sed, and the force of it lifted one swan from its wild home on the
billows, and swept it through the blackness of the night. Another blue
lightning-flash, and each swan saw its loneliness, and uttered a great
cry of desolation. Tossed hither and thither by wind and wave, the white
birds were well-nigh dead when dawn broke. And with the dawn fell calm.

Swift as her tired wings would bear her, Finola sailed to the rocky
isle, where she hoped to find her brothers. But alas! no sign was there
of one of them. Then to the highest summit of the rocks she flew. North,
south, east, and west did she look, yet nought saw she save a watery
wilderness. Now did her heart fail her, and she sang the saddest song
she had yet sung.

As the last notes died Finola raised her eyes, and lo! Conn came slowly
swimming toward her with drenched plumage and head that drooped. And as
she looked, behold! Fiacra appeared, but it was as though his strength
failed. Then did Finola swim toward her fainting brother and lend him
her aid, and soon the twins were safe on the sunlit rock, nestling for
warmth beneath their sister's wings.

Yet Finola's heart still beat with alarm as she sheltered her younger
brothers, for Aed came not, and she feared lest he were lost forever.
But, at noon, sailing he came over the breast of the blue waters, with
head erect and plumage sunlit. And under the feathers of her breast did
Finola draw him, for Conn and Fiacra still cradled beneath her wings.
"Rest here, while ye may, dear brothers," she said.

And she sang to them a lullaby so surpassing sweet that the sea-birds
hushed their cries and flocked to listen to the sad, slow music. And
when Aed and Fiacra and Conn were lulled to sleep, Finola's notes grew
more and more faint and her head drooped, and soon she, too, slept
peacefully in the warm sunlight.

But few were the sunny days on the sea of Moyle, and many were the
tempests that ruffled its waters. Still keener grew the winter frosts,
and the misery of the four white swans was greater than ever before.
Even their most sorrowful Gaelic songs told not half their woe. From the
fury of the storm they still sought shelter on that rocky isle where
Finola had despaired of seeing her dear ones more.

Slowly passed the years of doom, until one midwinter a frost more keen
than any known before froze the sea into a floor of solid black ice. By
night the swans crouched together on the rocky isle for warmth, but each
mor