Ossian Collection > Heroic and Ossianic literature

friends with the king of Alba and took service under him. But
the king came to hear of Deirdre's beauty and he must have her.
The men of Alba gathered against the brothers and they had to
fly. Their flight was heard of in Erin, and Conchobar was pressed
to receive them back. Fergus Mac Roich, Conchobar's stepfather,
and Cormac, Conchobar's son, took tlie sons of Uisnech under
their protection, and bi'ought them to Ulster. Conchobar got some
of his minions to draw Fergus and Cormac away from them, and
then the sons of Uisnech were a:tacked, defenceless as they were,
and were slain. Conchobar took Deirdre as his wife, but a year
afterwards she killed herself, by striking her head against a rock,
from grief for Nois and from Conchobar's cruelty.
The Scotch version of the tale differs from the Irish only in
the ending. Deirdre and the sons of Uisnech were sailing on
the sea ; a fog came on and they accidentally put in under the
walls of Conchobar's town. The three landed and left Deirdre
on board ; they met Conchobar and he slew them. Then Conchobar
came down to the sea and invited Deirdre to land. She refused,
unless he allowed her to go to the bodies of the sons of Uisnech:
" Gun taibhrinn mo thri poga meala
Do na tri corpa caomh geala."
On her way she met a carpenter slicing with a knife. She gave
him her ring for the knife, went to the bodies, stretched herself
beside them, and killed herself with the knife.
Macpherson's poem of Darthula opens with an invocation to
the moon, and then we are introduced to the sons of Uisnech
and Darthula, on the sea near Cairbar's camp, driven there by a
storm, the niglit before their death. This brings us in medias res,
as all true epics should do, and the foregoing part of the storv
is told in the speeches of Darthula and Nathos, a somewhat con-
fusing dialogue, but doubtless "epic." These previous facts are,
that Dai'thula is daughter of CoUa. Cairbar, who usurped the
Irish throne on the death of Cuchulinn, regent for young Cormac,
and put Cormac to death, was in love with Darthula. Cuchulinn
was uncle to the sons of Uisnech, and Nathos took command on
his death, but had to fly, for the Irish army deserted him for
Cairbar. On his way to Scotland he fell in with Darthula, and
rescued her from Cairbar ; they put out for Scotland, but were
driven back. Cairbar met them and killed them with arrows,
one of which pierced Darthula. Macpiierson naively says : "The
poem relates the death of Darthula differently from the common
tradition. This account is the most probable, as suicide seems to