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Naisi, son of Conor, king of Uladh, had fled with Deirdre, daughter of Phelim, the king's story-teller, to a sea-girt islet on Lough Etive, where they lived happily by the chase. Naisi's two brothers went with them, and thus the three sons of Usnach were all in Alba.
"And Naisi says, says he, `I'll never be one to refuse a lady, but there'll be murder the day Conchubar finds it out! says he. "So they went away that same night, and the old woman fair distraught with fear. Soon along comes Conchubar to see Deirdre, for to marry her. And he had many men with him. When he finds Deirdre gone, `It's that Naisi, says he, `that stole her away. And he cursed him.
"'That was not the call of a man of Erin, says Deirdre, 'but the call of a man of Alba. "Deirdre knew the first cry of Fergus, but she concealed it. Fergus uttered the second cry. "'That is the cry of a man of Erin, says Naisi. "'It is not indeed, says Deirdre, 'and let us play on. "Fergus sent forth the third cry, and the sons of Usnach knew it was Fergus that sent for the cry.
Thus Fergus told the tale, laughingly, as at a danger that was past, a storm-cloud that had lost its arrows of white hail and was no longer fearful. For, he said, Concobar had forgotten his anger, had promised a truce to the sons of Usnac, and most of all to Naisi, and had bidden them return as his guests to Emain of Maca, where Deirdré should dwell happy with her beloved.
Talking long through the twilight, until the red gold of the west was dulled to bronze over the hills, and the bronze tarnished and darkened with the coming of the eastern stars, they planned together what they should do; and, the heart of Deirdré at last growing resolute, they made their way through the night to where the brothers of Naisi were, and all fled together towards the northern sea.
Deirdré wondered at it, her own heart being so full of gladness, her eyes sparkling, and endearing words ever ready on her lips. Deirdré wondered, yet found a new delight and wonderment in the silence of Naisi, and the gloomy lightning in his eyes, as being the more contrasted with herself, and therefore the more to be beloved.
Yet the time came when Naisi determined to tell her all and risk the worst that fate could do against them, finding death with her greatly better than life without her. Yet death with her was not to be granted to him.
Thus the heart of Naisi went to Deirdré, as hers had gone to him, so that all things were changed for them, growing radiant with tremulous hope and wistful with longing. Yet the fate that lay upon Deirdré was heavy, and all men dreaded it but Naisi; so that even his brothers, the sons of Usnac, feared greatly and would have dissuaded him from giving his life to the ill-fated one.
There is abundant Natural Magic, but not the old Grand Manner; and you would not recognise Finn or Oisin or Oscar, if you ment them, so easily as you would Cuculain or Fergus MacRoy or Naisi. Civilization appears to have declined far between the two ages, to have become much less settled, as it naturally would, with all that fighting going on.
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 Deirdré, but rather the beginning. Yet the burden of the evils that followed fell on Concobar and his lands and his warriors.
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