CHAPTER XXV DéIRDRE

One of the key-stone stories of the Red Branch Cycle is Déirdre, or the Fate of the Children of Usnach. Cuchulain, though he appears in this saga, is not a prominent figure in it. This piece is perhaps the finest, most pathetic, and best-conceived of any in the whole range of our literature. But like much of that literature it exists in the most various recensions, and there are different accounts given of the death of all the principal characters.

This saga commences with the birth of Déirdre. King Conor and his Ultonians had gone to drink and feast in the house of Felim, Conor's chief story-teller, and during their stay there Felim's wife gives birth to a daughter. Cathba the Druid prophesies concerning the infant, and foretells that much woe and great calamities shall yet come upon Ulster because of her. He names her Déirdre.[1] The Ultonians are smitten with horror at his prophecies, and order her to be instantly put to death. The most ancient text, that of the twelfth-century Book of Leinster, tells the beginning of this saga exceedingly tersely.

[Pg 303]

    "'Let the girl be slain,' cried the warriors. 'Not so,' said King Conor, 'but bring ye her to me to-morrow; she shall be brought up as I shall order, and she shall be the woman whom I shall marry.' The Ultonians ventured not to contradict the King; they did as he commanded.

    "Déirdre was brought up in Conor's house. She became the handsomest maiden in Ireland. She was reared in a house apart: no man was allowed to see her until she should become Conor's wife. No one was permitted to enter the house except her tutor, her nurse, and Lavarcam,[2] whom they ventured not to keep out, for she was a druidess magician whose incantations they feared.

    "One winter day Déirdre's tutor slew a young tender calf upon the snow outside the house, which he was to cook for his pupil. She beheld a raven drinking the blood upon the snow. She said to Lavarcam, 'The only man I could love would be one who should have those three colours, hair black as the raven, cheeks red as the blood, body white as the snow.' 'Thou hast an opportunity,' answered Lavarcam, 'the man whom thou desirest is not far off, he is close to thee in the palace itself; he is Naesi, son of Usnach.' 'I shall not be happy,' answered Déirdre, 'until I have seen him.'"

This famous story "which is known," as Dr. Cameron puts it, "over all the lands of the Gael, both in Ireland and Scotland,"[3] has been more fortunate than any other in the whole range of Irish literature, for it has engaged the attention of, and been edited from different texts by, nearly every great Celtic scholar of this century.[4] Yet I luckily discovered last[Pg 304] year in the museum in Belfast by far the amplest and most graphic version of them all, bound up with some other pieces of different dates. It was copied at the end of the last or the beginning of the present century by a northern scribe, from a copy which must have been fairly old to judge from the language and from the glosses in the margin. I give here a literal translation of the opening of the story from this manuscript, and it is an admirable example of the later extension and embellishment of the ancient texts.

    THE OPENING OF THE FATE OF THE SONS OF USNACH,
    FROM A MS. IN THE BELFAST MUSEUM.

    "Once upon a time Conor, son of Fachtna, and the nobles of the Red Branch, went to a feast to the house of Feidhlim, the son of[Pg 305] Doll, the king's principal story-teller; and the King and people were merry and light hearted, eating that feast in the house of the principal story-teller, with gentle music of the musicians, and with the melody of the voices of the bards and the ollavs, with the delight of the speech and ancient tales of the sages, and of those who read the keenes (?) (written on) flags and books; (listening) to the prognostications of the druids and of those who numbered the moon and stars. And at the time when the assembly were merry and pleasant in general it chanced that Feidhlim's wife bore a beautiful, well-shaped daughter, during the feast. Up rises expeditiously the gentle Cathfaidh, the Head-druid of Erin, who chanced to be present in the assembly at that time, and a bundle of his ancient ...? fairy books in his left hand with him, and out he goes on the border of the rath to minutely observe and closely scrutinise the clouds of the air, the position of the stars and the age of the moon, to gain a prognostication and a knowledge of the fate that was in store for the child who was born there. Cathfaidh then returns quickly to all in presence of the King and told them an omen and prophecy, that many hurts and losses should come to the province of Ulster on account of the girl that was born there. On the nobles of Ulster receiving this prophecy they resolved on the plan of destroying the infant, and the heroes of the Red Branch bade slay her without delay.

