{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_celt_flat_flat27_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_celt_flat_flat27_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_neu_celt_flat_flat27_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/celt/flat/flat27.htm","summary":"This is a piece of Irish folkloric prose, likely from the early nineteenth century, in the tradition of romantic literary retellings of Gaelic legend. It recounts the story of O'Donoghue, a wise and just chieftain who ruled the Killarney lake region in an unspecified ancient past, whose reign ended not in death but in a mysterious departure \u2014 he walked calmly across the surface of Lough Lean mid-feast, turned to wave farewell, and vanished. The legend holds that every May Day at sunrise he reappears riding a white horse across the water, accompanied by garlands-linked youths and maidens moving to enchanting music, with the size of his retinue serving as an omen of the harvest. The text culminates in a vivid, cinematic description of one such apparition, rendered in elevated Romantic prose full of military and fairy-tale imagery. A closing note identifies the section as belonging to the mythological tradition of *T\u00edr na n\u00d3g* \u2014 the Irish otherworld beneath the water where time does not pass. The piece is distinctive for blending political idealism (O'Donoghue as the archetype of the good ruler) with supernatural folklore, presenting his immortality less as magic than as the natural consequence of a just reign remembered by a grateful people.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Fairy Legends and Traditions: The Legend of O'Donoghue","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","translated_text":null,"word_count":833}