But Bove Derg, from the time he became king, was anxious for the friendship and alliance of Prince Lir, and so when he heard that Lir's wife had died he sent messengers to the Prince to tell him that if he desired to marry again he would give him for wife one of the three most beautiful princesses in Ireland.

After a while of mourning, Lir made a journey to the court of the King, and there he saw the three who were the most beautiful princesses in Ireland: Eve, Eva and Aelva.

He asked the King for the hand of the eldest, Princess Eve, in marriage.

Well, they were married and lived happily for years, and twin children were born to them twice, first a girl and a boy who were named Finoola and Ae, and then two boys who were named Fiachra and Conn. And after these children were born the Princess Eve died.

Then Lir was plunged into sorrow again and he ceased to attend the Assemblies of the nobles.

Now the King heard of his loss and he sent messengers to him saying, "The two most beautiful princesses in Ireland are under my care. If Lir can recover from his sorrow and wed again, the one he chooses shall be given to him."

So after a while Prince Lir presented himself at the court of King Bove Derg and he saw there the Princesses Eva and Aelva, and he asked for the hand of Princess Eva in marriage. And they were married, and Lir brought Eva back to the house where his children were.

Now the four children, Finoola, Ae, Fiachra and Conn, had grown in such beauty that the King and the nobles, when they were at the mansion of Prince Lir, desired to have them always in their sight. And their father loved them exceedingly. Every morning he rose before dawn and came into the chamber where the children lay and watched them long. But his wife had no children of her own, and she grew more and more jealous of the love that her husband had for them, until at last she pretended to be ill, and for a whole year she lay in bed meditating on ways to destroy them.

The people said that while she lay with evil designs in her mind the beings that cause misfortune and ill-luck came to her and that she herself came then into their power. That might well be. However, she rose up one day and ordered her chariot to be harnessed, and bade Finoola, Ae, Fiachra and Conn make ready to come with her on a journey.

Prince Lir was away at the time.

Finoola had dreamed that Eva intended treachery against them and she was loth that the children should go on that journey. But the three boys, Ae, Fiachra and Conn, saw the steeds being caught and yoked to the chariot and they became anxious to go. Then Finoola decided to go with them. And when they were at the borders of a dark wood, far from the mansion of Prince Lir, Eva said to the servants who followed on horseback:

"Kill the children. For their sakes their father has ceased to love me. If you bring them within the wood and kill them there I shall give you anything you like in this world."

But the servants said, "It is a wicked deed you have spoken of. The children of Prince Lir shall not be injured by us."

Then Eva took a sword and came to the children, intending to kill them with the naked blade, but her heart shrank from it and she turned back and called the children away from the edge of that dark wood.

The children had been sleeping all the time, and now their step-mother put them into the chariot and bade the servants return home. She drove on and on until they came to the shore of Dairbhreach. She stopped the chariot there and desired the children to go and bathe in the lake. Then when they were in the water she struck them with a wand and transformed them into four white swans.

"Ye shall be a hundred years on this lake," she said, "and after that ye shall be a hundred years on the Sea of Moyle, and after that ye shall be a hundred years on the waters in another place."

And when she said this Eva repented of her wicked deed and she said:

"I shall not be able to give you relief nor any of the love I might have given ye. But there are favours I shall not deny ye. Ye shall have your speech, the melodious Gaelic, and ye shall be able to make music that will draw human beings to hear ye, and ye shall not lose your human nature while ye are in the form of birds." And then she said, "Depart from me now, O Children of Lir. Sad for me will be the lamentations of your father."

Then she mounted the chariot and drove to the house of the King. And when Bove Derg heard that the wife of Prince Lir had come he went to her and asked if she had brought the children for a visit.

"I have not brought them," she said, "for you, O King, are not in favour with their father, and he fears that you should do some wrong to them."

And when Bove Derg heard that, he sent messengers to Prince Lir asking him to let Finoola and Ae, Fiachra and Conn pay him a visit.

"Did the children not come with the Princess Eva?" Lir asked the messengers. And when he heard that they were not with her he knew that some wrong had been done them. He mounted his chariot and drove furiously on until he came to the shore of Lake Dairbhreach. And when he drew near the lake he saw the swans upon the water and he heard them singing intelligible words. He spoke to the birds, and he asked them how it was that they had human voices.

"O Father," they said, "we are your children and an evil woman has enchanted us, changing us into swans."

Lir was made desolate when he heard these words.

"Will anything bring you back to your own forms, O my beautiful children?" he cried.

And Finoola drew near the shore, and she told him that they should come back to their own forms at a time that was far in the future. Their father would not be in the land of the living then, the place where his house was would be forgotten and his name would hardly be remembered.

"And what relief can we give you, my children?" Lir asked.

"No relief," Finoola said. "We may not go ashore nor be cherished by you, but we have our speech still and our human nature and we have been granted the gift of music."

Lir and his people encamped by the shore of the lake and the swans chanted and made such music for them that the minds of all were composed, and even their father, despite his heavy loss, was soothed; and when he and his people departed they were not in anguish. They heard the music the swans made for a long way on their journey.

So much of "The Children of Lir" was told to Finn the first night the woman sat by his grandfather's fire and the second night she ended the tale.

