the water froze about them, and as they rested on the rock, their
feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they
were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get
away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the
tops of their wings on the rock after them.

"My grief, children of Lir," said Fionnuala, "it is bad our state is
now, for we cannot bear the salt water to touch us, and there are bonds
on us not to leave it; and if the salt water goes into our sores," she
said, "we will get our death." And she made this complaint:--

"It is keening we are to-night; without feathers to cover our bodies; it
is cold the rough, uneven rocks are under our bare feet.

"It is bad our stepmother was to us the time she played enchantments on
us, sending us out like swans upon the sea.

"Our washing place is on the ridge of the bay, in the foam of flying
manes of the sea; our share of the ale feast is the salt water of the
blue tide.

"One daughter and three sons; it is in the clefts of the rocks we are;
it is on the hard rocks we are, it is a pity the way we are."

However, they came on to the course of the Maoil again, and the salt
water was sharp and rough and bitter to them, but if it was itself, they
were not able to avoid it or to get shelter from it. And they were there
by the shore under that hardship till such time as their feathers grew
again, and their wings, and till their sores were entirely healed. And
then they used to go every day to the shore of Ireland or of Alban, but
they had to come back to Sruth na Maoile every night.

Now they came one day to the mouth of the Banna, to the north of
Ireland, and they saw a troop of riders, beautiful, of the one colour,
with well-trained pure white horses under them, and they travelling the
road straight from the south-west.

"Do you know who those riders are, sons of Lir?" said Fionnuala.

"We do not," they said; "but it is likely they might be some troop of
the Sons of the Gael, or of the Tuatha de Danaan."

They moved over closer to the shore then, that they might know who they
were, and when the riders saw them they came to meet them until they
were able to hold talk together.

And the chief men among them were two sons of Bodb Dearg, Aodh
Aithfhiosach, of the quick wits, and Fergus Fithchiollach, of the chess,
and a third part of the Riders of the Sidhe along with them, and it was
for the swans th