DEIRDRE
“Beautiful the beginning of love,
A man and a woman and the birds of Angus above them.”
GAELIC BARD.
The birth of the child Deirdre, daughter of the chief poet of Ulla, was
attended with a great portent, for the child shrieked from the mother’s
womb. Cathvah and the Druids were consulted concerning that omen. They
addressed themselves to their art of divination, and having consulted
their oracles and gods and familiar spirits, they gave a clear counsel
to the Ultonians.
“This child,” they said, “will become a woman, in beauty surpassing all
the women who have ever been born or will be born. Her union with a man
will be a cause of great sorrow to the Ultonians. Let her, therefore,
be exposed after birth; or, if you would not slay the Arch-Poet’s only
child, let her be sternly immured; let her be reared to womanhood in
utter and complete and inviolable solitude, and live and die in her
virginity.”
The Ultonians determined that the child should live and be immured.
These things took place in the reign of Factna the Righteous, father of
Concobar. When the child was born she was called Deirdre. The Ultonians
appointed for her a nurse and tutoress named Levarcam. They built for
her and for the nurse a strong dun in a remote forest and set a ward
there, and they made a solemn law enjoining perpetual virginity on the
child of ill omen, and the Druids shed a zone of terror round the dun.
Concobar Mac Nessa in the wide circuit of his thoughts consulted always
for the inviolability of that law, and the stern maintenance of the
watching and warding.
Unseen and unobserved, forgotten by all save the wise elders of the
Ultonians and by Concobar their King, whose thoughts ranged on all sides
devising good for the Red Branch, the child Deirdre grew to be a maiden.
Though her beauty was extraordinary, yet her mind was as beautiful as
her form, so that the Lady Levarcam loved her exceedingly.
One day when the first flush of early womanhood came upon the maiden,
she said to her tutoress as they sat together and conversed--
“Are all men like those our guards who defend us against savage beasts
and the merciless Fomorians, dear Levarcam?”
“Those our guards are true and brave men,” said Levarcam.
“Surely they are,” said the girl, “and we lack no courtesy and due
attention at their hands, but dear foster-mother, my question is not
answered. Maybe it is not to be answered and that I am curious overmuch.
Are all men grim, grave, and austere, wearing rugged countenances scored
with ancient wounds, and bearing each man upon his shoulders the weight
of some fearful responsibility? Are all men like that, dear Levarcam?”
“Nay, indeed,” said the other, “there are youths too, gracious, and gay,
and beautiful, as well as grave men such as these.”
They sat together in their sunny grianan, [Footnote: A derivative
from Grian, the sun. The grianan was an upper chamber, more elegantly
furnished than the hall, usually with large windows and therefore
well lit and reserved for the use of women.] embroidering while they
conversed. It was early morning and the air was full of the noises and
odours of sweet spring-time.
“I know that now,” said the maiden, “which I only guessed before, for
waking or sleeping I have dreamed of a youth who was as unlike these
men as the rose-tree with its roses is unlike the rugged oak-tree or the
wrinkled pine that has wrestled with a thousand storms. I would wish to
have him for a playfellow and pleasant acquaintance. Of maidens, too,
such as myself I have dreamed, yet they do not appear to me to be so
alluring or so amiable as that youth.”
“Describe him more particularly,” said Levarcam. “Tell me his tokens one
by one that I may know.”
“He is tall and strong but very graceful in all his motions; and of
speech and behaviour both gay and gracious. He is white and ruddy,
whiter than snow and ruddier than the rose or the fox-glove, where the
heroic blood burns bright in his comely cheeks. His eyes are blue-black
under fine and even brows and his hair is a wonder, so dense is it, so
lustrous and so curling, blacker than the crow’s wing, more shining than
the bright armour of the chaffer. His body is broad above and narrow
below, strong to withstand and agile to pursue. His limbs long and
beautifully proportioned; his hands and feet likewise, and his step
elastic Smiles seldom leave his eyes and lips, and his mouth is a
fountain of sweet speech. O that I were acquainted with him and he with
me? I think we should be happy in each other’s company. I think I could
love him as well as I do thee, dear foster-mother.”
As she spoke, Deirdre blushed, and first she stooped down over her
work and then put before her face and eyes her two beautiful hands,
rose-white, with long delicate nails pink-flushed and transparent; and
tears, clearer than dewdrops, gushed between her ringers and fell in
bright showers upon the embroidery. Then she arose and flung her soft
white arms around Levarcam and wept on her bosom.
