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Updated: September 25, 2025
It chanced one day that when they were resting in the noontide heat, under the perfumed shade of a hawthorn in bloom, they saw on the edge of the meadow, spread out before them, a speckled thrush cowering in the grass. "Oh, Connla! Connla! Look at the thrush and, look, look up in the sky, there is a hawk!" cried Nora.
That day they went out into the woods, and they sat beside a stream that pattered along beneath the trees, and through the leaves tossing in the breeze the sun flashed down upon the streamlet, and shadow and sunshine danced upon it. As the children watched the water sparkling where the sunlight fell, Nora said: "Oh, Connla, did you ever see anything so bright and clear and glancing as that?"
When the Law will come, it will do away with the Druid's magic spells that come from the lips of the false black demon." Then Conn the king observed that since the maiden came, Connla his son spoke to none that spake to him. So Conn of the hundred fights said to him, "Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?"
When they had gone what seemed to them a long way, they began to feel weary; and just then they saw coming towards them a little man in a red jacket leading a coal-black steed. When they met the little man, he said: "Connla, put Nora up on this steed; then jump up before her." Connla did as he was told, and when both of them were mounted
"'Tis a glorious place, forsooth, that Connla holds among short-lived mortals awaiting the day of death. But now the folk of life, the ever-living ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they have learnt to know thee, seeing thee in thy home among thy dear ones."
On went the steed, and soon he was galloping beneath the branches that almost touched Connla's head. And on they went until they had passed through the wood, and then they saw rising up before them the "Golden Spear." "Oh, Connla," said Nora, "we are at home at last." "Yes," said Connla, "but where is the little house under the hill?"
Connla looked up, and he saw the hawk with quivering wings, and he knew that in a second it would pounce down on the frightened thrush. He jumped to his feet, fixed a stone in his sling, and before the whir of the stone shooting through the air was silent, the stricken hawk tumbled headlong in the grass.
When they had gone some distance, the pipers disappeared, and when Connla and Nora came up to the spot where they had seen the last of them, they found themselves at the head of a ladder, all the steps of which were formed of purple and amber clouds that descended to what appeared to be a vast and shining plain, streaked with purple and gold.
And when the mountain top gleamed like a golden spear, they fixed their eyes on the line between the shadow and the sunshine. "Now," said Connla, "the time has come." "Oh, look! look!" said Nora, and as she spoke, just above the line of shadow a door opened out, and through its portals came a little piper dressed in green and gold.
"Now, Connla," said the little man, "catch the bridle in your hands, and you, Nora, clasp Connla round the waist, and close your eyes."
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