Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/197

Rh suffered of cold, of strain on their endurance, of foul weather and tempest, yet neither for fire or for meat, did they on reaching that coast feel any need at all; the perfume of that region's fragrant crimsoned branches being for food and for all their needs sufficient for them. Through the nearest part of the forest they take their way and come upon an orchard full of apple-trees, red-laden, with leafy oaks and yellow-clustered hazels. They pass from thence and happen on a wood; round purple grapes hung from it, excellent of scent and perfume and each one bigger than a human head. Birds beautiful and brilliant were feasting on those grapes; birds strange and of unknown kind, white, with scarlet heads and golden beaks. And as they fed, they warbled music melodious and supreme, listening to which men sick and wounded sore would fall asleep. And as they pass across the wide smooth plain, with flowering clover all bedewed with honey, Teigue would chant this lay: 'Sweet to my fancy, as I listen, the strains of that sweet melody of birds.