For a hundred years Finoola and Ae, Fiachra and Conn were on Lake Dairbhreach and for a hundred years they had their father and their father's people near them. They heard of the doom that had befallen their step-mother. Prince Lir went to the mansion of Bove Derg and when the King asked him had he brought his children, Lir replied:

"Alas, O King, they are now in the forms of four white swans, for Eva, your own nursling, has enchanted them."

The King went to the place where Eva was. She rose up when he drew near and said:

"My deed is worse for me than for them. They shall have relief before the end of time and their souls will be in Heaven at last. But for me there shall be no relief." And saying that she changed before his face and became a demon of the air.

Often the King and Prince Lir and their people were by the shore of the lake conversing with Finoola, Ae, Fiachra and Conn. And the swans made such music that the sick people who heard it slept easily and soundly and those who were well became happy. And as the children of Lir kept their speech and had their father and their friends to converse with them they were not unhappy.

But one night Finoola gathered the others around her and she said, "We have come to the end of our term. Tomorrow we must rise from this lake and depart for the Sea of Moyle."

And Ae, Fiachra and Conn became very sorrowful when they heard that, for they thought they were as human beings as long as they stayed on the waters of Lake Dairbhreach with their father and their friends to converse with them.

The next day they spoke to their father and to the King and they told them they should have to depart and that never again should they see their father and their friends. And the swans greatly lamented that they would have to leave the waters of their home-lake for the cold, dark and stormy Sea of Moyle.

And then the four rose up singing, "Farewell to you, O Father, and farewell to you, O King. Where we go we shall not hear the sound of the human voice nor shall we again engage in converse with our kind. Alone shall we be on the Sea of Moyle."

And when they had flown out of sight and their singing was heard no more their father and the King turned towards their mansions, and they saw each other as withered and feeble men, for a hundred years had passed since they heard the first singing of the swans upon the lake.

And as for Finoola, Ae, Fiachra and Conn, they felt when they plunged down into the cold, wide Sea of Moyle that all the evil they had suffered was as nothing to what was before them now. One night a great tempest came down upon the sea. Finoola gathered her three brothers to her and she told them that if the tempest of the night separated them one from another they were each to fly to the Rock of the Seals and wait for one another there. Midnight came and the wind arose and the Children of Lir were driven from each other. Finoola, when dawn came, found herself alone upon the waters.

"O my three brothers," she sang, "I wish that today ye had the shelter of my feathers. My heart is broken because of this separation from Ae and Fiachra and little Conn."

She came to the Rock of the Seals and remained there looking out upon the wide, empty sea. Then she saw Conn coming towards her with feathers drenched, and after she had taken him under her wings Fiachra came, so cold and faint that no word he said was understood.

"If Ae were with us now," said she, "how happy would we be!"

And at noon they saw Ae coming with his head dry and his feathers beautiful. She welcomed him and put him under the feathers of her breast (Fiachra was under her right and Conn under her left wing).

The night came with frost and snow and tempest, and all the time Finoola kept her brothers under her wings and breast. And the swans told each other of the household of Prince Lir; of soft, warm clothes and of the fires in the hall; of the fruits and wine; of the harpers playing music and of the gay company at the feast. And many such nights of cold and tempest the Children of Lir knew while they were abroad on the wide sea of Moyle.

But their hundred years passed, and then the swans rose up from the Sea of Moyle and flew again over Ireland.

It had been shown to Finoola that she and her three brothers would regain their own forms when Saint Patrick came and preached Christianity in Ireland. During the next years they would hear of the Saint's arrival. So with the knowledge that they were entering on the last period of their enchantment they flew over the plains and rivers of Ireland.

And they turned aside to visit the place where Lir's mansion stood. And there was nothing there now but grassy mounds and unroofed buildings and forests of nettles.

They lamented in that empty place for a while and there were none to hear what they cried.

Then they flew off to Connacht, to the bay where they were to spend the next hundred years. And they were there so long that they thought the hundred years had gone by. But one day Fiachra heard a curious sound upon the shore. He told Finoola of it and she said, "What you have heard is the sound of a bell. That sound tells us that the worship of the true God has been preached at last in Ireland."

That night they drew near the shore and they made such music that the saint whose bell they had heard came down and asked them what manner of creatures they were. And Finoola told him they were the Children of Lir who were under an enchantment that would last until the worship of the true God was made known in Ireland. Thereupon the saint told them that he was Macovogue and that he had visited all the lakes and bays of Ireland in search of them. And he took the swans to the cell he had built and gave them again the delight of human companionship. And Saint Macovogue had chains of silver made and one chain he put between Finoola and Ae and the other chain between Fiachra and Conn and the swans were glad to be joined together in that way.

There was a king of Connacht at the time and his name was Lairgnen. His queen heard of the swans who spoke as human beings and who made wonderful music and she sent to the saint asking him to let them be brought to the king's mansion. But the saint refused to let the birds go from the place where they were happy. Then the King was angry at his refusal and he went himself to the cell of the saint.

"Is it true," he asked, "that you refused to let these birds go to the Queen's?"

The saint said that it was true indeed.

Then the King grasped at their chains and pulled the swans to him. But when he touched them with his hands their skins of feathers fell away and the three sons of Lir stood as old men, and his daughter as an old woman.

Then said Finoola to the saint, "Baptize us now, for death is near us. Make our graves also and when we are being buried put Conn at my right side and Fiachra at my left side and put Ae before my face."

The saint baptized them and they died. And upon the stone that Saint Macovogue put over their grave, their names and their story are written in Ogham letters.