Page:Heroes of the dawn.djvu/267

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THE PASSING OF THE FIANNA
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who will be glad to number you among their fighters if you choose. As for myself, the joy of our roving and adventurous life has gone from me, and I intend to go to the house of the Sidhe at Assaroe, and there seek forgetfulness of my sorrows. If I thought Oisin would return I would remain with you; but it is not likely he will ever leave the pleasant Land of Youth."

The Fians were silent for a time, then eighteen of them, one after another, said they would accompany Caeilté if he would give them permission, and the others said they would travel back to Berramain, for Oisin might return some day. What happened to those who vainly waited for Oisin I do not know—with their departure from Caeilté they seem to have passed out of the knowledge of the ancient chroniclers.

We know, however, that Caeilté and his eighteen followers went to the enchanted house of the Sidhe at Assaroe, for when St. Patrick preached a strange and new doctrine in Ireland, two hundred years later, the old scribes wrote that Caeilté and his men came