In this tempestuous bay;
Four children bound by magic spell;—
Our fate is sad to-day!
They were, however, forced to swim out on the stream of Moyle, all wounded and torn as they were; for though the brine was sharp and bitter, they were not able to avoid it. They stayed as near the coast as they could, till after a long time the feathers of their breasts and wings grew again, and their wounds were healed.
After this they lived on for a great number of years, sometimes visiting the shores of Erin, and sometimes the headlands of Alban. But they always returned to the sea-stream of Moyle, for it was destined to be their home till the end of three hundred years.
One day they came to the mouth of the Bann, on the north coast of Erin, and looking inland, they saw a stately troop of horsemen approaching directly from the south-west. They were mounted on white steeds, and clad in bright-coloured garments, and as they wound towards the shore their arms glittered in the sun.
"Do ye know yonder cavalcade?" said Finola to her brothers.
"We know them not," they replied; "but it is likely they are a party of the Milesians, or perchance a troop of our own people, the Dedannans."
They swam towards the shore, to find out who the strangers were; and the cavalcade on their part, when they saw the swans, knew them at once, and moved towards them till they were within speaking distance.
Now these were a party of the Dedannans; and the chiefs who commanded them were the two sons of Bove Derg, the Dedannan king, namely, Aed the Keen-witted, and Fergus the Chess-player, with a third part of the Fairy Host.[XXIII.] They had been for a long time searching for the children of Lir along the northern shores of Erin, and now that they had found them, they were joyful; and they and the swans greeted each other with tender expressions of friendship and love. The children of Lir inquired after the Dedannans, and particularly after their father Lir, and Bove Derg, and all the rest of their friends and acquaintances.
"They are all well," replied the chiefs; "and they and the Dedannans in general are now gathered together in the house of your father, at Shee Finnaha, celebrating the Feast of Age,[2] pleasantly and agreeably. Their happiness would indeed be complete, only that you are not with them, and that they know not where you have been since you left Lake Darvra."
"Miserable has been our life since that day," said Finola; "and no tongue can tell the suffering and sorrow we have endured on the Sea of Moyle."
And she chanted these words—
Ah, happy is Lir's bright home to-day,
With mead and music and poet's lay:
But gloomy and cold his children's home,
For ever tossed on the briny foam.
Our wreathèd feathers are thin and light
When the wind blows keen through the wintry night:
Yet oft we were robed, long, long ago,
In purple mantles and furs of snow.
On Moyle's bleak current our food and wine
Are sandy sea-weed and bitter brine:
Yet oft we feasted in days of old,
And hazel-mead drank from cups of gold.
Our beds are rocks in the dripping caves;
Our lullaby song the roar of the waves:
But soft rich couches once we pressed,
And harpers lulled us each night to rest.
Lonely we swim on the billowy main,
Through frost and snow, through storm and rain:
Alas for the days when round us moved
The chiefs and princes and friends we loved!
My little twin brothers beneath my wings
Lie close when the north wind bitterly stings,
And Aed close nestles before my breast;
Thus side by side through the night we rest.
Our father's fond kisses, Bove Derg's embrace,
The light of Mannanan's[1] godlike face, The love of Angus[1]—all, all are o'er; And we live on the billows for evermore!
After this they bade each other farewell, for it was not permitted to the children of Lir to remain away from the stream of Moyle. As soon as they had parted, the Fairy Cavalcade returned to Shee Finnaha, where they related to the Dedannan chiefs all that had passed, and described the condition of the children of Lir. And the chiefs answered—
"It is not in our power to help them; but we are glad that they are living; and we know that in the end the enchantment will be broken, and that they will be freed from their sufferings."
As to the children of Lir, they returned to their home on the Sea of Moyle, and there they remained till they had fulfilled their term of years.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FOUR WHITE SWANS ON THE WESTERN SEA.
And when their three hundred years were ended, Finola said to her brothers—
"It is time for us to leave this place, for our period here has come to an end."
The hour has come; the hour has come;
Three hundred years have passed:
We leave this bleak and gloomy home,
And we fly to the west at last!
We leave for ever the stream of Moyle;
On the clear, cold wind we go;
Three hundred years round Glora's isle,
Where wintry tempests blow!
No sheltered home, no place of rest,
From the tempest's angry blast:
Fly, brothers, fly, to the distant west,
For the hour has come at last!
So the swans left the Sea of Moyle, and flew westward, till they reached Irros Domnann and the sea round the isle of Glora. There they remained for a long time, suffering much from storm and cold, and in nothing better off than they were on the Sea of Moyle.
It chanced that a young man named Ebric, of good family, the owner of a tract of land lying along the shore, observed the birds and heard their singing. He took great delight in listening to their plaintive music, and he walked down to the shore almost every day, to see them and to converse with them; so that he came to love them very much, and they also loved him. This young man told his neighbours about the speaking swans, so that the matter became noised abroad; and it was he who arranged the story, after hearing it from themselves, and related it as it is related here.
Again their hardships were renewed, and to describe what they suffered on the great open Western Sea would be only to tell over again the story of their life on the Moyle. But one particular night came, of frost so hard that the whole face of the sea, from Irros Domnann to Achill, was frozen into a thick floor of ice; and the snow was driven by a north-west wind. On that night it seemed to the three brothers that they could not bear their sufferings any longer, and they began to utter loud and pitiful complaints. Finola tried to console them, but she was not able to do so, for they only lamented the more; and then she herself began to lament with the others.
After a time, Finola spoke to them and said, "My dear brothers, believe in the great and splendid God of truth, who made the earth with its