Deirdre

Once on a time Conachúr mac Nessa[1] was on a journey, and had to pass the night at the house of Felimid mac Dall, his storyteller. He was annoyed because his wife, Maeve, had n...

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 traine...

Deirdre grew up in a place apart at Emania. She saw no people of any kind, except Lavarcham, the king’s “conversation-woman,” and her women servants; for always about the castle...

It happened at last that Maeve came to the decision which for a long time had been forming in her mind. She decided that she would not remain with the King of Ulster any longer,...

Her immediate intention was to get away from Ulster and so to order her conduct in the meantime that the king, who suspected everything and foresaw all, would have no suspicion...

Maeve had her own bodyguard of soldiers, close on one thousand men, who had come with her from Connacht, and from whom she refused to be parted. She was herself their captain, a...

It was as well that the king was in Leinster at the time of Maeve’s flight. Had he been nearer home he would have been obliged to do something, and, in such a situation, to do a...

What woman in Lavarcham’s place could avoid treating her master’s later affairs without something of sentimentality creeping into the terms? And what young girl could regard Mae...

This conversation greatly exercised Lavarcham, and she cast about for some means whereby she might restrain her ward. It was waste of time, as she quickly saw, for who that has...

They received her with the scant show of surprise which youth, so proud of appearances, so jealous of its own dignity, extends to the unknown, and, after the brief word of welco...

They feel, moreover, at a loss in that art wherein a girl seems instinctively wise; for as a young bee will undertake untaught the curious angles and subtle perfections of his h...

Therefore, when she next spoke to the king her mind was stirred by uneasiness, and she had all that feeling of haste and work to be done which comes to us when we seem void of d...

The sense of urgency and unmeditated haste which for some time had been in her mind was greater than ever, as though she were being pressed to an action, thoroughly comprehended...

She could not rest there, although she lay with the endless patience of a cat, staring hour after hour into the gloom and seeing in it more of radiance than the sun could show.

The moon was at her last quarter, a pale thin sickle that shone and disappeared and reappeared in a mass of hastily scudding cloud. During that eclipse obscurity fell on the air...

She stood again behind a tree, looking on the camp-fire and the three figures that stretched or moved about it. She listened, but now without joy, to the babel of laughter which...

If Lavarcham had ever permitted herself excitement she would have been excited the next day. But there is a curious means by which we may postpone the spending of our emotions....

With a keen glance he took in all that was to be seen. The woodwork of the walls and floors that were polished and polished again until they shone like crystal. The great carved...

In ten seconds the floor rugs had sailed from their anchorages and were lying some neatly inside out and all in woeful askewness. The chairs left their military formation; some...

“In a week,” she said, “you will be gone from here, and our home will be desolate indeed. But although the king called this a bleak den, and spoke of our demesne as a mangy fiel...

He did not see the humble people who louted and stared as he dashed by, nor the others who stood at strict attention marvelling at a king who returned no salute.

She had seen the king at last: that being, all memory and dream, half monster and half baby, whom she remembered from Lavarcham’s endless tale. She had seen the grave brow, the...

She came away bowed and blind and dizzy, shuffling in any direction and unaware of why she was walking or where she was going. An hundred thoughts, battling furiously for preced...

Time flies, scattering on all that had seemed important the ash of forgetfulness, and so crowding memory into memory that the thing we recollect has no longer the shape or colou...

Household banquets were common matters at his court, but this was to be a State banquet, and every person who could be thought of as noble or notable was invited to the Red Branch.

It was at the heart of the banquet. The food had been eaten, and mead and ale and wine were circulating. Gentlemen were politely pledging each other’s ladies, and the ladies wer...

“First you are to send Conall to me. Half an hour afterwards you shall send Cúchulinn. In another half-hour you shall send me Fergus, and when he comes you shall see that Borach...

On the slope of a sunny hill overlooking Loch Eitche, Deirdre was cooking the meal which her husband and his brothers had run to earth and carried home on their shoulders.

“That man!” said Fergus, indicating one who stood apart and issued commands. “I surely know that man! It is Borach,” he laughed. “It is the man who feeds people on sharks,” and...

As the travellers proceeded they were morose and thoughtful, and even Ardan’s high spirits flagged. But as they looked on a native sky, and on the fields and hedgerows of an Iri...

They stood on the slope of a hill in a rounded and rolling country looking down on Emain Macha. The evening was advanced, and the late sunlight, all a glimmer of gold, was shini...

He was seated in the central room away in the heart of his monstrous palace, and the great crystal ball swung at his shoulder. He had stared into it for hours and had seen nothing.

“The first portion,” he continued gravely, “shall be for Buinne, the second for Iollann, the third for Deirdre, the fourth for Ainnle, the fifth for Ardan, and the sixth for Nao...

“Thus ...!” said Conachúr. “And we fash ourselves for these things and spend our years and our pith ...! Fill my cup, Lavarcham. Let the years go and the rest, for we are fools...

“I thought so,” said Naoise. “They cannot get in through the windows because of the bars, but they could manage to fly an arrow through, although it would be an awkward shot.”

“A fortress with six doors. They leap in and out of these doors the way frogs leap in a pool. While we are using the ram on this door they make a sally by another door, this doo...

“He will move about,” Naoise replied. “We would never know where he is, and we should only waste time. We have but to hold out until the morning, and we can do it with ease. Why...

He bent his head sideward and hearkened in amazement. The others listened, with their eyes turned questioningly on each other. They listened to nothing, for the ram had ceased a...

“There is nothing to get, majesty. Their plan is the simplest. They have six doors: they choose one to come out by and one to get in by. That is the whole plan.”

“We are yet three,” said Naoise. “Draw the bolts, Ainnle, for one sortie of friendship. We have no doorman, for Deirdre could not close or open the door by herself. You and I, A...

“Do not look at him,” said Conachúr. “He is already a dead man; let him be forgotten. All tricks and troubles are ended for you, sweet bird; you shall have peace.”