    "'Let it not be so done,' says the King; 'it is not laudable to fight against fate, and woe to him who would destroy an innocent infant, for agreeable is the appearance and the laugh of the child; alas! it were a pity to quench her (life). Observe, O ye Nobles of Ulster, and listen to me, O ye valiant heroes of the Red Branch, and understand that I still submit to the omen of the prophecies and foretellings of the seers, but yet I do not submit to, nor do I praise, the committing of a base deed, or a deed of treachery, in the hope of quenching the anger of the power of the elements. If it be a fate which it is not possible to avoid, give ye, each of you, death to himself, but do not shed the blood of the innocent infant, for it were not (our) due (to have) prosperity thereafter. I proclaim to you, moreover, O ye nobles of Emania, that I take the girl under my own protection from henceforth, and if I and she live and last, it may be that I shall have her as my one-wife and gentle consort. Therefore, I assure the men of Erin by the securities of the moon and sun, that any one who would venture to destroy her either now or again, shall neither live nor last, if I survive her.'

    "The nobles of Ulster, and every one in general listened silent and mute, until Conall Cearnach, Fergus mac Roigh, and the heroes of the Red Branch rose up together, and 'twas what they said, 'O High-king[Pg 306] of Ulster, right is thy judgment, and it is (our) due to observe it, and let it be thy will that is done.'

    "As for the girl, Conor took her under his own protection, and placed her in a moat apart, to be brought up by his nurse, whose name was Lavarcam, in a fortress of the Red Branch, and Conor and Cathfaidh the druid gave her the name of Déirdre. Afterwards Déirdre was being generously nurtured under Lavarcam and (other) ladies, perfecting her in every science that was fitting for the daughter of a high prince, until she grew up a blossom-bearing sapling, and until her beauty was beyond every degree surpassing. Moreover, she was nurtured with excessive luxury of meat and drink that her stature and ripeness might be the greater for it, and that she might be the sooner marriageable. This is how Déirdre's abode was (situated, namely) in a fortress of the Branch, according to the King's command, every (aperture for) light closed in the front of the dún, and the windows of the back (ordered) to be open. A beautiful orchard full of fruit (lay) at the back of the fort, in which Déirdre might be walking for a while under the eye of her tutor at the beginning and the end of the day; under the shade of the fresh boughs and branches, and by the side of a running, meandering stream that was winding softly through the middle of the walled garden. A high, tremendous difficult wall, not easy to surmount, (was) surrounding that spacious habitation, and four savage man-hounds (sent) from Conor (were) on constant guard there, and his life were in peril for the man who would venture to approach it. For it was not permitted to any male to come next nor near Déirdre, nor even to look at her, but (only) to her tutor, whose name was Cailcin, and to King Conor himself. Prosperous was Conor's sway, and valiant was the fame (i.e., famous was the valour) of the Red Branch, defending the province of Ulster against foreigners and against every other province in Erin in his time, and there were no three in the household of Emania or throughout all Banba [Ireland] more brilliant than the sons of Uisneach, nor heroes of higher fame than they, Naoise [Neesh?], Ainle, and Ardan.

    "As for Déirdre, when she was fourteen years of age she was found marriageable and Conor designed to take her to his own royal couch. About this time a sadness and a heavy flood of melancholy lay upon the young queen, without gentle sleep, without sufficient food, without sprightliness—as had been her wont.

