The Story of Oisín and Niamh

Imagine for a moment that it’s raining. Not a heavy rain, just a constant mist that seems to both fall from the sky and rise from the ground. Imagine a hillside of grass so green it almost hurts, and a rocky beach by the wild waves. There’s a cottage. One room, with a hearth fire laid with peat. 

Evening is coming, rising up from the silver sea.

Inside the cottage, by the fire, a Storyteller pulls up a chair. In the sudden quiet he lights a pipe, a twist of smoke rising toward the thatch. 

“Have you ever heard of the time the stories nearly disappeared from Ireland?” he asks, though he knows that all within earshot have. “Well. Whether or not you know this story, sit down. I’ll tell you.” 

*** 

This happened back in the day when Fionn MacCumhaill and the Fianna still roamed Ireland. Great men they were, some of the finest that ever broke bread. It happened one day that Fionn got word that a great army of warriors was coming to Ireland from across the water. The invaders said they would bring civilization. Gold coins and fine silk. Luxuries like marble villas. A different language and new laws.

This version of civilization would have meant the end of the great Chieftains of the Gaels. The Brehon laws, and the gods and goddesses of the land – all of it gone, vanished like mist from the sea. 

Fionn couldn’t stand for that. The Fianna all swore an oath and part of that oath was to protect Ireland from invasion. The rest of that oath I’ll tell you at the end of this story, though what man, woman or child among us doesn’t know it? It is the standard of all decent folk.

Or it should be. 

So, Fionn blew a long clear note on the Dord Fianna, the hunting horn, and gathered up his men. Straight they ran for the coast, fast as chain lightning, with Fionn at the lead. In front of him ran his beloved wolfhounds, Bran and Sceolan, who were as dear to him as any brother. And at his right hand rode his son Oisín, who was a fine man and warrior in his own right. 

The story of that battle is a great one on its own. It’s said, by some, that the Goddess of Death, the Morrigan herself, walked the land while they fought. And maybe she did, for at the end of that battle many great men of the Fianna lay still on the strand. 

But the invaders sailed away, those few left alive clinging to the rudders of their great ships like barnacles to a curragh. A cheer went up from the Fianna, but there was no heart in it. Oscar, Oisín’s own son and Fionn’s grandson lay among the dead and so did Bran, Fionn’s beloved hound. They say that the great man laid his dog alongside his grandson and wept so brokenheartedly that a hawthorn tree grew from their bodies. 

Still, Fionn knew that his people needed him to bring good cheer. He’d been their captain for many long years, and through many heartbreaks. So he sounded the Dord Fianna and called for a hunt. Even if they caught nothing, a time spent running in the hills and glens would lift their spirits. 

And so they went, weary and grieving, but glad to know they had protected the people of Ireland. 

Then, from between the trees in the direction of the sea, came the clear song of silver bells. And up from the water over the sweet green grass rode a white horse with golden hooves. On the back of the horse sat a woman with long golden hair and a face so beautiful it would break a person’s heart to see it. 

And no man more than Oisín’s. The moment he caught sight of the stranger he froze, spear lifted in his hand. 

The strange woman rode until she stood beside Fionn. 

“Fionn MacCumhaill,” she called down to him, her voice as sweet as that of a harp. “My name is Niamh of the Golden Hair and I came to seek your son.” 

“My son?” asked Fionn, and his heart was breaking. He’d never seen this Niamh before in his life but she had the look of one of the Tuatha de Dannan about her, the race of people who dwelt in Ireland before the sons of Gael came. And those were women that a man would follow to the hereafter and back. 

“Your son Oisín,” she said. 

“I am he,” Oisín stepped forward, dropping the spear. 

Niamh reached out her hand. “Brave Oisín. I am the queen of the land of Tir Na Nog, the kingdom of the Ever Young. And I’ve come because I’ve watched you. I’ve seen your courage in battle, your honor, and your kindness. Will you come away with me? Be my love and rule with me the beautiful land over the waves?” 

Oisín swallowed, and Fionn’s heart broke all the more. For he knew that look in a man’s eye. Oisín would follow her. And if he went there would be no one to serve as Captain of the Fianna when Fionn died. 

“Father. Should I go?” Oisín kept his back straight, a man asking for permission from family, but also a warrior from his captain.

“If that is what your heart tells you to do,” Fionn said. For he could give no other answer. He had lost his son once before and now would lose him again, but he wanted above all for Oisín to be happy. 

And already around him the Fianna were fading. He could read it in their faces. The golden age would end, but Oisín would go and live forever in Tir Na Nog. 