“There is one youth only amongst the Red Branch,” said Levarcam, “who
answers to that description, namely Naysi, the son of Usna, who is
the battle-prop of the Ultonians and the clear-shining torch of their
valour, and what god or druid or power hath set that vision before thy
mind, I cannot tell.”
“Would that I could see him with eyes and have speech with him,”
answered the girl. “If but once he smiled upon me and I heard the sweet
words flow from his mouth which is beyond price, then gladly would I
die!”
“Thou shall both see him and have speech with him, O best, sweetest,
dearest, and loveliest of all maidens. Truly I will bring him to thee
and thee to him, for there is with me power beyond the wont of women.”
Now Levarcam was a mighty Druidess amongst the Ultonians. So the lady in
whom they trusted forgot the ancient prophecies and the stern commands
of the Red Branch and of their King, owing to the great love which she
bore to the maiden and the great compassion which grew upon her day by
day, as she observed the life of the solitary girl and thought of the
cruel law to which all her youth and beauty and wealth of sweet love
beyond all the jewels of the world were thus barbarously sacrificed by
the Ultonians in obedience to soothsayers and Druids.
Naysi, son of Usna, once in a hunting became separated from his
companions. He wandered far in that forest, seeking some one who should
direct him upon his way. Oftentimes he raised his voice, but there was
no answer. Such were his beauty, his grace, and his stature, that he
seemed more like a god than a man, and such another as Angus Ogue, son
of Dagda, [Footnote: Angus Ogue was the god of youth and beauty, son of
the Dagda who seems to have been the genius of earth and its fertility
or perhaps the Zeus of our Gaelic mythology.] whose fairy palace is
on the margin of the Boyne. His head and his feet were bare. His short
hunting-cloak was dark-red with flowery devices along the edge. On his
breast he wore a brooch of gold bronze; carbuncles and precious stones
were set in the bronze, and it was carved all over with many spiral
devices. His shirt below the mantle was coloured like the tassels of the
willow trees. His hair was fastened behind with a clasp and an apple of
red gold, and that apple lay below the blades of his ample shoulders.
In one hand he bore a broken leash of red bronze, and in the other two
hunting spears with blades of flashing findruiney and the hafts were
long, slender, and shining. By his thigh hung a short sword in a sheath
of red yew and beside it the polished and nigh transparent horn of the
Urus, suspended in a baldrick of knitted thread of bronze. The grass
stood erect from the pressure of his light feet. His manly face had not
yet known the razor; only the first soft down of budding manhood was
seen there. His countenance was pure and joyous with bright beaming
eyes, and his complexion red and white and of a brilliancy beyond words.
In his heart was no guile, only indomitable valour and truth and
loyalty and sweet affection. He had never known woman save in the way of
courtesy. The very trees and rocks and stones seemed to watch him as he
passed.
Then suddenly and unawares an ice-cold air struck chill into his inmost
being, the bright earth was obscured and the sun grew dark in the
heavens and menacing voices were heard and horrid forms of evil,
monstrous, not to be described, came against him, and they bade him
return as he had come or they would tear him limb from limb in that
forest. Yet the son of Usna was by no means dismayed, only he flushed
with wrath and scorn and he drew his sword and went on against the
phantoms. In truth Naysi was at that moment passing through the zone of
terror which the Ultonian Druids had shed around the dun where Deirdre
was immured. The phantoms gave way before him and Naysi passed beyond
the zone. “Surely,” he said, “there is some chief jewel of the jewels of
the world preserved in this place.”
