A rich and abundant saga literature—Three leading periods or cycles—The myths and folk-tales—Problems to men of science—The philologists and anthropologists take opposite sides—Their theories—Attitude of the annalists and romancists of Ireland—Their craze for genealogy—Early settlers in Erin—Advent of the Milesians or Gaels—The Three Sorrows of Gaelic Storydom: (1) “The Tragedy of the Children of Tuireann”; (2) The fascinating “Aided of the Children of Lir”; (3) Story of “Deirdre and the Sons of Uisneach”—Extraordinary interest evinced in this saga—Marvellous output of texts and translations.
With the arrival of Christianity and its literary promulgators, St. Patrick and St Columba, authentic history may be said to have begun, first in Ireland, and then in Scotland. Before the fifth century there existed a rich and abundant saga literature transmitted by oral tradition. But even the very oldest of the tales we now have, could hardly have been written down in MS. form before the seventh or eighth century. Such is the general belief of scholars who have sifted and examined the earliest records.
The mass of saga carried over from pagan times, goes back over ages untold and immemorial. And yet it is found to sort out under great leading periods or cycles, three of which seem to stand out distinct and pre-eminent. These are known as the Mythological, the Heroic, and the Ossianic.
Roughly speaking, the Mythological cycle, beginning away back in the vague and dim past, stretches to near the beginning of the Christian era. The other cycles follow, filling up the 400 odd years that elapse before the dawn of written history.
The mythological stories are fewer than the rest, and of course more absurd and unintelligible. Most of them are found in O’Clery’s Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Invasions, 1630, of which the more important MSS. are the Books of Leinster and Ballymote. Their chief interest lies in the light they throw upon the early religious ideas of the Celt.
In a practical age like our own, most people are impatient of ancient myth and fairy tales. They seem so utterly unreal, absurd, and impossible, that it is hard to conceive how any sane mortal could have given them credence for one moment. And yet so universal are such stories among every race of mankind, and so credible and far-reaching in their influence in early times, that they have survived when multitudes of recorded facts have perished. They show that men, and especially primitive men, have the same kind of thoughts, desires, fancies, habits, and institutions all the world over.
The myths and folk-tales have a wonderful similarity, reappearing in different guise but in substance the same, among the most varied races and peoples, so that savages to-day in different continents and islands have beliefs and customs corresponding to those which stagger us in the sagas of our own Celtic ancestors, and quite as fantastic.
It is this which lends the fascination to students of comparative mythology and to the folk-lorist. What seems arrant nonsense and the height of absurdity to ordinary intelligence, lures them on to seek in these wild stories for the origins of belief, for the early conceptions which influenced men in their religion and in their life. Removed from primitive man by centuries of progress, and ruled as we are by a scientific view of the world, it is hard for us to put ourselves at the centre of vision and standpoint of our early ancestors, to whom the facts of life were more confused than they appear to us, and in a manner more uncanny and mysterious. Like the savage of to-day, judging from their myths, they conceived all things as animated and personal, capable of endless interchange of form. Men might become beasts, beasts might change into men. Even the gods appeared in human or bestial forms. Animals, plants, stones, earth, winds and waters, spoke and acted like human beings, changing their shapes accordingly.
This is the very essence of myth and fairy tale. Or as Professor Max Müller has expressed it, “What makes mythology mythological in the true sense of the word is what is utterly unintelligible, absurd, strange, or miraculous.”
What appears most incredible and repugnant, the ugly blots and scars of these narratives are just the problems to men of science. How to account for them? How to explain their origin? Over this, contending schools are constantly engaged in a kind of guerilla warfare. Leaving the archæologists to pursue their own studies among the material “survivals,” the philologists and anthropologists take opposite sides each in defence of his own particular theory.
Briefly stated, the difference between them is this: the philologists maintain that language—language as it were in a state of disease—is the great source of the mythology of the world. Professor Max Müller held this view and gave it a widely accepted vogue. The ugly scars he explained as due to the old words and popular sayings lingering on in a language after their original harmless and symbolic meanings had been lost. Thus what might have been originally a poetical remark about nature, might in process of time be interpreted colloquially and become an obscene, brutal, or vulgar myth. To go no further afield than the Hebrew sacred writings, when we think of an impassioned apostrophe to the sun, and the subsequent popular legend that the sun and the moon stood still, we see that the philologist argument is not without force and cogency.