“I’ll come away with you, beautiful Niamh,” Oisín said, and he leapt upon the white horse behind her and did not look back at his comrades.

He didn’t look back at his father, to see the weariness in Fionn’s face. Nor did he look at the grave of his son on the hill, the body of a hound beside him. He did not look back at the green hills of Ireland as they rode out over the foaming white waves. 

They passed by many wonders along the way. Wild white horses that churned the sea to a lather with their hooves. Fish that flew through the air like birds, and cattle that grazed on the green fields of Tir fo Thuinn, the land beneath the waves. 

At last they came to Tir Na Nog, to the land of the Ever Young where the rivers themselves flowed with milk and honey. It was an enchanted green land where there was no more death, and no pain. In such a place a man might forget himself entirely. 

And so Oisín did. For three hundred years he and Niamh were happy. In their time together she gave birth to three babies. Two boys, who they named Fionn and Oscar after Oisín’s father and son. And one girl who Oisín named The Flower of Women, Plur na ‘mbean, because he thought the sun rose and set over her shoulder. 

Oisín might have dwelt there with his family until the end of time. 

Except for the dreams. 

They began in small ways. An eerie face in his sleep. A whisper from across the water. But before long they were unending. Every night he saw Ireland, shrouded in darkness, her great halls fallen to ruin. 

“Oisín, be easy,” Niamh told him, her hands in his hair, her voice sweet as a harp. “Don’t worry.” 

“But I took an oath,” he told her. “I swore a scared geis. My duty is to my people.” 

“Your duty is here,” she said. “To me. To your children. Forget Ireland. Your father will care for her.” 

The thought comforted Oisín. So long as Fionn and the Fianna walked the land no harm would come to the people of Ireland. The Fianna would be there on the strand with their swords and spears, standing firm against any threat. 

But the dreams didn’t stop. 

“Where is my father?” he asked. “Can you see him? Why do I never dream of him, nor any of the Fianna?” 

“I don’t choose what I see,” Niamh told him. “Don’t look for answers in your dreams.” 

Still. He woke from nightmares. The great fortress of the Fianna, the white hall they called Almu, fallen to ruin. The people, suffering and bent. Even the great forests were sick and dying. 

“I have to go,” he told Niamh. “There’s no choice. Something is wrong.” 

Niamh sighed, a sound like the wind in a willow tree. She pulled the blankets around their sleeping children and led Oisín to the sea.

“If you leave me you’ll never return,” she said. 

“Give me your white horse,” he told her. “I’ll ride and find my father. Warn him. Then I’ll ride straight home.” 

There were tears in Niamh’s eyes, falling like stars. “Your father is gone. The Fianna are gone.” 

A cold terror gripped Oisín’s heart. “They can’t be. If they were, Ireland would have no defense! Any invader could come from across the water.” 

“They are gone,” Niamh whispered. “I lied to you to keep you here with me. The Fianna are no longer on the land. And Ireland has forgotten. You will find it much changed.” 

“I’ll go now. Tonight.” Oisín felt at his hip for a sword. He reached back behind him for his spear. But there was nothing there. He had not carried his weapons in three centuries.

“You’ll never return.” Niamh wept bitterly, beautiful in her anger. “Not to me or your children.” 

“I will. I swear it.” Oisín ran for his weapons. For the white horse and its golden bridle. 

“You won’t. But I’ll do what I can for you,” Niamh said. 

Oisín rode like a fury. He rode like a man being chased by the spirit of the dead. And when he reached Ireland he hardly recognized it. The strand was graying and lifeless. There was no sign of the Selkies who once swam in those waters. Even the green of the grass was muted, as if it had forgotten its brilliance. 

He rode inland, past cottages that seemed half fallen down, through fields where half the plants lay dying. 

He came upon a man, laboring to carry a load of bricks that any of the Fianna could have lifted one handed. 

“Where are the Fianna?” Oisín asked. “Where is Fionn MacCumhaill now, have you heard?”

“Who?” the man glared up at Oisín. “Leave me be stranger. I do not know those names.”

Fear was a cold hand in his chest. Oisín rode and rode but the answer he got back was always the same. 

No one had heard of the Fianna. 

Oisín rode to all of his father’s favorite haunts. The Slieve Namon mountains. The Liffey plain where Almu once stood. All were empty and lifeless. 

He asked more questions of the people he saw. Did they know of CuChulainn? Of Deirdre of the Sorrows? Of the Tuatha de Dannan, or the Fir Bolg? 

No. The people of Ireland had forgotten their stories.

Brokenhearted, Oisín rode towards the coast again. There was no help for a people who had forgotten themselves.