He came to an opening in the forest. Beyond it there was a great space
which was cleared and girt all round by trees. There was a dun in
its midst. Scarlet and white were the walls of that dun. There was
a watch-tower on one side of the dun and a man there sitting in the
watchman’s seat; a grianan on the other with windows of glass. The roof
of the dun was covered all over with feathers of birds of various hues,
and shone with a hundred colours. The doorway was the narrowest which
Naysi had ever seen. The door pillars were of red yew curiously carved,
having feet of bronze and capitals of carved silver, and the lintel
above was a straight bar of pure silver. A knotted band or thickening
ran round the walls of the dun like a variegated zone, for the colours
of it were many and each different from the colours on the walls. In
the world there was no such prison as there was no such captive as that
prison held. Armed men of huge stature and terrible aspect went round
the dun. Their habiliments were black, their weapons without ornament,
the pins of their mantles were of iron. With each company went a slinger
having his sling bent, an iron bolt in the sling, and his thumb in the
string-loop, men who never missed their mark and never struck aught,
whether man or beast, that they did not slay. Great hounds such as were
not known amongst the Ultonians went with those men. They were grey
above and tawny beneath, as large as wild oxen after the growth of
one year. They were quick of sight and scent, fiercer than dragons and
swifter than eagles; they were not quick of sight and scent to-day. The
Lady Levarcam had great power. In and around that dun were three hundred
men of war, foreigners, picked men of the great fighting tribes of
Banba. Such was the decree of the Ultonians and their wise King,
so greatly did they fear concerning those prophecies and omens and
concerning the child who in Emain Macha shrieked out of her mother’s
womb. Naysi regarded the dun with wonder and amazement, and with
amazement the astonishing rigour of the watch and ward which were kept
there, and the more he looked the more he wondered. It seemed to the
hunter that he had chanced upon one of the abodes of the enchanted races
of Erin, namely the Tuatha De Dana or the Fomorians, whom the sons of
Milesius by their might had driven into the mountains and unfrequented
places and who, now immortal and invisible, and possessing great druidic
power, were worshipped as gods by the Gael. He knew he was in great
peril, but his stout heart did not fail; he was resolved to see this
adventure to an end.
As he was about to step out into the open two women came from the door
of the grianan. One of them was old; she leaned upon her companion and
in her right hand held a long white wand squared save in the middle
where it was rounded for the hand grip, very long, unornamented, and
unshod at either extremity. Naysi paid slight attention to her, though,
as she was the first to come forth, he observed these things. The other
was young, tall, slender, and lissom, her raiment costly and splendid
like a high queen’s on some solemn day, and like a queen’s her behaviour
and her pacing over the flowery lawn. Never had that hunter seen such a
form, so proudly modest and virginal, such sweetness, grace, and majesty
of bearing. Presently, having passed a company of the guards, she flung
back the white, half-transparent veil that concealed her face. Then the
sudden radiance was like the coming unlocked for out of a white cloud of
that very bright star which shines on the edge of night and morning. All
things were transfigured in her light. Before her the grass grew greener
and more glittering and rare flowers started in her way. A silver basket
of most delicate craftsmanship, the work of some cunning cerd, was on
her right arm. It shone clear and sparkling against her mantle which
was exceedingly lustrous, many times folded, darkly crimson, and of
substance unknown. She towered above her aged companion, straight as
a pillar of red yew in a king’s house. So, unwitting, jocund, and
innocent, fresh and pure as the morning, she paced over the green
lawn, going in the direction of that youth, even Naysi, son of Usna the
Ultonian. Naysi’s loudly beating heart fell silent when he saw how she
came straight towards him; he retreated into the forest, so amazing and
so confounding was the radiance of that beauty. A company of those grim
warders, silent and watchful, followed close upon the women. As they
went they slipped the muzzles from the mouths of their dogs and lead
them forward leashed. The countenances of the men shewed displeasure.
From the tower the watchman cried aloud words in an unknown tongue,
hoarse, barbaric accents charged with energy and strong meaning. His
voice rang terribly in the hollows of the forest. There was a counter
challenge in the forest repeated many times, the voices of men mingled
with the baying of hounds. There was a ring of sentinels and dogs far
out in the forest. The son of Usna had gone through the ring. For twice
seven years and one that astonishing watch and ward had been maintained
day and night without relaxation or abatement. When they came to the
edge of the forest Levarcam addressed the commander of that company.
She said, “The Lady Deirdre would be alone with me in the forest for a
little space to gather flowers and listen to the music of the birds
and the stream, relieved, if but for one moment, of this watching and
warding.”
The man answered not a word. He was of the Gamanrdians, dwellers by the
Sue, which feeds the great Western River; [Footnote: The Shannon.] his
people were of the Clan Dega in the south, and of the children of Orc
[Footnote: In scriptural language “of the seed of the giants,” huge,
simple-hearted and simple-minded men, who could obey orders and ask no
questions.] from the Isles of Ore in the frozen seas. [Footnote: The
Orkney Islands.] The blood of the Fomoroh was in those men. The women
went on, and that grim company followed, keeping close behind. When they
gained the first cover of the trees Levarcam turned round and stretched
over them her wand. They stood motionless, both men and dogs. Then the
women went forward, and alone.
