Part 2

Few stories delighted him more than the wild folk-lore tales which he heard from the shepherds and fishermen, or than those which he was told on Iona. It was to that island he was taken when he was still a child, at a time when the shadow of death darkened his young life. But there, staying with Ian Mor and with Eilidh, his wife, he lived the happiest months of his early years, and came closer to the beauty of the past and to the beauty of the present than ever before or after.

It was on Iona that he first heard the “Three Sorrows of Story-Telling,” though that of Nathos and Darthool--or of “The Sons of Usna,” as it is generally called--was rather overheard by him as Ian related it to Eilidh, than told to him direct.

Throughout the first months of his stay in Iona, Peterkin was told something daily by Ian Mor, so that, child as he was, he became familiar with strange names and peoples of the past, as well as with all the wonders of the living world. True, there was thus in his mind a jumble of the past and the present, and Columba was more real to him than McCailin Mor himself, and Finn and Cuchulain, Ossian and Oscar and Dermid as vivid and actual as any fisherman of Iona.

When he was old enough to follow aright, Ian Mor told him, anew and in his own way, the three famous tales which follow.

The Tale of the Four White Swans

“The cold and cruel fate that overtook The children of the great De Danann, Lir, Is of the Sorrow-stories of our isle. This sorrow-tale indeed is old and young; Old, for so many hundred years have gone Since last beneath the midnight shimmering star Was heard the music of the birds of snow: Young, for amid the bright-eyed tuneful Gael The sorrows of the snowy-breasted four Are told again to-day, and shall be told Long as the children of Milesius last To people Banba’s hills and pleasant vales.”

_The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling_: “The Children of Lir,” _trs. by Dr. Douglas Hyde_.

The Tale of the Four White Swans

The story that I will tell you now is one of the most famous among all the peoples of the Gael. It is called sometimes “The Tale of the Four White Swans,” sometimes “The Fate of the Children of Lir,” sometimes simply “Fionula,”[1] because of the beauty and tenderness of Lir’s daughter.

The tale is of the old far-off days. It was old when Ossian was a youth, and Fionn heard it as a child from the lips of grey-beards. Often I have spoken to you, Peterkin, of the Danann folk, the Tuatha-De-Danann who lived in the lands of our race before the foreign peoples came and drove the ancient dwellers in Ireland and Scotland to the hills and remote places. When men allude to them now in this late day, they speak of the Dedannans (as they are often called) as the Hidden Folk, the Quiet People, the Hill Folk, and even as the Fairies. It is natural, therefore, that years are as dust in the chronicles of this lost race. They live for hundreds of years where we live for ten; and so it is that the foam of time is white against the brief wave of our life, when against the mighty and long reach of theirs it is but flying spray.

You have heard Eilidh singing the song of the Four White Swans. It is a music that hundreds of tired ears have heard. It is so sweet, Peterkin, that old men grow young, and old women are girls again, and weary hearts ache no more, and dreams and hopes become real, and peace puts out her white healing hand.

“Have you heard that singing, Ian?”

“Yes, my boykin, often. And you, too, shall often hear it. It is in lonely places, in lonely hours, that you shall hear it. It is a beautiful strange sound, and so old and so wonderful that in it you will hear the beating of the heart of the world thousands of years ago. But first I will tell you the story of the Four Swans, and then we can speak again of the strange singing I have heard at times, and that you often shall hear.”

The Dedannans were the most wonderful and happy people in the world till they became discontented with what the unknown and beautiful gods had given them. Then they split into sections, and some sought one vain thing and some another, and in the end all found weariness. Their wise men knew that as long as they were at one no enemy could prevail against them; but it has never been the way of the unquiet to believe in the old wisdom, and so feuds arose, and the Fairy Host itself--as the great array of the warriors of the Tuatha-De-Danann was called--ceased to be invincible, because the banners blew to the four winds.

