A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

In many ancient manuscripts we get the story in more or less complete
form. In the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh, in the Glenmasan MS.
we get the best and the fullest version, while the oldest and the shortest
is to be found in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster.
But those who would revel in the old tale and have Deirdrê lead them
by the hand into the enchanted realm of the romance of misty, ancient
days of our Western Isles must go for help to Fiona Macleod, to
Alexander Carmichael, to Lady Gregory, to Dr. Douglas Hyde, to W. F.
Skene, to W. B. Yeats, to J. M. Synge, and to those others who, like
true descendants of the Druids, possess the power of unlocking the
entrance gates of the Green Islands of the Blest.
Conchubar, or Conor, ruled the kingdom of the Ultonians, now Ulster,
when Deirdrê was born in Erin. All the most famous warriors of his
time, heroes whose mighty deeds live on in legend, and whose title was
"The Champions of the Red Branch," he gathered round him, and all
through Erin and Alba rang the fame of the warlike Ultonians.
There came a day when Conor and his champions, gorgeous in their
gala dress of crimson tunic with brooches of inlaid gold and
white-hooded shirt embroidered in red gold, went to a feast in the
house of one called Felim. Felim was a bard, and because not only was
his arm in war strong and swift to strike, but because, in peace, his
fingers could draw the sweetest of music from his harp, he was dear to
the king. As they feasted, Conor beheld a dark shadow of horror and of
grief fall on the face of Cathbad, a Druid who had come in his train,
and saw that his aged eyes were gazing far into the Unseen. Speedily he
bade him tell him what evil thing it was that he saw, and Cathbad
turned to the childless Felim and told him that to his wife there was
about to be born a daughter, with eyes like stars that are mirrored by
night in the water, with lips red as the rowan berries and teeth more
white than pearls; with a voice more sweet than the music of fairy harps.
"A maiden fair, tall, long haired, for whom champions will contend ...
and mighty kings be envious of her lovely, faultless form." For her
sweet sake, he said, more blood should be spilt in Erin than for
generations and ages past, and many heroes and bright torches of the