Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/218

192 son of the Dagda, and the earliest account of it is that contained in the Book of Leinster, the second of the two great Irish vellums written down in the twelfth century. It is a land of Cockayne; in it are fruit trees ever loaded with fruit, on the board a pig ready roasted which may not be eaten up, vessels of beer which may not be emptied, and therein no man dies. But Oengus is not the only one of the Tuatha de Danann who has such a fairy palace. The dwelling place of Lug is of the same kind, and in the story of the Conception of Cuchulainn, which tells how the god carried off Dechtire, sister of Conchobor, and re-incarnated himself in her as the great Ulster hero, we learn that when Conchobor and his men go in search of Dechtire and her fifty maidens, they first come to a small house wherein are a man and woman; the house suddenly becomes a splendid mansion, therein are the vanished maidens in the shape of birds (and all sorts of goods, and dishes of divers sorts, known and unknown; never did they have a better night, in the morning they found themselves houseless, birdless in the east of the land, and they went back to Emain Macha). Although no prohibition is mentioned the similarity in parts of this story, which, it must be repeated, is older than the introduction of Christianity in Ireland, to the romances is evident. Another famous Brug of the Tuatha de Danann is that of Manannan Mac Lir. Among the visitors was Bran, the son of Febal, whose story may be found in the Leabhar na h' Uidhre, the oldest of the great Irish vellums. One day as he was alone in his palace there came to him soft, sweet music, and he fell asleep. When he awoke a silver branch, covered with flowers, was at his side. A short while after, as he was in the midst of his kinsfolk, his chiefs, and his nobles, an unknown damsel appeared, and bid him to her in the