    "Until it chanced of a day, while snow lay (on the ground), in the winter, that Cailcin, Déirdre's tutor, went to kill a calf to get ready food for her, and after shedding the blood of the calf out upon the snow, a raven stoops upon it to drink it, and as Déirdre perceives that, and she watching through a window of[Pg 307] the fortress, she heaved a heavy sigh so that Cailcin heard her. 'Wherefore thy melancholy, girl?' said he. 'Alas that I have not yon thing as I see it,' said she. 'Thou shalt have that if it be possible,' said he, drawing his hand dexterously so that he gave an unerring cast of his knife at the raven, so that he cut one foot off it. And after that he takes up the bird and throws it over near Déirdre. The girl starts at once, and fell into a faint, until Lavarcam came up to help her. 'Why art thou as I see thee, dear girl,' said she, 'for thy countenance is pitiable ever since yesterday?' 'A desire that came to me,' said Déirdre. 'What is that desire?' said Lavarcam. 'Three colours that I saw,' said Déirdre, 'namely, the blackness of the raven, the redness of the blood, and the whiteness of the snow.' 'It is easy to get that for thee now,' said Lavarcam, and arose (and went) out without delay, and she gathered the full of a vessel of snow, and half the full of a cup of the calf's blood, and she pulls three feathers out of the wing of the raven. And she laid them down on the table before the girl. Déirdre began as though she were eating the snow and lazily tasting the blood with the top of the raven's feather, and her nurse closely scrutinising her, until Déirdre asked Lavarcam to leave her alone by herself for a while. Lavarcam departs, and again returns, and this is how she found Déirdre—shaping a ball of snow in the likeness of a man's head and mottling it with the top of the raven's feather out of the blood of the calf, and putting the small black plumage as hair upon it, and she never perceived her nurse examining her until she had finished. 'Whose likeness is that?' said Lavarcam. Déirdre starts and she said,'It is a work easily destroyed.' 'That work is a great wonder to me, girl,' said Lavarcam, 'because it was not thy wont to draw pictures of a man, (and) it was not permitted to the women of Emania to teach thee any similitude but that of Conor only.' 'I saw a face in my dream,' said Déirdre, 'that was of brighter countenance than the King's face, or Cailcin's, and it was in it that I saw the three colours that pained me, namely, the whiteness of the snow on his skin, the blackness of the raven on his hair, and the redness of the blood upon his countenance, and oh woe! my life will not last, unless I get my desire.' 'Alas for thy desire, my darling,' said Lavarcam. 'My desire, O gentle nurse,' said Déirdre. 'Alas! 'tis a pity thy desire, it is difficult to get it,' said Lavarcam, 'for fast and close is the fortress of the Branch, and high and difficult is the enclosure round about, and [there is] the sharp watch of the fierce man-hounds in it.' 'The hounds are no danger to us,' said Déirdre. 'Where did you behold that face?' said Lavarcam. 'In a dream yesterday,' said Déirdre, and she weeping, after hiding her face in her nurse's bosom, and shedding tears plentifully. 'Rise up from[Pg 308] me, dear pupil,' said Lavarcam, 'and restrain thy tears henceforth till thou eatest food and takest a drink, and after Cailcin's eating his meal we shall talk together about the dream.' Her nurse raises Déirdre's head, 'Take courage, daughter,' said she, 'and be patient, for I am certain that thou shalt get thy desire, for according to human age and life, Conor's time beside thee is not (to be) long or lasting.'

    "After Lavarcam's departing from her, she [Lavarcam] perceived a green mantle hung in the front of a closed-up window on the head of a brass club and the point of a spear thrust through the wall of the mansion. Lavarcam puts her hand to it so that it readily came away with her, and stones and moss fell down after it, so that the light of day, and the grassy lawn, and the Champion's Plain in front of the mansion, and the heroes at their feats of activity became visible. 'I understand, now, my pupil,' said Lavarcam, 'that it was here you saw that dream.' But Déirdre did not answer her. Her nurse left food and ale on the table before Déirdre, and departed from her without speaking, for the boring-through of the window did not please Lavarcam, for fear of Conor or of Cailcin coming to the knowledge of it. As for Déirdre, she ate not her food, but she quenched her thirst out of a goblet of ale, and she takes with her the flesh of the calf, after covering it under a corner of her mantle, and she went to her tutor and asks leave of him to go out for a while (and walk) at the back of the mansion. 'The day is cold, and there is snow darkening in (the air) daughter,' said Cailcin, 'but you can walk for a while under the shelter of the walls of the mansion, but mind the house of the hounds.'

