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 21 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, and cast its shafts of golden light across the lake, Enda rose and got into his curragh.
He rowed all round the shores, beating the sedges with his oar, in pursuit of the swan; but all in vain; he could not catch a glimpse of her white plumage anywhere. Day after day he rowed about the lake in search of her, and every evening he lay outside the hut watching the waters. At long last, one night, when the full moon, rising above the mountains, flooded the whole lake with light, he saw the swan coming swiftly towards him, shining brighter than the moonbeams. The swan came on until it was almost within a boat’s length of the hut; and what should Enda hear but the swan speaking to him in his own language:
“Get into your curragh, Enda, and follow me,” said she, and, saying this, she turned round and sailed away.