The prince is overcome with longing. He leaps into her well-balanced, gleaming boat of pearl. Those who were left behind upon the strand "saw them dimly, as far as the sight of their eyes could reach. They sailed the sea away from them, and from that day to this have not been seen, and it is unknown where they went to." In the fine story of Cuchulain's sick-bed,[10] in which though the language of the text is not so ancient, the conceptions are equally pagan, the deserted wife of Manannán, the Irish Neptune, falls in love with the human warrior, and invites him to the other-world to herself, through the medium of an ambassadress. Cuchulain sends his charioteer Laeg along with this mysterious ambassadress, that he may bring him word again, to what kind of land he is invited. Laeg, when he returns, repeats a glowing account of its beauty, which coincides closely with those given by the ladies who summoned Bran and Connla. "There are at the western door, In the place where the sun goes down, A stud of steeds of the best of breeds Of the grey and the golden brown. There wave by the eastern door Three crystal-crimson trees, Whence the warbling bird all day is heard On the wings of the perfumed breeze. And before the central door Is another, of gifts untold. All silvern-bright in the warm sunlight, Its branches gleam like gold."[11] * * * * * In the saga of the Wooing of Etain we meet with what is substantially the same description. She is the wife of one of the Tuatha De Danann, is reborn as a mortal, and weds the king of Ireland. Her former husband, Midir, still loves her, follows her, and tries to win her back. She is unwilling, and he chants to her this description of the land to which he would lure her. "Come back to me, lady, to love and to shine In the land that was thine in the long-ago, Where of primrose hue is the golden hair And the limbs are as fair as the wreathèd snow. To the lakes of delight that no storm may curl, Where the teeth are as pearl, the eyes as sloes, Which alight, whenever they choose to seek, On the bloom of a cheek where the foxglove glows. Each brake is alive with the flowers of spring, Whence the merles sing in their shy retreat; Though sweet be the meadows of Innisfail, Our beautiful vale is far more sweet. Though pleasant the mead be of Innisfail, More pleasant the ale of that land of mine, A land of beauty, a land of truth, Where youth shall never grow old or pine. Fair rivers brighten the vale divine,-- There are choicest of wine and of mead therein. And heroes handsome and women fair Are in dalliance there without stain or sin. From thence we see, though we be not seen, We know what has been and shall be again, And the cloud that was raised by the first man's fall, Has concealed us all from the eyes of men.