Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

240 Fictions of the Irish Celts.
answer given by Fion to Conane of the hill ridge, on his
asking him what kind of music he preferred :
THE FAVOURITE MUSIC OF FIOX MAC CUMHAIL.
" When my seven battalions gather on the plain,
And hold aloft the standards of war,
And the dry cold wind whistles through the silk,
That to me is sweetest music !
—
—
" When the dvinking-hall is furnished in Almuin,
And the pages hand the carved cups to the chiefs.
And the musicians touch the wires with their fingers.
And the drained cups ring on the hard polished table,
Sweet to my ears is that music !
" Sweet is the scream of the sea-gull and heron.
And the waves resounding on the Fair Strand (Ventry)I;
Sweet is the song of the three sons of Meardha,
Mac Luacha's whistle, the Dord* of Fear-Scara,
The cuckoo's note in early summer,
And. the echo of loud laughter in the wood."
The next tale may be considered the latest that had
reference to the Fianna.
THE OLD AGE OF OISIX.
After the fatal battle of GavTa the only surviving warrior,
Oisin, son of Fion, was borne away on the Atlantic
waves by the Lady Niav of resplendent beauty, and for
a hundred and fifty years he enjoyed her sweet society in
the Land of Youth below the waters. Getting at last
tired of this monotony of happiness, he expressed a wish
to revisit the land where his youth and manhood had
been spent, and the loving Niav was obliged to consent.
She wept bitterly on seeing him mount the white steed,
and warned him that if his feet touched earth, he would
never see her nor Tir-na-n-Oge again, and that his
A war-bugle.