    "Déirdre went out, and no stop was made by her until she passed down through the middle of the snow to where the den of the man-hounds was, and as soon as the hounds recognised her and the smell of the meat they did not touch her, and they made no barking till she divided her food amongst them, and she returns into the house afterwards. Thereupon came Lavarcam, and found Déirdre lying upon one side of her couch, and she sighing heavily and shedding tears. Her nurse stood silent for a while observing her, till her heart was softened to compassion and her anger departed from her. She stretched out her hand, and 'twas what she said, 'Rise up, modest daughter, that we may be talking about the dream, and tell me did you ever see that black hero before yesterday?' 'White hero, gentle nurse, hero of the pleasant crimson cheeks,' said Déirdre. 'Tell me without falsehood,' said Lavarcam, 'did you ever see that warrior before yesterday, or before you bored through the window-work with the head of a spear and with a brass club, and till you looked out through it on the warriors of the Branch when they were at[Pg 309] their feats of activity on the Champion Plain, and till you saw all the dreams you spoke of?' Déirdre hides her head in her nurse's bosom, weeping, till she said, 'Oh, gentle mother and nurturer of my heart, do not tell that to my tutor; and I shall not conceal from thee that I saw him on the lawn of Emania, playing games with the boys, and learning feats of valour, and och! he had the beautiful countenance at that time, and very lovely was it yesterday (too).' 'Daughter,' said Lavarcam, 'you did not see the boys on the green of Emania from the time you were seven years of age, and that is seven years ago.' 'Seven bitter years,' said Déirdre, 'since I beheld the delight of the green and the playing of the boys, and surely, too, Naoise surpassed all the youths of Emania.' 'Naoise, the son of Uisneach?' said Lavarcam. 'Naoise is his name, as he told me,' said Déirdre, 'but I did not ask whose son he was.' 'As he told you!' said Lavarcam. 'As he told me,' said Déirdre, 'when he made a throw of a ball, by a miss-cast, backwards transversely over the heads of the band of maidens that were standing on the edge of the green, and I rose from amongst them all, till I lifted the ball, and I delivered it to him, and he pressed my hand joyously.' 'He pressed your hand, girl!' said Lavarcam. 'He pressed it lovingly, and said that he would see me again, but it was difficult for him, and I did not see him since until yesterday, and oh, gentle nurse, if you wish me to be alive take a message to him from me, and tell him to come to visit me and talk with me secretly to-night without the knowledge of Cailcin or any other person.' 'Oh, girl,' said Lavarcam, it is a very dangerous attempt to gain the quenching of thy desire [being in peril] from the anger of the King, and under the sharp watch of Cailcin, considering the fierceness of the savage man-hounds, and considering the difficulty of (scaling) the enclosure round about.' 'The hounds are no danger to us,' said Déirdre. 'Then, too,' said Lavarcam, 'great is Conor's love for the children of Uisneach, and there is not in the Red Branch a hero dearer to him than Naoise.' 'If he be the son of Uisneach,' said Déirdre, 'I heard the report of him from the women of Emania, and that great are his own territories in the West of Alba, outside of Conor's sway, and, gentle nurse, go to find Naoise, and you can tell him how I am, and how much greater my love for him is than for Conor.' 'Tell him that yourself if you can,' said Lavarcam, and she went out thereupon to seek Naoise till he was found, and till he came with her to Déirdre's dwelling in the beginning of the night, without Cailcin's knowledge. When Naoise beheld the splendour of the girl's countenance he is filled with a flood of love, and Déirdre beseeches him to take her and escape to Alba. But Naoise thought that too hazardous, for fear of Conor. But in the course (?) of the night Déirdre won him over, so[Pg 310] that he consented to her, and they determined to depart on the night of the morrow.

    "Déirdre escaped in the middle of the night without the knowledge of her tutor or her nurse, for Naoise came at that time and his two brothers along with him, so that he bored a gap at the back of the hounds' den, for the dogs were dead already through poison from Déirdre.

    "They lifted the girl over the walls, through every rough impediment, so that her mantle and the extremity of her dress were all tattered, and he set her upon the back of a steed, and no stop was made by them till (they reached) Sliabh Fuaid and Finn-charn of the watch, till they came to the harbour and went aboard a ship and were driven by a south wind across the ocean-waters and over the back-ridges of the deep sea to Loch n-Eathaigh in the west of Alba, and thrice fifty valiant champions [sailed] along with them, namely, fifty with each of the three brothers, Naoise, Ainle, and Ardan."

