Old Celtic Romances Part 6

Dark was the day when first I brought This Eva in my home to dwell!

Hard was the woman's heart that wrought This cruel and malignant spell!

I lay me down to rest in vain; For, through the livelong, sleepless night, My little lov'd ones, pictured plain, Stand ever there before my sight.

Finola, once my pride and joy; Dark Aed, adventurous and bold; Bright Ficra, gentle, playful boy; And little Conn, with curls of gold;--

Struck down on Darvra's reedy sh.o.r.e, By wicked Eva's magic power: Oh, children, children, never more My heart shall know one peaceful hour!

Lir then departed, and travelled south-west till he arrived at the king's palace, where he was welcomed; and Bove Derg began to reproach him, in presence of Eva, for not bringing the children.

"Alas!" said Lir; "it was not by me that the children were prevented from coming. But Eva, your own foster child, the sister of their mother, has played treachery on them; and has changed them by her sorcery into four white swans on Lake Darvra."

The king was confounded and grieved at this news; and when he looked at Eva, he knew by her countenance that what Lir had told him was true; and he began to upbraid her in a fierce and angry voice.

"The wicked deed thou hast committed," said he, "will be worse for thee than for the children of Lir; for their suffering shall come to an end, and they shall be happy at last."

Again he spoke to her more fiercely than before; and he asked her what shape of all others, on the earth, or above the earth, or beneath the earth, she most abhorred, and into which she most dreaded to be transformed.

And she, being forced to answer truly, said, "A demon of the air."[XVIII.]

"That is the form you shall take," said Bove Derg; and as he spoke he struck her with a druidical magic wand, and turned her into a demon of the air. She opened her wings, and flew with a scream upwards and away through the clouds; and she is still a demon of the air, and she shall be a demon of the air till the end of time.

Then Bove Derg and the Dedannans a.s.sembled on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and encamped there; for they wished to remain with the birds, and to listen to their music. The Milesian people[XIX.] came and formed an encampment there in like manner; for historians say that no music that was ever heard in Erin could be compared with the singing of these swans.

And so the swans pa.s.sed their time. During the day they conversed with the men of Erin, both Dedannans and Milesians, and discoursed lovingly with their friends and fellow nurselings; and at night they chanted their slow, sweet, fairy music, the most delightful that was ever heard by men; so that all who listened to it, even those who were in grief, or sickness, or pain, forgot their sorrows and their sufferings, and fell into a gentle, sweet sleep, from which they awoke bright and happy.

So they continued, the Dedannans and the Milesians, in their encampments, and the swans on the lake, for three hundred years.[XX.]

And at the end of that time, Finola said to her brothers--

"Do you know, my dear brothers, that we have come to the end of our time here; and that we have only this one night to spend on Lake Darvra?"

When the three sons of Lir heard this, they were in great distress and sorrow; for they were almost as happy on Lake Darvra, surrounded by their friends, and conversing with them day by day, as if they had been in their father's house in their own natural shapes; whereas they should now live on the gloomy and tempestuous Sea of Moyle, far away from all human society.

Early next morning, they came to the margin of the lake, to speak to their Father and their friends for the last time, and to bid them farewell; and Finola chanted this lay--

I.

Farewell, farewell, our father dear!

The last sad hour has come: Farewell, Bove Derg! farewell to all, Till the dreadful day of doom![XXI.]

We go from friends and scenes beloved, To a home of grief and pain; And that day of woe Shall come and go, Before we meet again!

II.

We live for ages on stormy Moyle, In loneliness and fear; The kindly words of loving friends We never more shall hear.

Four joyous children long ago; Four snow-white swans to-day; And on Moyle's wild sea Our robe shall be The cold and briny spray.

III.

Far down on the misty stream of time, When three hundred years are o'er, Three hundred more in storm and cold, By Glora's desolate sh.o.r.e; Till Decca fair is Largnen's spouse; Till north and south unite; Till the hymns are sung, And the bells are rung, At the dawn of the pure faith's light.

IV.

Arise, my brothers, from Darvra's wave, On the wings of the southern wind; We leave our father and friends to-day In measureless grief behind.

Ah! sad the parting, and sad our flight To Moyle's tempestuous main; For the day of woe Shall come and go, Before we meet again!

The four swans then spread their wings, and rose from the surface of the water in sight of all their friends, till they reached a great height in the air, then resting, and looking downwards for a moment, they flew straight to the north, till they alighted on the Sea of Moyle between Erin and Alban.

The men of Erin were grieved at their departure, and they made a law, and proclaimed it throughout the land, that no one should kill a swan in Erin from that time forth.

FOOTNOTES:

[XVIII.] demon of the air was held in great abhorrence by the ancient Irish.

[XIX.] The Milesian people; the colony who conquered and succeeded the Dedannans. (See note 1 at end.)

[XX.] The Dedannans were regarded as G.o.ds, and were immortal or semi-immortal. (See note 1 at the end.)

[XXI.] It must be remembered that the children of Lir had some obscure foreknowledge of the coming of Christianity.

CHAPTER V.

THE FOUR WHITE SWANS ON THE SEA OF MOYLE.

As to the children of Lir, miserable was their abode and evil their plight on the Sea of Moyle. Their hearts were wrung with sorrow for their father and their friends; and when they looked towards the steep, rocky, far-stretching coasts, and saw the great, dark wild sea around them, they were overwhelmed with fear and despair. They began also to suffer from cold and hunger, so that all the hards.h.i.+ps they had endured on Lake Darvra appeared as nothing compared with their suffering on the sea-current of Moyle.

And so they lived, till one night a great tempest fell upon the sea.

Finola, when she saw the sky filled with black, threatening clouds, thus addressed her brothers--

"Beloved brothers, we have made a bad preparation for this night; for it is certain that the coming storm will separate us; and now let us appoint a place of meeting, or it may happen that we shall never see each other again."

And they answered, "Dear sister, you speak truly and wisely; and let us fix on Carricknarone, for that is a rock that we are all very well acquainted with."

And they appointed Carricknarone as their place of meeting.

Midnight came, and with it came the beginning of the storm. A wild, rough wind swept over the dark sea, the lightnings flashed, and the great waves rose, and increased their violence and their thunder.

The swans were soon scattered over the waters, so that not one of them knew in what direction the others had been driven. During all that night they were tossed about by the roaring winds and waves, and it was with much difficulty they preserved their lives.

Towards morning the storm abated, and the sea became again calm and smooth; and Finola swam to Carricknarone. But she found none of her brothers there, neither could she see any trace of them when she looked all round from the summit of the rock over the wide face of the sea.

Then she became terrified, for she thought she should never see them again; and she began to lament them plaintively in these words--

The heart-breaking anguish and woe of this life I am able no longer to bear: My wings are benumbed with this pitiless frost; My three little brothers are scattered and lost; And I am left here to despair.