Not all their ancestral sojournings in the dim lands of the East, nor in the ages of their migration to the country of fjords which has its whole length in the sea, nor in Alba, that is now Scotland, nor Eiré, that is now Ireland, not all they had learned in their remote past helped them against the undoing of their own folly.

It has been said that the Dedannans never fought against men till the Milesians, the warriors of Miled out of some land in the south--the land, mayhap, we know as Spain--came against them upon the banks of a river then as now called the Blackwater, in the heart of Meath.

But before the Dedannans themselves ever saw it, the Green Isle was held by the Firbolgs, a terrible, heroic race, but allied to the dark powers. Some say they became demons, after they were defeated in many battles by the Tuatha-De-Danann, and at last wholly conquered. But so old is this ancient tired world, that long before the Dedannans and the Firbolg people fought for sovereignty, the Firbolg had striven with and overcome an earlier race--the Nemedians--which had come to Ireland under a mysterious king, Nemed. None knows who Nemed was, though he may have been a god, seeing that he overcame that most ancient people who were the first to set foot in the Isle of Destiny, under Partholan, a son of him who was called the Most High God.

Whether it be true or not that the overlordship of the world was meant for man, certain it is that man has thought so. Therefore are all stories of his cosmic strife coloured by this destiny. Terrible and mighty were the Firbolgs, fierce and terrible and beautiful were the Dedannans, but now there is no rumour of either, save in the wail of the wind, or in the stirring of swift, stealthy feet in the moonshine.

But now, Peterkin, I will tell you about the children of Lir, who was one of the great princes of the Dedannans.

The first great battle between the Milesians and the Dedannans had been fought, and the ancient people, for all their secret powers of wonders and enchantment, had been defeated. Throughout all Erin--for Ireland at that time was called either Eiré (Erin), or Fola, or Banba, after three great queens--there was a rumour of lamentation. It was the beginning of the end, though few save the wisest Druids foresaw it.

But the people knew that their dissensions were the cause of their sorrow. They clamoured for one king to be overlord, so that the whole Dedannan race might be united.

There were five great princes who claimed to be king by right. Of these two were greater than the others--Bove Derg, son of Dagda, one of the divine race (and some say a mighty god), and Lir of Shee Finnaha. In the end Bove Derg was elected Ardree, or High King. Even Midir the Haughty acquiesced in this judgment of the people, but Lir was wroth and held aloof. All the princes and warriors were fierce with Lir because he had left the assembly in anger, paying heed to no one, and scornfully ignoring the majesty of the king. A hundred swords of proven heroes leapt before Bove Derg, for all were eager to follow Lir and destroy him and his, because of the insult to the king and to the voice and freewill of the people. But Bove Derg was a wise and generous prince, and forbore. This was well. For in time a great sorrow came upon Lir. When the rumour of this sorrow reached Bove Derg, he saw how he might win over Lir.

“In my house,” he said, “are my three foster-children, the daughters of Aileel of Ara. Each is beautiful, all are wise and sweet and noble. Let messengers go to Lir, and tell him that my friendship is his if he will have it. Surely now he will submit to the will of the people. And he can have to wife whomsoever of the three daughters of Aileel he may choose, if so be that she will gladly and freely go with him.”

Lir was glad at this message. He called his warriors together, and in fifty chariots he and they set forth. They rested not till they came to the palace of Bove Derg, by the Great Lake, nigh to the place now called Killaloe. Great were the rejoicings, and again at the alliance which after many days was made between the king and Lir.

When Lir saw the three daughters of Aileel, he could not say who was the most beautiful.

“Each is alike beautiful, O king,” he said; “and I cannot tell which is best. But surely the eldest must be the noblest of the three, and so I will choose her, if so be that she gladly and freely come with me as my wife.”

And so it was. When Lir returned to his own place, he took with him as his wife the beautiful Aev, who was the eldest of the daughters of Aileel of Ara, and was foster-child of Bove Derg the king. From that day, too, a deep and true friendship lived between Bove Derg and Lir.

