Oscar Of The Flail

Saint Patrick came to Ireland, and Oisín met him in Elphin and he carrying stones.

And whatever time it might be that he got the food,
It would be long again till he would get the drink.

"Oisín," says he, "let me baptize you."

"Oh, what good would that do me?" says Oisín.

"Oisín," says St. Patrick, "unless you let me baptize you, you will go to hell where the rest of the Fenians are."

"If," says Oisín, "Diarmaid and Goll were alive for us, and the king that was over the Fenians, if they were to go to hell they would bring the devil and his forge up out of it on their back."

"Listen, O gray and senseless Oisín, think upon God, and bow your knee, and let me baptize you."

"Patrick," says Oisín, "for what did God damn all that of people?"

"For eating the apple of commandment," says St. Patrick.

"If I had known that your God was so narrow-sighted that he damned all that of people for one apple, we would have sent three horses and a mule carrying apples to God's heaven to Him."

"Listen, O gray and senseless Oisín, think upon God, and bow your knee, and let me baptize you."

Oisín fell into a faint, and the clergy thought that he had died. When he woke up out of it, "O Patrick, baptize me," says he--he saw something in his faint, he saw the thing that was before him. The spear was in St. Patrick's hand, and he thrust it into Oisín's foot purposely; and the ground was red with his share of blood.

"Oh," says St. Patrick to Oisín, "you are greatly cut."

"Oh, isn't that for my baptism?" says Oisín.

"I hope in God that you are saved," says St. Patrick, "you have undergone baptism and ...?"

"Patrick," says Oisín, "would you not be able to take the Fenians out of hell"--he saw them there when he was in his sleep.

"I could not," says St. Patrick, "and any one who is in hell, it is impossible to bring him out of it."

"Patrick," says Oisín, "are you able to take me to the place where Finn and the Fenians of Erin are?"

"I cannot," says St. Patrick.

As much as the humming gnat
Or a scintilla of the beam of the sun,
Unknown to the great powerful king
Shall not pass in beneath my shield.

"Can you give them relief from the pain?" says Oisín.

* * * * *

St. Patrick then asked it as a petition from God to give them a relief from their pain, and he said to Oisín that they had found relief. This is the relief they got from God. Oscar got a flail, and he requested a fresh thong to be put into the flail, and there went a green rush as a thong into it, and he got the full of his palm of green sand, and he shook the sand on the ground, and as far as the sand reached the devils were not able to follow; but if they were to come beyond the place where the sand was strewn, Oscar was able to follow _them_, and to beat them with the flail. Oscar and all the Fenians are on this side of the sand, and the devils are on the other side, for St. Patrick got it as a request from God that they should not be able to follow them where the sand was shaken,--and the thong that was in the flail never broke since!