; you
will be a tale of wonder for ever, Deirdre._"

Lady Gregory's Translation.

As Conor commanded, Deirdre, the little "babe of destiny," was left
with her mother for only a month and a day, and then was sent with a
nurse and with Cathbad the Druid to a lonely island, thickly wooded,
and only accessible by a sort of causeway at low tide. Here she grew
into maidenhood, and each day became more fair. She had instruction
from Cathbad in religion and in all manner of wisdom, and it would
seem as though she also learned from him some of that mystical power
that enabled her to see things hidden from human eyes.

"Tell me," one day she asked her teacher, "who made the stars, the
firmament above, the earth, the flowers, both thee and me?"

And Cathbad answered: "God. But who God is, alas! no man can say."

Then Deirdre, an impetuous child, seized the druidical staff from the
hand of Cathbad, broke it in two, and flung the pieces far out on the
water. "Ah, Cathbad!" she cried, "there shall come One in the dim
future for whom all your Druid spells and charms are naught."

Then seeing Cathbad hang his head, and a tear trickle down his face,
for he knew that the child spoke truth, the child, grieved at giving
pain to the friend whom she loved, threw her arms about the old man's
neck, and by her kisses strove to comfort him.

As Deirdre grew older, Conor sent one from his court to educate her in
all that any queen should know. They called her the Lavarcam, which,
in our tongue, really means the Gossip, and she was one of royal blood
who belonged to a class that in those days had been trained to be
chroniclers, or story-tellers. The Lavarcam was a clever woman, and
she marvelled at the wondrous beauty of the child she came to teach,
and at her equally marvellous mind.

One winter day, when the snow lay deep, it came to pass that Deirdre
saw lying on the snow a calf that had been slain for her food. The red
blood that ran from its neck had brought a black raven swooping down
upon the snow. And to Lavarcam Deirdre said: "If there were a man who
had hair of the blackness of that raven, skin of the whiteness of the
snow, and cheeks as red as the blood that stains its whiteness, to him
should I give my heart."

And Lavarcam, without thought, made answer:

"One I know whose skin is whiter than the snow, whose cheeks are ruddy
as the blood that stained the snow, and whose hair is black and glossy
as the raven's wi