Celtic Stories/Deirdre and Naisi

by Edward Thomas

DEIRDRE AND NAISI

In the times before history Conachoor was one of the great kings of Ireland. He ruled Ulster from his capital of Navan, where he had three palaces. The greatest of these three was the House of the Red Branch. Conachoor's warriors were called the heroes of the Red Branch, and great as the king was in himself, he was greater because the most famous heroes were among his captains, and the sweetest bards and the most powerful druids were his.

One day while Conachoor was feasting at Felim the bard's house, the wife of the bard gave birth to a daughter, and immediately the druid Cathbad made a prophecy. He said that this child, Deirdre, would grow into the loveliest of all women, and her loveliness would bring death to heroes and grief and calamity to the land. The heroes of the Red Branch wished to prevent what had to be by destroying the child; even Felim the bard was willing that she should die. But Conachoor thought to make Deirdre his wife, and her life was spared and she was taken away to a solitary place hidden among the forests of the mountains. It was known only to the deer, the hare and the falcon, and to Conachoor, and those who tended her and told her stories of magnificent and of strange things—the strangest and most magnificent that were told in the days before Deirdre herself was in a tale. Sometimes the king came and looked at the child. To her he was nothing but a king; she did not know that he who had created the solitude about her was also a man. Only Conachoor hunted in the surrounding forests, and the penalty on other hunters was death.

There were no other children, and so for years she lived in that wild solitude. She was its child, like stag and hare and falcon, yet she hated it. For sixteen years she saw the young oaks growing higher, and the dead old ones crumbling lower, behind the ridge of the roof; for sixteen years she saw the ancient swineherd getting more and more ancient, though each year it seemed to be impossible. When she saw herself in mirrors or in the waters of the forest she said to herself:

'They tell me I am beautiful. I cannot see it. I see the beauty of the stag running with the herd, and the hare at play with his own, and the falcon soaring with his mate, and the flower growing on the mountains which its kind has never left, but not the beauty of a girl mewed in this inhuman dark forest with old men and women.'

The swineherd was bent like a reed in winter, and yet he turned himself slowly round to follow her with his eyes, and then, when his eyes no longer saw anything, with his ears. Once Deirdre tried to escape, and as she ran through the forest she did not see the old man because he was like one of the thousands of dead trees; but suddenly as she was passing he moved to see her better, and in her surprise she struck at him so that he fell dead. In her pity for the old man she forgot her flight. She dragged him to the hut where his old wife, whom she had never seen because she could not move out, lived a still life. As the girl entered the woman stared at her, and continued to do so until she was out of sight; then only did she lament the dead man and curse his destroyer.

It consoled Deirdre little for her imprisonment to hear the old nurse Levarcham saying that Conachoor was a pattern of kings: patient, self-controlled, affable, strict but merciful, enforcing peace but without too much terror; one in whose palace there were lighted lamps and clapping of hands for the guests, comfortable seats, cupbearers decent and busy in serving, music not in excess, stories not over long, and pleasant talk for all. Nor did she care to hear of the breadth of the king's provinces and the nobility and multitude of his princes.

One winter morning she looked out of the window and saw her fosterer killing a calf, and a raven alighting beside the crimson blood that crept through the snow.

'Red as the blood, white as the snow, black as the raven,' said Deirdre. 'I could love a man who had skin white as the snow, cheeks red as the blood, hair black as the raven.'

Levarcham heard these words and said:

'Naisi, the son of Usna is such a one.'

So Deirdre desired to see Naisi.

At first Levarcham tried to thwart her. She pointed to a poor swineherd and said that he was Naisi. Deirdre was not to be deceived; she gave the man a message for Naisi at the House of the Red Branch. In a few days came Naisi with the sound of a horn, and rode up to her whom he had not seen since she was a day old in the arms of the druid. She knew him at once as Naisi the son of Usna, with skin white as snow, cheeks red as blood, hair black as a raven, wearing a tunic with many pearls and a crimson mantle. But he did not know her, though her glance made him look at her and see that she was more beautiful than any other woman, and also different. He thought that she was not a mortal, and only stopped because the horse refused to pass her. She loved him with all her soul and with all her body. She did but lay her hand on the red mane of his horse to hold its mouth away from her hair, and he loved her back again. They thought nothing of the commands of Conachoor. He loved her and she him. She asked him to take her out of the solitude, away from the king, and so saying she leapt up on to Naisi's horse and they rode away to the castle of the sons of Usna.