In the course of time Aev bore him twin children, a son and a daughter. The daughter was named Fionula, because of her lovely whiteness, and the son was named Aed, for that his eyes, and the mind behind his eyes, were bright and wonderful as a flame of fire.

And at the end of the second year Aev again bore twin children. Both were sons, and they were named Fiachra and Conn. But in giving them life she lost her own.

Lir was in bitter distress because of her death, and for the reason that his four little children were now motherless. He was comforted by Bove Derg, who not only gave him friendship and kingly aid and counsel, but said that he should not be left alone to mourn, and that his little ones should not go motherless.

Thus it was that Aeifa, the second of the daughters of Aileel of Ara and foster-child of Bove Derg the king, came to Shee Finnaha and espoused Lir.

For some years all went well. Aeifa nursed the children, and tended them. They were so fair and beautiful that the poets sang of them far and wide. Even Bove Derg loved them as though they were his own. As for Lir, so great was his love, that he could not bear to be long apart from them. His sleeping-room was separated from them only by a deerskin, and this often he pulled aside at dawn, so that he might see his dear ones, and perchance go to them to talk lightly and happily, or to caress them with loving laughter and joy.

Lir was never sad save when the four children went south to the Great Lake to stay awhile with Bove Derg, who in his turn was filled with melancholy when the time came for them to go home again. Nor was Lir ever so proud as when, at the Feast of Age, whenever that festival came to be held at Shee Finnaha, the king and the nobles and the warriors delighted in the beauty and marvellous sweet charm of Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn. Thus it was that the saying grew: “Fair as the four children of Lir.”

But there was a deep shadow behind all this joy. This shadow came out of the heart of Aeifa. In love there is sometimes a poisonous mist. It is what we call Jealousy. At first Aeifa truly loved her step-children. But as the years lapsed, and when Fionula was passing from girlhood into maidenhood, the wife of Lir was filled with anger against the four children. She was bitter at heart because their father loved them with so great a tenderness, and that even the king himself cared for them above all else, and because all the Dedannans had joy of them.

The time came when this dull smouldering fire, which she might have overcome had she loved nobly and not ignobly, burst into flame. This flame withered her heart, and rose thence till it obscured her mind.

She had something of the old druidical wisdom, but she feared the counter-spells of others wiser than herself. Nevertheless she set herself to learn one or other of the ancient incantations against which even the gods are powerless to avert evil from men and women.

While she was brooding thus--and for weeks and even months she lay in the house of Lir as one stricken with some terrible ill--her rage grew till she could no longer endure the sight of her husband or of her step-children.

One day she arose and ordered the horses to be yoked to her chariot, and bade a small chosen company to be ready to go with her and the four children to the Great Lake: for, she said, she wished to see Bove Derg, her foster-father, and to take the children to gladden his heart. Lir was sad, and sadder still when he saw the tears in Fionula’s eyes. In vain he asked her why this drifting dew was there instead of the sun-bright laughing glancings he joyed so much to see. She would not answer: for all she could have said was that in a dream she had fore-knowledge of the evil desire of Aeifa to kill her and her brothers. Perhaps, she thought, it was but a dream. She loved honour, too, and would not put her father against his wife because of a visionary thing that came to her in the night.

It was when they were in a deep gorge of the hills that Aeifa was overcome by her hatred. Turning to her attendants, she offered them wealth and whatsoever they desired if only they would slay the four children of Lir then and there, inasmuch as these had come between her and her husband, and had therein and in all else made her life a burden to her.

The attendants listened with horror. Not one there would lift a hand against Lir’s children. What was wealth, or any fruit of desire, compared with so foul a treachery, so terrible a crime! The oldest among them even warned Lir’s wife that the very thought of such evil would surely work a dreadful punishment against her.

At this, Aeifa laughed wildly. Then, seizing a sword, she strove to wield it herself against the defenceless children. The three boys stood, wondering. In the blue eyes of Fionula there was something the wife of Lir dreaded more than the wrath of husband or king. Dashing the sword to the ground, she cried to the chariot-driver to make haste onward.

