'
"So Oisin said no more then, but the great longing grew upon him, and
every day the delights of Tir-na-n-Oge pleased him less. And at last
he spoke of it again, and asked the Princess to let him go for a
little while. 'You would find Erin changed,' she said, 'and the
Fenians are all gone. How long have you been here with me?'
"'I cannot tell you to a day,' Oisin answered, 'but I know that it is
weeks since I saw my country and my people.'
"'You have been here,' said the Princess, 'for three hundred years.'
"Oisin could not understand it, but he thought that if he could live
so long and not know that the time had passed, the Fenians, too, might
be living still, and he begged again to be allowed to go. At last the
Princess saw that he would never be happy unless he went, so she
brought him the same white horse that had brought them both to
Tir-na-n-Oge. 'The horse,' she said, 'will take you to Erin. But you
must sit upon his back and never loose his bridle or get down upon the
ground. If you touch the ground of Erin you will be at once a weak,
old man, you can never come back to Tir-na-n-Oge, you will never see
me, and I shall never see you again.
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