Dectera grew pale when she heard that word and her knees smote together with loving fear.  For answer she withdrew him from the society of the men and kept him by herself in the women’s quarter, which was called grianan.  The grianan was in the north end of the palace behind the king’s throne.  In the hall men could see above them the rafters which upheld the roof and the joining of the great central pillar with the same.  From the upper storey of the grianan a door opened upon the great hall directly above the throne of the king, and before that door was a railed gallery.

Thence it was the custom of Dectera to supervise in the morning the labours of the household thralls and at night to rebuke unseemly revelry, and at the fit hour to command silence and sleep.  Thence too in the evening, ere he went to his small couch, Setanta would cry out “good-night” and “good slumber” to his friends in the hall, who laughed much amongst themselves for the secret of his immurement was not hid.  Moreover, Dectera gave straight commandment to her women, at peril of her displeasure and of sore bodily chastisement, that they should not speak to him any word concerning Emain Macha.  The boy as yet knew not where lay the wondrous city, whether in heaven or on earth or beyond the sea.  To him it was still as it were a fairy city or in the land of dreams.

One day he saw afar upon the plain long lines of lowing kine and of laden garrans wending north-westward.  He questioned his mother concerning that sight.  She answered, “It is the high King’s tribute out of Murthemney.” [Footnote:  A territory conterminous with the modern County of Louth.]

“Mother,” he said, “how runs the road hence to the great city?”

“That thou shalt not know,” said his mother, looking narrowly on the boy.

But still the strong spirit from within, irresistible, urged on the lad.  One day while his mother conversed with him, inadvertently she uttered certain words, and he knew that the road to Emain Macha went past the mountain of Slieve Fuad. [Footnote:  Now the Fews mountain lying on the direct way between Dundalk and Armagh.] That night he dreamed of Emain Macha, and he rose up early in the morning and clambered on to the roof of the palace through a window and gazed long upon the mountain.  The next night too he dreamed of Emain Macha, and heard voices which were unintelligible, and again the third night he heard the voices and one voice said, “This our labour is vain, let him alone.  He is some changeling and not of the blood of Rury.  He will be a grazier, I think, and buy cattle and sell them for a profit.”  And the other said, “Nay, let us not leave him yet.  Remember how valiantly he faced the fierce water-dog and slew him at one cast.”  When he climbed to the roof, as his manner was, to gaze at the mountain, he thought that Slieve Fuad nodded to him and beckoned.  He broke fast with his mother and the women that day and ate and drank silently with bright eyes, and when that meal was ended he donned his best attire and took his toy weapons and a new ball and his ashen hurle shod with red bronze.