An Chraobh Airgid

Person

Deirdre

Deirdre · Old Irish Derdriu

The girl who screamed before she was born, and chose her own love over a king.

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The daughter of Feidlimid mac Daill, the storyteller of Conchobar. Before her birth Cathbad foretold that Ulster would suffer for her, and Conchobar had her reared out of sight to be his wife. She chose Naoise instead, by the colours of a raven drinking blood on the snow, and went with him into exile in Alba. In the oldest telling, a year after his death, she dashes her head against a stone on the road to Macha; in the later one, she dies in Naoise’s grave.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu Deirdre was reared in secret to be the king’s wife. Then one winter she saw a raven drinking blood on the snow, and chose another man.

See also

Sources

Medieval manuscript. Written down by Irish scholars between the eighth and seventeenth centuries.

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