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The taunt stung Dairé, after his hospitality, and in wrath he sent them forth empty-handed, and so they came slighted to Meave. The queen, conceiving her honor impeached, would by no means suffer the matter so to rest, but stirred up wrath and dissension, till the armies of Connacht with their allies set forth to sack and burn in Ulad, and at all hazards to bring the brown bull.
The whole province was shaken with war and there was great shedding of blood, but in the end Concobar prevailed and drove out Fergus Mac Roy. After that expulsion Fergus and three thousand of the Red Branch fled across the Shannon and came to Rath Cruhane, and entered into military service with Meave who was the queen of all the country west of the Shannon.
The son of Lucta, the north Munster king, assembled his tribes at the Hill of Luchra, between the Shannon mouth and the Summit of Prospects. Ailill and Meave hosted the men of the west at Cruacan. Find, son of Ros, king over the Galian of Leinster, gathered his army at Dinn-Rig by the Barrow. Cairpré Nia Fer assembled his host about him at Tara, in the valley of the Boyne.
Thus Meave escaped and Fergus with her, and came to their great fort on the green hillside of Cruacan amid the headwaters of the Shannon. The victory of Concobar's men was like a defeat.
"The O'Neill!" The words seemed to burst from her involuntarily. She craned forward, her hands twisting at her ragged shawl, and a flood of Gaelic poured from her lips as she stared at the awe-struck man. "Are you, then, the earl, come back from the dead? Ghost of Tyr-owen, why stand you here idle in the gap of Ulster, where once Cuculain fought against the host of Meave?
Finn, son of Coul; in Thottirnanoge, the Coptic Thoth, i.e. name of ancient Egyptian deity, and Erse Tirnanoge, the name of the wife of Oisin, the last of the Feni; in Chaac-molrée the Coptic deity, ré; in Ozilmeave, the Celtic Meave, a girl's name; in Taramoo, the Celtic Tara, a girl's name; and in Nikétoth, toth, the Erse technical form of feminine gender; and comparing the alphabets I traced a very striking likeness between the Atlantean
We know, too, that the great dining-hall of Tara has been faithfully celebrated by the bards; the picture of the king in his scarlet cloak is representative of the whole epoch. The story of Credé also shows the freedom and honor accorded to women, as does the queenship of Meave, with the record of her separate riches.
Queen Meave and Fergus leading the joined host of the four remaining provinces, Meath, Connaught, Munster, and Leinster, certain of success owing to a strange lethargy which then fell on the Ultonians, did invade Ulster. But as they drew nigh to the mearings they found the in-gate of the province barred by one man. It is needless to mention that man's name.
For it is, I repeat, the heroic Gaelic world that MacDowell has made to live again in his music: that miraculous world of stupendous passions and aspirations, of bards and heroes and great adventure the world of Cuchullin the Unconquerable, and Laeg, and Queen Meave; of Naesi, and Deirdré the Beautiful, and Fergus, and Connla the Harper, and those kindred figures, lovely or greatly tragical, that are like no other figures in the world's mythologies.
Great was the deed that was performed that day at the ford by the two heroes, the two warriors, the two champions of western lands, the two gift-bestowing hands of the northwest of the world, the two beloved pillars of the valor of the Gael, the two keys of the bravery of the Gael, brought to fight from afar through the schemes of Meave the queen.
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