"Until it chanced of a day, while snow lay (on the ground), in the winter, that Cailcin, Déirdre's tutor, went to kill a calf to get ready food for her, and after shedding the blood of the calf out upon the snow, a raven stoops upon it to drink it, and as Déirdre perceives that, and she watching through a window of the fortress, she heaved a heavy sigh so that Cailcin heard her. 'Wherefore thy melancholy, girl?' said he. 'Alas that I have not yon thing as I see it,' said she. 'Thou shalt have that if it be possible,' said he, drawing his hand dexterously so that he gave an unerring cast of his knife at the raven, so that he cut one foot off it. And after that he takes up the bird and throws it over near Déirdre. The girl starts at once, and fell into a faint, until Lavarcam came up to help her. 'Why art thou as I see thee, dear girl,' said she, 'for thy countenance is pitiable ever since yesterday?' 'A desire that came to me,' said Déirdre. 'What is that desire?' said Lavarcam. 'Three colours that I saw,' said Déirdre, 'namely, the blackness of the raven, the redness of the blood, and the whiteness of the snow.' 'It is easy to get that for thee now,' said Lavarcam, and arose (and went) out without delay, and she gathered the full of a vessel of snow, and half the full of a cup of the calf's blood, and she pulls three feathers out of the wing of the raven. And she laid them down on the table before the girl. Déirdre began as though she were eating the snow and lazily tasting the blood with the top of the raven's feather, and her nurse closely scrutinising her, until Déirdre asked Lavarcam to leave her alone by herself for a while. Lavarcam departs, and again returns, and this is how she found Déirdre--shaping a ball of snow in the likeness of a man's head and mottling it with the top of the raven's feather out of the blood of the calf, and putting the small black plumage as hair upon it, and she never perceived her nurse examining her until she had finished. 'Whose likeness is that?' said Lavarcam. Déirdre starts and she said,'It is a work easily destroyed.' 'That work is a great wonder to me, girl,' said Lavarcam, 'because it was not thy wont to draw pictures of a man, (and) it was not permitted to the women of Emania to teach thee any similitude but that of Conor only.' 'I saw a face in my dream,' said Déirdre, 'that was of brighter countenance than the King's face, or Cailcin's, and it was in it that I saw the three colours that pained me, namely, the whiteness of the snow on his skin, the blackness of the raven on his hair, and the redness of the blood upon his countenance, and oh woe! my life will not last, unless I get my desire.' 'Alas for thy desire, my darling,' said Lavarcam. 'My desire, O gentle nurse,' said Déirdre. 'Alas! 'tis a pity thy desire, it is difficult to get it,' said Lavarcam, 'for fast and close is the fortress of the Branch, and high and difficult is the enclosure round