e children of Lir were scattered over the
great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of
them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great
quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and
when she took notice that her brothers were wanting she was lamenting
after them greatly, and she made this complaint:--

"It is a pity for me to be alive in the state I am; it is frozen to my
sides my wings are; it is little that the wind has not broken my heart
in my body, with the loss of Aodh.

"To be three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach without going into my own
shape, it is worse to me the time I am on Sruth na Maoile.

"The three I loved, Och! the three I loved, that slept under the shelter
of my feathers; till the dead come back to the living I will see them no
more for ever.

"It is a pity I to stay after Fiachra, and after Aodh, and after comely
Conn, and with no account of them; my grief I to be here to face every
hardship this night."

She stopped all night there upon the Rock of the Seals until the rising
of the sun, looking out over the sea on every side till at last she saw
Conn coming to her, his feathers wet through and his head hanging, and
her heart gave him a great welcome; and then Fiachra came wet and
perished and worn out, and he could not say a word they could understand
with the dint of the cold and the hardship he had gone through. And
Fionnuala put him under her wings, and she said: "We would be well off
now if Aodh would but come to us."

It was not long after that, they saw Aodh coming, his head dry and his
feathers beautiful, and Fionnuala gave him a great welcome, and she put
him in under the feathers of her breast, and Fiachra under her right
wing and Conn under her left wing, the way she could put her feathers
over them all. "And Och! my brothers," she said, "this was a bad night
to us, and it is many of its like are before us from this out."

They stayed there a long time after that, suffering cold and misery on
the Maoil, till at last a night came on them they had never known the
like of before, for frost and snow and wind and cold. And they were
crying and lamenting the hardship of their life, and the cold of the
night and the greatness of the snow and the hardness of the wind. And
after they had suffered cold to the end of a year, a worse night again
came on them, in the middle of winter. And they were on Carraig na Ron,
and