Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

Ossiank and other Early Legends. 207
weren't they miserable ! and they could see poor Fann
lying on a bank by the loch not able to stir hand or
foot.
There they stayed in grief for a day and a night, and
at last they saw Oscur following Brann that was after
going a hundred miles in quest of him. Brann found
Oscur lying asleep by the Lake of Killarney, and he
barked so loud that the wolves, and deers, and foxes, and
hares, run fifty miles away ; the eagles, and kites, and
hawks, flew five miles up in the sky, and the fishes
jumped out on dry land. Never a wake did Oscur wake,
and then Brann bit his little finger to the bone. " Tat-
theration
!
to you for an Oscur " says poor Brann, and
then he was so mad he seized him by the nose. Very
few can stand to have any liberty taken with the handle
of their face—no more did Oscur. He opened his eyes,
and was going to make gibbets of the dog, but he put up
his muzzle, and began to caoifi, and then trotted off,
looking round at Oscur. " Oh ho !" says he, " Fann or
Goll is in danger," and he followed him hot-foot to the
North. He came up to Fann, but could hardly hear
what he was striving to tell him. So Oscur put Fann's
thumb to his lips, for himself wasn't able to stir hand or
foot. " And now, Fann," says he, " by the virtue of your
thumb, tell me how I'm to get this pishrogiie removed."
" Go," says he, in a whisper that had hardly anything
between it and dead silence, " go to the fairy hill, and
make the enchanter that lives there give you the drink of
youth."
When he came to the hill, the thief of a fairy man
sunk down seven perches into the ground, but Oscur was
not to be circumvented. He dug after him till the clay
and stones made a new hill, and when they came to the
solid rock he pinned him, and brought him up to the
light of the sun. His face was as gray as ashes, and as
shrivelled as a riissidan apple, and very unwilling he was
to give up the cup. But he was forced to do so, and it
v.asn't long till Oscur was by Fann's side, and spilling a