I know of few things in literature comparable to this lovely description, at once so mystic and so sensuous, of the joys of the other world. To my mind it breathes the very essence of Celtic glamour, and is shot through and through with the Celtic love of form, beauty, landscape, company, and the society of woman. How exquisite the idea of being transported from this world to an isle around which sea-horses glisten, where from trees covered with blossoms the birds call in harmony to the Hours, a land whose haze is incomparable! What a touch! Where hair of crystal drops from the mane of the wave as it washes against the land; where the chariots of silver and of bronze assemble on the plain of sports, in the country against which laughter peals, and the day of lasting weather showers silver on the land. And then to play sitting at the luxurious wine-- "Men and gentle women under a bush Without sin, without crime!" I verily believe there is no Gael alive even now who would not in his heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and Milton to grasp at the Moy Mell of the unknown Irish pagan. In another perhaps equally ancient story, that of the elopement of Connla, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles,[8] with a lady who is a denizen of this mysterious land, we find the unknown visitor giving nearly the same account of it as that given to Bran. "Whence hast thou come, O Lady?" said the Druid. "I have come," said she, "from the lands of the living in which there is neither death, nor sin, nor strife;[9] we enjoy perpetual feasts without anxiety, and benevolence without contention. A large Sidh [_Shee_, "fairy-mound"] is where we dwell, so that it is hence we are called the Sidh [Shee] people." The Druids appear, as I have already remarked, to have acted as intermediaries between the inhabitants of the other world and of this, and in the story of Connla one of them chants against the lady so that her voice was not heard, and he drives her away through his incantation. She comes back, however, at the end of a month, and again summons the prince. "'Tis no lofty seat," she chanted, "upon which sits Connla amid short-lived mortals awaiting fearful death; the ever-living ones invite thee to be the ruler over the men of Tethra." Conn of the Hundred Battles, who had overheard her speech, cried, "Call me the Druid; I see her tongue has been allowed her to-day [again]." But she invisible to all save the prince replied to him-- "O Conn of the Hundred Battles, druidism is not loved, for little has it progressed to honour on the great Righteous Strand, with its numerous, wondrous, various families." After that she again invites the prince to follow her, saying-- "There is another land which it were well to seek. I see the bright sun is descending, though far off we shall reach it ere night. 'Tis the land that cheers the mind of every one that turns to me. There is no race in it save only women and maidens."