I see a mystic warrior band
From yonder brow approach the strand;
I see them winding down the vale,
Their bending chariots slow advancing;
I see their shields and gilded mail,
Ah! well I know that proud array;
I know too well their thoughts to-day:
The Dannan host and royal Lir;
Four rosy children they are seeking:
Too soon, alas! they find us here,
Four snowy swans like children speaking!
Come, brothers dear, approach the coast,
To welcome Lir's mysterious host.
Oh, woful welcome! woful day,
That never brings a bright to-morrow!
Unhappy father, doomed for aye
To mourn our fate in hopeless sorrow!
When Lir came to the shore, he heard the birds speaking, and, wondering greatly, he asked them how it came to pass that they had human voices.
"Know, O Lir," said Finola, "that we are thy four children, who have been changed into swans and ruined by the witchcraft of our stepmother, our own mother's sister, Eva, through her baleful jealousy."
When Lir and his people heard this, they uttered three long mournful cries of grief and lamentation.
After a time, their father asked them, "Is it possible to restore you to your own shapes?"
"It is not possible," replied Finola; "no man has the power to release us until Largnen from the north and Decca from the south are united. Three hundred years we shall be on Lake Darvra; three hundred years on the sea-stream of Moyle; three hundred years on the Sea of Glora in the west. And we shall not regain our human shape till the Taillkenn come with his pure faith into Erin, and until we hear the voice of the Christian bell."