“And as for thee, Cathba?”
“There is but one law: that which has to come, cometh.” But while they were thus debating, the loud chanting voices of women were heard, and soon a messenger came, crying loudly that a child had been born to Elva, wife of Felim, and that it was a woman-child, and exceeding comely, and strong, and white as milk.
Once more Cathba the Druid spoke.
“She shall be called Darthool,[16] this woman whose beauty shall be a flame, and whose eyes shall be as stars.”
And so it was. The child was spared, and that night Elva slept in peace, and for many nights.
When the days of the feasting were over, Concobar left the dun of Felim, and returned with all his company to Emania. With him he took the little child Darthool, and Elva came with him for a month and a day.
The month and the day soon passed, and then Elva went back to her own place. It was the will of the high king and of Felim, her husband; nevertheless, she sorrowed to part with her little child, who, even as a breast-babe, had eyes of so great a beauty that it was a joy to look into them.
Before the year was over—for, according to what Cathba the wise Druid said, the child must either be slain or hidden away before the first year of her life were past—Concobar sent Darthool with the nursing woman to whom he entrusted her, to a small lios, or fort, deep in the heart of the royal forest. A ban was upon that forest that none might hunt or even stray there without the king’s will; and now that ban was made absolute, and it was known that death would be the portion of any man who went under these branches. None was to enter that woodland save Concobar, or whosoever might be of his chosen company, or whom the king might thither lead.
Concobar himself saw that food and milk was sent in plenty to the lios, and once in every seven days he went thither himself. As year after year passed the secret of the hiding-place of Darthool went out of men’s minds, and none knew of the lios save the king, and the sister of the nursing woman, who was his own foster-child and under geas or bond to him. This woman was named Lavarcam (Leabharcham), and was fair to see, and whom Concobar held to be discreet and trustworthy beyond any other of his own people. She was of the royal household, and of the women trained as chroniclers and relaters.[17]
The little starry-eyed babe grew to a child, and from a child to a fawn of a girl, fair to see, and from a young girl to a maid, of a beauty so great that Concobar knew when she came to full womanhood she would be indeed as Cathba the Druid had prophesied.