Yet the anthropologists are more in the line of evolution, for they maintain that mythology on the whole represents an old stage of thought, from which civilised men have slowly emancipated themselves. This is also the view of Mr. Andrew Lang, who recently contributed a work on the subject. The scars so-called are the remains of that kind of taste, fancy, customary law, and incoherent speculation that prevail in human nature in its primitive barbarian state. And indeed when we contemplate the credulity, superstition, and readiness to accept the grotesque and fabulous, that dominate such inhabitants even of a civilised country as are kept ignorant and isolated, this theory seems to point to the main source of myth and fairy tale.
As in the early literature of Greece the gods and heroes are mixed up, so in the records of the Gael. But the annalists and romancists of Ireland, who had a passion for writing history, evidently had no inkling of this. The thought of mythology was far enough removed from their way of thinking, and such floating tales and personages and events as they found wafted towards them on the stream of tradition they took for actual fact. At any rate, they wove them into the story of the past of their nation in such a way as to lead us to believe that the mythical beings were as real to them as the kings and warriors of their own age. And these historians had quite a craze for genealogy; never satisfied unless they could trace their chiefs or heroes and ancestors up to Adam, which they invariably succeed in doing, bridging the gaps with very fertile ingenuity.
Thus the last great chasm to be spanned in the line of pedigree is the Deluge—to surmount which was a work more intricate and needing more skill in a manner than the Forth Bridge; for if they could once connect with Noah, the Bible record does the rest.
The feat is accomplished, set down by the annalists of the Middle Ages with all the plausibility of sober fact. Forty days before the Flood, the Lady Cæsair, niece or granddaughter of Noah—it is immaterial which—with fifty girls and three men came to Ireland. This, we are to understand, was the first invasion or conquest of that country. All these were drowned in the Deluge, except Finntan, the husband of the lady, who escaped by being cast into a deep sleep, in which he continued for a year, and when he awoke he found himself in his own house at Dun Tulcha. It is charming to note with what precision and sangfroid names are quoted in this legended history. At Dun Tulcha he lived throughout many dynasties down to the sixth century of our era, when he appears for the last time with eighteen companies of his descendants engaged in settling a boundary dispute. Being the oldest man in the world, he was ipso facto the best informed regarding ancient landmarks.
After the Flood various peoples in succession stepped on to the platform of Irish history. First the Partholans; then the Nemedians, Firbolgs, Tuatha de Danann, and last of all the Milesians, thus carrying the chronology down to the time of Christ. From the arrival of the earliest of these settlers, the Fomorians or “Sea Rovers” are represented as fighting and harassing the people. Sometimes in conjunction with the plague, at other times with the Firbolgs and Gaileoin and Fir-Domnann, they laid waste the land. The Partholans and Nemedians were early disposed of. And then appeared from the north of Europe, or from heaven, as one author says, the Tuatha de Danann, who at the great battle of Moytura South overcame the Firbolgs, scattering them to the islands of Aran, Islay, Rathlin, and the Hebrides, and afterwards defeating the Fomorians at Moytura North, thus gaining full possession of the land. Much of this fabulous history is taken up with these early struggles between the Fomorians and the Tuatha de Danann, of whom Breas and Lugh of the Longhand, and Dagda are the great heroes.
At length from Spain and the East came the last invaders, known under various names, as the Milesians, the Scots, or Gaels. They are the ancestors of our modern race, called Milesians from an ancestor Milé, and Gaels or Gaidels from an ancestor Gadelus. When they arrived at Tara, a vast army from over the seas, they met the three kings and queens of the Tuatha. The latter complained that they were taken by surprise, and entreated the Milesians to embark again on their ships that they might have a fair chance of opposing them. This they did, retreating for “nine waves” on the sea. But on facing about, lo! Ireland was not to be seen. The Tuatha de Danann by their enchantment had made the island as small as a pig’s back, and therefore invisible from the ships. Besides, they raised a violent storm with clouds and darkness. Many Milesian ships were wrecked, and a crisis was only averted by their leader, Amergin, who was also a Druid, pronouncing a Druidic prayer or oration, addressed it would seem to the Tuatha, when the storm immediately ceased and they landed in peace. After some skirmishes, the Tuatha eventually retire to the Land of Promise, the country of the Sìdh—fairy mounds, where in the popular lore they were till lately, taking considerable interest in the affairs of their quondam conquerors.
