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When Deirdre saw that, she sighed and said, "Would that I had a husband whose hair was as the color of the raven, his cheeks as blood, and his skin as snow." "There is such a one," said Lavarcam, "he is Naisi the son of Usnach." After that here was no rest for Deirdre until she had seen Naisi.

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.

Since it is through me they were betrayed I will be tired out with sorrow; it is a pity I was not in the earth before the sons of Usnach were killed. Sorrowful was my journey with Fergus, betraying me to the Red Branch; we were deceived all together with his sweet, flowery words.

Here the three sons of Usnach landed when they returned from Alba to Erin with Deirdre Deirdre, who was 'beautiful as Helen, and gifted like Cassandra with unavailing prophecy'; and by reason of her beauty many sorrows fell upon the Ultonians.

"'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.

And I did not come out to tell my name to one or to two but if I had told it to anyone in the whole world, I would soonest tell it to your pale face." Deirdre's beauty "that brought the Sons of Usnach to their death" comes into many of the country songs. Grania of the yet earlier poems is not so well thought of.

The children were barefooted, so they played in the puddles as much as ever they liked. By and by Eileen said, "Let's play we are Deirdre and the sons of Usnach." "And who were they, indeed?" said Dennis. "It was Grannie told us about them," said Eileen, "and sure it's the sorrowfullest story in Ireland." "Then let's not be playing it," said Dennis.

Since the children of Usnach and Deirdre went to the grave, and Cuchulain, who as the stories tell us, would gain victory in every step he would take; since he died, such a story never came of sorrow or defeat; since the Gael were sold at Aughrim, and since Owen Roe died, the Branch. His Vision of Death I had a vision in my sleep last night between sleeping and waking.

And one time she heard him telling about white-handed Deirdre, and how she brought the sons of Usnach to their death; and how the blush in her cheeks was not so red as the blood of kings' sons that was shed for her, and her sorrows had never gone out of mind; and he said it was maybe the memory of her that made the cry of the plover on the bog as sorrowful in the ear of the poets as the keening of young men for a comrade.

It is a sad story, and we can easily weep at the thrilling moment when, there being no man among the Ultonians to do the king's bidding, a Norse captive takes Naisi's magic sword and strikes off the heads of the three sons of Usnach with one swift blow, and Deirdre, falling prone upon the dead bodies, chants a lament; and when she has finished singing, she puts her pale cheek against Naisi's, and dies; and a great cairn is piled over them, and an inscription in Ogam set upon it.