And when it was known throughout the Green Isle that the four white swans had flown, so great was the sorrow of the people that they made a law that no swan should be killed in Erin from that day forth.
With hearts that burned with longing for their father and their friends, did Finola and her brothers reach the sea of Moyle. Cold were its wintry waters, black and fearful were the steep rocks overhanging Alba’s far-stretching coasts. From hunger, too, the swans suffered. Dark indeed was all, and darker yet as the children of Lir remembered the still waters of Lake Darvra and the fond Dedannan host on its peaceful shores. Here the sighing of the wind among the reeds no longer soothed their sorrow, but the roar of the breaking surf struck fresh terror in their souls. In misery and terror did their days pass, until one night the black, lowering clouds overhead told that a great tempest was nigh. Then did Finola call to her Aed, Fiacra, and Conn. “Beloved brothers, a great fear is at my heart, for, in the fury of the coming gale, we may be driven the one from the other. Therefore, let us say where we may hope to meet when the storm is spent.”
And Aed answered: “Wise art thou, dear, gentle sister. If we be driven apart, may it be to meet again on the rocky isle that has ofttimes been our haven, for well known is it to us all, and from far can it be seen.”
Darker grew the night, louder raged the wind, as the four swans dived and rose again on the giant billows. Yet fiercer blew the gale, until at midnight loud bursts of thunder mingled with the roaring wind, but, in the glare of the blue lightning’s flashes, the children of Lir beheld each the snowy form of the other. The mad fury of the hurricane yet increased, and the force of it lifted one swan from its wild home on the billows, and swept it through the blackness of the night. Another blue lightning-flash, and each swan saw its loneliness, and uttered a great cry of desolation. Tossed hither and thither by wind and wave, the white birds were well-nigh dead when dawn broke. And with the dawn fell calm.
Swift as her tired wings would bear her, Finola sailed to the rocky isle, where she hoped to find her brothers. But alas! no sign was there of one of them. Then to the highest summit of the rocks she flew. North, south, east, and west did she look, yet nought saw she save a watery wilderness. Now did her heart fail her, and she sang the saddest song she had yet sung.
As the last notes died Finola raised her eyes, and lo! Conn came slowly swimming toward her with drenched plumage and head that drooped. And as she looked, behold! Fiacra appeared, but it was as though his strength failed. Then did Finola swim toward her fainting brother and lend him her aid, and soon the twins were safe on the sunlit rock, nestling for warmth beneath their sister’s wings.
Yet Finola’s heart still beat with alarm as she sheltered her younger brothers, for Aed came not, and she feared lest he were lost forever. But, at noon, sailing he came over the breast of the blue waters, with head erect and plumage sunlit. And under the feathers of her breast did Finola draw him, for Conn and Fiacra still cradled beneath her wings. “Rest here, while ye may, dear brothers,” she said.
And she sang to them a lullaby so surpassing sweet that the sea-birds hushed their cries and flocked to listen to the sad, slow music. And when Aed and Fiacra and Conn were lulled to sleep, Finola’s notes grew more and more faint and her head drooped, and soon she, too, slept peacefully in the warm sunlight.
But few were the sunny days on the sea of Moyle, and many were the tempests that ruffled its waters. Still keener grew the winter frosts, and the misery of the four white swans was greater than ever before. Even their most sorrowful Gaelic songs told not half their woe. From the fury of the storm they still sought shelter on that rocky isle where Finola had despaired of seeing her dear ones more.
Slowly passed the years of doom, until one midwinter a frost more keen than any known before froze the sea into a floor of solid black ice. By night the swans crouched together on the rocky isle for warmth, but each morning they were frozen to the ground and could free themselves only with sore pain, for they left clinging to the ice-bound rock the soft down of their breasts, the quills from their white wings, and the skin of their poor feet.