised a cry of joy at the sight. They led Ossian into the palace and washed and healed his wounds, and when he was restored he covered up the hideousness of Fomor under a cairn.
'It was a lovely land,' said Ossian to Patrick, 'and if Heaven hath equal glories I should praise your God.'
Nevertheless the lovers parted from the Queen, who was as sorry for their going as she was glad of her release. They rode on towards Tirnanoge. Once more their course was over the sea. They saw the hound following the fawn, and the young warrior after the maiden carrying the golden apple. A storm arose, but not foam above or waves beneath troubled their course. In the brightness of lightning and in the after blackness they rode on happily and as quiet as the fish at the bottom of the deep. When the sun conquered they saw before them a land of flowers and long lawns, lakes and rivers shining, with chains of cataracts and high blue hills. Between the strand of gold and the hills rose a palace adorned with carving and overlaid with gold and many-coloured stones, and Niav said:
'This is Tirnanoge.'
A company of warriors came down from the Palace to meet them. After them followed the King of Tirnanoge in a crown of diamonds and gold and a garment of bright gold, and with him the queen and her maidens, and a host glittering with arms and armour and sounding with the music of harps, and in the intervals the blowing of trumpets. The king took Ossian's hand and welcomed him before the host and led him into the palace. There they feasted for ten days and celebrated the marriage of Ossian and Niav.
Tirnanoge was as beautiful and happy as Niav had said. Her words, indeed, even with the accompaniment of her lovely voice, falling on a lover's ears, had represented the beauty and happiness of the country only as words can do to those who have not seen what they describe. It was more pleasant to Ossian to enjoy than it was afterwards bitter to remember. So many were its pleasures that when he recalled his life there a hundred things were forgotten, and yet it seemed impossible. For Tirnanoge had made young his soul and body. The battles of old which he had fought in Ireland, the wounds, the weariness, the anxiety, the mourning, no longer helped to stiffen his limbs and weigh down his heart. He rose up in the morning glad and he lay down at night content. He was never tired of doing pleasant things many times over. Each present hour was as happy to him as the long-past hour seems to men who have never been in Tirnanoge. Seldom did the old days in Ireland return to his mind. When they did he saw the heroes and their fights, all as beautiful and quiet as the pictures upon the walls. Thus he saw the mild, wise, generous Finn his father in many acts of his life, but above all on the day when he struck his dog Bran. The noble dog looked at him in wonder, and as Finn stooped to make up for the blow by a caress, he wished that the arm had been torn from his shoulder before it had offended. He saw the sweet-tongued bard, his uncle Fergus; his own mighty son Oscar, who won back a lost battle with a tree trunk for weapon; the one-eyed Gaul; the beautiful, chivalrous Dermat. He saw them in chase and battle, always triumphing by their truth-telling and the might of their hands. He recalled the trial-days for men seeking to join the ranks of the Fena. The candidate was bound never to refuse hospitality, never to insult a woman, to take no dowry with his wife. Having promised these things, he was tested for strength and courage. He had to stand in a pit exposed from the knees upward, and with only a shield and a hazel wand to turn aside the spears hurled at him by nine warriors together. Also he was given a short start and had to race through the forest before armed men: he could shelter himself only by tree trunks, but if wounded or caught—if even he had broken a branch in his course or unbraided his hair, or if his weapons at the end trembled in his hands—he could not become one of the Fena. He had to run at full speed and without slackening pluck a thorn out of his heel, jump a branch as high as himself, and stoop under one no higher than his knee.
His memory showed him these things, and they were curious and amusing. He did not know that they were memories. They belonged to a life so unlike that of Tirnanoge, that he saw them without knowing that he himself had once hunted with those hunters and warred beside those warriors. He laughed at some of them as at outlandish scenes. The life of Tirnanoge was all beautiful, being of a kind that men have always refused to think possible, because it was active and full of variety yet never brought death or decay, weariness or regret. This cannot easily be imagined by earthly men. They say that perfect happiness would be dull if it were possible. If they could imagine it, they would not love it so utterly when they possessed it like Ossian; many would refuse it because it wipes out the desire and the conscious memory of earth. The men of Tirnanoge remember earth without knowing what it is they are remembering, just as in dreams we may recall what we did not know had ever happened to us.
