Dig the grave both deep and wide,
And let us slumber side by side.



VI.

CUCULAIN THE HERO.

B.C. 50--A.D. 50.

The treacherous death of Naisi and his brothers Ardan and Alny, and her
own bereavement and misery, were not the end of the doom pronounced at
her birth for Deirdré, but rather the beginning. Yet the burden of the
evils that followed fell on Concobar and his lands and his warriors.

For Fergus, son of Roeg, former king over Emain, who had stayed behind
his charges feasting and banqueting, came presently to Emain, fearing
nothing and thinking no evil, but still warm with the reconciliation
that he had accomplished; and, coming to Emain of Maca, found the sons
of Usnac dead, with the sods still soft on their graves, and his own son
also dead, Deirdré in the hands of Concobar, and the plighted word of
Fergus and his generous pledge of safety most traitorously and basely
broken; broken by Concobar, whom he himself had guarded and set upon
the throne.

Fergus changed from gladness to fierce wrath, and his countenance was
altered with anger, as he uttered his bitter indignation against
Concobar to the warriors and heroes of Emain and the men of Ulad. The
warriors were parted in two by his words, swaying to the right and to