DEIRDRÊ
"Her beauty filled the old world of the Gael with a sweet, wonderful, and abiding rumour. The name of Deirdrê has been as a harp to a thousand poets. In a land of heroes and brave and beautiful women, how shall one name survive? Yet to this day and for ever, men will remember Deirdrê.…"—Fiona Macleod.
So long ago, that it was before the birth of our Lord, so says tradition, there was born that
"Morning star of loveliness,
Unhappy Helen of a Western land,"
who is known to the Celts of Scotland as Darthool, to those of Ireland as Deirdrê. As in the story of Helen, it is not easy, or even possible in the story of Deirdrê, to disentangle the old, old facts of actual history from the web of romantic fairy tale that time has woven about them, yet so great is the power of Deirdrê, even unto this day, that it has been the fond task of those men and women to whom the Gael owes so much, to preserve, and to translate for posterity, the tragic romance of Deirdrê the Beautiful and the Sons of Usna.
In many ancient manuscripts we get the story in more or less complete form. In the Advocates' Library of Edinburgh, in the Glenmasan M.S. we get the best and the fullest version, while the oldest and the shortest is to be found in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster.
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