The three brothers and Déirdre lived for a long time happily in Scotland and rose to great favour and power with the King, until he discovered the existence of the beautiful Déirdre, whom they had carefully kept concealed lest he should desire her for his wife. This discovery drives them forth again, and they live by hunting in the highlands and islands.

It is only at this point that most of the modern copies, such as that published by O'Flanagan in 1808, begin, namely, with a feast of King Conor's, in which he asks his household and all the warriors of Ulster who are present, whether they are aware of anything lacking to his palace in Emania. They all reply that to them it seems perfect. "Not so to me," answers Conor, "I know of a great want which presseth upon you, namely, three renowned youths, the three luminaries of the valour of the Gaels, the three beautiful, noble sons of Usnach, to be wanting to you on account of any woman in the world." "Dared we say that," said they, "long since would we have said it."

Conor thereupon proposes to send ambassadors to them to solicit their return. He takes Conall Cearnach apart and asks him if he will go, and what would he do should the sons of[Pg 311] Usnach be slain while under his protection. Conall answers that he would slay without mercy any Ultonian who dared to touch one of them. So does Cuchulain. Fergus mac Róigh alone promises not to injure the King himself should he touch them, but any other Ultonian who should wrong them must die. Fergus and his two sons sailed to Alba, commissioned to proclaim peace to the sons of Usnach and bring them home. Having landed, Fergus gives forth the cry of a "mighty man of chace." Naoise and Déirdre were sitting together in their hunting booth playing at chess. Naoise heard the cry and said, "I hear the call of a man of Erin." "That was not the call of a man of Erin," said Déirdre, "but the call of a man of Alba." Twice again did Fergus shout, and twice did Déirdre insist that it was not the cry of a man of Erin. At last Naoise recognises the voice of Fergus, and sends his brother to meet him. Then Déirdre confesses that she had recognised the call of Fergus from the beginning. "Why didst thou conceal it then, my queen?" said Naoise. "A vision I had last night," said Déirdre, "for three birds came to us from Emania having three sups of honey in their beaks, and they left them with us, but they took with them three sups of our blood." "And how readest thou that, my queen," said Naoise. "It is," said Déirdre, "the coming of Fergus to us with a peaceful message from Conor, for honey is not more sweet than the peaceful message of the false man."

But all is of no avail. Fergus and his sons arrive and spend the night with the children of Usnach, and despite of all that Déirdre can do, she sees them slowly win her husband round to their side, and inspire him with a desire to return once more to Erin.

Next morning they embark. Déirdre weeps and utters lamentations; she sings her bitter regret at leaving the scenes where she had been so happy.

    "Delightful land," she sang, "yon eastern land, Alba, with its wonders. I had never come hither out of it had I not come with Naoise....

    [Pg 312]

    "The Vale of Laidh, Oh in the Vale of Laidh, I used to sleep under soft coverlet; fish and venison and the fat of the badger were my repast in the Vale of Laidh.

    "The Vale of Masan, oh the Vale of Masan, high its harts-tongue, fair its stalks, we used to enjoy a rocking sleep above the grassy verge of Masan.[5]

    "The vale of Eiti, oh the vale of Eiti! In it I raised my first house, lovely was its wood (when seen) on rising, the milking-house of the sun was the vale of Eiti.

    "Glendarua, oh Glendarua! my love to every one who enjoys it; sweet the voice of the cuckoo upon bending bough upon the cliff above Glendarua.

    "Dear is Droighin over the strong shore. Dear are its waters over pure sand; I would never have come from it had I not come with my love."

She ceased to sing, the vessel approached the shore, and the fugitives are landed once more in Erin. But dangers thicken round them. Through a strategy of King Conor's Fergus is placed under geasa or tabu by a man called Barach to stay and partake of a feast with him, and thus detached from the sons of Usnach, who are left alone with his two sons instead. Then Déirdre again uses all her influence with her husband and his brothers to sail to Rathlin and wait there until they can be rejoined by Fergus, but she does not prevail. After that she has a terrifying dream, and tells it to them, but Naoise answered lightly in verse—

"Thy mouth pronounceth not but evil,
O maiden, beautiful, incomparable;
The venom of thy delicate ruby mouth
Fall on the hateful furious foreigners."

