Tír-na-n-Og

T'YEER-NA-N-OGE

There is a country called Tír-na-n-Og, which means the Country of the Young, for age and death have not found it; neither tears nor loud laughter have gone near it. The shadiest boskage covers it perpetually. One man has gone there and returned. The bard, Oisin, who wandered away on a white horse, moving on the surface of the foam with his fairy Niamh, lived there three hundred years, and then returned looking for his comrades. The moment his foot touched the earth his three hundred years fell on him, and he was bowed double, and his beard swept the ground. He described his sojourn in the Land of Youth to Patrick before he died. Since then many have seen it in many places; some in the depths of lakes, and have heard rising therefrom a vague sound of bells; more have seen it far off on the horizon, as they peered out from the western cliffs. Not three years ago a fisherman imagined that he saw it. It never appears unless to announce some national trouble.

There are many kindred beliefs. A Dutch pilot, settled in Dublin, told M. De La Boullage Le Cong, who travelled in Ireland in 1614, that round the poles were many islands; some hard to be approached because of the witches who inhabit them and destroy by storms those who seek to land. He had once, off the coast of Greenland, in sixty-one degrees of latitude, seen and approached such an island only to see it vanish. Sailing in an opposite direction, they met with the same island, and sailing near, were almost destroyed by a furious tempest.

According to many stories, Tír-na-n-Og: is the favourite dwelling of the fairies. Some say it is triple-the island of the living, the island of victories, and an underwater land.

HY-BRASAIL--THE ISLE OF THE BLEST

Gerald Griffin

On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,

A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;

Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,

And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest.

From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim,

The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;

The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,

And it looked like an Eden, away, far away!

A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,

In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;

From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,

For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest.

He heard not the voices that called from the shore--

He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar;

Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day,

And he sped to Hy-Brasail, away, far away!

Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,

O'er the faint rim of distance, reflected its smile;

Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore

Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;

Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track,

And to Ara again he looked timidly back;

Oh! far on the verge of the ocean it lay,

Yet the isle of the blest was away, far away!

Rash dreamer, return! O, ye winds of the main,

Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.

Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss,

To barter thy calm life of labour and peace.

The warning of reason was spoken in vain;

He never revisited Ara again!

Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,

And he died on the waters, away, far away!

Source

love and light,

Trace

xoxo