Land of myth and legend: sorcerers, seers and saints
A PREHISTORIC ring barrow stands in Co Armagh. It began as a wooden frame, which was then filled with thousands of stones, burned and covered with soil, leaving a gigantic mound. It is now known as Navan Fort or, in Old Irish, Emain Macha. By the Middle Ages, it was the legendary palace of the Kings of Ulster (or Ulaidh). In Lady Augusta Gregory’s early-20th-century retelling of the Ulster Cycle, a princess called Dechtire swallows a mayfly in her wine and falls asleep. As she sleeps, Lugh of the Long Hand appears to her, claiming to have been the mayfly. He transforms Dechtire
