In the tale Oisín in Tir na nÓg, Oisin is visited by a fairy woman called Níamh Chinn Óir (Niamh of the Golden Hair, one of the daughters of Manannán Mac Lir, a god of the sea) who announces she loves him and takes him away to Tir na nÓg (“the land of the young”). Their union produces Oisín’s famous son, Oscar, and a daughter, Plor na mBan (“Flower of Women”). After what seems to him to be three years Oisín decides to return to Ireland, but 300 years have passed there. Niamh gives him her white horse, Embarr, and warns him not to dismount, because if his feet touch the ground those 300 years will catch up with him and he will become old and withered. Oisín returns home and finds the hill of Almu, Fionn’s home, abandoned and in disrepair. Later, while trying to help some men who were building a road in Gleann na Smól lift a stone out of the way onto a wagon, his girth breaks and he falls to the ground, becoming an old man just as Niamh had forewarned. The horse returns to Tir na nÓg. In some versions of the story, just before he dies Oisín is visited by Saint Patrick. Oisín tells the saint about what happened and dies.
§ illustration: Oisin and Niamh of the Golden Hair by P.J. Lynch
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