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Updated: June 13, 2025
Then answered the stranger, 'I shall not depart hence, no, not until the son of Concobar be slain in the dust'; and thereupon he rushed upon the King's son, and with one stroke of the blue blade severed his head from his body. So he departed, and soon the son of Fergus also lay dead. And now the Ulstermen surrounded the House of the Red Branch and set fire to its walls.
Here is a foreshadowing of the representative assemblies of our modern times, and the same wise spirit is shown in another event of the same year, thus recorded: "A hosting and a mustering of the men of Ireland, with their chieftains, by Ruaidri Ua Concobar; thither came the lord of Deas-muma, the lord of Tuaid-muma, the king of Meath, the lord of Oirgialla and all the chieftains of Leinster.
The sons of Usna were silent awhile, and the sons of Fergus spake not. Then said Nathos, 'It were better, Deirdre, to be a torch quenched for thy sake than to live for aught save thee. That which shall come, shall come. 'Now must I get me hence, said Lavarcam, 'for Concobar awaiteth my coming. But, sons of Usna, see ye well to it, that the doors and windows be this night barred.
One night when the stars shone brightly, Setanta, as he passed by Cathvah's astrological tower, heard him declare to his students that whoever should be knighted by Concobar on a certain day would be famous to the world's end. He was in his coming out of the forest then with a bundle of young ash trees under his arm.
Their long hair, yellow for the most part, was bound with ornaments of gold. Great, truly, were those men, their like has not come since upon the earth. Concobar had no crown. A plain circle of beaten gold girt his broad temples.
"In the Headland of the Kings, by the clear bright Boyne," answered Concobar, for Concobar concealed not ever from his enemy the place in which he would take station or camp, that they might not say that it was fear or dread that caused him not to say it.
Should dark days befall, sore would be our need, therefore let the sons of Usna be brought hither from their northern mountain home. At these words great was the joy of all, for there was not one but knew that it was for fear of the pitiless anger of Concobar that Nathos had fled from the Green Isle.
The glittering points on either side of it are the racing pillars of burnished brass, the starting-post, and that which the charioteers graze with the glowing axle. Many a noble chariot has been broken, and many a gallant youth slain at the further of those twain. It was there that Concobar raced his steeds against the woman with child, concerning which things there are rumours and prophesyings."
He made no reverence to Concobar or to any of the Ultonians, but standing stark before them, spake thus, not fluently: "My master, Culain, high smith of all Ulster, bids thee to supper this night, O Concobar; and he wills thee to know that because he has not wide territories, and flocks, and herds, and tribute-paying peoples, only the implements of his industry, his anvils and hammers and tongs, and the slender profits of his labour, he feareth to feast all the Red Branch, who are by report mighty to eat and to drink; he would not for all Ireland bring famine upon his own industrious youths, his journeymen and his apprentices.
In fear and wonder Deirdre ran to the spot. No man lay there, but she saw on the bracken the form of a crouching man. She saw, too, the tracks that marked his escape. Nathos followed her, and stooped to take his javelin from the ground. And there, beside it, lay a wooden-hilted knife. 'It is as I thought, he said. 'This knife is used but by the hillmen who are in bondage to Concobar.
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