“Fill thy basket now with forest flowers, O sweetest, and dearest, and
fairest of all foster-children, and listen to the songs of the birds
and the music of the rill. Cull thy flowers, darling girl, and cull the
flower of thy youth, the flower that grows but once for all like thee,
the flower whose glory puts high heaven to shame, and whose odour makes
mad the most wise.”
“Where shall I gather that flower, O gentlest and most amiable of
foster-mothers? Is it in the glade or the thicket, or on the margent of
the rill?
“It is not to be found by seeking, O fairest of all maidens. Gather it
when thou meetest with it in the way. Wear it in thy heart, be the end
what it may. Verily thou wilt not mistake any other flower for that
flower.”
“I know not thy meaning, O wise and many-counselled woman, but there is
fear upon me, and trembling, and my knees quake at thy strange words.
Now, if the whole world were swallowed up I should not be surprised.
Surely the end of the world is very nigh.”
“It is the end of the world and the beginning of the world; and the end
of life and the beginning of life; and death and life in one, and death
and life will soon be the same to thee, O Deirdre!”
“There is amazement upon me, and terror, O my foster-mother, on account
of thy words, and on account of the gathering of this flower. Let us
return to the dun. Terrible to me are the hollow-sounding ways of the
unknown forest.”
“Fear not the unknown forest, O Deirdre. Leave the known and the
familiar now that thy time has come. Go on. Accomplish thy destiny. It
is vain to strive against fate and the pre-ordained designs of the high
gods of Erin. Truly I have failed in my trust. I see great wrath in
Emain Macha. I see the Red Branch tossed in storms, and a mighty riving
and rending and scattering abroad, and dismal conflagrations, and the
blood of heroes falling like rain, and I hear the croaking of Byves.
[Footnote: Badb, pronounced Byve, was primarily the scald-crow or
carrion-crow, secondarily a Battle-Fury.] Truly I have proved a brittle
prop to the Ultonians, but some power beyond my own drives me on.”
“What wild words are these, O wisest of women, and what this rending and
scattering abroad, and showers of blood and croaking of Byves because I
cull a flower in the forest?”
“Nay, it is nothing. Have peace and joy while thou canst, sweet Deirdre.
Thus I lay my wand upon thy bosom and enjoin peace!”
“Thou art weary, dear foster-mother. Rest thee here now a little space,
while I go and gather forest flowers. They are sweeter than those
that grow in my garden. O, right glad am I to be alone in the forest,
relieved from the observation of those grim-visaged sentinels, to stray
solitary in the dim mysterious forest, and to think my own thoughts
there, and dream my dreams, and recall that vision which I have seen. O
Naysi, son of Usna, sweeter than harps is the mere sound of thy name, O
Ultonian!”
Deirdre after that went forward alone into the forest.
Naysi, when he had started back into the forest stood still for a long
time in his retreat. It was the hollow of a tall rock beside a falling
stream of water, all flowing snow or transparent crystal. Holly trees
and quicken trees grew from its crest, and long twines of ivy fell down
before like green torrents. Behind them he concealed himself, when he
heard the cries and the challengings and the baying of the hounds. Then
he saw the maiden come along the forest glade by the margent of the
stream, her basket filled and over-flowing with flowers. The sentient
stream sang loud and gay to greet her approaching, with fluent liquid
fingers striking more joyously the chords of his stony lyre. Light
beyond the sun was shed through the glen before her. Birds, the
brightest of plumage and sweetest of note of all the birds of Banba,
[Footnote: One of Ireland’s ancient names.] filled the air with their
songs, flying behind her and before her, and on her right hand and on
her left. Through his lattice of trailing ivy the son of Usna saw her.
