Alastair Macleod 
The Wooing of Orla 

’Conall had a daughter, Orla by name, a beautiful girl, nearing sixteen, auburn hair worn long, green eyes, already a shapely figure. The foster son Uisde had coveted her for some time. She was of the caher people and so he reckoned she should be his.

But Orla, her mother had remarked, was like the she-goat, fussy with her food and what she wore, and likely to go her own way on all things. If the womenfolk went for walk beyond the wall it was Orla that often went off on her own and had to be brought back. In the caher, if it was sunny, she was often to be found sitting on her own on the top of the great wall, looking out across the Burren, combing her long hair.’