“I see three torches quenched this night. And these three torches are the three Torches of Valour among the Gael, and their names are the names of the sons of Usna. And more bitter still is this sorrow, because that the Red Branch shall ultimately perish through it, and Uladh itself be overthrown, and blood fall this way and that as the whirled rains of winter.”
Then taking the small harp by her side, she struck the strings and sang:
A bitter, bitter deed shall be done in Emain to-night,
And for ages men will speak of the fratricidal fight;
And because of the evil done, and the troth unsaid,
Emain of dust and ashes shall cover Emain the White.
Of a surety a bitter thing it is thus to be led
Into the Red Branch house, there to be rested and fed,
And then to be feasted with blood and drunken with flame,
And left on the threshold of peace silent and cold and dead.