Druidism, it will be seen, enters largely into all these ancient contests, the opposing parties using spells as well as blows.
The Milesians we are supposed to have some knowledge of—with more or less of their blood in our veins. They are regarded as the main body of the Gaelic people. But who were the Tuatha de Danann and the Fomorians? Personifications of the forces of nature, or the Gaelic gods of the upper and lower worlds, argue writers on mythology. As Zeus, Poseidon, Pluto, and the rest of the Greek deities rule over the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the shades, so do the Tuatha, the pagan gods of the Gaelic people; while the Fomorians, vicious and troublesome as they were, may in their origin be none other than the sea powers—the rough chaotic tumult of the Atlantic Ocean, against which in the west of Ireland the various settlers had to contend.
But the early introduction of Christianity, throwing the pagan gods and traditions, as it did, into the limbo of perdition, renders it very difficult for us now to arrive at any definite and certain conclusions on these matters.
The literary interest of the mythological cycle centres largely in the “Three Sorrows of Story-telling,” two of which belong exclusively to it, the third to the Cuchulinn cycle. Though connected with the period of the Tuatha de Danann, it is well to remember that these two as well as the third were actually written later than the earliest of the heroic tales.
First comes the “Aided or Tragedy of the Children of Tuireann.” It is mentioned by Cormac in his Glossary (ninth or tenth century), and by Flann of Monasterboice (ob. 1056). The story is partially told in the Book of Lecain (cir. 1416), and is found in several MSS., including No. LVI. of the Scottish collection. O’Curry, O’Duffy, and Joyce have each at various times edited and published it with translation; the first in the Atlantis, vol. iv.; the second for the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language in Dublin, 1888; and the third in his Old Celtic Romances, London, 1879.
The scene opens near the ramparts of Tara, in the reign of Nuada of the silver arm. Two handsome, young, and well-formed men are seen approaching. Accosted by the doorkeeper, who had only one eye, they announced themselves as physicians, and subsequently offered to put his cat’s eye in the place of the one he had lost. This done, the substitute proved convenient and inconvenient, for when he desired to take sleep or repose, then the eye would start at the squeaking of the mice, the flying of the birds, and the motion of the reeds; whereas, when he wished to watch a host or an assembly the same organ continued in deep sleep. Similarly, but to better effect, the king was fitted with a new arm, namely, that of the swineherd, of equal length and thickness with his own. The bones only were removed from its original owner and set by the one leech, while the other sought herbs to put flesh and muscle upon it.
This introduction apparently has no bearing upon the story proper, which now begins.
The Fomorians who dwelt in Lochlann laid Ireland under heavy tribute. Whoever paid not the tax had his nose cut off. One day, when the King of Sire held a fair upon the hill of Balar, the Tuatha de Danann, who were there assembled, saw a goodly host coming towards them. This was Lugh Lamhfhada and the fairy cavalcade from the Land of Promise. Lugh was mounted on a steed which was as swift as the bleak, cold wind of spring, and sea and land were equal to her, and her rider was not killed off her back. When the troop came where the king was they presently saw a grim and ill-looking band advancing towards them—eighty-one Fomorian ambassadors come to lift the tax. Lugh arose and slaughtered them, leaving only nine to bring back the news. Incensed, the Fomorians, under Breas, the son of Balor of the mighty blows, resolved to invade Ireland and take revenge on Lugh. “And after ye have overcome him and his people,” said Balor to the departing warriors, “put your cables round this island of Erin which gives us so much trouble, and tie it to the stems of your ships; then sail home, bringing the island with you, and place it on the north side of Lochlann, whither none of the Tuatha will ever follow it.” Thus the Irish difficulty is not of yesterday, and Balor proposed to settle it in a very drastic way.
