When Echaid Yellow-Heel was King of Ulster, he had a daughter called
Assa. She was educated apart from her father’s residence by twelve
tutors, and none of these had ever trained a pupil who was so docile,
so teachable, or so affectionate. She loved knowledge, and so she loved
learned men and would be always in their company.
One day she went on a visit to her father’s court, and when she
returned to her lessons she found that her twelve tutors had been
murdered, and there was nothing to tell who had killed them.
From that moment her nature changed. She put on the dress of a
female warrior, gathered a company about her, and went marauding and
plundering in every direction. She was no longer called Assa (the
Gentle), but Nessa, or the Ungentle, was her name thenceforth.
Cathfa, the son of Ross, was then a young, powerful, and ambitious man,
learning magic, or practising what he had learned, and it was he had
slain the tutors, but Nessa did not know this. It may be that Cathfa
had visited the tutors during her absence, and, for young magicians do
not love argument, he may have killed them after a dispute.
Once, on one of her marauding expeditions, she went questing in a
wilderness. At a distance there was a spring of clear water, and,
while her people were preparing food, Nessa went to this spring to
bathe. She was in the water when Cathfa passed, for he also was in that
wilderness, and when he saw the girl’s body he loved her, for she was
young and lovely. He approached, and placed himself between the girl
and her dress and weapons, and he held a sword over her head.
“Spare me,” she pleaded.
“If you will be my wife I will spare you,” said Cathfa.
She agreed to that, for no other course was open to her, and they
rejoined her party.
They were married, and Nessa’s father gave them a bride-gift of land,
called afterwards Rath Cathfa, in the country of the Picts in Crí Ross.
In time a son was born to those two, namely, Conachúr mac Nessa, for it
was by his mother’s name he was known, and it was for him that Cathfa
made the poem beginning:
Welcome to the stranger that has come here.
There are some who say, however, that Fachtna the Mighty had been the
leman of Nessa, and that it was he was the father of Conachúr instead
of Cathfa. If so, as Fachtna was the son of Maga, who was daughter of
Anger mac an Og of the Brugh, then Conachúr had the blood of a god
in his veins as well as the blood of a mortal, and much of his great
success and of his terrible failure can be accounted for; for the gods
are unlucky in love, so, too, the son of a wise mother is unlucky in
love, as is also the man who is fortunate in war.
After some time Nessa left her husband, taking her son with her. It may
be that she had discovered he was the murderer of her tutors. It may
have been that she did not love him; it may even be that she did not
like being wife to a magician, or he may have grown tired of her. But
she never returned to him again.
But when Conachúr was a youth Nessa was still the most beautiful woman
of Ulster. The then King of Ulster, Fachtna the Mighty, died, and his
young half-brother, Fergus, the son of Roy, wife of Ross the Red, son
of Rury, came to the throne. Fergus was then eighteen years of age and
Conachúr was sixteen, and, like Conachúr, Fergus also was known by his
mother’s name instead of his father’s.
Nessa came to the Ulster court with her son, and while there Fergus
fell madly in love with her, and she could in no way avoid the
importunities of that monstrous youth, for Fergus was gigantic in bulk
and stature.
“I shall marry you on one condition,” said Nessa.
“I agree to it beforehand,” said Fergus.
“You know the great love I bear my son, Conachúr?”
“I also love him,” said Fergus.
“His descent is kingly,” she said, “and I desire that he should be a
king if it were only for a year. If you resign the crown to him during
our first year of marriage I will marry you.”
“I will do that,” said Fergus.
That was done, and for a year Fergus and Nessa lived happily together.
But Nessa was not entirely absorbed in love. She was still thinking of
her son. During that year she arranged a marriage for Conachúr with
Clothru, the daughter of the High King of Ireland, and she spent a vast
treasure in working among the nobles and important people of Ulster, so
that they became of her son’s party as against the party of her husband.
Indeed, her young husband had no party, for he was the least suspicious
man living in the world, and, except in matters of honour or war, he
would make no plans and take no trouble. Nor was Conachúr idle during
his year of kingship. His ability was marvellous, and his energy as
wonderful. Feuds that seemed to be endless were settled by him. Foreign
affairs that threatened or hung offered him no trouble. But it was from
the Judgement Seat that his fame spread most quickly.
“A fool,” said the proverb, “can give judgement, but who will give us
justice?” No question was so tangled but that swift mind could pierce
it; no matter was too ponderous to be weighed by him, or too light to
escape his attention. He knew all, he attended to all; everything he
touched was bettered, and men said that until that year Ulster had
never known prosperity, or peace, or justice, but only the imitation of
these. Conachúr was every man’s friend, and in a short time every man
was his.
Fergus returned to a court that had forgotten him, or that was so
blinded by the new prodigy that they saw nothing when they looked
elsewhere. It was held that Fergus had actually resigned the kingship,
or that he had given it as a dowry to his wife; and, although the young
lord may have been dismayed, the representation of the nobles, and, in
particular, the wit and cajolery of his wife, arranged that matter, so
that he made no effort to regain his kingdom, and in a short time he
was the most devoted admirer of Conachúr in the realm.
It is possible that Nessa left him then, or that she died, but we do
not hear of her again.
Conachúr’s married life may have been happy, but it was short. At the
end of about eight months Clothru returned to Connacht on a visit to
the High King, her father. We do not know what happened, but a dispute
arose between Clothru and her youngest sister, Maeve.[3] Maeve struck
a blow that killed Clothru, and Conachúr’s first child was born in its
mother’s death agonies.
When this news came to Ulster Conachúr set out to demand reparation
or vengeance, but when he beheld Maeve his ideas underwent a horrible
change. He had never seen anything like this queenly creature. He had
not imagined that there could be in the world a girl so wonderful
as she, for she was brave and able and of a marvellous loveliness.
Conachúr’s hard mind would not flinch when once his lusts were aroused.
His vengeance and his desire made common cause. He married Maeve
against her wish, and without her consent, and he bore her back with
him to Ulster, a queen, a captive, and, notwithstanding her crime, a
deeply wronged woman.
Fergus mac Roy and Maeve, these were his victims, and from them there
was to arise a story which would seem to the king as unending as time
itself. Those two, and Deirdre!
[3] It was this Maeve, anciently spelled “Madb,” who became afterwards
“Mab” the Queen of the Fairies of Spenser and Shakespeare.