Chapter 2
When Iollan and Tuiren were married they went to Ulster, and
they lived together very happily. But the law of life is change;
nothing continues in the same way for any length of time; happiness
must become unhappiness, and will be succeeded again by the joy it
had displaced. The past also must be reckoned with; it is seldom as
far behind us as we could wish: it is more often in front, blocking
the way, and the future trips over it just when we think that the
road is clear and joy our own.
Iollan had a past. He was not ashamed of it; he merely thought
it was finished, although in truth it was only beginning, for it is
that perpetual beginning of the past that we call the future.
Before he joined the Fianna he had been in love with a lady of
the Shi', named Uct Dealv (
