Deirdre: the Highest Type of Celtic Womanhood Author(S): Alice C
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Deirdre: The Highest Type of Celtic Womanhood Author(s): Alice C. Macdonell Source: The Celtic Review, Vol. 9, No. 33 (Aug., 1913), pp. 41-48 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30070276 Accessed: 27-06-2016 04:49 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 04:49:43 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms DEIRDRE 41 himself. Unless, then, the degenerate descendants of this man are to be deemed Romani, there was no Roman sur- viving in Britain in our author's own time. DEIRDRE THE HIGHEST TYPE OF CELTIC WOMANHOOD ALICE C. MACDONELL PART II 'TAKE a blessing from me eastward to Alba; good is the sight of her bays and valleys; pleasant was it to sit on the slopes of her hills when the Sons of Usnach used to be hunting.' So sang the sweet Dearshula, Darthula, the name they knew her by in Alba on account of her dark blue eyes. When she spoke the above words, she was far from the home of her choice, with a heart sick for sorrow. The first resting-place of the lovers when they fled from Erin was undoubtedly on the shores of Loch Ness, which some assert takes its name from Naoise. Tradition says that their castle was where the ruins of Urquhart Castle now stands. And I for one would prefer to go by the traditions of a country rather than by many a written document. A fairer spot they could not have chosen, with the silver birches and dark pines casting deep shadows on the waters. But here, alas! occurred the first and only misunderstand- ing between these two. Naoise and his brothers were asked to attend the court of the King of the North at Inverness. The prudence of the three deemed it unwise to let Deirdre be seen there, on account of her fatal beauty and fascination. Indeed they were careful to keep her hidden as much as possible from all stranger eyes. Our heroine has been compared to Helen of Troy--that This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 04:49:43 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 42 THE CELTIC REVIEW the beauty of both caused a great war is a similitude-there the resemblance ends. The beauty of Helen was seemingly her chief asset. It is like comparing the glare of the foot- lights to one of the constellations. Cleopatra, that 'serpent of old Nile,' might have matched Deirdre's intelligence, but her character repels instead of attracting interest. In Deirdre we have beauty, learning, and virtue all united in one person. Naoise goes, then, to the court at Inverness, dressed in his bravest: 'A cloak of bright purple fringed with gold; a coat of satin with fifty hooks of silver; a brooch on which were one hundred polished gems; two blue green spears of bright points - dagger with the colour of yellow gold upon it, and silver.' Little wonder was it, then, that the lovw iand maid, daughter to the Lord of Duntreoir, fell to his fascinations. She gave him her heart's fI d to the day of her death would hear of love from ther man. And he, as he expresses it himself, gave h 'A pog gun fhios !' A flimsy enough excuse. But his subsequent visit to her was not at all ' gun fhios !' Nor was it 'gun fhios' that, as Deirdre says, 'He presented her with a frightened wild deer, and a fawn at its feet.' When Deirdre hears of this, no reproach or violent words escape her. Her wound was too deep, and her character too high. She takes her 'curach,' without sail, without oar, and launches out on the stormy waters of Loch Ness, hoping that its waves might close over her pain, neither caring to live, or to return. When the brothers learned what had become of their sister, so dearly loved that they never cared to look at any other woman, they set out immediately to find her. It was Ainle the beautiful who rescued her from the bitter cold waters of the loch, swimming with her on his shoulder to the shore. We may take it that Naoise's remorse and repentance was thoroughly sincere, as Deirdre tells us: 'Naoise This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 04:49:43 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms DEIRDRE 43 swore upon his arms he would never put vexation upon me, until he would go from me to the hosts of the dead,' a knightly vow he nobly kept, as we see in his subsequent wanderings. For Naoise was a true Celt, with his im- passioned love of home deep in his heart, yet with the restless, wandering spirit of the race strong upon him, the spirit that drives us all out to seek the flower of the world and its mysteries. In one of these wanderings by sea, he falls asleep in his ship too near the coast of Norway, when he is taken prisoner by its king. But the daughter of Norway's lord, having once cast eyes on him, gives her heart to the all too fascinating Naoise, and dei es to aid his escape. andAt greatone dark peril night to herself of rain she' andls ...:.. 8 thesucceed court in smith,enter- ing the prison, file off the chains t% und the prisoners, and leading them down to the sea, put them upon their own ship again. The Norwegian Princess begs him to take her back with him to Alba, for no man's love will she have but his. Naoise, with the remembrance of that luckless 'pog gun fhios' and its consequences fresh in his mind, and also because he loves Darthula above all creatures, answers, 'If you are content to be second in the house, as no other shall be first save Deirdre.' He sails back without her to Scotland, to be reproached by Darthula for his carelessness in going to sleep on his arms so near the enemy's country. A fuller perusal of her history will show the overtures of the King of the North in his absence, and of the false steward Naoise left in charge of the household, and the fine scorn and contempt with which the high-minded queen met them all. As to the fair daughter of Duntreoir, that fatal 'pog gun fhios' left so deep an impression that she refused every offer made to her by other men. Deirdre, after her first natural indignation was over, felt nothing but pity for her. At that supreme moment This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 04:49:43 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 44 THE CELTIC REVIEW of sorrow, when she stood by the grave of her dead hero, she could spare in her tenderness of heart a thought to her one-time rival. 'Ochon!' she sighed. 'If the daughter of Duntreoir knew to-night Naoise to be under a covering of clay, it is she would cry her fill, and it is I would cry along with her.' Here is true nobility of soul. No resentment for the mortal wound her own heart had received, and which she felt to the last hour of her life. The second home of Naoise and Deirdre was by the side of Loch Etive, when he thought it prudent to remove from the too pressing attentions of the King of the North, who sent the three Sons of Usnach into every possible danger, hoping that they might get killed, and that he would thus secure the fair Deirdre for himself. I am told that a century ago the old inhabitants of Glen Etive could point out the apple trees of Naoise, of Ainlee, and of Ardan in their own garden, but that even the place of it is now unknown. Here, as Deirdre reminded Naoise: 'Here you are king; in Erin you would have to serve.' Why, then, did he not listen to her wise counsels, rather than to the cry of that man of Erin that came over the hills, himself deluded by the subtler brain of King Conor. How vividly that scene rises before the mental vision! the towering mountains of Glen Etive-Beinn Ceitlin, Stob Dubh, Coire Dionach, the Buachaile Beag, and the Bua- chaile Mor and the Grianan, with all that splendid range just as they stand to-day-the still black waters of Loch Etive stretching far away into the distance-the cry of the wild swans, and the bell of the stag in the forest. The lovers were playing at chess when they were startled by a loud cry coming over the hills. Deirdre's white hand trembles as she lifts king or pawn for the next move. Well she knows what that cry may mean for her. Her efforts to attribute the cry to anything except what she knows it actually to be are pathetic in the extreme.