the bed of the lake, and was so high above
the waters that even when they were stirred into waves by the wind
coming down from the mountains they did not reach the threshold of the
door. Around, outside the hut, on a level with the floor, was a little
wicker-work platform, and under the platform, close to the steps leading
up to it from the water, the fisherman's curragh, made of willows,
covered with skins, was moored, and it was only by means of the curragh
that he and his son, Enda, could leave their lake dwelling.

On many a summer evening Enda lay stretched on the platform, watching
the sunset fading from the mountain-tops, and the twilight creeping over
the waters of the lake, and it chanced that once when he was so engaged
he heard a rustle in a clump of sedge that grew close to one side of
the hut. He turned to where the sound came from, and what should he see
but an otter swimming towards him, with a little trout in his mouth.
When the otter came up to where Enda was lying, he lifted his head and
half his body from the water, and flung the trout on the platform,
almost at Enda's feet, and then disappeared.

Enda took the little panting trout in his hand; but as he did so he
heard, quite close to him, in the lake, a sound like that of water
plashing upon water, and he saw the widening circles caused by a trout
which had just risen to a fly; and he said to the little trout he held
in his hand:

"I won't keep you, poor thing! Perhaps that was a little comrade come
to look for you, and so I'll send you back to him."

And saying this, he dropped the little trout into the lake.

Well, when the next evening came, again Enda was lying stretched outside
the hut, and once more he heard the rustle in the sedge, and once more
the otter came and flung the little trout almost into his hands.

Enda, more surprised than ever, did not know what to do. He saw that it
was the same little trout the otter had brought him the night before,
and he said:

"Well, I gave you a chance last night. I'll give you another, if only to
see what will come of it."

And he dropped the trout into the lake; but no sooner had it touched the
waters than it was changed into a beautiful, milk-white swan. And Enda
could hardly believe his eyes, as he saw it sailing across the lake,
until it was lost in the sedges growing by the shore.

All that night he lay awake, thinking of what he had seen, and as soon
as the morning stood on the hill-tops,