As he rode to the shore he heard the distant sounds of a man calling out in pain, and even in his grief Oisín was still one of the Fianna. He turned the horse, and there in the soil of a field was a man caught beneath a heavy stone. Three men around him labored to throw it off, but they couldn’t budge it. 

Oisín leaned over the saddle, far over until he could get a hand beneath the stone. Then he lifted it with all his strength and threw it away from the man. He threw it so far, they say, that it crossed the whole of Ireland before it touched the soil again. 

But when he threw it, the stirrup broke and Oisín fell to the ground. 

The moment he touched the green grass of the country, the three hundred years in Tir Na Nog caught up to him. In a rush he went from a healthy, strong warrior to a bent and withered old man. 

“What has become of you!” the people cried. 

Oisín lifted his head, hair gone white with age, desperate to find the white horse. It was gone, vanished into the misty air. All that remained of it was the faint drum of hoofbeats and the sweet song of silver bells. 

The sound of the horse faded, taking with it Oisín’s hopes of returning to Niamh, his children, and his home in Tir Na Nog. He would age and die, his bones buried in the soil of Ireland where he was born three centuries before. 

The people pressed close around him. “What has happened?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Oisín. “I’ll tell you everything.” 

And so he did. For years he walked the length and breadth of Ireland, an old man leaning on a staff. All along the way he told stories. He told them in return for a warm place to sleep and He told them to the children in the hedgerows by the dirt boreens. He told them in one room crofts by the sea and in the halls of great folk.

Slowly, slowly the people remembered. They remembered the dark-eyed Selkies who swam in the wild waves. They remembered the Sidhe, the Little Folk of the Hollow Hills. They remembered the great heroes. Fionn MacCumhaill and the Fianna. CuChulainn and the Warriors of the Red Branch. Lugh of the Long Arm. Conn of a Hundred Battles and Niall of the Nine Hostages.

They remembered Queen Maeve, and the women of the country took to carrying small stones up to her cairn on Kocknarae. They remembered the story of Emain Macha and the dangers of wronging a woman. They remembered Sabh, who once outwitted a giant to save Fionn’s life and they remembered the way he praised her bravery and cleverness for all the rest of his days. 

The people of Ireland remembered who they were and why that mattered. Because if we forget the stories we carry about ourselves we are lost. 

Color came again to the land. The brilliant green grass and wild gray waves. The high blue sky on clear days and the lakes that shone like pieces of a broken mirror. The strength came back to the people. The wild geese flew and the oaks grew hearty and hale again. 

Oisín came at last to rest in the home of St. Patrick. He was so weak by then he couldn’t stand. But Patrick made him comfortable on a pallet and sat with the old man as he began to die. Oisín was known to Patrick, and the great saint admired him for the richness of his stories. 

“Let me baptise you,” said Patrick. “So that when you die you may go to the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

“Where is my father?” asked Oisín. “Where are Fionn MacCumhaill and the Fianna?”

Patrick bowed his head. “Forever barred from heaven. They wander in limbo, for they died as pagans.” 

Oisín thought for a long time. He thought of the wild, laughing men and women who roamed the glens and hills of Ireland hunting the stags. He thought of the times they spent sitting in the hall of Almu, listening to the people who came to them for help. 

And he thought of the oath they all swore. The sacred geis they made in their blood. 

I swear to offer no dishonor or disrespect to any woman, nor let another offer any. 

I swear to act always in the defense of children, my own or my enemies. 

I swear to offer my support to the old and the poor. 

Oisín shook his head. “No. I’ll die as I am. Any God who would not have my father at his own right hand is a fool. And I do not follow fools.” 

Patrick waited for Oisín to pass with a heavy heart. The old man closed his eyes and rested quiet on his pallet. His breath grew quiet, and quieter still…

Until a moment just at midnight when Patrick nodded off, asleep at his post. He woke with a jerk, afraid he had missed the great man’s passing. 

And in a way he had. For Oisín’s pallet was empty and the door to the croft was open. Patrick ran to it, peering out into the dark night. 

He saw nothing. Only the long winding boreen that had brought Oisín to his door. But the night was alive with sound. Joyful laughter and the sound of men running, the long call of a hunting horn, and the sweet baying of two hunting hounds.

St. Patrick closed the door. And Oisín was never heard from again, nor seen in the country of Ireland. 

At least so far.

***

The Storyteller leans back. The fire has died down in the hearth, the children sleep curled beside it.

“Is that all?” One man asks. He knows it is not. A story never ends, so long as we keep telling it. 

The Storyteller shakes his head. “Only for tonight.”

There will be another story tomorrow. Another the day after. On and on until the end of time. 

As long as we remember how to tell them.