When Ainley and Ardan, the other sons of Usna, heard that this was Deirdre and that she was Naisi's wife, they were troubled. They knew that she was to have been queen, and they remembered the prophecy of Cathbad, that she would be the cause of death and calamity. Because they were afraid, Naisi told them that he and she were sailing to Alba and had no wish to damage others by their adventure. But the brothers, though troubled, would not hold back from the company of Naisi and their wondrous sister. Naisi and Deirdre rode off. Ainley and Ardan followed them to the shore. Once the brothers turned back to see why the silver of the horse ornaments was gleaming long after sunset, and they saw the fire of the burning of their castle. They looked at one another and were thinking to turn back and dispute the castle with Conachoor. Before they had spoken their thoughts they turned to consult with Naisi. Instead of Naisi they looked at Deirdre. She was laughing, but this did not anger them in spite of the burning castle. It was not the laughter of a fool, but of one who was wiser and stronger than they, though they were warriors and counsellors of a great king. They could not see her face, but only her small head, her long hair, and her bright sandalled feet as she rode, and yet they forgot their other thoughts and became silent, and continued to ride after the lovers.

Deirdre and the sons of Usna set sail for Alba. They came at nightfall within sight of the promontories of Alba, and because the wind fell they stayed that night in a bay under a cliff. There a ship came up to them, and a strange man on board of it stared hard out of a black hood at Deirdre. He begged Naisi to come to his castle, but first Naisi bade him tell his name and show his face. His name, he said, was Angus. At sight of his face Deirdre's lips whitened, and she said she would not go to his castle. When the ship had departed, Deirdre told Naisi that Angus was really the king of Alba. In a dream she had seen him standing over the dead body of Naisi, whom he had slain that he might deliver her to Conachoor.

They sailed on, and even though Deirdre was weary she could still laugh for joy of the rowing music. She grew more beautiful with the beauty of the sea, and after several days she wished that she had been a man, to think it but a little glory thus to sail in tempest along a stern coast.

They came at last under the cliffs where the castle of Usna once stood, the birthplace and playground of Naisi and Ainley and Ardan. They turned some of the jackdaws out of the ruins, and took possession. The chiefs of the country came in, and obeyed Naisi as they had obeyed his father. Angus of Alba was now dead, and they formed an alliance with the new king. Some of their time they spent with him in the north, some in their fatherland in the south. They fought in the king's battles, and second only to the beauty of Deirdre were the courage and might of the sons of Usna in the tales that were told and the songs that were sung to the harps of the mountains. Deirdre and Naisi and Ainley and Ardan hunted together, and enjoyed together the freedom of the mountains, the forests, and the great waters amongst them. They slept upon forest beds of brushwood, mosses and new rushes. The stags did not know the mountains, nor the cormorants know the sea, better than they. The sons of Usna forgot the palaces of Navan. Deirdre forgot her cage in the forest among the mountains. Conachoor was no more to them than a man in a story that is both dull and untrue.

But Conachoor could not and would not forget Deirdre, though he would willingly have forgotten the sons of Usna. They were to him more real than people in the tales that are like life when it is most alive. They were as true and living as the dreams that draw sweat from every inch of a man's body. When he thought of Deirdre with love, and of those brothers with hate, nothing else was real except the one fair face and the three dark faces of those distant ones; and all the royal apartments of bronze and red yew-tree wood were as dreamy before his eyes as they are before ours to-day. There were times when Navan was like a stupid dream that makes a man ashamed and is soon forgotten, and he would have rejoiced to let his capital and the House of the Red Branch and all the heroes pass away like a dream of this kind, if Deirdre or even Naisi would have come and stood in the flesh before his eyes and within his reach. Nevertheless Conachoor continued to rule at Navan. In spite of love and in spite of hate, he was very wise. Neither alone nor with an army had he crossed the sea in pursuit of the lovers. He had heard men singing songs of the beauty of Deirdre and the great deeds of Naisi, and he had not stirred. At last, after many years, he held a great feast for the nobles and princes and tributary kings of the land. Then, when they had eaten what makes men content and drunk what makes all things seem possible, the king rose up in the hall, smiting with his rod the gong of silver above his head to make a silence.