Lugh heard of their arrival and sent to assemble the fairy cavalcade from every place where they were. Cian, his father, traversing the plain of Muirtheimhne on this quest suddenly encountered three warriors—the sons of Tuireann, with whom, though relatives, he was at deadly feud. The only ruse he could think of for defence in this awkward plight was to strike himself with a Druidical wand into the shape of a pig, and join the herd of swine he saw feeding near him. But the brothers detected the trick, and Brian the eldest, with one swift stroke of a magic wand transformed the others into two slender fleet hounds, who gave tongue ravenously upon the trail of the Druidical pig. While the latter made for a wooded grove Brian’s spear transfixed her in the chest, and the pig screamed in human speech, imploring quarter. The only concession granted the unhappy beast was that she might return into her original shape and therein get killed. In this Cian had his revenge, for, instead of the eric of a pig, he assured them they would now be liable for an eric altogether oppressive, because of his rank.
Six times they buried the body and the earth refused it, but the seventh time they put it under the sod the earth took to it.
Meanwhile Lugh had joined issue with the Fomorians and got the victory. And after the slaughter and triumph of the battle, missing his father, he set out with the fairy cavalcade to find out what had befallen him. When lo! as he crossed the scene of his sire’s sad fate, the earth spoke to him and said:—
“Great was the jeopardy in which your father was here, O Lugh, when he saw the children of Tuireann, for he was obliged to go into the shape of a pig; nevertheless they subsequently killed him in his own shape.”
The body was thereupon dug up and examined. Lugh kissed it three times, uttering words of lamentation, and ending with a mournful lay.
“Cian was again placed in the grave after that, his tombstone was erected over his tomb, his dirge was sung, and his name inscribed in Ogam.”
And now it will be ill with the sons of Tuireann. Having reached Tara, and as he sat in honourable position next the King of Erin, Lugh looked round on the miscreants and ordered the Chain of Attention of the Court to be shaken, that all present might listen. Of the entire company the children of Tuireann were the best in agility and dexterity; they were the handsomest as well as the most honoured. So Lugh approached the subject of the death of his father and the vengeance due with circumspection and inquiry. Brian denied: “Nevertheless,” he said, speaking for himself and his brothers, “we shall give eric for him to thee, as though we had done the act.”
Thereupon, in presence of all, Lugh announced the compensation required, “namely, three apples, the skin of a pig, a spear, two steeds, a chariot, seven pigs, a whelp, a cooking spit, and three shouts on a hill.” A mere trifle this eric may seem, but it turned out afterwards, when the special items demanded were characterised, that there was as much hazard involved in getting any one of them as there was for the youthful David in another Court, and for another king, to get one hundred foreskins of the Philistines. Brian suspected treachery, but he accepted the bill, and with his two brothers went forth to seek the payment. Daring feats of valour have to be faced to get those wonderful apples from the Garden of Hesperides, and the skin of the pig of the King of Greece, and the well-poisoned spear of the King of Persia, and all the rest. But they got a loan of Lugh’s curach to ferry them over the wave wherever they wished, and their sister Eithne, going down to the harbour, uttered a lay over them as the warrior band put out from the beautiful and clearly-defined borders of Eire.
Success crowned their extraordinary adventures, much to the chagrin of Lugh, who sent a spell of magic after them to bring them back. They present him with their spoils, taken in strange and distant lands, only to be reminded that the full measure of the eric has yet to be discharged. On the morrow they went to their ship, and the maiden, with moist eyes, sees them off once more. Again they are successful. Thereafter, in attempting the last feat of all, namely, to give three shouts on the hill of Midkena in Lochlann, they got severely wounded by the spears of its champion guardians. And on their return they despatched their aged father, Tuireann, to Tara with all haste to seek from Lamhfhada the gifted skin to relieve them, but Lugh refused; and the life went forth from the brothers three at the same time.
Their father sang their death song, and “after that lay, Tuireann fell upon his children and his soul left him;” and they were interred, parent and sons, and, it is even alleged, sister too, all in one grave.
The “Tragedy of the Children of Lir” is the second in order of the Three Sorrows. Though set in the earliest cycle, it is not represented in any of the ancient MSS. The oldest as yet known to contain it is No. XXXVIII. of the Scottish collection, written at the latest in the early seventeenth century. There is a copy also in MS. LVI. All the other copies, which are pretty numerous, belong to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and are in the MSS. of Dublin and the British Museum. Monsieur H. d’Arbois de Jubainville in his survey noted no less than seventeen of these. The comparative lateness of the records has led Mr. Alfred Nutt to surmise that this story may simply be the Gaelic version of the “Seven Swans” märchen, once common in the country, and worked up by a monk of the sixteenth century—a suggestion Professor Mackinnon thinks not at all unlikely. O’Curry published the tale with a translation in the Atlantis, and Dr. P. W. Joyce included it in his Old Celtic Romances.
