Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/47

Rh unlike as it is possible to conceive to the original Deirdre—the girl who throws herself across Naisi's path, ferociously seizes him by the ears, or, according to the slightly later version, flings a ball at him as he passes by. The changed ideas of a woman's proper position and course of action could not be more strikingly illustrated. She no longer takes measures to secure the fulfilment of her wishes; she weeps in secret and builds imaginary lovers out of snowballs. Had it not been for Levarcham, who undertakes the perilous position of intermediary for a girl who is no longer courageous enough to take her own fate into her hands, she would never have met Naisi again; she would probably have cried on the sofa to the end of her days. We will not discuss which was the more admirable Deirdre, but I confess to finding it difficult to realise that the Deirdre who cried and fainted would have become the heroic champion of her husband's cause, the calm and composed woman who, with imperturbable courage, played chess with her husband when the house was surrounded by their direst foes, and an enemy was watching them through the window; or to imagine in her the woman who, when Naisi was dead, dashed her brains out upon a rock that she might escape the cruelty of Conor and Eogan.

You will notice that the character of Levarcham is also changed. Here, in the modern story, she is only the affectionate, fond old nurse, who, woman-like, is inquisitive about the freaks of her ward. She is fearful of the king's anger, yet pleasantly interested in the romance of the two young people; and she is brought without much difficulty to consent to their meeting.

She is a much more redoubtable personage in the other stories. She is represented as Conor's messenger and "conversation-woman," meaning the royal woman of lamentation or professional "keener." She is possessed of extraordinary powers, for she can walk through the whole of Ireland in one day, acting apparently the part of a spy, and