After her lay of lamentation she falls into the grave where the three are being buried, and dies above them. "Their flag was raised over their tomb, and their names were written in Ogam, and their funeral games were celebrated. Thus far the tragedy of the sons of Usnach."
The oldest and briefest version of this fine saga, that preserved in the Book of Leinster, ends differently, and even more tragically. On the death of Naoise, who is slain the moment he appears on the lawn of Emania, Déirdre is taken, her hands are bound behind her back and she is given over to Conor.
"Déirdre was for a year in Conor's couch, and during that year she neither smiled nor laughed nor took sufficiency of food, drink, or sleep, nor did she raise her head from her knee. When they used to bring the musicians to her house she would utter rhapsody—
"'Lament ye the mighty warriors
Assassinated in Emania on coming,' etc."When Conor would be endeavouring to sooth her, it was then she would utter this dirge—
"'That which was most beauteous to me beneath the sky,
And which was most lovely to me,
Thou hast taken from me—great the anguish—
I shall not get healed of it to my death,' etc."'What is it you see that you hate most?' said Conor.
"'Thou thyself and Eoghan [Owen] son of Duthrecht,'[8] said she.
"'Thou shalt be a year in Owen's couch then,' said Conor. Conor then gave her over to Owen.
"They drove the next day to the assembly at Muirtheimhne. She was behind Owen in a chariot. She looked towards the earth that she might not see her two gallants.
"'Well, Déirdre,' said Conor, 'it is the glance of a ewe between two rams you cast between me and Owen.'
"There was a large rock near. She hurled her head at the stone, so that she broke her skull and was dead.
"This is the exile of the sons of Usnach and the cause of the exile of Fergus and of the death of Déirdre."
It was in consequence of Conor's treachery in slaying the sons of Usnach while under Fergus's protection that this warrior turned against his king, burnt Emania, and then seceded into Connacht to Oilioli [Ulyul] and Mève, king and queen of that province, where he took service with about fifteen hundred Ultonians who, indignant at Conor, seceded along with him. "It was he," says Keating, summing up the substance of the sagas, "who carried off the great spoils from Ulster whence came so many wars and enmities between the people of Connacht and Ulster, so that the exiles who went from Ulster into banishment with Fergus continued seven, or as some say, ten years in Connacht, during which time they kept constantly spoiling, destroying and plundering the Ultonians, on account of the murder of the sons of Usnach. And the Ultonians in like manner wreaked vengeance upon them, and upon the people of Connacht, and made reprisals for the booty which Fergus had carried off, and for every other evil inflicted upon them by the exiles and by the Connacht men, insomuch that the losses and injuries sustained on both sides were so numerous that whole volumes have been written upon them, which would be too long to mention or take notice of at present."
It was with the assistance of Fergus and the other exiles that Mève undertook her famous expedition into Ulster, of which we must now speak.
[1] Pronounced "Dare-dră," said to mean "alarm." Jubainville translates it "Celle-qui-se-débat."
[2] In the older form Leborcham. She is generally described as Conor's messenger; in one place she is called his bean-cainte or "talking-woman"; this is the only passage I know of in which she is credited with any higher powers. She is said elsewhere to have been the daughter of two slaves of Conor's household, Oa or Aué and Adarc.
[3] Yet when in Trinity College Dublin, a few years ago, the subject—the first Irish subject for twenty-seven years—set for the Vice-Chancellor's Prize in English verse was "Déirdre," it was found that the students did not know what that word meant, or what Déirdre was, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral. So true it is that, despite all the efforts of Davis and his fellows, there are yet two nations in Ireland. Trinity College might to some extent bridge the gap if she would, but she has carefully refrained from attempting it.
[4] O' Flanagan first printed two versions of it in the solitary volume which comprises the "Transactions of the Gaelic Society," as early as 1808. The older of these two versions agrees closely with that contained in "Egerton, 1782," of the British Museum, but neither of the MSS. which he used is now known to exist. Eugene O'Curry edited the story from the text in the Yellow Book of Lecan, with a translation in the "Atlantis," a long defunct Irish periodical. Windisch edited the oldest existing version, that of the Book of Leinster, in the first volume of "Irische Texte." None of these three versions differ appreciably. In the second volume of the same, Dr. Whitley Stokes edited a consecutive text from 56 and 53 of the MSS. in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, the latter of which is a vellum of the fifteenth century. Finally, the text of both these MSS. was published in full in vol. ii. of Dr. Cameron's "Reliquiæ Celticæ," where he also gives a translation of the first. Keating, too, in his history, retells the story at considerable length. Windisch's, O'Curry's, and O'Flanagan's texts were reprinted in 1883 in the "Gaelic Journal." In addition to all these Mr. Carmichael published in Gaelic in 1887 an admirable folk-lore version of the story from the Isles of Scotland in the thirteenth volume of the "Transactions of the Inverness Gaelic Society," and the tale is retold in English, chiefly from this version, by Mr. Jacobs in the first series of his "Celtic Fairy Tales." M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has given a French translation of the entire story from the Book of Leinster, the older Edinburgh MS., and the Highland Folktale, the latter two being translated by M. Georges Dottin. Macpherson made this story the foundation of his "Darthula." Dr. Dwyer Joyce published the story in America as an English poem. Sir Samuel Ferguson, Dr. Todhunter, and the present writer have all published adaptations of it in English verse, and Mr. Rolleston made it the subject of the Prize Cantata at the Féis Ceóil in Dublin in 1897. Hence I may print here this new and full opening of a piece so celebrated. For text see Zeit. f. Celt. Phil. II. 1, p. 142.