No word was spoken among them till they reached the hither end of the Lake of Darvra.[2] There Aeifa called a halt, and the horses were unyoked for rest. It was a fair and warm day, so when she bade the children undress and go into the water, they did so gladly.

While their white sunlit bodies were splashing in the lake, she took from beneath the rim of the chariot, where she had secreted it, a druidical fairy wand. This had been given her by a Dedannan druid, and was a dreadful thing to possess, for its power was of the black magic, against which nothing might prevail. Going to the side of the clear water, she struck lightly with the wand the shoulder of each of the four children; and, as she touched Fionula, Lir’s fair young daughter became a beautiful snow-white swan, and as she touched Aed and Fiachra and Conn, Lir’s three young sons were changed like unto Fionula.

A cry of lamentation arose from the witnesses of this deed, though none guessed that the ill was so dreadful and beyond the reach of druidic skill, nor did the children know at first what evil had befallen them, but swam to and fro laughing in their hearts, and rejoicing in their white feathers and in their swift joy in the water. But when Fionula heard the lamentation, and looked upon the evil face of Aeifa her stepmother, she knew that the hour of doom had come.

Then Aeifa stretched out her arms, and chanted these words:

“Lost far and wide on Darvra’s gloomy water, With other lonely birds tost far and wide. For nevermore shall Lir behold his daughter, And never shall his sons lie by his side.”

Then while all on the shore stood in deep grief, Fionula swam close, and looked up into the white face of Aeifa, which was whiter then than the whitest breast-feathers of these poor bewildered swans.

“This is an evil deed thou hast done, O Aeifa,” she said. “Out of a bitter heart thou hast wrought this cruel wrong upon us who love thee, and have never done or wished thee ill. Nevertheless it is not our ill that shall endure for ever, but thine own evil. There shall be an avenging terrible for thee, whensoever it come.”

It was then that Fionula for the first time sang as a swan, and even then the marvellous sweet singing brought both gladness and tears into the hearts of those who heard.

“In the years long ago, long ago now, long ago, We were loved by her who dooms us to this evil cruel woe: Who with magic wand and words Hath changed us into birds-- Snow-white swans to drift and drift for evermore Homeless, weary, tempest-baffled hence from shore to shore.”

A silence followed this melancholy singing. Then at last Fionula spoke again.

“Tell us, O Aeifa, how long this doom is to be upon us, so that we may know when death shall come to take away our suffering?”

Then because in that day it was not honourable to refuse the truth when asked, Aeifa did as Fionula prayed of her.

“Better would it be for thee and thy brothers to know nothing and to hope much. But since thou hast asked this thing I will tell it:

“Three hundred years shall ye, Fionula, and Aed and Fiachra and Conn, who are now four white swans, abide here on this great lonely, desolate lake of Darvra. For three hundred years thereafter shall ye inhabit the wild sea of Moyle, which lies between the Stairway of the Giants, and the bleak shores of the great headland of Alba.[3] And for yet another three hundred years ye shall drift to and fro among the storm-swept seas off the rocky isles to the west of Erin.

“Furthermore, ye shall be idle sport for the storms until Lairgnen, a great prince of the north, has union with Decca, in the south: until the Taillkenn,[4] the new prophet, shall come to Erin and preach a new faith that shall chase away the old gods: and until ye shall be filled with fear and wonder at a strange sound, that shall be the ringing of the first Christian bell. All this I tell ye because of the prophetic sight I have, and that has come to me through the druidic wand wherewith I have changed ye into four wild white swans. And this too, I say unto ye, Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn, that neither by your own power nor by your prayers, nor by mine, nor by the power of Lir and Bove Derg, nor by that of all kings and princes and druids whatsoever; no, nor by any god, nor by any power in heaven or earth, can ye be freed from this spell I have put upon ye, until the times and events I have spoken of shall be fulfilled.”

