Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

166 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[198]that the child should be brought up in a strong dūn in the solitudeof a great wood, and that no young man should see her or shehim until she was of marriageable age for the king to wed. Andthere she dwelt, seeing none but her nurse and Cathbad, andsometimes the king, now growing an aged man, who would visitthe dūn from time to time to see that all was well with the folkthere, and that his commands were observed.One day, when the time for the marriage of Deirdre and Conorwas drawing near, Deirdre and Levarcam looked over the rampartof their dūn. It was winter, a heavy snow had fallen in the night,and in the still, frosty air the trees stood up as if wrought in silver,and the green before the dūn was a sheet of unbroken white, savethat in one place a scullion had killed a calf for their dinner, andthe blood of the calf lay on the snow. And as Deirdre looked, araven lit down from a tree hard by and began to sip the blood. “Onurse,” cried Deirdre suddenly, “such, and not like Conor, wouldbe the man that I would love—his hair like the raven's wing, andin his cheek the hue of blood, and his skin as white as snow.”“Thou hast pictured a man of Conor's household,” said the nurse.“Who is he?” asked Deirdre. “He is Naisi, son of Usna, 140 achampion of the Red Branch,” said the nurse. Thereupon Deirdreentreated Levarcam to bring her to speak with Naisi; and becausethe old woman loved the girl and would not have her weddedto the aged king, she at last agreed. Deirdre implored Naisi tosave her from Conor, but he would not, till at last her entreatiesand her beauty won him, and he vowed to be hers. Then secretlyone night he came with his two brethren, Ardan and Ainlé, andbore away Deirdre with Levarcam, and they escaped the king'spursuit and took ship for Scotland, where Naisi took service withthe King of the Picts. Yet here they could not rest, for the kinggot sight of Deirdre, and would have taken her from Naisi, butNaisi with his brothers escaped, and in the solitude of Glen Etive140 See genealogical table, p. 181.