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 th