Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/83

 But one day as he was hunting he saw an eagle. He closed his eyes and he saw the bird still, but in a different scene. It floated above a mountain that ended in a red precipice and a lake below. He saw not one lake but several, one beyond the other, among the mountains, and upon one a swan floated. Instantly the swan made him think of Niav. In this there was nothing strange. But he thought of her not as she was then, but as she was when he first saw her riding in Killarney, and he saw with equal clearness the warriors bidding him farewell as they had done three hundred years ago. This was memory, and Ossian knew it. Very old and rude and shaggy they looked, like a clump of trees upon a hill-top, and he longed to ride straight away to Killarney. But his heart was troubled. He felt that he could not trust his horse to run upon the waters, so he rode home to Niav and told her and the king that he wished to visit Ireland. They said they would not stop him, but Niav said:

'I fear, Ossian, thou wilt not come back again, once thou hast returned to Ireland. Ireland is not what it was. Finn and the Fena are there no more. Saints and priests are in their places. Yet I fear thou wilt not come back. Thou must not touch the soil of Ireland with thy feet. Thou never canst come back if thou dismount from the white horse and touch Irish earth. Never canst thou see me or I see thee again if thou forget this.'

Ossian wept but he rode away towards Ireland, passing again the islands and continents and cities and palaces. When he reached Ireland he seemed to see nothing that he knew. The smell was the same, some of the distant mountains also. But the Fena were not there. He saw what looked like men far off, but having ridden up to