Deirdre Wed

Deirdre Wed by Herbert Trench (1901)

Herbert Trench's Deirdre Wed opens with the poet standing on the Hill of Time and calling on the old chanters Fintan, Urmael and Cir to sing, and Fintan answers with the story of Deirdre's wedding night. Fintan describes the great timber house at Eman, where Connachar's people slaughter sheep, boar and stag and prepare a feast for his marriage. The bride is Deirdre, a tribeless girl raised in a peaty hillock in the west. The swineherd found her beyond Assaroe, and Connachar took her and had queens teach her weaving, brewing and dyeing through the winter. At dusk she stands on the old rampart above the Lake of Pearls, looking toward the hills she came from. Her wrinkled nurse tells her that Naois and the other sons of Usnach have just returned from a failed hosting. Before the gathered host, Naois reports that half his folk died of plague and battle and that the spoil is poor. Connachar mocks him and drives Usnach's defeated sons from his gates. As Naois passes the women on the slope, Deirdre is struck motionless and her many-coloured cloak sinks to the grass. In the hall, Connachar sends for Deirdre and summons the gray seer Cathva. Cathva arrives ragged and shaking and says he sheltered Deirdre in the mountains for years to protect the king from her devastating beauty. He admits his only fault was not killing her as a child, when he saw she would bring disaster. He tells how the mountains Muilréa and Ben Gorm conceived her, and says she knew nothing of men until his servant found her. An old woman wearing Deirdre's brooch is brought in. She is Levarcham, and she claims the jewel was a gift. Connachar threatens to have her torn apart by chariot wheels at dawn unless Deirdre is produced. Levarcham sings that Deirdre will come back but she cannot bring her. The king hauls up the great cauldron, orders torches lit, and pours the water onto the fire, filling the roof with smoke. Cir's voice then tells how Deirdre, in love, dresses in ragged wool and walks out into the storm. She blesses the wounded in the house of Bron Bhearg and passes the guards at the fortress gate. At Creeve Roe she asks the smith Culann whether the son of Usnach has passed, and he says he has gone back. At a thorn beside a god's well she cuts a lock of her hair, ties it to the branch, and prays to escape Connachar's love. The banished sons of Usnach, thrice fifty strong, ride by in the storm. Naois hears her cry, and his brothers Aillean and Ardan urge him on, but he turns his horse Srōn back. Deirdre asks him to take her as his wife. He warns her of hardship and exile and says he would rob Connachar least of all men, but she answers that she is her own to give. He lifts her behind him. They ride through the Plain of the Dreamers, the Gap of the Winds and past Slieve Fuad, where Cir lies in his tomb. Deirdre tells Naois she chose him because she knew at first sight that they were two halves of one broken token. Urmael's voice takes up their flight in the hills. The pair cross a river and climb Findruim's woods, delighting in each other. Deirdre asks for shared hardship rather than glory. A grey boar in a yew thicket charges when she approaches it with Naois's spear. Naois strikes with a knife, but the boar escapes unharmed. She fears this is Connachar in disguise. In the Wood of Awe she dances, and Naois is overcome. They swim to a lake island, where Naois carries her across, and she asks him whether he loves her. They declare their love and sleep in a hut of saplings. Naois dreams of sailing under Dun Aengus. A mournful cry wakes Deirdre. She runs to the shore and finds a stone-like figure, Cathva, who shatters his staff and shouts at her to begone. Fintan returns for the last section. Cathva calls across the water to the two hidden in the black boughs and warns Naois that Connachar's hatred will hound him to death, strip him of friends, home and name, and make Deirdre's following him folly. Naois answers that death marks everyone, that enemies nourish a man, and that exile only makes Deirdre's love closer and absolute. A great levy of pursuers with torched chariots arrives at the lake and asks the druid whether he has seen them. The host dissolves into the mist without any answer, and the two are left alone on the bank, looking at one another.

By Herbert Trench · First published 1901 · Genre: Epic poetry, Celtic mythology, Tragedy · 10,926 words

First lines

I. THE CHANTERS

I. I stood on the Hill of Time when the sun was fled / And my vision sought where to rest, till it knew the plains / Of my country, the Night's harp, and the moonless bed / Of rivers and bristling forests and sea-board chains.

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Irish mythology · Ulster Cycle · Deirdre legend · Naois · Connachar · Sons of Usnach · elopement · forbidden love · tragic love · exile · flight · wedding feast

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