USHEEN IN THE ISLAND OF YOUTH


The old Celtic hero and poet Usheen or Oisin, whose supposed songs are
known in English as those of Ossian, lived to a great old age, surviving
all others of the race of the Feni, to which he belonged; and he was asked
in his last years what had given him such length of life. This is the tale
he told:--

After the fatal battle of Gavra, in which most of the Feni were killed,
Usheen and his father, the king, and some of the survivors of the battle
were hunting the deer with their dogs, when they met a maiden riding on a
slender white horse with hoofs of gold, and with a golden crescent between
his ears. The maiden's hair was of the color of citron and was gathered in
a silver band; and she was clad in a white garment embroidered with
strange devices. She asked them why they rode slowly and seemed sad, and
not like other hunters; and they replied that it was because of the death
of their friends and the ruin of their race. When they asked her in turn
whence she came, and why, and whether she was married, she replied that
she had never had a lover or a husband, but that she had crossed the sea
for the love of the great hero and bard Usheen, whom she had never seen.
Then Usheen was overcome with love for her, but she said that to wed her
he must follow her across the sea to the Island of Perpetual Youth. There
he would have a hundred horses and a hundred sheep and a hundred silken
robes, a hundred swords, a hundred bows, and a hundred youths to follow
him; while she would have a hundred maidens to wait on her. But how, he
asked, was he to reach this island? He was to mount her horse and ride
behind her. So he did this, and the slender white horse, not feeling his
weight, dashed across the waves of the ocean, which did not yield beneath