When Aeifa had ceased speaking, there was no sound to be heard, save the lap-lapping of the lake-water upon the shore. Of the company of those with her none spake a word, each dreading the evil that was sure to come. At last a faint sobbing came from amid the sedges, where the young brothers nestled by the side of Fionula, who had already begun to mother these dear ones whom she loved.

When she heard these sobs, Aeifa’s heart smote her. Even if she would, she could not now undo the age-long spell she had set upon the children of Lir. But one thing was left to her that she might do with the fairy wand, which could be moved once again if stirred by the breath of her will.

“Hearken, O children of Lir,” she cried, “for I have yet one thing to say: and that out of the sorrow in my heart because of the doom I have put upon ye. Although ye are turned into wild swans, ye shall not become as the desert birds, and have no speech but the savage screams and cries of the wilderness. Ye shall keep for ever your own sweet Gaelic speech, and so be able to talk each with the other, and with any of the human kind whom ye may meet. And more than this, ye shall be able to sing the most sweet, plaintive songs, and the most wild, haunting music that ever man has heard; so that all whose ears list shall be lulled into deep sleep, or into a peace sweeter than slumber itself. Nor shall the law of the soulless brutes be upon you, but ye shall be Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn, the children of Lir.”

Having said these words, Aeifa raised her arms and chanted this song:

“Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans, Across the wind-sprent foam; The wave shall be your father now, And the wind alone shall kiss your brow, And the waste be your home.

Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans, Your age-long quest to make; Three hundred years on Moyle’s wild breast, Three hundred years on the wilder west, Three hundred on this lake.

Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans, And Lir shall call in vain; For all his aching heart and tears, For all the weariness of his years, Ye shall not come again.

Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans, Till the ringing of Christ’s bell; Then at the last ye shall have rest, And Death shall take ye to his breast At the ringing of Christ’s bell.”

Having sung this farewell song, Aeifa ordered the horses to be yoked again to her chariot.

This done, she drove away westward, nor was there a single heart in those who accompanied her but was filled with sorrow and foreboding.

When the lake was no longer visible, and the gloom of the mountains came down upon the pass which led towards the westlands where Bove Derg dwelled, a faint wild aerial singing was heard, delicate as tinkling cowbells on far hill-pastures.

Before Aeifa drew near to the great dun of Bove Derg, she put each of her company under a solemn bond of silence as to what she had meant to do and not done, and as to what later she had done; and because of the lealty of the bond to a woman, and also because of the fear of each towards the druidical fairy wand that she still carried, the oath was taken by one and all.

Therefore it was easy for Aeifa to mislead Bove Derg as to the reason why she had not brought the children of Lir with her. Nevertheless he doubted greatly that his foster-daughter deceived him, for he could not think that Lir his friend would so mistrust him as to refuse to let Fionula and her brothers accompany their stepmother.

So, secretly, he sent a swift messenger across the hills and straths to the dun of Lir.

Lir was at once wroth and filled with fear when he heard that Aeifa had reached the dun of Bove Derg without the children. Some treachery surely had been done, he cried.

Then, calling together a company, he set forth with all speed. Towards sundown, the cavalcade came upon the wide desolate shores of the great lake of Darvra.

“What is that sound?” cried Lir.

“It is the wind in the reeds, O Lir,” answered a spearman by his side.

“The wind in the reeds is a sweet sound to hear, Coran, but never have I heard any wind that could make so sweet a music.”

“It is the little gentle lapping of the wavelets by the west wind, O Lir.”

“It is no gentle lapping of the wavelets by the west wind, Coran, nor yet is it the wind in the reeds; but that is the voice of Fionula singing.”

And as the sound grew clearer, all heard it, and soon the words were audible:

“Behold the Danann host is on the shore, Seeking for those now lost for evermore; But let us haste towards that proud array And tell the tidings of this fatal day.”

And while the song was still in the ears of all there, Lir gave a great cry and pointed to where above the midmost of the lake four wild swans were winging swiftly towards the eastern shore.