Page:A book of myths.djvu/385



Gleneitche! O Gleneitche!

There was raised my earliest home.

Beautiful its woods on rising,

When the sun struck on Gleneitche.

Glen Urchain! O Glen Urchain!

It was the straight glen of smooth ridges.

Not more joyful was a man of his age

Than Naoise in Glen Urchain.

Glendaruadh! O Glendaruadh!

My love each man of its inheritance.

Sweet the voice of the cuckoo, on bending bough.

On the hill above Glendaruadh.

Beloved is Draighen and its sounding shore;

Beloved is the water o'er the pure sand.

O that I might not depart from the east.

But that I go with my beloved! Translated by, LL.D.

Thus they fared across the grey-green sea betwixt Alba and Erin, and when Ardan and Ainle and Naoise heard the words of the song of Deirdrê, on their hearts also descended the strange sorrow of an evil thing from which no courage could save them.

At Ballycastle, opposite Rathlin Island, where a rock on the shore ("Carraig Uisneach") still bears the name of the Sons of Usna, Fergus and the returned exiles landed. And scarcely were they out of sight of the shore when a messenger came to Fergus, bidding him to a feast of ale at the dun of Borrach. Then Fergus, knowing well that in this was the hand of Conor and that treachery was meant, reddened all over with anger and with shame. But yet he dared not break his geasa, even although by holding to it the honour he