The incidents of this once very popular tale are as follows: In a conflict with the Milesians the Tuatha de Danann were defeated, and found it necessary to deliberate on the policy they must pursue and the king they should elect. Various candidates are eligible, but Bodhbha Dearg is ultimately chosen. In high dudgeon, Lir, who sought the exalted position for himself, left the assembly and returned to his own Sìdh. So far from retaliating, the new ruler, when Lir’s wife died, sent for him and offered him his choice of three of the most beautiful and best-instructed maidens in all Erin. He took the eldest of these sisters and married her. But she died, leaving four handsome children, a daughter and three sons. A second time Lir had his choice, and Eva, sister number two, came as spouse to his home at Sìdh Fionnachaidh. A devoted stepmother she proved to the children, till by and by green-eyed jealousy infected her. She saw that their father would often rise from his bed in the dawn of the morning and go to theirs to fondle them. And fancying herself slighted, “she lay in bed a whole year filled with gall and brooding mischief.”
The outcome of this passion was a plot to do away with the children, whom for the purpose she enticed to a lonely spot and bribed her servants to slay. This they refused to do, and although she made the attempt herself she had not the nerve to execute it. “Her woman’s weakness prevented her.” Yet she had her revenge in a curious way. She got the children to bathe in Lake Dairbhreach, and once there, by Druidical enchantment she transformed them into four beautiful snow-white swans. As such for 300 years they swim back and fore on the smooth lake, then for 300 in the Sruth na Maoile (off Kintyre), and 300 more at Iorus Domnann and Innis Gluaire, in the Western Sea. And in no way could they escape their bird life “until the union of Larguen, a prince from the north, with Becca, a princess from the south,” or as the Irish version adds, “until Talchend Adzehead (that is, St. Patrick) shall come to Erin, bringing the light of a pure faith, and until ye hear the voice of the Christian bell.”
The vindictive Eva repented her evil deed, but could not undo the mischief. To ameliorate their lot, she granted her enchanted victims the use of their Gaelic speech, of their human reason, and the power of singing sweet, plaintive, fairy music, surpassing all known in the world in its harmony and soothing influence.
Swift retribution ultimately overtook this once beautiful woman; for when the king heard of her cruel deed, he asked her “what shape of all others on the earth, or above the earth, or under the earth she most abhorred?” To which she replied, “A demon of the air.” “A demon of the air you shall then be to the end of time,” said the angry Bodhbha Dearg.
Meanwhile the centuries roll over the children of Lir on the peaceful Lake Dairbhreach, not altogether without sunshine, since the people—Milesians and Tuatha de Danann alike—were wont to crowd on its shore to hear their music and watch their graceful movements. But the time came when they found themselves in “the current of Mull,” tossed on the stormy seas twixt Erin and Alba, and here they had to dree their weird with much suffering for another cycle; sometimes separated from each other in the storm and darkness; at other times almost frozen to death on Carraig-nanròn. Hapless birds! the slow moving ages bring them to the third stage, which is pretty much a repetition of their experiences in the second. For in the Western Ocean round Glora Isle they are still tormented by the restless wave and the cold and vicious winds of winter, till their three hundred years therein are accomplished.
And then at last St Kemoc comes; they hear the sound of the Christian bell and their spell is broken. Thereafter the children of Lir, no longer swans, receive Christian baptism and die. For rashly attempting to take the birds prematurely away from his protection one of the MSS. asserts that St. Kemoc cursed King Larguen with righteous energy. And after their death, in the manner of the previous interments, he buried these ill-starred children all in one grave, sang their death-song, performed their funeral rites, raised their tomb, and wrote their names in Ogam. Thus ended their chequered career, which lasted well-nigh a millennium.
