HoneyBreadMilkA poem made and spokenA memory written down
Invocation Approach
Tone
Gentle and elegiac
Address
OisínSon of FionnPoet of the Fianna
Relationship
The one who came back and found everyone gone
Warning
He is a hero and a poet not a god what he offers is memory not power
Resonance
Survivors poets those who outlive their people
Symbols
HarpDeerThe white horseThe staff
Mythology Summary
Oisín is the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill and Sadb — a woman who had been turned into a deer, whence his name, 'little fawn' — and the poet of the Fianna, for whom the whole Ossianic cycle is named. Acallam na Senórach, 'The Colloquy of the Ancients', frames him as the old survivor who tells Saint Patrick about the Fianna after they are gone. In the later lays he goes to Tír na nÓg with Niamh and returns centuries later to find the Fianna dead, and when he touches the ground the years fall on him.
Modern Practice
Oisín is called by poets, by the grieving survivor, and by anyone returning to a place that has moved on. The practice is to make the poem and to say the names of the dead.