Thereafter, as they advanced farther upon their way towards King Conor's palace at Emania, the omens of evil grow[Pg 313] thicker still, and all Déirdre's terrors are re-awakened by the rising of a blood-red cloud.

"'O Naoise, view the cloud
That I see here on the sky,
I see over Emania green
A chilling cloud of blood-tinged red.

I have caught alarm from the cloud
I see here in the sky,
It is like a gore-clot of blood,
The cloud terrific very-thin.'"

And she urged them to turn aside to Cuchulain's palace at Dundalgan, and remain under that hero's safeguard till Fergus could rejoin them. But she cannot persuade the others that the treachery which she herself sees so clearly is really intended. Her last despairing attempt is made as they come in sight of the royal city; she tells them that if, when they arrive, they are admitted into the mansion in which King Conor is feasting with the nobles of Ulster round him, they are safe, but if they are on any pretext quartered by the King in the House of the Red Branch, they may be certain of treachery. They are sent to the House of the Red Branch, and not admitted among the King's revellers, on the pretended grounds that the Red Branch is better prepared for strangers, and that its larder and its cellar are better provided with food and drink than the King's mansion. All now begin to feel that the net is closing over them. Late in the night King Conor, fired with drink and jealousy, called for some one to go for him and bring him word how Déirdre looked, "for if her own form live upon her, there is not in the world a woman more beautiful than she." Lavarcam, the nurse, undertakes to go. She, of course, discloses to Déirdre and Naoise the treachery that is being plotted against them, and returning to Conor she tells him that Déirdre has wholly lost her beauty, whereat, "much of his jealousy abated, and he continued to indulge in feasting and enjoyment a long while, until he thought of Déirdre a[Pg 314] second time." This time he does not trust Lavarcam, but sends one of his retainers, first reminding him that his father and his three brothers had been slain by Naoise. But in the mean time the entrances and windows of the Red Branch had been shut and barred and the doors barricaded by the sons of Usnach. One small window, however, had been left open at the back and the spy climbed upon a ladder and looked through it and saw Naoise and Déirdre sitting together and playing at chess. Déirdre called Naoise's attention to the face looking at them, and Naoise, who was lifting a chessman off the board, hurled it at the head and broke the eye that looked at them. The man ran back and told the King that it was worth losing an eye to have beheld a woman so lovely. Then Conor, fired with fury and jealousy, led his troops to the assault, and all night long there is fighting and shouting round the Red Branch House, and Naoise's brothers, helped by the two sons of Fergus, pass the night in repelling attack, and in quenching the fires that break out all round the house. At length one of Fergus's sons is slain and the other is bought off by a bribe of land and a promise of power from King Conor, and now the morning begins to dawn, but the sons of Usnach are still living, and Déirdre is still untaken. At last Conor's druid, Cathba, consents to work a spell against them if Conor will plight his faithful word that having once taken Déirdre he will not touch or harm the sons of Usnach. Conor plights his word and troth, and the spell is set at work. The sons of Usnach had left the half-burnt house and were escaping in the morning light with Déirdre between them when they met, as they thought, a sea of thick viscid waves, and they cast down their weapons and spread abroad their arms and tried to swim, and Conor's soldiers came and took them without a blow. They were brought to Conor and he caused them to be at once beheaded. It was then the druid cursed Emania, for Conor had broken his plighted word, and that curse was fulfilled in the misery that fell upon the province[Pg 315] during the wars with Mève. He cursed also the house of Conor, and prophesied that none of his descendants should possess Emania for ever, "and that," adds the saga, "has been verified, for neither Conor nor any of his race possessed Emania from that time to this."[6]

As for Déirdre, she was as one distracted; she fell upon the ground and drank their blood, she tore her hair and rent her dishevelled tresses, and the lament she broke forth into has long been a favourite of Irish scribes. She calls aloud upon the dead, "the three falcons of the mount of Culan, the three lions of wood of the cave, the three sons of the breast of the Ultonians, the three props of the battalion of Chuailgne, the three dragons of the fort of Monadh."