The third Sorrow of Gaelic storydom, that of “Deirdre and the Sons of Uisneach,” does not belong, strictly speaking, to the mythological cycle; yet it is prehistoric and mythical in every other respect, though devoid of the absurd and fantastical elements so characteristic of the other two. Indeed it may have sprung, as Mr. J. F. Campbell maintains, from some Indo-European romance, the common heritage in one form or other of the Aryan family from India to Ireland. The tale is at once the oldest and most famous of the three Aideds, and must have had a wide vogue in early times, for it is mentioned in so ancient an authority as the Book of Leinster, that it was one of the primscela that the bards were bound to know. Many versions of the saga exist, but chiefly in ballad form.
The oldest and shortest is that in the Book of Leinster, twelfth century, with which may be classed one in the Yellow Book of Lecain, fourteenth century, and in the Egerton MS., British Museum. The best and fullest version, now published, is generally held to be that obtained from MSS. LIII. and LVI. of the Scottish collection, the former a vellum of the fifteenth century. In addition to various other documents in the Advocates’ Library, such as Nos. V. and XLVIII., which contain fragments, Monsieur H. d’Arbois de Jubainville found seventeen copies of the legend in later MSS. in London and Dublin.
The extraordinary interest evinced in this saga is not confined to ancient or medieval times, but continues unabated down to our own day, if we may judge by the attention it has received at the hands of authors, editors, and translators. Nearly every foremost scholar of the nineteenth century has dealt with it in text, or notes, and translation.
Of many and various publications in modern times, the following will suffice to show the place it holds in Celtic literature. The texts, printed sometimes with notes and translation, are usually of different versions.
O’Flanagan, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin, 1808; O’Curry, Atlantis, vol. iii. 1860, from Yellow Book of Lecain; Campbell, Leabhar na Feinne, 1872; Windisch, Irische Texte, vol. i. Leipzig, 1880; Dr. Whitley Stokes, Irische Texte, vol. ii. Leipzig, 1887, the former from Book of Leinster, the latter from MSS. LIII. and LVI., Advocates’ Library. Dr. Cameron’s Reliquiæ Celticæ, also from MS. LVI. Windisch, O’Curry’s and O’Flanagan’s texts, reprinted Gaelic Journal, Dublin, 1882–84. Carmichael, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. xiii. 1887, an admirable folk-lore version taken down in the Western Isles from oral recitation. Angus Smith, in his Loch Etive and Sons of Uisneach, treats it fictionally in dialogue form, 1879.
Keating tells the tale in his History of Ireland. It is found in part in the Welsh story of Peredur, taken apparently from a fifteenth century MS. Mr. Joseph Jacobs has given in English dress, in Celtic Fairy Tales, an abridged account from Carmichael’s version. Of French translators, H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, M. Georges Dottin, and M. Louis Ponsinet may be mentioned. Of poetical English versions there is no lack. Macpherson treated it specially in Darthula, Sir James Ferguson dramatised it, Dr. Joyce published it in America (Deirdre: Boston and Dublin), and Drs. Todhunter and Douglas Hyde have given other renderings. Mr. T. W. Rolleston made it the subject of the Prize Cantata of the Fèis Ceoil in Dublin in 1897.
Truly a marvellous output of texts and translations, rivalling any in the whole range of our Gaelic literature. And the above catalogue does not by any means exhaust the list. The wonder is that the saga should be found in remote and outlying corners of the Highlands floating by oral tradition down to our own time. Fletcher got a version about 1750, Irvine took down part of the verse about 1801 from a fox-hunter on Tayside, Carmichael from an old Macneill in Barra in 1871. The story is of additional interest to us because it is laid partly in Ireland and partly in Scotland, among that beautiful scenery around Loch Etive so well known to native and tourist.
The story opens at Emain Macha, or Emania, where, with the nobles of Ulster, King Conchobar is feasting in the house of Feidhlim the bard. During the entertainment Feidhlim’s wife gave birth to a daughter; and Cathbad the Druid forthwith prophesied that the child would grow up “a maiden fair, tall, long-haired, for whom champions would contend.” Her lips would be cherry-red over pearly teeth; her lovely form the envy of high queens. Deirdre, the Druid named her, and thrilled the company by announcing that her queenly beauty would yet involve the province in heavy woes.
