Glen Urchain![23] O Glen Urchain! It was the straight glen of smooth ridges, Not more joyful was a man of his age Than Naoise in Glen Urchain. Glendaruadh![24] O Glendaruadh! My love each man of its inheritance. Sweet the voice of the cuckoo, on bending bough, On the hill above Glendaruadh. Beloved is Draighen and its sounding shore; Beloved is the water o'er the pure sand. O that I might not depart from the east, But that I go with my beloved!" _Translated by W. F. Skene, LL.D._ Thus they fared across the grey-green sea betwixt Alba and Erin, and when Ardan and Ainle and Naoise heard the words of the song of Deirdrê, on their hearts also descended the strange sorrow of an evil thing from which no courage could save them. At Ballycastle, opposite Rathlin Island, where a rock on the shore ("Carraig Uisneach") still bears the name of the Sons of Usna, Fergus and the returned exiles landed. And scarcely were they out of sight of the shore when a messenger came to Fergus, bidding him to a feast of ale at the dun of Borrach. Then Fergus, knowing well that in this was the hand of Conor and that treachery was meant, reddened all over with anger and with shame. But yet he dared not break his _geasa_, even although by holding to it the honour he had pledged to the three brothers for their safe-conduct and that of Deirdrê was dragged through the mire. He therefore gave them his sons for escort and went to the feast at the dun of Borrach, full well knowing that Deirdrê spoke truth when she told him sadly that he had sold his honour. The gloomy forebodings that had assailed the heart of Deirdrê ere they had left Loch Etive grew ever the stronger as they went southwards. She begged Naoise to let them go to some place of safety and there wait until Fergus had fulfilled his _geasa_ and could rejoin them and go with them to Emain Macha. But the Sons of Usna, strong in the knowledge of their own strength, and simply trustful of the pledged word of Conor and of Fergus, laughed at her fears, and continued on their way. Dreams of dread portent haunted her sleep, and by daytime her eyes in her white face looked like violets in the snow. She saw a cloud of blood always hanging over the beautiful Sons of Usna, and all of them she saw, and Illann the Fair, with their heads shorn off, gory and awful. Yet no pleading words could prevail upon Naoise. His fate drove him on. "To Emain Macha we must go, my beloved," he said. "To do other than this would be to show that we have fear, and fear we have none."