blossoms, and birds calling from among
them; every colour is shining there, delight is common, and music, in
the Gentle-Voiced Plain, in the Silver Cloud Plain to the south.
"Keening is not used, or treachery, in the tilled familiar land; there
is nothing hard or rough, but sweet music striking on the ear.
"To be without grief, without sorrow, without death, without any
sickness, without weakness; that is the sign of Emhain; it is not common
wonder that is.
"There is nothing to liken its mists to, the sea washes the wave against
the land; brightness falls from its hair.
"There are riches, there are treasures of every colour in the Gentle
Land, the Bountiful Land. Sweet music to be listening to; the best of
wine to drink.
"Golden chariots in the Plain of the Sea, rising up to the sun with the
tide; silver chariots and bronze chariots on the Plain of Sports.
"Gold-yellow horses on the strand, and crimson horses, and others with
wool on their backs, blue like the colour of the sky.
"It is a day of lasting weather, silver is dropping on the land; a pure
white cliff on the edge of the sea, getting its warmth from the sun.
"The host race over the Plain of Sports; it is beautiful and not weak
their game is; death or the ebbing of the tide will not come to them in
the Many-Coloured Land.
"There will come at sunrise a fair man, lighting up the level lands; he
rides upon the plain that is beaten by the waves, he stirs the sea till
it is like blood.
"An army will come over the clear sea, rowing to the stone that is in
sight, that a hundred sounds of music come from.
"It sings a song to the army; it is not sad through the length of time;
it increases music with hundreds singing together; they do not look for
death or the ebb-tide.
"There are three times fifty far islands in the ocean to the west of us,
and every one of them twice or three times more than Ireland.
"It is not to all of you I am speaking, though I have made all these
wonders known. Let Bran listen from the crowd of the world to all the
wisdom that has been told him.
"Do not fall upon a bed of sloth; do not be overcome by drunkenness; set
out on your voyage over the clear sea, and you may chance to come to the
Land of Women."
With that the woman went from them, and they did not know where she
went. And she brought away her branch with her, for it leaped into her
hand from Bran's hand, and he had not the strength to hold it.
Then on
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