'Is it fitting,' he asked, 'that great warriors of our land should live in exile on account of a woman? The woman is Deirdre, but the men are the sons of Usna. We miss them at this board. Can we do without them, my heroes, in the ranks of battle? I will call them back before they are old.'

At this the heroes believed that Conachoor had forgiven the sons of Usna and forgotten Deirdre. They rejoiced, saying that they had themselves long thought the same though in silence. But when the king bade them set out to fetch back those three they asked:

'Who is to bring Naisi unless Naisi be willing?'

'He,' answered the king, 'he who most loves me will be able to bring back Naisi.'

While they went on with the feast, Conachoor sent for Conall the Victorious in secret, and asked him:

'If you brought back the sons of Usna under a pledge of safety, and in spite of your pledge they were killed, what would you do, Conall?'

'I,' said Conall, 'would kill the murderers, even if they murdered at your command, O King.'

'Then you, Conall, are not he that loves me best.'

So he called next Cohoolin and asked him the same question.

'I would not accept any payment but death for their death,' exclaimed Cohoolin, 'and neither bribe nor fine should save your own head if it happened by your consent, O Conachoor.'

'Neither will I send you, Cohoolin.'

Next the king asked Fergus, who replied:

'I would take vengeance for the dead upon each and all who had a hand in it, excepting only your Majesty.'

So the king sent Fergus and commanded him not to rest going or coming, and once he was back in Ireland to send the sons of Usna straight to Navan, whatever happened. He and his two sons in a black ship sailed far among islands and round promontories until they came into Loch Etive on a hot day in summer. They saw the tents of Deirdre and the sons of Usna upon the shore, and Fergus gave a shout. Deirdre and Naisi were playing chess, and at the shout Deirdre became white.

'It is the voice of a man of Erin,' said Naisi.

'Nay,' said Deirdre, lying out of a foreboding heart, 'it is a man of Alba. Take no heed of the cry. It is nothing.'

Again Fergus cried and in a loud voice, calling the sons of Usna by their names, and still Deirdre said:

'It is a dream: play on.'

But Deirdre could not play, and Naisi would not.

At the third shout Naisi knew the voice of Fergus and sent Ardan down to the shore to welcome him. Deirdre would have held him back. Her cheeks were white as surf under the moonlight; her eyes were large, and she looked old and sick with the foreknowledge that came to her through that one cry of distant Fergus. But Naisi remembered the halls of Navan and the battlefields of Ireland with a new joy. There was none like them in Alba, and though he had got fresh glory he had done nothing like the deeds of old, because his enemies were not great enough. He could not understand the paleness of her who had never shown fear, nor did he hear, save with ears only, when she confessed that a dream had warned her against Fergus coming to them with friendliness that meant a doom.

When he had greeted the brothers—but not Deirdre, for she stood apart—Fergus delivered the message of Conachoor:

'He desires to have back again the noblest of the heroes of the Red Branch. He offers you peace and a full welcome.'

The sons of Usna were glad, but Deirdre spoke to Fergus, saying:

'Naisi in Alba is king over a broader land than Conachoor's.'

'But', said Fergus softly, 'Erin is the home of his hero days. It has need of his prowess, and he has need of it to spend his powers against worthy foes.'

Fergus gave his word that he would be on Naisi's side if all Ireland were against him, and without looking at Deirdre Naisi promised to go, and all were glad saving her. From the ship's deck she looked back at Alba and spoke her thoughts:

'My love to thee, land of the east! I am sad to leave thy bright hills, thy rich plains, and the harbours of thy coast. O, we need not have left thee. Lovely and marvellous,' she said, 'is the land of Alba, and I would not have left it except with Naisi. The time now seems short that I spent in Alba with Naisi. Many days there we ate fish and venison and badger's fat, and slept solitary in the tall grass under its precipices or on the calm waters. There we made our first house together in Glen Etive where the sun dwelt as a cow in its fold. The singing of the cuckoos on the branches was sweet in Alba. There Naisi was gladder than any man. The very white sand under the waters of Alba was dear to me, and I would not have left that country except with my beloved.'

They landed in Erin and came to the house of Borrach, and by Conachoor's command Borrach bade Fergus to a feast. He reddened with anger but he could not refuse. 'Do what Borrach bids you,' said Deirdre in scorn, 'yet the forsaking of the sons of Usna is a high price for the feast.' They left Fergus, therefore, and with his two sons took the road to Navan. Deirdre tried to delay them by many pleadings and prophecies. Once she fell behind and was missed. They found her sleeping beside the track. She awoke with terrified eyes and Naisi asked:

'What is it, Deirdre?'

