Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/52

Naisi and his brothers passed by. Though they did not look up, "the love of Naisi was so implanted in the heart of Deirdre" that she sprang up, gathered up her garments, and flew after them, leaving her companions astonished and displeased. Arden and Allen saw her following, and, knowing that she was affianced to the King, they hurried on, for they knew that if Naisi their brother saw her, he would have her for himself "seven times specially as she was not yet married to the King." So they exhorted one another to walk well, seeing that the distance was long that they had to travel and the darkness of night was coming on. Deirdre calls after him, "Naisi, son of Usnach, art thou going to leave me?" "What cry is that in mine ears that I cannot easily answer nor yet easily refuse?" said Naisi. "It is only the cry of the lake-ducks of Conor," they reply; "and let us hurry our footsteps, for the distance is great and the dark shadows of night are coming on." Thrice Deirdre utters her cry and thrice they assure their brother that it is only the grey geese or the flute-like notes of Conor's lake-swans that he hears. But at the third plaintive call, Naisi turns back and meets Deirdre, and she greets him with three kisses and one kiss to each of his brothers. "And glowing blushes like fire were in her cheeks for shame, and the tremulous hues of her ruddy cheeks were coming and going as fast as the shaking leaves of the aspen tree of the stream, till Naisi bethought him that he never saw in bodily form so lovely a 'blood-drop' as this, and he gave her a love such as he never gave to vision or living form, but to herself alone." Then he raised her on his shoulder and requested his brothers to walk well now, and that he would walk well with them. The flight to Alba and the end of the story is much as in the mediæval Irish version, except that the three brothers are drowned in the magic sea raised by the Druid, and that when they are lying in the grave side by side Deirdre calls