Derdriu
Also spelled: Deirdre, Deirdriu, Deirdre of the Sorrows
The girl foretold from the womb to bring ruin, who runs off with Noisiu and kills herself rather than be shared.
Overview
Derdriu screams in her mother's womb, and Cathbad foretells that Ulster will be tormented and the sons of Uisliu and Fergus exiled for her; Conchobor will not let the warriors kill her, but has her reared apart to be kept for his own bed. She sees a raven drinking calf's blood on the snow, asks Leborcham for a man with those colours, and takes hold of Noisiu by the ears until he agrees to go with her, and she warns him each time the king of Alba's steward tries her. When Noisiu is killed on the green at Emain she is brought bound before Conchobor, and for a year she never smiles, eats or sleeps enough, or lifts her head from her knees. Asked what she hates most she says Conchobor and Eogan mac Durthacht, is sent to live a year with Eogan, and in the chariot, after Conchobor tells her she is a sheep eyeing two rams, lets her head be driven against a stone.
I could desire a man who had those three colours there: hair like the raven, cheeks like blood and his body like snow.
Connections
Related characters
- Cathbad (foretold her ruin before her birth)
- Conchobor (kept her for himself, and she hated him)
- Eogan mac Durthacht (killed Noisiu, and she hated him most after Conchobor)
- Fedlimid mac Daill (father)
- Leborcham (satirist who named Noisiu to her)
- Noisiu (the man she bound to her by the ears)
Connected to
- Fergus mac Roich (in her poem he sold honour for a drink)
Places
- Emain Macha (where she is held a year and never smiles)
- Fair of Macha
- Alba (where she and the sons of Uisliu live as hired soldiers)
Appears in chapters
Appears in
- The sons of Uisliu are cut down on the green at Emain by Eogan mac Durthacht, and Fergus afterwards burns Emain. At Emain Macha. In Exile of the Sons of Uisliu.
- Derdriu let her head be driven against a stone on the way to the fair of Macha, and died. At Fair of Macha. In Exile of the Sons of Uisliu.