Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/179

Rh were unknown. An exquisite haze hung over it, and its people listened to the sweet music, drinking wine the while; laughter pealed there and everlasting joy. Thrice fifty islands lay to the west of it, each double or triple the size of Erin. The woman then prophesied of Christ's birth, and after she had urged Bran to sail till he reached Tír na m-Ban ("the Land of Women"), she disappeared, the branch leaping from Bran's hand into hers.

Next day Bran sailed with twenty-seven men, and on the voyage they saw Manannan driving his chariot over the waves. The god sang to the voyagers and told how he was passing over a flowery plain, for what Bran saw as the sea was to Manannan a plain. The speckled salmon in the sea were calves and lambs, and steeds invisible to Bran were there also. People were sitting playing and drinking wine, and making love without crime. Bran's coracle was not on the waves, but on an immortal wood, yielding fruit and perfume; the folk of that land were immortal and sinless, unlike Adam's descendants, and in it rivers poured forth honey. Finally Manannan bade Bran row to Tír na m-Ban, which he would reach by sunset.

Bran first came to an isle of laughter; and when one of his men was sent ashore, he refused to leave the laughing folk of this Isle of Joy. At the Land of Women their Queen welcomed Bran, throwing a ball of thread which cleaved to his hand, and by which the boat was drawn ashore. All now went into a house where were twenty-seven beds, one for each; the food never grew less and for each man It had the taste which he desired. They stayed for a year, though It was In truth many years; but home-sickness at last seized one of them, Nechtan, so that he and the others begged Bran to return. The Queen said they would rue this, yet as they were bent on going, she bade them not set foot on Erin and to take with them their comrade from the Isle of Joy. When Erin was reached, Bran told his name to the men gathered on the