sgar, and the name I gave to the daughter was The Flower.

"And I did not feel the time passing, and it was a long time I stopped
there," he said, "till the desire came on me to see Finn and my comrades
again. And I asked leave of the king and of Niamh to go back to Ireland.
'You will get leave from me,' said Niamh; 'but for all that,' she said,
'it is bad news you are giving me, for I am in dread you will never come
back here again through the length of your days.' But I bade her have no
fear, since the white horse would bring me safe back again from Ireland.
'Bear this in mind, Oisin,' she said then, 'if you once get off the
horse while you are away, or if you once put your foot to ground, you
will never come back here again. And O Oisin,' she said, 'I tell it to
you now for the third time, if you once get down from the horse, you
will be an old man, blind and withered, without liveliness, without
mirth, without running, without leaping. And it is a grief to me,
Oisin,' she said, 'you ever to go back to green Ireland; and it is not
now as it used to be, and you will not see Finn and his people, for
there is not now in the whole of Ireland but a Father of Orders and
armies of saints; and here is my kiss for you, pleasant Oisin,' she
said, 'for you will never come back any more to the Country of the
Young.'

"And that is my story, Patrick, and I have told you no lie in it," said
Oisin. "And O Patrick," he said, "if I was the same the day I came here
as I was that day, I would have made an end of all your clerks, and
there would not be a head left on a neck after me."

"Go on with your story," said Patrick, "and you will get the same good
treatment from me you got from Finn, for the sound of your voice is
pleasing to me."

So Oisin went on with his story, and it is what he said: "I have nothing
to tell of my journey till I came back into green Ireland, and I looked
about me then on all sides, but there were no tidings to be got of Finn.
And it was not long till I saw a great troop of riders, men and women,
coming towards me from the west. And when they came near they wished me
good health; and there was wonder on them all when they looked at me,
seeing me so unlike themselves, and so big and so tall.

"I asked them then did they hear if Finn was still living, or any other
one of the Fianna, or what had happened them. 'We often heard of Finn
that lived long ago,' said they, 'and that there never was his equal for
str