Deirdré's song, and wizard lore
Of great Cuchullin's fall."
At the time of the publication of the sonata he wrote to me as follows concerning it:
"... Here is the sonata, which it is a pleasure to me to offer you as a token of sympathy. I enclose also some lines [of his own verse] anent Cuchullin, which, however, do not entirely fit the music, and which I hope to use in another musical form. They may serve, however, to aid the understanding of the stimmung of the sonata. Cuchullin's story is in touch with the Deirdré-Naesi tale; and, as with my 3rd Sonata, the music is more a commentary on the subject than an actual depiction of it."
Facsimile of a passage from the original MS. of the "Keltic" Sonata
The "lines anent Cuchullin" I quote below. They do not, as he said, have a parallel in the sonata as a whole; but in the coda of the last movement (of which I shall speak later) he has attempted a commentary on the scene which he here describes:
"Cuchullin fought and fought in vain,
'Gainst faery folk and Druid thrall: