Page 2 - White Horses Spa Brochure

“The resemblance... has commonly been drawn between the horse in regards to his mane, and the foam-tipped waves, which are still called white horses.”
Horses appear frequently in Irish mythology as animals with special qualities. Enchanted horses that carry people to the “Otherworld” are a frequent motif.
In one such tale, warrior-poet Oisín leaves his father’s clan, the Fianna, for Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth where no one ever grows old. He travels with Niamh Cinn Oir, the daughter of Irish God of the Sea Mannan mac Lir, galloping across the waves on her magical white horse, Embarr, who is swifter than the spring wind and able to travel as easily over water as on land.
The great Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) wrote of The Wanderings of Oisín in 1889, in which Oisín says:
“Look! There it is, just there on the horizon. That’s where I belong – in the Land of the Youth.”