And the magician said: “These might return; but yet I see a little boy who stands upon the way to hinder them. Fair he is and young and but a boy; and yet on every path I see him, holding back thy hosts, slaughtering and pursuing, as though the strength of the gods were in his arms. On every path they fall, in every battlefield the ground is strewn with dead, and in the homes of Connaught men and women weep the sons and husbands who return no more. Who this youth may be I know not, but I see that he will bring trouble on thy hosts.”
Then Meave trembled at the saying of the Druid; but she asked again, “Among all those who will remain behind and those who go, there is none dearer to us than we are to ourselves; inquire therefore of thy gods if we ourselves shall come alive out of this hosting?”
The wizard answered: “Whoever comes or comes not, thou thyself shalt come.”
Then Meave mounted her chariot again, and turned her horses’ heads towards Cruachan. But heaviness was at her heart, and deep dejection lay upon her mind, and moodily she thought of what the Druid prophesied to her.
They had not driven far when suddenly the horses swerved aside and reared and snorted with affright. Meave started up, and shaking off her reverie, in the dim twilight of the breaking dawn, close up beside her chariot-shaft, she saw a woman stand. Red as a foxglove were her cheeks and blue as the spring hyacinth beneath the forest trees her sparkling eyes. Like pearls her teeth shone white between her lips, and all her skin was fair as the white foam that dances on the wave. Around her fell, in waving folds of green, a cloak such as the fairy women wear, which hides them from the eyes of mortal men.
But while she looked in wonder on the maid, astonished at her lovely face and mien, Meave saw her garment change to dusky red. And in the dimness, she perceived the maiden held a sword, point upward, in her hand, a massive sword, such as a mighty man-of-war might wield. And from the point blood dripped, and one by one the drops fell on the Queen, till all her cloak, and garments, and the chariot-floor ran red with streams of blood.
And terror came on Meave, and all in vain she sought to force her horses forward, but still they reared and curvetted, but would not advance. “Girl,” cried the Queen at last, “what doest thou here, and who and what art thou?”
“I am a woman of the fairy race,” the maid replied; “I come to-night to tell thee of thy fortunes, and the chance that shall befall thee and thy hosts upon this raid that thou dost make on Ulster.”
“What is thy name, and wherefore thus, without my will, hast thou presumed to come and speak with me?” replied the angry Queen.
“Great cause have I to come; for from the fairy-rath of thine own people, near to Cruachan, am I here; and Feidelm the prophetess my name.”