County Cavan is lough country. There are allegedly 365 of them, one for each day of the year. A small lake in the county, known as Shannon Pot, is the source of the River Shannon. The county is part of Ulster, but is not in Northern Ireland. Laetitia took her group to Magh Slécht, an ancient plain dotted with little drumlin hills and remnants of early civilization: megalithic tombs, ring barrows, crannogs, stone circles, and standing stones. At the pub after a day of hiking on Magh Slécht, Laetitia heard some gossip about a young woman named Anne who had gone nightclubbing in Paris and had become a cancan enthusiast, much to the annoyance of the elders in the small hamlet of Ardan where she lived.

A flighty young lady named Anne
Would compulsively dance the cancan
Anytime, anyplace
“T’is an awful disgrace”
Said the dowager set of Ardan.