One day Bran heard strange music behind him as he was alone in the neighbourhood of his stronghold; and as he listened, so sweet was the sound that it lulled him to sleep. When he awoke, there lay beside him a branch of silver so white with blossoms that it was not easy to distinguish the blossoms from the branch. Bran took up the branch and carried it to the royal house, and, when the hosts were assembled therein, they saw a woman in strange raiment standing on the floor. Whence she came and how, no one could tell. And as they all beheld her, she sang fifty quatrains to Bran:-- A branch of the apple-tree from Emain I bring, like those one knows; Twigs of white silver are on it, Crystal brows with blossoms. There is a distant isle, Around which sea-horses glisten: A fair course against the white-swelling surge,-- Four feet uphold it. * * * * * When the song was finished, 'the woman went from them while they knew not whither she went. And she took her branch with her. The branch sprang from Bran's hand into the hand of the woman, nor was there strength in Bran's hand to hold the branch.' The next day, with the fairy spell upon him, Bran begins the voyage towards the setting sun. On the ocean he meets Manannan riding in his magic chariot over the sea-waves; and the king tells Bran that he is returning to Ireland after long ages. Parting from the Son of the Sea, Bran goes on, and the first island he and his companions reach is the 'Island of Joy', where one of the party is set ashore; the second isle is the 'Land of Women', where the queen draws Bran and his followers to her realm with a magic clew, and then entertains them for what seems no more than a year, though 'it chanced to be many years'. After a while, home-sickness seizes the adventurers and they come to a unanimous decision to return to Ireland; but they depart under a taboo not to set foot on earth, or at least not till holy water has been sprinkled on them. In their coracle they arrive before a gathering at Srub Brain, probably in West Kerry, and Bran (who may now possibly be regarded as an apparition temporarily returned from the Otherworld to bid his people farewell) announces himself, and this reply is made to him:--'We do not know such a one, though the Voyage of Bran is in our ancient stories.' Then one of Bran's party, in his eagerness to land, broke the taboo; he 'leaps from them out of the coracle. As soon as he touched the earth of Ireland, forthwith he was a heap of ashes, as though he had been in the earth for many hundred years.... Thereupon, to the people of the gathering, Bran told all his wanderings from the beginning until that time. And he wrote these quatrains in Ogam, and then bade them farewell. And from that hour his wanderings are not known.' CORMAC'S ADVENTURE IN THE LAND OF PROMISE[330]