Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic | Page 8

spent the next three
hundred years, amid yet wilder storms and yet colder winds. No more
the peaceful shepherds and living neighbors were around them; but
often the sailor and fisherman, in his little coracle, saw the white gleam
of their wings or heard the sweet notes of their song and knew that the
children of Lir were near.
But the time came when the nine hundred years of banishment were
ended, and they might fly back to their father's old home, Finnahà.
Flying for days above the sea, they alighted at the palace once so well
known, but everything was changed by time--even the walls of their
father's palace were crumbled and rain-washed. So sad was the sight
that they remained one day only, and flew back to Inis Glora, thinking
that if they must be forever solitary, they would live where they had
lived last, not where they had been reared.
One May morning, as the children of Lir floated in the air around the
island of Inis Glora, they heard a faint bell sounding across the eastern
sea. The mist lifted, and they saw afar off, beyond the waves, a vision
of a stately white-robed priest, with attendants around him on the Irish
shore. They knew that it must be St. Patrick, the Tailkenn, or Tonsured
One, who was bringing, as had been so long promised, Christianity to
Ireland. Sailing through the air, above the blue sea, towards their native
coast, they heard the bell once more, now near and distinct, and they
knew that all evil spirits were fleeing away, and that their own hopes
were to be fulfilled. As they approached the land, St. Patrick stretched
his hand and said, "Children of Lir, you may tread your native land
again." And the sweet swan-sister, Finola, said, "If we tread our native
land, it can only be to die, after our life of nine centuries. Baptize us
while we are yet living." When they touched the shore, the weight of all
those centuries fell upon them; they resumed their human bodies, but
they appeared old and pale and wrinkled. Then St. Patrick baptized
them, and they died; but, even as he did so, a change swiftly came over
them; and they lay side by side, once more children, in their white
night-clothes, as when their father Lir, long centuries ago, had kissed
them at evening and seen their blue eyes close in sleep and had touched
with gentle hand their white foreheads and their golden hair. Their time

of sorrow was ended and their last swan-song was sung; but the cruel
stepmother seems yet to survive in her bat-like shape, and a single
glance at her weird and malicious little face will lead us to doubt
whether she has yet fully atoned for her sin.

IV
USHEEN IN THE ISLAND OF YOUTH
The old Celtic hero and poet Usheen or Oisin, whose supposed songs
are known in English as those of Ossian, lived to a great old age,
surviving all others of the race of the Feni, to which he belonged; and
he was asked in his last years what had given him such length of life.
This is the tale he told:--
After the fatal battle of Gavra, in which most of the Feni were killed,
Usheen and his father, the king, and some of the survivors of the battle
were hunting the deer with their dogs, when they met a maiden riding
on a slender white horse with hoofs of gold, and with a golden crescent
between his ears. The maiden's hair was of the color of citron and was
gathered in a silver band; and she was clad in a white garment
embroidered with strange devices. She asked them why they rode
slowly and seemed sad, and not like other hunters; and they replied that
it was because of the death of their friends and the ruin of their race.
When they asked her in turn whence she came, and why, and whether
she was married, she replied that she had never had a lover or a
husband, but that she had crossed the sea for the love of the great hero
and bard Usheen, whom she had never seen. Then Usheen was
overcome with love for her, but she said that to wed her he must follow
her across the sea to the Island of Perpetual Youth. There he would
have a hundred horses and a hundred sheep and a hundred silken robes,
a hundred swords, a hundred bows, and a hundred youths to follow him;
while she would have a hundred maidens to wait on her. But how, he
asked, was he to reach this island? He was to mount her horse and ride
behind her. So he did this, and