'A dream, Naisi. I dreamed that I saw the sons of Usna and the sons of Fergus under a cloud of blood, and only on the younger son of Fergus could I see a head. Wait. Turn back. Go anywhere, but avoid Conachoor, lest the dream come true.'

But Naisi would not delay or turn back, and on the next day they reached Navan. Conachoor gave orders that the House of the Red Branch should be prepared for their honour and pleasure. Deirdre was weary, and while the rest of the company feasted she lay on a couch of deerskins and played chess with Naisi. Then Levarcham came and kissed them and warned them to bar the doors and windows. On her return, she told Conachoor that sea and mountain had spoilt the beauty of Deirdre. At first the king thought that it might not be worth while now to attack the sons of Usna, but he sent a second messenger to spy on Deirdre. This man was one whose father and brother had been slain by Naisi. He did not enter the room but squinted through a window that was open. Even so Deirdre saw him and Naisi flung an ivory chess-man and put out one of the man's eyes. Nevertheless, the messenger told Conachoor that he would gladly have stayed looking at Deirdre with his one eye.

The king now ordered the men of Ulster to set fire to the House of the Red Branch, and they did so. But one of the sons of Fergus made a sally through the fire and slew three hundred of his enemies and quenched the flames before he accepted the king's price of treachery. After him the other son of Fergus sallied out of the house and he slew three hundred men and was killed himself. Again the men of Ulster surrounded the house and set fire to it. Through the flames burst Ardan and Ainley and slew more men than could be counted. They returned in safety. At daybreak Naisi himself and his two brothers, with Deirdre in their midst, broke forth from the house. They slew many and scattered the survivors. They would have escaped had it not been for the spells of the king's druid, Cathbad. He worked a spell so that it seemed to the sons of Usna that they were in a sea of stormy waters. They fought against the waves, and Naisi lifted Deirdre on high. Taller towered the waves and they had to fling away their arms to save themselves. When they were near drowning, Cathbad suddenly took away the tempest and the unarmed heroes were bound and brought before Conachoor. The worst tumult of the storm had separated Deirdre from Naisi. She now spied him again and, as the spears of the guards could not keep her back without killing her, she was free to walk at his side. Nor could they then or thereafter lay hands on her lest she should kill herself. In spite of a promise to Cathbad, the king condemned the sons of Usna to death. One man only, with great difficulty, was persuaded to be the executioner, and he was a man of Norway. Each of the brothers in turn begged to be allowed to die first, and none would give way. Then Naisi spoke, offering his own magical sword to the executioner in order that all might die at the same time. The three brothers knelt down side by side, and at one flash of the sword their heads fell together. Deirdre kissed the dead lips of Naisi and like some faithful-hearted hound she stood over the bodies so that no one dared to approach her. One by one they left her, and lastly Conachoor. At nightfall she was alone; all night no one came near her excepting the blind grave-digger. Three graves were dug and in one of them two bodies were laid. For Deirdre could not long outlive Naisi. She bent over the grave in mourning:

'The days would be long', she cried, 'without the sons of Usna. They were the hawks, the lions, the heroes, the sons of a king that was kingly.

'If they were with me, I should not miss house and fire, I should not be gloomy. But let no one think that I can live long after Naisi has died. The three hounds and the three horses of the brothers will be without masters and I could not endure to see them so. Since I first met Naisi I have not been alone until this day, though often we two were in a solitude. Him and his brothers only I loved, and for their sake I left the sweetness of Ulster and its people. Pity that I was not in the earth before they perished. My life will be short after the three brothers. Grave-digger that puttest away my darling, make not the grave too narrow—I shall be beside the noble ones.'

She was buried beside Naisi. Even in death some say that Conachoor tried to divide them. He buried them apart, but the next day they were together in the one grave. He ordered stakes of yew to be driven down through them in their separate graves, but out of these sprang two yew trees that spread until their branches embraced on high. Conachoor prospered no more. Cathbad cursed the Palace of the Red Branch. Fergus went over to the king's enemies. The heroes were scattered. Navan dwindled and became desolate, except in the songs of the poets who sang of Deirdre; and the grass covered it.