Deirdre of the Sorrows
The druid Cathbad prophesied from inside Deirdre’s mother’s womb — before she was even born, from the sound of her first cry — that she would be the most beautiful woman in Ireland, that kings and lords would go to war over her, and that great ruin would come to Ulster through her. The Ulstermen at the feast called for her death immediately. Conchobar mac Nessa overruled them. He would have her raised in seclusion, away from all men, to become his own wife.
That was the decision that made the prophecy certain.
She grew up in isolation, attended only by women and her foster-father Leborcham, who loved her and eventually told her about the world she had never seen. The first time she saw Naoíse — the most beautiful of the sons of Uisneach, singing outside — she went to him. She shamed him into taking her. She described him in three colours: his hair the black of a raven, his body the white of snow, his cheeks the red of blood. She asked why he had not taken the woman he was made for. He had been warned about her. He took her anyway.
They fled to Scotland with his brothers Ainnle and Ardan. The years there were the only happiness her story contained. Several Scottish kings wanted the brothers’ service. Several Irish attempts to bring them back were resisted. She was happy.
When Conchobar sent Fergus mac Róich as a guarantor of safe return, she told Naoíse it was a trap. He said Conchobar would not break Fergus’s word. She knew he was wrong. They went back.
The sons of Uisneach were killed on their return. Deirdre was brought back to Conchobar. She did not speak or smile for a year. When he asked what she hated most in the world, she named him and Naoíse’s killer in the same breath. He gave her to the killer for a second year. Rather than submit to that, she threw herself from the chariot and dashed her head against a stone.
The prophecy was exact. The isolation was pointless. Every decision made to prevent what Cathbad had foretold was the thing that made it happen.
Her story — Longes mac nUislenn, the Exile of the Sons of Uisneach — is one of the three great sorrows of Irish storytelling.
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