Gods and Fighting Men, Lady I. A Gregory [best e books to read TXT] 📗

"It is because Lir has no liking for

you, and he will not trust you with his children, for fear you might

keep them from him altogether."

 

"I wonder at that," said Bodb Dearg, "for those children are dearer to

me than my own children." And he thought in his own mind it was deceit

the woman was doing on him, and it is what he did, he sent messengers to

the north to Sidhe Fionnachaidh. And Lir asked them what did they come

for. "On the head of your children," said they. "Are they not gone to

you along with Aoife?" he said. "They are not," said they; "and Aoife

said it was yourself would not let them come."

 

It is downhearted and sorrowful Lir was at that news, for he understood

well it was Aoife had destroyed or made an end of his children. And

early in the morning of the morrow his horses were caught, and he set

out on the road to the south-west. And when he was as far as the shore

of Loch Dairbhreach, the four children saw the horses coming towards

them, and it is what Fionnuala said: "A welcome to the troop of horses I

see coming near to the lake; the people they are bringing are strong,

there is sadness on them; it is us they are following, it is for us they

are looking; let us move over to the shore, Aodh, Fiachra, and comely

Conn. Those that are coming can be no others in the world but only Lir

and his household."

 

Then Lir came to the edge of the lake, and he took notice of the swans

having the voice of living people, and he asked them why was it they had

that voice.

 

"I will tell you that, Lir," said Fionnuala. "We are your own four

children, that are after being destroyed by your wife, and by the sister

of our own mother, through the dint of her jealousy." "Is there any way

to put you into your own shapes again?" said Lir. "There is no way,"

said Fionnuala, "for all the men of the world could not help us till we

have gone through our time, and that will not be," she said, "till the

end of nine hundred years."

 

When Lir and his people heard that, they gave out three great heavy

shouts of grief and sorrow and crying.

 

"Is there a mind with you," said Lir, "to come to us on the land, since

you have your own sense and your memory yet?" "We have not the power,"

said Fionnuala, "to live with any person at all from this time; but we

have our own language, the Irish, and we have the power to sing sweet

music, and it is enough to satisfy the whole race of men to be listening

to that music. And let you stop here to-night," she said, "and we will

be making music for you."

 

So Lir and his people stopped there listening to the music of the swans,

and they slept there quietly that night. And Lir rose up early on the

morning of the morrow and he made this complaint:--

 

"It is time to go out from this place. I do not sleep though I am in my

lying down. To be parted from my dear children, it is that is tormenting

my heart.

 

"It is a bad net I put over you, bringing Aoife, daughter of Oilell of

Aran, to the house. I would never have followed that advice if I had

known what it would bring upon me.

 

"O Fionnuala, and comely Conn, O Aodh, O Fiachra of the beautiful arms;

it is not ready I am to go away from you, from the border of the harbour

where you are."

 

Then Lir went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome

before him there; and he got a reproach from Bodb Dearg for not bringing

his children along with him. "My grief!" said Lir. "It is not I that

would not bring my children along with me; it was Aoife there beyond,

your own foster-child and the sister of their mother, that put them in

the shape of four white swans on Loch Dairbhreach, in the sight of the

whole of the men of Ireland; but they have their sense with them yet,

and their reason, and their voice, and their Irish."

 

Bodb Dearg gave a great start when he heard that, and he knew what Lir

said was true, and he gave a very sharp reproach to Aoife, and he said:

"This treachery will be worse for yourself in the end, Aoife, than to

the children of Lir. And what shape would you yourself think worst of

being in?" he said.

 

"I would think worst of being a witch of the air," she said. "It is into

that shape I will put you now," said Bodb. And with that he struck her

with a Druid wand, and she was turned into a witch of the air there and

then, and she went away on the wind in that shape, and she is in it yet,

and will be in it to the end of life and time.

 

As to Bodb Dearg and the Tuatha de Danaan they came to the shore of Loch

Dairbhreach, and they made their camp there to be listening to the music

of the swans.

 

And the Sons of the Gael used to be coming no less than the Men of Dea

to hear them from every part of Ireland, for there never was any music

or any delight heard in Ireland to compare with that music of the swans.

And they used to be telling stories, and to be talking with the men of

Ireland every day, and with their teachers and their fellow-pupils and

their friends. And every night they used to sing very sweet music of the

Sidhe; and every one that heard that music would sleep sound and quiet

whatever trouble or long sickness might be on him; for every one that

heard the music of the birds, it is happy and contented he would be

after it.

