The swans were soon scattered over the waters, so that not one of them knew in what direction the others had been driven. During all that night they were tossed about by the roaring winds and waves, and it was with much difficulty they preserved their lives.
Towards morning the storm abated, the sky cleared, and the sea became again calm and smooth; and Finola swam to Carricknarone. But she found none of her brothers there, neither could she see any trace of them when she looked all round from the summit of the rock over the wide face of the sea.
Then she became terrified, thinking she should never see them again; and she began to lament them plaintively.
[On this incident Thomas Moore wrote the following beautiful song. A person is supposed to be listening to Finola, and—in the first four lines of the song—calls on the winds and the waves to be silent that he may hear.]
Silent, O Moyle!
Silent, O Moyle! be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes! your [chain of repose],
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
When shall the Swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep with wings in [darkness] furl'd?
When will Heav'n, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?
Sadly, O Moyle! to thy winter-wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping
Still doth the [pure light] its dawning delay
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our Isle with peace and love?
When will Heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?
At last, while she stood gazing in despair over the waste of waters, she saw her brothers swimming from different directions towards the rock. They came to her one by one, and she welcomed them joyfully: and she placed Aed under the feathers of her breast, and Ficra and Conn under her wings, and said to them:—"My dear brothers, though ye may think last night very bad, we shall have many like it from this time forth."
So they continued for a long time on the Sea of Moyle, suffering hardships of every kind, till one winter night came upon them, of great wind and of snow and frost so severe, that nothing they ever before suffered could be compared to the misery of that night. The swans remained on Carricknarone, and their feet and their wings were frozen to the icy surface, so that they had to strive hard to move from their places in the morning; and they left the skin of their feet, the quills of their wings, and the feathers of their breasts clinging to the rock.