The Woman Who Chose
Gráinne was the daughter of Cormac mac Airt, the High King of Ireland, and was betrothed to Fionn mac Cumhaill at the feast that was meant to seal the match. At that feast she looked across the hall, saw Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, and made up her mind.
She put a sleeping draught in the wine of everyone at the feast except Diarmuid and a few companions. Then she put a geis on Diarmuid — a supernatural compulsion he could not refuse — to take her away before Fionn woke. Diarmuid told her he was loyal to Fionn and would not take her willingly. She put the geis on him anyway. She chose for both of them.
They fled. Fionn pursued them across Ireland for years. During the flight she was often the more determined of the two — she pressed forward when Diarmuid might have stopped, kept the elopement alive when he might have let it go. What started as an impulsive act at a feast became something she had committed to entirely. By the time they settled at Ráth Gráinne and had children together, she had earned the life she had taken.
When Diarmuid was gored by the enchanted boar of Ben Bulben, she watched Fionn let the healing water fall through his fingers twice. Diarmuid died.
After that she married Fionn. The tradition offers this without much explanation. Her own children called her Gráinne of the Foul Reproach for it. Whether it was grief doing strange things, or political sense, or something else, the story leaves open.
She is the Fenian Cycle’s most decisive woman. She chose once, at a feast, and everything that followed was the consequence.
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