Her countenance was purer and clearer than morning-dew upon the rose or
the lily, and the rose and lily, nay, the whiteness of the snow of one
night and the redness of the reddest rose, were there. Her eyes were
blue-black under eyebrows black and fine, but her clustering hair was
bright gold, more shining than the gold which boils over the edge of the
refiner’s crucible. Her forehead was free from all harshness, broad and
intelligent, her beautiful smiling lips of the colour of the berries of
the mountain ash, her teeth a shower of lustrous pearls. Her face and
form, her limbs, hands and feet, were such that no defect, blemish or
disproportion could be observed, though one might watch and observe
long, seeking to discover them. In that daughter of the High Poet and
Historian of the Hound-race of the North, [Footnote: The hound was the
type of valour. Though Cuculain was pre-eminently the Hound, the Gaelic
equivalents of this word will be discovered in most of the famous
names of the cycle.] child of valour and true wisdom, the body did not
predominate over the spirit, or the spirit over the body, for as her
form was of matchless, incomparable, and inexpressible beauty, so her
mind was not a whit less well proportioned and refined. Jocund and
happy, breathing innocence and love, she came up the dell. The birds
of Angus [Footnote: Angus Ogue’s kisses became invisible birds whose
singing inspired love.] unseen flew above her and shed upon her
unearthly graces and charms from the waving of their immortal wings.
A silver brooch lay on her breast, the pin of fine bronze ran straight
from one shoulder to the other. On her head was a lustrous tyre or leafy
diadem shading her countenance, gold above and silver below. Her short
kirtle was white below the rose-red mantle, and fringed with gold thread
above her perfect and lightly stepping feet. Shoes she wore shining with
brightest wire of findruiney. As she came up the dell, rejoicing in her
freedom and the sweetness of that sylvan place and the solitude,
she contemplated the bright stream, and sang clear and sweet an
unpremeditated song.
Naysi stepped forth from his place, putting aside the ivy with his
hands, and came down the dell to meet her in her coming. She did not
scream or tremble or show any signs of confusion, though she had never
before seen any of the youths of the Gael. She only stood still and
straight, and with wide eyes of wonder watched him as he drew nigh, for
she thought at first that it was the genius of that glen and torrent
taking form in reply to her druidic lay. Then when she recognised
the comrade and playfellow of her vision, she smiled a friendly and
affectionate greeting. On the other hand, Naysi came trembling and
blushing. He bowed himself to the earth before her, and kissed the grass
before her feet.
They remained together a long time in the glen and told each other
all they knew and thought and felt, save one feeling untellable, happy
beyond all power of language to express. When Deirdre rose to go, Naysi
asked for some token and symbol of remembrance.
As they went she gathered a rose and gave it to Naysi.
“There is a great meaning in this token amongst the youths and maidens
of the Gael,” said he.
“I know that,” answered Deirdre. Deirdre returned to Levarcam.
“Thou hast gathered the flower,” said Levarcam.
“I have,” she replied, “and death and life are one to me now, dear
foster-mother.”
Naysi went away through the forest and there is nothing related
concerning him till he reached Dun Usna. It was night when he entered
the hall. His brothers were sitting at the central fire. Anli was
scouring a shield; Ardane was singing the while he polished a spear and
held it out against the light to see its straightness and its lustre.
They were in no way alarmed about their brother.
“I have seen Deirdre, the daughter of Felim,” he said.
“Then thou art lost!” they answered; the weapons fell from their hands
upon the floor.
“I am,” he replied.
“What is thy purpose?” they said.
“To storm the guarded dun, even if I go against it alone, To bear away
Deirdre and pass into the land of the Albanagh.” [Footnote: The Albanagh
were the people who inhabited the north and west of Scotland, in fact
the Highlanders. In ancient times they and the Irish were regarded as
one people.]
“Thou shalt not go alone,” they said. “We have shared in thy glory and
thy power, we will share all things with thee.”
They put their right hand into his on that promise. One hundred and
fifty nobles of the nobles of that territory did the same, for with
Naysi as their captain they did not fear to go upon any enterprise. They
knew that expatriation awaited them, but they had rather be with Naysi
and his brothers in a strange land than to live without them in Ireland.
So the Clan Usna with their mighty men stormed the dun and bore off
Deirdre and went away eastward to the Muirnicht. And they crossed the
Moyle [Footnote: The sea between Ireland and Scotland. “Silent, O Moyle,
be the roar of thy waters,”] in ships into the country of the Albanagh,
and settled on the delightful shores of Loch Etive and made swordland of
the surrounding territory. Great, famous, and long remembered were the
deeds of the children of Usna in that land.