" Then Lir and his people cried
aloud in grief and lamentation, and Lir entreated the swans to come on
land and abide with him since they had their human reason and speech.
But Fionnuala said, "That may not be, for we may not company with men
any longer, but abide on the waters of Erinn nine hundred years. But
we have still our Gaelic speech, and moreover we have the gift of
uttering sad music, so that no man who hears it thinks aught worth in
the world save to listen to that music for ever. Do you abide by the
shore for this night and we shall sing to you."
So Lir and his people listened all night to the singing of the swans,
nor could they move nor speak till morning, for all the high sorrows
of the world were in that music, and it plunged them in dreams that
could not be uttered.
Next day Lir took leave of his children and went on to the palace of
Bov the Red. Bov reproached him that he had not brought with him his
children. "Woe is me," said Lir, "it was not I that would not bring
them; but Aoife there, your own foster-child and their mother's
sister, put upon them the forms of four snow-white swans, and there
they are on the Loch of Derryvaragh for all men to see; but they have
kept still their reason and their human voice and their Gaelic."
Bov the Red started when he heard this, and he knew that what Lir had
said was true.
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