It befell that Naisi was upon a certain day alone upon the rampart of the burg of Emain, and he sent his warrior-cry with music abroad:  well did the musical cry ring out that was raised by the sons of Usnach.  Each cow and every beast that heard them, gave of milk two-thirds more than its wont; and each man by whom that cry was heard deemed it to be fully joyous, and a dear pleasure to him.  Goodly moreover was the play that these men made with their weapons; if the whole province of Ulster had been assembled together against them in one place, and they three only had been able to set their backs against one another, the men of Ulster would not have borne away victory from those three:  so well were they skilled in parry and defence.  And they were swift of foot when they hunted the game, and with them it was the custom to chase the quarry to its death.

Now when this Naisi found himself alone on the plain, Deirdre also soon escaped outside her house to him, and she ran past him, and at first he know not who she might be.

“Fair is the young heifer that springs past me!” he cried.

“Well may the young heifers be great,” she said, “in a place where none may find a bull.”

“Thou hast, as thy bull,” said he, “the bull of the whole province of Ulster, even Conor the king of Ulster.”

“I would choose between you two,” she said, “and I would take for myself a younger bull, even such as thou art.”

“Not so indeed,” said Naisi, “for I fear the prophecy of Cathbad.”

“Sayest thou this, as meaning to refuse me?” said she.

“Yea indeed,” he said; and she sprang upon him, and she seized him by his two ears.  “Two ears of shame and of mockery shalt thou have,” she cried, “if thou take me not with thee.”  “Release me, O my wife!” said he.

“That will I.”

Then Naisi raised his musical warrior-cry, and the men of Ulster heard it, and each of them one after another sprang up:  and the sons of Usnach hurried out in order to hold back their brother.

“What is it,” they said, “that thou dost? let it not be by any fault of thine that war is stirred up between us and the men of Ulster.”

Then he told them all that had been done; and “There shall evil come on thee from this,” said they; “moreover thou shalt lie under the reproach of shame so long as thou dost live; and we will go with her into another land, for there is no king in all Ireland who will refuse us welcome if we come to him.”

Then they took counsel together, and that same night they departed, three times fifty warriors, and the same number of women, and dogs, and servants, and Deirdre went with them.  And for a long time they wandered about Ireland, in homage to this man or that; and often Conor sought to slay them, either by ambuscade or by treachery; from round about Assaroe, near to Ballyshannon in the west, they journeyed, and they turned them back to Benn Etar, in the north-east, which