Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/40

 26 The Story of Deirdre^ in its hearing on the

in the mind of some gifted artist centuries ago and the time of its latest redaction.

Between these two Deirdres, the forceful, uncontrolled and barbaric Deirdre of the nth and 12th centuries and the sobbing and fibbing Deirdre of the 17th or i8th centuries, we find Deirdres of many kinds, less fierce but not less resolute, more gentle but not less fearless.

The earliest existing version is that in the Book of Leinster ; the latest with which we shall here deal is a manuscript copy recently discovered by Dr. Hyde in the Belfast Museum, and published by him in the Zeitschrift filr Celtische Philologie. Only the earlier portion of the tale is dealt with in the modern version, and we shall therefore confine ourselves to the same limits.

The general outline of the story is so well known that we need not linger over it. It is in brief as follows.

Conor, King of Ulster, and his warriors, are feasting, according to the custom of the day, in the house of one of the king's courtiers, when, amid terrible signs and portents, there is born to the wife of the host a fair daughter. Cathbad, Druid and Soothsayer, rises from the feast and utters a prophecy about the child so full of dismal warning to Ulster that the warriors, with one voice, determine to slay her on the spot. But the king intervenes. " It is not well," he says, " to kill a helpless infant ; moreover, Cathbad has foretold that the maiden will be fairer than all women of the world ; the king will himself rear up the child, and will in due time take her as his one and only wife." So spake the old chief, and none of his warriors dared oppose him.

Deirdre (so named by the seer) was thenceforward shut up in a lonely fort, strictly guarded. Every luxury was provided for her, but, save for her foster-parents (or accord- ing to the later versions, Cathbad), and Levarcham the Druidess, and the king himself, none dared approach her. So Deirdre grew up, increasing day by day in loveliness, until, come to years of discretion, she suddenly began to feel