the green woods and headlands of Erinn faded
out of sight. And now the sun shone fiercely down, and the riders
passed into a golden haze in which Oisin lost all knowledge of where
he was or if sea or dry land were beneath his horse's hoofs. But
strange sights sometimes appeared to them in the mist, for towers and
palace gateways loomed up and disappeared, and once a hornless doe
bounded by them chased by a white hound with one red ear, and again
they saw a young maid ride by on a brown steed, bearing a golden apple
in her hand, and close behind her followed a young horseman on a white
steed, a purple cloak floating at his back and a gold-hilted sword in
his hand. And Oisin would have asked the princess who and what these
apparitions were, but Niam bade him ask nothing nor seem to notice any
phantom they might see until they were come to the Land of Youth.

[Illustration: "They rode up to a stately palace"]

At last the sky gloomed above them, and Niam urged their steed faster.
The wind lashed them with pelting rain, thunder roared across the sea
and lightning blazed, but they held on their way till at length they
came once more into a region of calm and sunshine. And now Oisin saw
before him a shore of yellow sand, lapped by the ripples of a summer
sea. Inland, there rose before his eye wooded hills amid which he
could discern the roofs and towers of a noble city. The white horse
bore them swiftly to the shore and Oisin and the maiden lighted down.
And Oisin marvelled at everything around him, for never was water so
blue or trees so stately as those he saw, and the forest was alive
with the hum of bees and the song of birds, and the creatures that are
wild in other lands, the deer and the red squirrel and the wood-dove,
came, without fear, to be caressed. Soon, as they went forward, the
walls of a city came in sight, and folk began to meet them on the
road, some riding, some afoot, all of whom were either youths or
maidens, all looking as joyous as if the morning of happy life had
just begun for them, and no old or feeble person was to be seen. Niam
led her companion through a towered gateway built of white and red
marble, and there they were met by a glittering company of a hundred
riders on black steeds and a hundred on white, and Oisin mounted a
black horse and Niam her white, and they rode up to a stately palace
where the King of the Land of Youth had his dwelling. And there he
received them, saying in a loud voice