adition, there was born that

"Morning star of loveliness,
Unhappy Helen of a Western land,"

who is known to the Celts of Scotland as Darthool, to those of Ireland
as Deirdre. As in the story of Helen, it is not easy, or even possible
in the story of Deirdre, to disentangle the old, old facts of actual
history from the web of romantic fairy tale that time has woven about
them, yet so great is the power of Deirdre, even unto this day, that
it has been the fond task of those men and women to whom the Gael owes
so much, to preserve, and to translate for posterity, the tragic
romance of Deirdre the Beautiful and the Sons of Usna.

In many ancient manuscripts we get the story in more or less complete
form. In the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh, in the Glenmasan MS. we
get the best and the fullest version, while the oldest and the
shortest is to be found in the twelfth-century _Book of Leinster_.

But those who would revel in the old tale and have Deirdre lead them
by the hand into the enchanted realm of the romance of misty, ancient
days of our Western Isles must go for help to Fiona Macleod, to
Alexander Carmichael, to Lady Gregory, to Dr. Douglas Hyde, to W. F.
Skene, to W. B. Yeats, to J. M. Synge, and to those others who, like
true descendants of the Druids, possess the power of unlocking the
entrance gates of the Green Islands of the Blest.

Conchubar, or Conor, ruled the kingdom of the Ultonians, now Ulster,
when Deirdre was born in Erin. All the most famous warriors of his
time, heroes whose mighty deeds live on in legend, and whose title was
"The Champions of the Red Branch," he gathered round him, and all
through Erin and Alba rang the fame of the warlike Ultonians.

There came a day when Conor and his champions, gorgeous in their gala
dress of crimson tunic with brooches of inlaid gold and white-hooded
shirt embroidered in red gold, went to a feast in the house of one
called Felim. Felim was a bard, and because not only was his arm in
war strong and swift to strike, but because, in peace, his fingers
could draw the sweetest of music from his harp, he was dear to the
king. As they feasted, Conor beheld a dark shadow of horror and of
grief fall on the face of Cathbad, a Druid who had come in his train,
and saw that his aged eyes were gazing far into the Unseen. Speedily
he bade him tell him what evil thing it was that he saw, and Cathbad
turned to the childless Felim and told him that to his wif