"The High King of Ulster, my first husband,
I forsook him for the love of Naoise.

    *    *    *    *    *

That I shall live after Naoise
Let no man on earth imagine.

    *    *    *    *    *

Their three shields and their three spears
Have often been my bed.

    *    *    *    *    *

I never was one day alone
Until the day of the making of the grave,
Although both I and ye
Were often in solitude.

My sight has gone from me
At seeing the grave of Naoise."

[Pg 316]

She remembers now in her own agony another woman who would lament with her could she but know that Naoise had died.

"On a day that the nobles of Alba [Scotland] were feasting,
And the sons of Usnach, deserving of love,
To the daughter of the lord of Duntrone
Naoise gave a secret kiss.

He sent to her a frisking doe,
A deer of the forest with a fawn at its foot,
And he went aside to her on a visit
While returning from the host of Inverness.

But when I heard that
My head filled full of jealousy,
I launched my little skiff upon the waves,
I did not care whether I died or lived.

They followed me, swimming,
Ainnlé and Ardan, who never uttered falsehood,
And they turned me in to land again,
Two who would subdue a hundred.

Naoise pledged me his word of truth,
And he swore in presence of his weapons three times,
That he would never cloud my countenance again
Till he should go from me to the army of the dead.

Alas! if she were to hear this night
That Naoise was under cover in the clay,
She would weep most certainly,
And I, I would weep with her sevenfold."[7]

After her lay of lamentation she falls into the grave where the three are being buried, and dies above them. "Their flag was raised over their tomb, and their names were written in Ogam, and their funeral games were celebrated. Thus far the tragedy of the sons of Usnach."

The oldest and briefest version of this fine saga, that preserved in the Book of Leinster, ends differently, and even more[Pg 317] tragically. On the death of Naoise, who is slain the moment he appears on the lawn of Emania, Déirdre is taken, her hands are bound behind her back and she is given over to Conor.

    "Déirdre was for a year in Conor's couch, and during that year she neither smiled nor laughed nor took sufficiency of food, drink, or sleep, nor did she raise her head from her knee. When they used to bring the musicians to her house she would utter rhapsody—

    "'Lament ye the mighty warriors
    Assassinated in Emania on coming,' etc.

    "When Conor would be endeavouring to sooth her, it was then she would utter this dirge—

    "'That which was most beauteous to me beneath the sky,
    And which was most lovely to me,
    Thou hast taken from me—great the anguish—
    I shall not get healed of it to my death,' etc.

    "'What is it you see that you hate most?' said Conor.

    "'Thou thyself and Eoghan [Owen] son of Duthrecht,'[8] said she.

    "'Thou shalt be a year in Owen's couch then,' said Conor. Conor then gave her over to Owen.

    "They drove the next day to the assembly at Muirtheimhne. She was behind Owen in a chariot. She looked towards the earth that she might not see her two gallants.

    "'Well, Déirdre,' said Conor, 'it is the glance of a ewe between two rams you cast between me and Owen.'

    "There was a large rock near. She hurled her head at the stone, so that she broke her skull and was dead.

    "This is the exile of the sons of Usnach and the cause of the exile of Fergus and of the death of Déirdre."

It was in consequence of Conor's treachery in slaying the sons of Usnach while under Fergus's protection that this warrior turned against his king, burnt Emania, and then seceded into Connacht to Oilioli [Ulyul] and Mève, king and queen of that province, where he took service with about fifteen hundred Ultonians who, indignant at Conor, seceded along with him. "It was he," says Keating, summing up the substance of[Pg 318] the sagas, "who carried off the great spoils from Ulster whence came so many wars and enmities between the people of Connacht and Ulster, so that the exiles who went from Ulster into banishment with Fergus continued seven, or as some say, ten years in Connacht, during which time they kept constantly spoiling, destroying and plundering the Ultonians, on account of the murder of the sons of Usnach. And the Ultonians in like manner wreaked vengeance upon them, and upon the people of Connacht, and made reprisals for the booty which Fergus had carried off, and for every other evil inflicted upon them by the exiles and by the Connacht men, insomuch that the losses and injuries sustained on both sides were so numerous that whole volumes have been written upon them, which would be too long to mention or take notice of at present."

