Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

118 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[143]to her. He asks them of the hermit, who refuses to give themup, whereupon the “man of the North” seizes them violently bythe silver chains with which the hermit had coupled them, anddrags them off to Deoca. This is their last trial. Arrived inher presence, an awful transformation befalls them. The swanplumage falls off, and reveals, not, indeed, the radiant formsof the Danaan divinities, but four withered, snowy-haired, andmiserable human beings, shrunken in the decrepitude of theirvast old age. Lairgnen flies from the place in horror, but thehermit prepares to administer baptism at once, as death is rapidlyapproaching them. “Lay us in one grave,” says Fionuala, “andplace Conn at my right hand and Fiachra at my left, and Hughbefore my face, for there they were wont to be when I shelteredthem many a winter night upon the seas of Moyle.” And so itwas done, and they went to heaven; but the hermit, it is said,sorrowed for them to the end of his earthly days. 113In all Celtic legend there is no more tender and beautiful talethan this of the Children of Lir.The Tale of EthnéBut the imagination of the Celtic bard always played withdelight on the subjects of these transition tales, where thereconciling of the pagan order with the Christian was the theme.The same conception is embodied in the tale of Ethné, which wehave now to tell.It is said that Mananan mac Lir had a daughter who was givenin fosterage to the Danaan prince Angus, whose fairy palace wasat Brugh na Boyna. This is the great sepulchral tumulus nowcalled New Grange, on the Boyne. At the same time the stewardof Angus had a daughter born to him whose name was Ethné,and who was allotted to the young princess as her handmaiden.Ethné grew up into a lovely and gentle maiden, but it wasdiscovered one day that she took no nourishment of any kind,113 The story here summarised is given in full in the writer's “High Deeds ofFinn” (Harrap and Co.).