Part 47

who is known to the Celts of Scotland as Darthool, to those of Ireland as Deirdre. As in the story of Helen, it is not easy, or even possible in the story of Deirdre, to disentangle the old, old facts of actual history from the web of romantic fairy tale that time has woven about them, yet so great is the power of Deirdre, even unto this day, that it has been the fond task of those men and women to whom the Gael owes so much, to preserve, and to translate for posterity, the tragic romance of Deirdre the Beautiful and the Sons of Usna.

In many ancient manuscripts we get the story in more or less complete form. In the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh, in the Glenmasan MS. we get the best and the fullest version, while the oldest and the shortest is to be found in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster.

But those who would revel in the old tale and have Deirdre lead them by the hand into the enchanted realm of the romance of misty, ancient days of our Western Isles must go for help to Fiona Macleod, to Alexander Carmichael, to Lady Gregory, to Dr. Douglas Hyde, to W. F. Skene, to W. B. Yeats, to J. M. Synge, and to those others who, like true descendants of the Druids, possess the power of unlocking the entrance gates of the Green Islands of the Blest.

Conchubar, or Conor, ruled the kingdom of the Ultonians, now Ulster, when Deirdre was born in Erin. All the most famous warriors of his time, heroes whose mighty deeds live on in legend, and whose title was "The Champions of the Red Branch," he gathered round him, and all through Erin and Alba rang the fame of the warlike Ultonians.

There came a day when Conor and his champions, gorgeous in their gala dress of crimson tunic with brooches of inlaid gold and white-hooded shirt embroidered in red gold, went to a feast in the house of one called Felim. Felim was a bard, and because not only was his arm in war strong and swift to strike, but because, in peace, his fingers could draw the sweetest of music from his harp, he was dear to the king. As they feasted, Conor beheld a dark shadow of horror and of grief fall on the face of Cathbad, a Druid who had come in his train, and saw that his aged eyes were gazing far into the Unseen. Speedily he bade him tell him what evil thing it was that he saw, and Cathbad turned to the childless Felim and told him that to his wife there was about to be born a daughter, with eyes like stars that are mirrored by night in the water, with lips red as the rowan berries and teeth more white than pearls; with a voice more sweet than the music of fairy harps. "A maiden fair, tall, long haired, for whom champions will contend ... and mighty kings be envious of her lovely, faultless form." For her sweet sake, he said, more blood should be spilt in Erin than for generations and ages past, and many heroes and bright torches of the Gaels should lose their lives. For love of her, three heroes of eternal renown must give their lives away, the sea in which her starry eyes should mirror themselves would be a sea of blood, and woe unutterable should come on the sons of Erin. Then up spoke the lords of the Red Branch, and grimly they looked at Felim the Harper:

"If the babe that thy wife is about to bear is to bring such evil upon our land, better that thou shouldst shed her innocent blood ere she spills the blood of our nation."

And Felim made answer:

"It is well spoken. Bitter it is for my wife and for me to lose a child so beautiful, yet shall I slay her that my land may be saved from such a doom."

But Conor, the king, spoke then, and because the witchery of the perfect beauty and the magic charm of Deirdre was felt by him even before she was born, he said: "She shall not die. Upon myself I take the doom. The child shall be kept apart from all men until she is of an age to wed. Then shall I take her for my wife, and none shall dare to contend for her."

His voice had barely ceased, when a messenger came to Felim to tell him that a daughter was born to him, and on his heels came a procession of chanting women, bearing the babe on a flower-decked cushion. And all who saw the tiny thing, with milk-white skin, and locks "more yellow than the western gold of the summer sun," looked on her with the fear that even the bravest heart feels on facing the Unknown. And Cathbad spoke: "Let Deirdre be her name, sweet menace that she is." And the babe gazed up with starry eyes at the white-haired Druid as he chanted to her:

"Many will be jealous of your face, O flame of beauty; for your sake heroes shall go to exile. For there is harm in your face; it will bring banishment and death on the sons of kings. In your fate, O beautiful child, are wounds and ill-doings, and shedding of blood.

"You will have a little grave apart to yourself; you will be a tale of wonder for ever, Deirdre."

Lady Gregory's Translation.

As Conor commanded, Deirdre, the little "babe of destiny," was left with her mother for only a month and a day, and then was sent with a nurse and with Cathbad the Druid to a lonely island, thickly wooded, and only accessible by a sort of causeway at low tide. Here she grew into maidenhood, and each day became more fair. She had instruction from Cathbad in religion and in all manner of wisdom, and it would seem as though she also learned from him some of that mystical power that enabled her to see things hidden from human eyes.

"Tell me," one day she asked her teacher, "who made the stars, the firmament above, the earth, the flowers, both thee and me?"

And Cathbad answered: "God. But who God is, alas! no man can say."

Then Deirdre, an impetuous child, seized the druidical staff from the hand of Cathbad, broke it in two, and flung the pieces far out on the water. "Ah, Cathbad!" she cried, "there shall come One in the dim future for whom all your Druid spells and charms are naught."

Then seeing Cathbad hang his head, and a tear trickle down his face, for he knew that the child spoke truth, the child, grieved at giving pain to the friend whom she loved, threw her arms about the old man's neck, and by her kisses strove to comfort him.

As Deirdre grew older, Conor sent one from his court to educate her in all that any queen should know. They called her the Lavarcam, which, in our tongue, really means the Gossip, and she was one of royal blood who belonged to a class that in those days had been trained to be chroniclers, or story-tellers. The Lavarcam was a clever woman, and she marvelled at the wondrous beauty of the child she came to teach, and at her equally marvellous mind.

One winter day, when the snow lay deep, it came to pass that Deirdre saw lying on the snow a calf that had been slain for her food. The red blood that ran from its neck had brought a black raven swooping down upon the snow. And to Lavarcam Deirdre said: "If there were a man who had hair of the blackness of that raven, skin of the whiteness of the snow, and cheeks as red as the blood that stains its whiteness, to him should I give my heart."

And Lavarcam, without thought, made answer:

"One I know whose skin is whiter than the snow, whose cheeks are ruddy as the blood that stained the snow, and whose hair is black and glossy as the raven's wing. He has eyes of the darkest blue of the sky, and head and shoulders is he above all the men of Erin."

"And what will be the name of that man, Lavarcam?" asked Deirdre. "And whence is he, and what his degree?"

And Lavarcam made answer that he of whom she spoke was Naoise, one of the three sons of Usna, a great lord of Alba, and that these three sons were mighty champions who had been trained at the famed military school at Sgathaig in the Isle of Skye.

Then said Deirdre: "My love shall be given to none but Naoise, son of Usna. To him shall it belong forever."

From that day forward, Naoise held kingship over the thoughts and dreams of Deirdre.

And when Lavarcam saw how deep her careless words had sunk into the heart of the maiden, she grew afraid, and tried to think of a means by which to undo the harm which, in her thoughtlessness, she had wrought.

Now Conor had made a law that none but Cathbad, Lavarcam, and the nurse of Deirdre should pass through the forest that led to her hiding-place, and that none but they should look upon her until his own eyes beheld her and he took her for his wife. But as Lavarcam one day came from seeing Deirdre, and from listening to her many eager questions about Naoise, she met a swineherd, rough in looks and speech, and clad in the pelt of a deer, and with him two rough fellows, bondmen of the Ultonians, and to her quick mind there came a plan. Thus she bade them follow her into the forbidden forest and there to remain, by the side of a well, until they should hear the bark of a fox and the cry of a jay. Then they were to walk slowly on through the woods, speaking to none whom they might meet, and still keeping silence when they were again out of the shadow of the trees.