It was with the assistance of Fergus and the other exiles that Mève undertook her famous expedition into Ulster, of which we must now speak.
********
[1] Pronounced "Dare-dr?," said to mean "alarm." Jubainville translates it "Celle-qui-se-débat."

[2] In the older form Leborcham. She is generally described as Conor's messenger; in one place she is called his bean-cainte or "talking-woman"; this is the only passage I know of in which she is credited with any higher powers. She is said elsewhere to have been the daughter of two slaves of Conor's household, Oa or Aué and Adarc.

[3] Yet when in Trinity College Dublin, a few years ago, the subject—the first Irish subject for twenty-seven years—set for the Vice-Chancellor's Prize in English verse was "Déirdre," it was found that the students did not know what that word meant, or what Déirdre was, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral. So true it is that, despite all the efforts of Davis and his fellows, there are yet two nations in Ireland. Trinity College might to some extent bridge the gap if she would, but she has carefully refrained from attempting it.

[4] O' Flanagan first printed two versions of it in the solitary volume which comprises the "Transactions of the Gaelic Society," as early as 1808. The older of these two versions agrees closely with that contained in "Egerton, 1782," of the British Museum, but neither of the MSS. which he used is now known to exist. Eugene O'Curry edited the story from the text in the Yellow Book of Lecan, with a translation in the "Atlantis," a long defunct Irish periodical. Windisch edited the oldest existing version, that of the Book of Leinster, in the first volume of "Irische Texte." None of these three versions differ appreciably. In the second volume of the same, Dr. Whitley Stokes edited a consecutive text from 56 and 53 of the MSS. in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, the latter of which is a vellum of the fifteenth century. Finally, the text of both these MSS. was published in full in vol. ii. of Dr. Cameron's "Reliqui? Celtic?," where he also gives a translation of the first. Keating, too, in his history, retells the story at considerable length. Windisch's, O'Curry's, and O'Flanagan's texts were reprinted in 1883 in the "Gaelic Journal." In addition to all these Mr. Carmichael published in Gaelic in 1887 an admirable folk-lore version of the story from the Isles of Scotland in the thirteenth volume of the "Transactions of the Inverness Gaelic Society," and the tale is retold in English, chiefly from this version, by Mr. Jacobs in the first series of his "Celtic Fairy Tales." M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has given a French translation of the entire story from the Book of Leinster, the older Edinburgh MS., and the Highland Folktale, the latter two being translated by M. Georges Dottin. Macpherson made this story the foundation of his "Darthula." Dr. Dwyer Joyce published the story in America as an English poem. Sir Samuel Ferguson, Dr. Todhunter, and the present writer have all published adaptations of it in English verse, and Mr. Rolleston made it the subject of the Prize Cantata at the Féis Ceóil in Dublin in 1897. Hence I may print here this new and full opening of a piece so celebrated. For text see Zeit. f. Celt. Phil. II. 1, p. 142.

[5] "Gleann Masáin, ón Gleann Masáin,
árd a chneamh, geal a ghasáin,
Do ghnidhmís codladh corrach
Os inbhear mongach Masáin."

[6] We have seen that none of the race of Ir claim descent from Conor; all their great families O'Mores, O'Farrells, etc., descend from Fergus mac Róigh [Roy] or Conall Cearnach (see ch. VI note 17); yet Conor had twenty-one sons, all of whom, says Keating, died without issue except three—"Benna, from whom descended the Benntraidhe; Lamha, from whom came the Lamhraidhe; and Glasni, whose descendants were the Glasnaide; but even of these," adds Keating, "there is not at this day a single descendant alive in Ireland." See O'Mahony's translation, p. 278.

[7] "Och! da gcluinfeadh sise anocht
Naoise bheith fá bhrat i gcré,
Do ghoilfeadh sise go beacht,
Acht do ghoilfinn-se fá seacht lé."

[8] Who had slain Náoise at Conor's bidding, in the older version.