and compel him to do certain things or avoid others he might have sought out. The hero’s quest arises from his struggle to find a way around these circumstances. Sometimes he is successful – though not always in the most obvious or immediate ways – and these Celtic stories therefore offer us cautions and counsel in how to make the epic journey for ourselves.
In the legend of the warrior Oisin, for example, he is placed under geis by a lover when he is carried to Tir na N-Og, the Land of Eternal Youth by Niamh, the daughter of the faery king.
Under the spell of his abductor, Oisin marries her, but after three years he begins to wake from his enchantment and miss his father and homeland. Fearful that Oisin may leave her, Niamh allows him to visit his father but only on condition that he does not leave his horse to step upon the ground. Oisin promises he will not, thus accepting his geis. Almost inevitably, however, disaster strikes when he falls from his horse by accident. Three hundred years pass by in an instant and Oisin, now ancient and dressed in rags, is left blind and wretched, never to see his true family again.
Looking at this story as a metaphor for the human condition, and tracing its outcome to first causes, we see that the problem for Oisin was not falling to the ground, but his acceptance of Niamh’s conditions in the first place. Because once we buy into limitations and restrictions, we act in accordance with them, sometimes accepting them wholly and living our lives as others wish us to; sometimes, as in the case of Oisin, rebelling against them in the form of ‘accidental’ behaviours that manifest our desire to be free. Thus, any geis or thoughtless promise becomes,