[Pg 15]

Conachúr’s married life may have been happy, but it was short. At the end of about eight months Clothru returned to Connacht on a visit to the High King, her father. We do not know what happened, but a dispute arose between Clothru and her youngest sister, Maeve.[3] Maeve struck a blow that killed Clothru, and Conachúr’s first child was born in its mother’s death agonies.

When this news came to Ulster Conachúr set out to demand reparation or vengeance, but when he beheld Maeve his ideas underwent a horrible change. He had never seen anything like this queenly creature. He had not imagined that there could be in the world a girl so wonderful as she, for she was brave and able and of a marvellous loveliness. Conachúr’s hard mind would not flinch when once his lusts were aroused. His vengeance and his desire made common cause. He married Maeve against her wish, and without her consent, and he bore her [Pg 16] back with him to Ulster, a queen, a captive, and, notwithstanding her crime, a deeply wronged woman.

[Pg 16]

Fergus mac Roy and Maeve, these were his victims, and from them there was to arise a story which would seem to the king as unending as time itself. Those two, and Deirdre!

[3] It was this Maeve, anciently spelled “Madb,” who became afterwards “Mab” the Queen of the Fairies of Spenser and Shakespeare.

[Pg 17]

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER III

Deirdre grew up in a place apart at Emania. She saw no people of any kind, except Lavarcham, the king’s “conversation-woman,” and her women servants; for always about the castle where she lived there was a guard of the oldest and ugliest swordsmen that were in Ulster. Their duty was to let nobody pass in or out of the castle grounds; for it was the king’s intention to outwit fate as he had outwitted all else that had moved in his path.

Thus she grew in gentleness and peace, hearing no voice less sweet than the voice of the birds that sang in the sunshine, or the friendly calling of the wind she played with; seeing nothing more uncomely than the gracious outline of far hills, the many-coloured sky that fled and was never gone, [Pg 18] the creatures that lived unmolested in the trees about the castle, and the wild deer that grew tame in nearby brakes. All that she knew was friendly to her and naught was rough. All that she drew nigh to stood for her approach. Naught fled from her, and she 

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