Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

236 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[275]terror and dismay, and they fled, jostling and overthrowing eachother to escape from the place of fear, for a marvel horrible to seehad taken place. For Oisīn's saddle-girth had burst as he heavedthe stone and he fell headlong to the ground. In an instant thewhite steed had vanished from their eyes like a wreath of mist,and that which rose, feeble and staggering, from the ground wasno youthful warrior, but a man stricken with extreme old age,white-bearded and withered, who stretched out groping handsand moaned with feeble and bitter cries. And his crimson cloakand yellow silken tunic were now but coarse homespun stuff tiedwith a hempen girdle, and the gold-hilted sword was a roughoaken staff such as a beggar carries who wanders the roads fromfarmer's house to house.When the people saw that the doom that had been wroughtwas not for them they returned, and found the old man proneon the ground with his face hidden in his arms. So they liftedhim up, and asked who he was and what had befallen him. Oisīngazed round on them with dim eyes, and at last he said: “I wasOisīn the son of Finn, and I pray ye tell me where he dwells,for his dūn on the Hill of Allen is now a desolation, and I haveneither seen him nor heard his hunting-horn from the western tothe eastern sea.” Then the men gazed strangely on each other andon Oisīn, and the overseer asked: “Of what Finn dost thou speak,for there be many of that name in Erin?” Oisīn said: “Surely ofFinn mac Cumhal mac Trenmōr, captain of the Fianna of Erin.”Then the overseer said: “Thou art daft, old man, and thou hastmade us daft to take thee for a youth as we did a while agone.But we at least have now our wits again, and we know that Finnson of Cumhal and all his generation have been dead these threehundred years. At the battle of Gowra fell Oscar, son of Oisīn,and Finn at the battle of Brea, as the historians tell us; and thelays of Oisīn, whose death no man knows the manner of, are sung