carousing and singing, while Deirdre and the three brothers were
carried southwards to Emain. There the treachery plotted against them
was carried out, as they sat in the banquet-hall; for Concobar's men
brought against them the power of cowardly flames, setting fire to the
hall, and slaying the sons of Usnac as they hurried forth from under the
burning roof.

One of the sons of Fergus shamefully betrayed them, bought by the gold
and promises of Concobar, but the other bravely fell, fighting back to
back with one of the sons of Usnac, when they fell overpowered by the
warriors of Concobar. Thus was the doom of Deirdre consummated, her
lover treacherously done to death, and she herself condemned to bear the
hated caress of Concobar, thinking ever of those other lips, in the days
of her joy among the northern hills. This is the lament of Deirdre for
Usnac's sons:

The lions of the hill are gone,
And I am left alone, alone;
Dig the grave both wide and deep,
For I am sick and fain would sleep!

The falcons of the wood are flown,
And I am left alone, alone;
Dig the grave both deep and wide,
And let us slumber side by side.

Lay their spears and bucklers bright
By the warriors' sides aright;
Many a day the three before me
On their linked bucklers bore me.

Dig the grave both wide and deep,
Sick I am and fain would sleep.
Dig the grave both deep and wide,
And let us slumber side by side.

VI.

CUCULAIN THE HERO.

B.C. 50--A.D. 50.

The treacherous death of Naisi and his brothers Ardan and Alny, and her
own bereavement and misery, were not the end of the doom pronounced at
her birth for Deirdre, but rather the beginning. Yet the burden of the
evils that followed fell on Concobar and his lands and his warriors.

For Fergus, son of Roeg, former king over Emain, who had stayed behind
his charges feasting and banqueting, came presently to Emain, fearing
nothing and thinking no evil, but still warm with the reconciliation
that he had accomplished; and, coming to Emain of Maca, found the sons
of Usnac dead, with the sods still soft on their graves, and his own son
also dead, Deirdre in the hands of Concobar, and the plighted word of
Fergus and his generous pledge of safety most traitorously and basely
broken; broken by Concobar, whom he himself had guarded and set upon
the throne.

Fergus changed from gladness to fierce wrath, and