g to lie down among them and play with them.

Only, alas! a fire of jealousy began to burn at last in the breast of
Aoife, and hatred and bitter ill-will grew in her mind towards the
children of Lir. And she feigned an illness, and lay under it for the
most of a year, meditating a black and evil deed. At last she said
that a journey from home might recover her, and she bade her chariot
be yoked and set out, taking with her the four children. Fionnuala was
sorely unwilling to go with her on that journey, for she had a
misgiving, and a prevision of treachery and of kin-slaying against her
in the mind of Aoife. Yet she was not able to avoid the mischief that
was destined for her.

So Aoife journeyed away from the Hill of the White Field, and when she
had come some way she spoke to her people and said, "Kill me, I pray
ye, the four children of Lir, who have taken the love of their father
from me, and ye may ask of me what reward ye will." "Not so," said
they, "by us they shall never be killed; it is an evil deed that you
have thought of, and evil it is but to have spoken of it."

When they would not consent to her will, she drew a sword and would
have slain the children herself, but her womanhood overcame her and
she could not. So they journeyed on westward till they came to the
shores of Loch Derryvaragh, and there they made a halt and the horses
were outspanned. Aoife bade the children bathe and swim in the lake,
and they did so. Then Aoife by Druid spells and witchcraft put upon
each of the children the form of a pure white swan, and she cried to
them:--

"Out on the lake with you, children of Lir!
Cry with the water-fowl over the mere!
Breed and seed of you ne'er shall I see;
Woeful the tale to your friends shall be."

Then the four swans turned their faces towards the woman, and
Fionnuala spoke to her and said, "Evil is thy deed, Aoife, to destroy
us thus without a cause, and think not that thou shalt escape
punishment for it. Assign us even some period to the ruin and
destruction that thou hast brought upon us."

"I shall do that," said Aoife, "and it is this: in your present forms
shall ye abide, and none shall release you till the woman of the South
be mated with the man of the North. Three hundred years shall ye be
upon the waters of Derryvaragh, and three hundred upon the Straits of
Moyle between Erinn and Alba,[10] and three hundred in the seas by
Erris and Inishglory, and then shall the enchantme