Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/164

152 There is a distant isle, Around which sea-horses glisten; A fair course against the white-swelling surge, Four feet uphold it.

Unknown is wailing or treachery In the familiar cultivated land. There is nothing rough or harsh. But sweet music striking the ear.

Wealth, treasure of every hue, Are in Ciuin, a beauty of freshness, Listening to sweet music. Drinking the best of wine."

There are thrice fifty of these isles, lying distant to the west of Ireland. Bran and his followers set out thither and arrive at the Isle of Joy, where one of them is left behind. Then they reach the Isle of Women, the queen of which draws Bran's boat to shore. The wanderers stay there until longing seizes them to go home. They find on arrival that they have been absent for centuries. Bran, after telling of his adventures, disappears from mortal ken.

These isles, where men live for ever and enjoy immortal youth, were not invented by the Celts of Ireland: the belief was probably brought by them from the Continent, or else borrowed from some people whom they found in Ireland on their arrival. That being so, the proper appreciation of the belief cannot have been arrived at until it is tracked down to its place and time of origin. That is a task which I do not propose to attempt in this paper.

The earliest record of the Isles of the Blest occurs in the Pyramid Texts of Egypt, which are dated at about 3000 B.C. The Sumerians also had a tradition of an earthly paradise, situated probably somewhere in the Persian Gulf,