Deirdre of the Sorrows (Deirdre)

A prophecy at a birth, a king who thought he could outwait it, and the ruin of the Red Branch.

When Deirdre was born, the druid Cathbad said she would be the most beautiful woman in Ireland and that kings would go to war over her. The men of Ulster wanted her killed at once. Conchobar mac Nessa, their king, had a better idea: he would raise her apart from everyone, in seclusion, and marry her himself when she was grown.

She grew up seeing almost nobody. Then she saw a raven drinking blood off snow and said she would love a man with hair that black, skin that white and cheeks that red. Her nurse told her there was one, Naoise, son of Uisneach.

Deirdre found him and put him under obligation to take her away. He and his two brothers fled with her to Scotland and lived there until Conchobar sent word that all was forgiven. The guarantee of their safety was given by Fergus mac Róich, who was an honourable man and whose word the sons of Uisneach trusted.

Conchobar had Naoise and his brothers killed on arrival. Fergus, his honour destroyed, burned Emain Macha and took himself and three thousand men into the service of Connacht, which is why he is on Medb's side in the Táin.

Deirdre lived another year in Conchobar's house and never smiled in it. When he asked her what she hated most and she said him, and the man who killed Naoise, he proposed to hand her to that man for a year. She threw herself from the chariot and broke her head on a rock rather than go.