The Tain gives us vivid pictures of people and things, but it is
not full of beauty and of tender imagination like many of the
Gaelic stories. Among the most beautiful and best known of these
are perhaps the Three Sorrows of Story-Telling. These three
stories are called: The Tragedy of the Children of Lir; The
Tragedy of the Children of Tuireann; and Deirdre and the Sons of
Usnach. Of the three the last is perhaps the most interesting,
because the story happened partly in Scotland and partly in
Ireland, and it is found both in old Irish and in old Scottish
manuscripts.

The story is told in many old books, and in many ways both in
prose and in verse. The oldest and shortest version is in the
Book of Leinster, the same book in which is found The Tain.

The tale goes that one day King Conor and his nobles feasted at
the house of Felim, his chief story-teller. And while they
feasted a daughter was born to Felim the story-teller. Then
Cathbad the Druid, who was also at the feast, became exceeding
sad. He foretold that great sorrow and evil should come upon the
land because of this child, and so he called her Deirdre, which
means trouble or alarm.

When the nobles heard that, they wished to slay the new-born
babe. But Conor spoke.

"Let it not be so done," he said. "It were an ill thing to shed
the blood of an innocent child. I myself shall care for her.
She shall be housed in a safe place so that none may come nigh to
her, and when she is grown she shall be my one true wife."