Seven Brothers Blessed [ Lore of Penrua: Book IV ]

[ A Song ]

Moigré sits at her solar door,

A-spinning thread so fine;

She hears a note from Eldran's Wood

And wishes she could fly.

She lets the thread fall from her hand,

Her spinning wheel does slow,

For she has run to Eldran's Wood

As fast as she can go.

She's not yet pulled a flow'r, a flow'r,

Nor trod upon a stone,

When to her comes King Han Taín,

And finds her there alone.

"Why come thou here?" he says, he says,

"To walk beneath my trees?

"Why pull my fairest flow'rs, maid,

"And make thyself so free?"

The lady says, "I'll ask no leave,

"Not even, sir, of thee:

"My father's lord of all this realm

"This wood belongs to me."

He looks her up, he looks her down,

He finds her passing fair,

And he without a wife has been—

But not one hour more.

For 'twas his song the lady heard

And followed from from her home,

And now the stranger takes her hand

And steals her for his own.

The highest tree in Eldran's Wood

He fells with one command

And with it, he builds up a house:

The finest in the land.

He builds it high, he builds it strong,

He makes it all secure—

Though no one ever travels by

He shelters it from view.

King Han Taín takes Moigré fair

And locks her clean away

And there she's bound to be his wife

Until her dying day.

He keeps her there in Eldran's Wood

For six long years and one

Until six pretty sons she bears

A seventh soon to come.

And then, upon a sunny day,

The good king goes for game,

And with him goes his eldest son

Prince Diarmán by name.