All the nobles present, instantly wished to circumvent such destiny by having the child put to death. Conchobar intervened: “Let not that be done,” said he; “I will take her with me and send her to be reared that she may become my own wife.” Deirdre was accordingly removed and kept apart in a fortress, seeing no one but her tutor and nurse and Lebarcham, the king’s banchainte or conversation woman. Shot up at length into the fair maiden of Cathbad’s prediction, she happened one snowy day to be looking out, when she observed her oide (tutor) killing a calf, and a raven came to drink the blood. “Dear to me” she exclaimed, “would be the man who would have the three colours yonder on him, his hair like the raven, his cheek like the blood, and his body like the snow.” “Such an one is Naois, son of Uisneach,” suggested the banchainte.
They met, Deirdre and he. A kinsman of the king and one of three gifted brothers, this Naois stood head and neck taller than any man in Erin, and peerless in strength, courage, and manly beauty. When he or his brothers sang, the cows gave two-thirds additional milk and people were enchanted. Their prowess was such that the three together could meet all Ulster in arms.
Deirdre adored Naois, and proposed that they twain should elope. At first he refused, but bewitched by her charms and entreaties he yielded. The brothers went off, taking their followers, 150 men with their wives and greyhounds. For a time they were pursued round Erin to Ballyshannon, Howth, Rathlin, till they sought refuge in Alba and sailed for Loch Etive. From that beautiful centre they made many excursions inland, living in hunting booths, chasing the deer on the mountains, assisting the King of Alba, who needed their help, and living joyous and free; a most romantic life, full of incident and full of happiness.
After a time Conchobar hatched a plot to lure them back. First he approached Cuchulinn and Conall Cearnach to undertake a mission. But these champions, suspecting treachery, gave blunt refusal. At length Fergus Mac Roich was induced to go, not without misgivings. When he arrived with his two sons and bargeman, Naois and Deirdre were sitting together in their hunting booth playing at chess. Fergus went into the glen and raised his sweet-voiced warning cry, after the manner of a hunter. Naois heard the sound and said, “I hear the cry of a man of Erin.” Deirdre dissimulated at first, “That was not the cry of a man of Erin but the cry of a man of Alba.” Afterwards she explained it was because of a dream she had had, which she felt foreboded evil. The emissaries spend the night with them and win over Naois.
Next morning they all sail away, returning to Erin, and as the land fades from her view, Deirdre with mingled regret and presentiment, sings or recites a beautiful lay, describing the shores of Loch Etive and the charms of the life she led in the glens. The following rendering is from Dr. Skene, the few verses here quoted indicating the feeling and passion of the old lyric:—
The upshot of this fateful voyage was that Fergus, their guardian, was unwittingly decoyed to a feast through the King’s strategy, his son Buinne Borb was bribed to act the traitor, and the sons of Uisneach were slain. But not before they had done mighty execution against the hosts of Conchobar, and kept them at bay till his Druid put a sea with high waves across the plain before them, while their foes had the benefit of dry land on which to attack from behind.
Deirdre was distracted at the loss of her lover. Taken to the King’s palace, for the space of a whole year even the raising of her head or the giving of a smile she did not concede, till Conchobar, chagrined with such moping, resolved to send her away for a time with Eogan who slew Naois. On the way the evil man flung her a brutal taunt, suggestive of her defencelessness, which when Deirdre heard she gave a start, made a wild leap from the chariot, and her brains were dashed in fragments against a pillar stone that stood opposite. But the manner of her death is otherwise told in the popular version, apparently with more romantic effect and less probability. All through, the narrative is interspersed with touching lays, expressive of the heroine’s feelings at various times. Thus after her loss:—
Cathbad, the Druid, in retaliation for Conchobar’s dissimulation, curses Emain Macha; and Fergus Mac Roich, resenting the dastardly treachery that brought the noble sons of Uisneach to an untimely grave, took service under Queen Meve of Connaught and harassed Ulster for years. At length Nemesis overtook the guilty Conchobar. Emania is levelled to the ground, never again to be rebuilt. None of his race inherit the proud walls of that ancient citadel.
Thus, like Helen of Troy, was Deirdre the unhappy cause of strife and calamity to the land and its people, to the lover and friends she held so dear—fateful Deirdre and hapless sons of Uisneach!