For hundreds of years Ossian lived with Niav in this forgetfulness. They had three children, two sons and a daughter, and they called the sons Finn and Oscar. But one day as he was hunting he saw an eagle. He closed his eyes and he saw the bird still, but in a different scene. It floated above a mountain that ended in a red precipice and a lake below. He saw not one lake but several, one beyond the other, among the mountains, and upon one a swan floated. Instantly the swan made him think of Niav. In this there was nothing strange. But he thought of her not as she was then, but as she was when he first saw her riding in Killarney, and he saw with equal clearness the warriors bidding him farewell as they had done three hundred years ago. This was memory, and Ossian knew it. Very old and rude and shaggy they looked, like a clump of trees upon a hill-top, and he longed to ride straight away to Killarney. But his heart was troubled. He felt that he could not trust his horse to run upon the waters, so he rode home to Niav and told her and the king that he wished to visit Ireland. They said they would not stop him, but Niav said:
'I fear, Ossian, thou wilt not come back again, once thou hast returned to Ireland. Ireland is not what it was. Finn and the Fena are there no more. Saints and priests are in their places. Yet I fear thou wilt not come back. Thou must not touch the soil of Ireland with thy feet. Thou never canst come back if thou dismount from the white horse and touch Irish earth. Never canst thou see me or I see thee again if thou forget this.'
Ossian wept but he rode away towards Ireland, passing again the islands and continents and cities and palaces. When he reached Ireland he seemed to see nothing that he knew. The smell was the same, some of the distant mountains also. But the Fena were not there. He saw what looked like men far off, but having ridden up to them he saw that they were not; for they reached only to the gold clasp in his instep. They were kind and courteous and they spoke Irish, but they looked up and wondered. He questioned them about Finn and Oscar and the rest.
'We have heard of Finn,' they said. 'He was a wise and generous king in Ireland once upon a time. The poets tell of him and his companions. There were great men in those days and the Fena were great amongst them. The poets sing of them. Finn, they say, is dead long ago, and his brothers and sons and grandsons and companions are all dead. They were great men, heroes taller than we, every one of them as tall as yourself, but they are all dead of their wounds. All except one, as the poets say. He was one of the sons of Finn named Ossian. He left his father and all that company to go with a maiden to Tirnanoge. He said that he would come back, but he never did. They sought him, but before they could find him they were dead. But for the poets they would be forgotten…'
'Poets?' said Ossian, in sorrow and in anger. 'What poets can there be if Fergus be dead and Ossian in Tirnanoge?'
His heart was too heavy to be long angry with these little images of men. He turned away his horse and rode on to the well-known places of battle and hunt and feast. Finn's palace was the home of winds and birds above, of chickweeds and nettles below. The cooking places of the Fena still scarred the high moors, but the heroes were gone. No men had seen them. They could only show him writings containing the names of Finn, Ossian, Fergus, Oscar, Gaul, Dermat, and the rest. Wherever he went he heard about these poems instead of the champions. Men stared at him, but none guessed he was Ossian, one of the Fena. Hither and thither he rode visiting all the scenes of the Fena's exploits. But he saw only the little creatures made in the image of men. He felt very pitiful towards them.
One day in the Glen of Thrushes he saw a cluster of these men trying to lift up a huge stone. They were three hundred, but they could neither raise it to its place nor get free from underneath it, and they said:
'O kingly champion, help us.'
So Ossian stretched himself forward upon his horse's neck and stooped and gripped the stone in one hand. All the little men ran out from underneath like lizards disturbed. Then Ossian put forth his strength. He raised the stone above his head and threw it. It covered the multitude like a high roof as it flew. But he had burst the saddle girth of his horse with the effort; the saddle slipped and he could not recover himself; and his feet touched the earth. The white horse vanished away. Now came altogether the change and decay that could not befall him in Tirnanoge; his strength ebbed away fast, and he sank sighing down like a wave; he became the old, frail, mighty one who leaned on his spear and would listen to Patrick talking about Heaven, and would talk to him of Niav and of Tirnanoge, the Land of Youth.