 

These two gatherings now of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Sons of the

Gael stopped there around Loch Dairbhreach through the length of three

hundred years. And it is then Fionnuala said to her brothers: "Do you

know," she said, "we have spent all we have to spend of our time here,

but this one night only."

 

And there was great sorrow on the sons of Lir when they heard that, for

they thought it the same as to be living people again, to be talking

with their friends and their companions on Loch Dairbhreach, in

comparison with going on the cold, fretful sea of the Maoil in the

north.

 

And they came early on the morrow to speak with their father and with

their foster-father, and they bade them farewell, and Fionnuala made

this complaint:--

 

"Farewell to you, Bodb Dearg, the man with whom all knowledge is in

pledge. And farewell to our father along with you, Lir of the Hill of

the White Field.

 

"The time is come, as I think, for us to part from you, O pleasant

company; my grief it is not on a visit we are going to you.

 

"From this day out, O friends of our heart, our comrades, it is on the

tormented course of the Maoil we will be, without the voice of any

person near us.

 

"Three hundred years there, and three hundred years in the bay of the

men of Domnann, it is a pity for the four comely children of Lir, the

salt waves of the sea to be their covering by night.

 

"O three brothers, with the ruddy faces gone from you, let them all

leave the lake now, the great troop that loved us, it is sorrowful our

parting is."

 

After that complaint they took to flight, lightly, airily, till they

came to Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban. And that was a grief

to the men of Ireland, and they gave out an order no swan was to be

killed from that out, whatever chance there might be of killing one, all

through Ireland.

 

It was a bad dwelling-place for the children of Lir they to be on Sruth

na Maoile. When they saw the wide coast about them, they were filled

with cold and with sorrow, and they thought nothing of all they had gone

through before, in comparison to what they were going through on that

sea.

 

Now one night while they were there a great storm came on them, and it

is what Fionnuala said: "My dear brothers," she said, "it is a pity for

us not to be making ready for this night, for it is certain the storm

will separate us from one another. And let us," she said, "settle on

some place where we can meet afterwards, if we are driven from one

another in the night."

 

"Let us settle," said the others, "to meet one another at Carraig na

Ron, the Rock of the Seals, for we all have knowledge of it."

 

And when midnight came, the wind came on them with it, and the noise of

the waves increased, and the lightning was flashing, and a rough storm

came sweeping down, the way the children of Lir were scattered over the

great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of

them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great

quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and

when she took notice that her brothers were wanting she was lamenting

after them greatly, and she made this complaint:--

 

"It is a pity for me to be alive in the state I am; it is frozen to my

sides my wings are; it is little that the wind has not broken my heart

in my body, with the loss of Aodh.

 

"To be three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach without going into my own

shape, it is worse to me the time I am on Sruth na Maoile.

 

"The three I loved, Och! the three I loved, that slept under the shelter

of my feathers; till the dead come back to the living I will see them no

more for ever.

 

"It is a pity I to stay after Fiachra, and after Aodh, and after comely

Conn, and with no account of them; my grief I to be here to face every

hardship this night."

 

She stopped all night there upon the Rock of the Seals until the rising

of the sun, looking out over the sea on every side till at last she saw

Conn coming to her, his feathers wet through and his head hanging, and

her heart gave him a great welcome; and then Fiachra came wet and

perished and worn out, and he could not say a word they could understand

with the dint of the cold and the hardship he had gone through. And

Fionnuala put him under her wings, and she said: "We would be well off

now if Aodh would but come to us."

 

It was not long after that, they saw Aodh coming, his head dry and his

feathers beautiful, and Fionnuala gave him a great welcome, and she put

him in under the feathers of her breast, and Fiachra under her right

wing and Conn under her left wing, the way she could put her feathers

over them all. "And Och! my brothers," she said, "this was a bad night

to us, and it is many of its like are before us from this out."

 

They stayed there a long time after that, suffering cold and misery on

the Maoil, till at last a night came on them they had never known the

like of before, for frost and snow and wind and cold. And they were

crying and lamenting the hardship of their life, and the cold of the

night and the greatness of the snow and the hardness of the wind. And

after they had suffered cold to the end of a year, a worse night again

came on them, in the middle of winter. And they were on Carraig na Ron,

and the water froze about them, and as they rested on the rock, their

feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they

were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get

away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the

tops of their wings on the rock after them.

 

"My grief, children of Lir," said Fionnuala, "it is bad our state is

now, for we cannot bear the salt water to touch us, and there are bonds

on us not to leave it; and if the