Oisin and the Land of Youth

            Now it happened one day that Oisin, a youth of Edinburgh, was walking by the shore when he was spied by Niamh, Queen of the Fae.  As she came riding out of the western sea she was so taken by his handsome face that she set about to entice him to return with her to Tir na n’Og, the land of youth.  Bewitched by her charms, he lived with her for a year and a day in that far land and fathered with her a bairn, whom they named Niamb of the Goldenhair after her flaxen locks. 

The wee babe grew every day in beauty and Oisin wished to return to Edinburgh, to see his family and his boon companions and to show them his beautiful little daughter.  Niamh tried everything to dissuade him, for she knew that time passes differently in Tir na n’Og, but Oisin would have none of it.  Finally Niamh assented to his return on one condition; he must ride upon her white steed and never let his feet touch the ground.

Oisin returned to his village, but entering the town, he saw no one there he recognized.  The entire place was changed, new buildings stood where once friends and relatives had lived.  Riding up at last to his father’s door, he knocked, but a woman he did not recognize answered the door.  Two little girls hid behind her skirts and gazed up at him, one ginger-headed, the other a blonde.  The woman shooed the girls back and looked up at him with a puzzled expression upon her face.  “Sir, you look so like my father, when he was young.”

“And what might his name be?”

“He was called Finn, as was his father before him.”

“Finn was my father’s name and I had a baby brother named Finn as well.  What is your name,” asked Oisin.

“I am Sadb, named for my grandmother,” she replied.  With this Oisin blanched for Sadb was his own mother’s name, and as they conversed further the truth came to him.  Time does not pass in Tir na n’Og as it does in the world of men and for what seemed to him to be but a little over a year was here a lifetime.  Most he had known were gone to their graves, the rest ancient in years.

“Ah, but let me see the wee bairn,” said Sadb, reaching up for the child.  But as Oisin leaned over to hand Niamb to her, his stirrup broke and he was pitched to the ground.  With a scream, Niamh’s white steed reared up, wheeled and fled back to the land of the Fae.  Sadb snatched up the wailing child and started to comfort her, but as she turned to Oisin a look of horror crossed her face.  Before her eyes he aged; aged a year for every second that passed, till before her on the ground lay the crumpled body of an ancient man. 

Sadb and her husband Tauros cared for Oisin, but the first illness of winter carried him off, leaving his child behind.  Sadb and Tauros adopted Niamb into their family where she joined their daughters Aeife and Deirdre as a sister.  They raised up Niamb to be a fine girl and as she grew older Niamb took to the art of the smith.  After her apprenticeship under Telos Agralia, Niamb returned to the village of Edinburgh and now plies her trade in the beautiful Valley of Wrong.