“There are some who see and cannot hear, and some who hear and do not see, and some who neither see nor hear, and you are one of these last, Dermod, son of Carroll.”
The speaker was a man of about forty years, a little above the medium height, of well-knit frame, of a sanguine complexion. His bushy brows, shaded pensive eyes, that one would look for in a poet or a dreamer rather than in a soldier, yet a soldier, Cathal, son of Rory, was, and one of the guards of Cobhthach Cael, the usurper, who reigned over Leinster; it was in the guard-room in the outer wall of the Fortress of Dun Righ that he addressed these words to one of his companions, a stripling of twenty, but of gallant bearing.
“But what did you see or hear, O Cathal?” said another of the guards, who numbered altogether some six or seven. “They say of you, Cathal, that the wise woman of the Sidhe came to you the night you were born and touched your eyes and ears, and that you can see and hear what and when others cannot see or hear.”
“What matters it what I see or hear? What matters it what is seen or heard, Domhnall, son of Eochy, when the king is blind and deaf, and those about him also?” answered Cathal.
“Why say you blind and deaf, O Cathal?”
“Was it not but the last night,” replied Cathal, “when the men of Leinster were gathered at the banquet, and when the King of Offaly rose up and the cry of Slainthe sounded through the hall like the boom of the waves on the shore of Carmen, that the king’s shield groaned on the wall and fell with a mighty clangour, and yet they heard and saw not, and pursued their revelry. But seeing this, and that they had not perceived, I rose and restored the shield to its place on the wall.”
“And what else did you see, O son of Rory?”
“What else did I see? Was I not keeping watch on the ramparts of a night, when the young moon was coming over the woods, and looking at herself in the waters of the Barrow, and did I not see the Lady Edain in her grinan looking out and waving her white arm—whiter than the moon—and did I not hear her moaning, as the wind moans softly on a summer night through the reeds of the river, and, as I listened and watched, did I not see coming to the banks of the river, a woman with a green silken cloak on her shoulders, who sat down opposite the dun, and she was weaving a border, and the lath, or rod, she was weaving with was a sword of bronze?”
“And what do you read from that, O Cathal, son of Rory?”
“What do I read from that? War and destruction I read from that, Domhnall, son of Eochy—war and destruction; for when a king’s shield falls from the wall it means that his house will fall, and the woman weaving with the sword was the long, golden-haired woman of the Sidhe—dangerous to look on is she, Domhnall, son of Eochy, for whiter than the snow of one night, is her form gleaming through her dress, and her grey eyes sparkle like the stars, and red are her lips and thin, and her teeth are like a shower of pearls, and dangerous is she to listen to, Domhnall, for less sweet are the strings of the harp than the sound of her voice; and she comes on the eve of battles, and she weaves the fate of those who will fall; and she sat on the banks of the Barrow, flowing brightly beneath the young moon, and when she will be seen there again it will be red with blood.”
