Deirdre: the Highest Type of Celtic Womanhood Author(S): A
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Deirdre: The Highest Type of Celtic Womanhood Author(s): A. C. Macdonell Source: The Celtic Review, Vol. 8, No. 32 (May, 1913), pp. 347-356 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30070259 Accessed: 27-06-2016 07:16 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Celtic Review This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 07:16:41 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms DEIRDRE 347 a single reference to the harp or even to the fiddle, though there are a good few references to music, and two or three to the pipes and the Jew's harp. DEIRDRE THE HIGHEST TYPE OF CELTIC WOMANHOOD PART I 'I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway or on pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.' W. B. YEATs. IN my ears the roar of the cataract, and before my eyes floats a vision of other days, and the mists of spirits departed. By the still dark pools of the Etive, where the silvery salmon lies beneath the shadow of rocks, with tangle of glossy-leaved berry mingling its tendrils amidst the vivid green of evergreen mosses and delicate fronds of ferns. Above is the great tumbling ' Eas,' or waterfall, falling in foamy splashes on to the grey granite rocks below. Here I see, as in a vision, the slender white feet of a queen darting hither and thither, swift as a swallow, on cool green lush of rushes, laid to form the carpet of her 'grianan' or summer bower. The long waving tresses of golden hair reach far below her waist; her eyes are like twin stars of deepest blue fringed with long black lashes. On her, delicate cheek the colour comes and goes, like unto the rays of the sun reflected in the pool below ; flaming like its setting when human eye rests upon her. On her low white brow is set the seal of knowledge, of wisdom, and of future vision. But beyond, and above all, the wealth of beauty that is hers, far surpassing the fairest of Erin's daughters, is virtue, gentleness, and truth. In her eyes, dewy starred, rests a tear as yet unshed: for she knows, this child of destiny, that through her shall This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 07:16:41 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 348 THE CELTIC REVIEW come the sorrow of all sorrows, that shall involve a whole kingdom in bloodshed. Kings must lose their lives for her. Warriors and clansmen be dragged down to their ruin. For her sake the walls of Eman Macha will smoulder in burning ruins, and a curse fall on the fair land of 'Ulladh.' And oh ! Ochon a righ ! the sorrow of all sorrows-that through her the three peerless Sons of Uisneach, Naoise, her beloved, Ainle, and Ardan, the sons of chivalry and strength, must die. 'Deirdre, or Deirdire, shall be her name.' Thus spoke old Cathbad the Druid, as he held her, a new-born babe, in his arms. 'For through her shall come sorrow and bloodshed to Erin.' Here, where the dark waters of Loch Etive lie glistening in the sunlight, reflex of the bright steel of Naoise, Knight of the Red Branch, was enacted one of the greatest dramas the world has ever known. There, where the towering rugged peaks of the Buachaile Beag and the Buachaile Mor raise proud summits to the skies, and the wooded shores of Loch Etive stretches away in the distance, Deirdre dreamed and sang. In her ' grianan,' above the great 'Eas,' and below the hill which takes its name from her 'An grianan,' she could shoot the stag from her window, and fish the salmon in the pool below. Here her memory, fragrant as a rose, dwells in loving remembrance. Every spot of this entrancing Glen Etive is classic ground. In the old royal forest of Dal-an-Eas, or Dalness, Naoise, Ainle, and Ardan hunted the red deer, and startled the hind, the swift-footed bride, like Diana of old, by their side. But, we are told, at close of eve they bore her on their bucklers, lest her delicate feet should tire, down to their home by Loch Etive, sheltered by the magic 'Luis' or quicken trees. Of all the wealth of legend and of song bequeathed to us from the brave old Fingalian days, and, as some aver, This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 07:16:41 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms DEIRDRE 349 even earlier song-cycles, nothing touches or quickens the imagination so much, to my mind, as this one, of the 'three sorrows of storytelling': the fate of Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach, so alive with human interest and beauty of idealism. Deirdre stands out as the highest ideal ever conceived of Celtic womanhood, and, may I add, of any womanhood, prior to Christianity; as Oscar, the beautiful son of Ossian, reveals our best type of chivalry-the only one, save Bran, his faithful dog, whose death drew tears from the eyes of his naughty grandfather, Fionn. Deirdre the Fair was daughter to Felim, or Fedelim, chief bard and favourite of Conor, or Conchubar, the usurper of the throne of Ulster. As to Naoise, of whose beauty, prowess, and fascination tales innumerable are told, I shall have more to say later on. Now it is to his gentle consort we must turn. Far be it from me to do anything, in a brief sketch like this, except to touch very lightly on what I consider to be the beauties of character and the salient points in the story of my heroine. W. B. Yeats places the date of Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach as being about one hundred to one hundred and fifty years before the great German epic of the Niebelung- leid, at least two hundred years before the romances of Charlemagne, and one hundred to two hundred years before Scandinavian mythology crystallised into shape. Yet what a contrast between the courtly Naoise, and even the treacherous Conor, to King Olaf's wooing of 'Sigrid the haughty,' whose lands he coveted as being next his own. Sigrid, on learning from her goldsmiths that the ring sent to her by Olaf was of copper, not of gold, flies into a towering rage. When Olaf presents himself before her, she refuses his suit, saying, 'I hold to my gods, and my land'; whereupon the king smites her cheek with his mailed hand, calling her 'a withered old hag, a heathenish jade.' Truly ungallant conduct. Conor, at his This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 07:16:41 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 350 THE CELTIC REVIEW worst, raised neither hand nor word against Deirdre's own person. The story of Deirdre, got in the far-off Hebrides by Dr. Carmichael, differs little from that translated by Lady Gregory from old Gaelic MSS. lying neglected for ages in the Dublin archives. As she herself so quaintly puts it: 'Indeed, if there was more respect for Irish things among the learned men that live in the College at Dublin, where so many of these old writings are stored, this work would not have been left to a woman of the house, that has to be minding the place, and listening to complaints, and dividing her share of food.' Lady Gregory's version, com- mitted to writing a few hundreds of years ago, is much fuller and more detailed than Dr. Carmichael's version, whose life has been in the lips of the unlettered people,.yet the essen- tials differ not at all-another proof, were one needed, of the extraordinary way in which our Highland, and indeed all Celtic peoples, have handed down orally from genera- tion to generation long tales in prose and verse for hundreds of years. Neither do the more poetic versions of other learned Irish scholars show much difference. In the accounts of the two former translators, the birth of Deirdre is foretold to Felim by Cathbad the Druid. Lady Gregory and others name him so; Dr. Carmichael's John, from whom he had the tale, calls him Calum, an altering of the unknown word for a known one which is apt to occur in folk-tales, and which Dr. Carmichael points out as having occurred in other places in this tale. Felim at first disbelieves in the Druid's prophecy, as he and his spouse had given up all hope of offspring. How- ever, on the birth of the wonderful 'child of destiny,' Cathbad again visits the house of the bard, and holding her in his arms, addresses her thus :- 'Let Deirdre be her name. Harm will come through her. She will be fairest of all the fair daughters of Erin. Heroes will fight for her; and kings go seeking her.