Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER VI: TALES OF THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 263“My son urged his courseThrough the battalions of TaraLike a hawk through a flock of birds,Or a rock descending a mountain-side.”The Death of OscarThe fight was à outrance, and the slaughter on both sidestremendous. None but old men and boys, it is said, were left inErin after that fight. The Fianna were in the end almost entirelyexterminated, and Oscar slain. He and the King of Ireland,Cairbry, met in single combat, and each of them slew the other.While Oscar was still breathing, though there was not a palm'sbreadth on his body without a wound, his father found him:“I found my own son lying downOn his left elbow, his shield by his side;His right hand clutched the sword,The blood poured through his mail[306]“Oscar gazed up at me—Woe to me was that sight!He stretched out his two arms to me,Endeavouring to rise to meet me.“I grasped the hand of my sonAnd sat down by his left side;And since I sat by him there,I have recked nought of the world.”When Finn (in the Scottish version) comes to bewail hisgrandson, he cries:“Woe, that it was not I who fellIn the fight of bare sunny Gavra,And you were east and westMarching before the Fians, Oscar.”