“To thee, O Felim, shall be born this night a sting, a sword, a battering-ram, and a flame.”
Felim the Harper stared with intent gaze, but said nothing. Of what avail to say aught against the decrees of the gods?
“This night shall that which I have said be born unto thee, O Felim. The sting will sting to madness him who is king of the Ultonians; the sword will sever from Uladh the chief of her glories, the proud Red Branch for which Concobar and all his chivalry shall perish; the ram shall batter down the proud splendour of Emain Macha; the flame shall pass from dun to dun, from forest to forest, from hill to hill, from the isles of Ara on the west to the shores of the sea-stream of the Moyle on the north, and to those of the sea of Manannan in the east.”
Still Felim answered nothing. Then the king spoke:
“Thy words come in dust, like wind-whirled autumn leaves. We have not thy further sight, Cathba, and understand thee not.”
Then once more Cathba spake out of the dream that was upon him:
“Two stars I see shining in a web of dusk; and, in the shadow of that dusk, a low tower of ivory and white pearls I see, and a strange crimson fruit; and through all and over all I hear the low, sweet vibration of the strings of a harp, a harp such as the Dedannan folk play upon in the moonshine in lonely places, but sweeter still, sweeter and more wonderful.”
“Is this thy second vision one and the same with thy first, O Cathba?” asked the king.
“Even so. For the shining stars are her eyes, and the web of dusk is the flower-fragrant maze of her hair, that low tower of ivory is her fair, white, wonderful neck, and her white teeth are these pearls, and that strange crimson fruit is no other than her smiling mouth—a little smiling mouth with life and death upon it because of its laughter and grave stillness. As for that harp-playing, it is her voice I hear—a voice more soft and sweet and tender than the love-music of Angus Ogue himself. O shining eyes, O strange crimson fruit that is a little smiling mouth, O sweet voice that is more excellent to hear than the wild music of the Hidden People of the hills—it is of ye, of ye that I speak, and of thee, O tender, delicate fawn, in all thy loveliness.”
None spake, but all stared at the Druid. For dream was upon them at these words, and each man imagined his desire, and was wrought by it, and was rapt in strange longing.