Many poets and shennachies have related this tale. I have heard it given now this way, and now that; sometimes with new names and scenes, sometimes with other beginnings and endings; but at heart it is ever the same. Nor does it matter whether the father of Deirdrê be Felim, the warrior bard of the Ultonians, or Malcolm the Harper, or any other, or whether the fair and sweet beauty of the world be called Deirdrê or Darthool. But as here in our own land she is called Darthool, that I will call her. I will tell the story as it is told in the old chronicles, and to this day, and if I add aught to it, that shall only be what I myself heard when I was young, and had from the lips of an old woman, Barabal Mac-Aodh, who was my nurse. She came out of Tiree or Coll, I forget which. * * * * * Well, in the ancient dim days when Emania was the capital of the Ultonians, the fair and wonderful capital of the kingdom of Ulster, and before Maev, the queen of the south, had buried the chivalry of the north in dust and blood, there came into the realm of Concobar the Ultonian king, whom some call Conor and some Connachar, three of the noblest and fairest of the youths of the world. These are they who then bore, and in all the years since have borne, the name of the Sons of Usna, who was himself, some say, a feudal king, in Alba.[11] It is because of these three heroes that this story I am relating is often called the story of the Sons of Usna. But first, I have that to tell you which precedes the time when Nathos,[12] and Ailne, and Ardan, stood in the house of Concobar the high king. This Concobar was a great prince. He was known as Concobar MacNessa, for though he was the son of Fatna the Wise, son of Ross the Red, son of Rory, Nessa his mother was a famous queen, and had indeed by her beauty and her wiles brought Concobar to the overlordship of Uladh[13] when he was yet a youth. In many of the tales of the old far-off days, you will hear the rumour of the splendour and wonder of the city of Emania. In Concobar’s time it was called Emain Macha, for it had been built by a great and beautiful queen--Macha Mongruay, Macha of the Ruddy Hair. A thousand times have poets chanted of Emain Macha, and in the ancient days the bards loved to sing also of Macha herself. Here is an old far-off lay: “O ’tis a good house, and a palace fair, the dun of Macha, And happy with a great household is Macha there; Druids she had, and bards, minstrels, harpers, knights, Hosts of servants she had, and wonders beautiful and rare, But nought so wonderful and sweet as her face, queenly fair, O Macha of the Ruddy Hair!