The fresh earth in new leaves drest,
And the blessed night;
Starry evening and the morn,
When the golden mists are born."

SHELLEY.


Sualtam of Dun Dalgan on the Eastern Sea, took to wife Dectera,
daughter of Factna the Righteous. She was sister of Concobar Mac
Nessa. Sualtam was the King of Cooalney [Footnote: Now the barony
of Cooley, a mountainous promontory which the County of Louth
projects into the Irish Sea.] a land of woods and mountains, an
unproductive headland reaching out into the Ictian Sea.

Dectera bare a son to Sualtam, and they called him Setanta, That
was his first name. His nurse was Dethcaen, the druidess, daughter
of Cathvah the druid, the mighty wizard and prophet of the Crave
Rue. His breast-plate [Footnote: A poetic spell or incantation. So
even the Christian hymn of St. Patrick was called the lorica or
breastplate of Patrick.] of power, woven of druidic verse, was
upon Ulla [Footnote: Ulla is the Gaelic root of Ulster.] in his
time, upon all the children of Rury in their going out and their
coming in, in war and in peace. Dethcaen [Footnote: Dethcaen is
compounded of two words which mean respectively, colour, and
slender.] sang her own songs of protection for the child. His
mother gave the child suck, but the rosy-cheeked, beautiful,
sweetly-speaking daughter of Cathvah nursed him. On her breast and
knee she bare him with great love. Light of foot and slender was
Dethcaen; through the wide dun of Sualtam she went with her