“Behold the Danann host is on the shore,
Seeking for those now lost for evermore;
But let us haste towards that proud array
And tell the tidings of this fatal day.”
And while the song was still in the ears of all there, Lir gave a great cry and pointed to where above the midmost of the lake four wild swans were winging swiftly towards the eastern shore.
When he heard from Fionula—and he knew her voice, which was sweeter than any other he had ever heard—of all that had happened, and of the strange and dreadful doom that was put upon her and her brothers, he fell sobbing to the ground. From all his company the keening of a bitter lamentation arose.
Alas, as he knew well, not even the great length of years which the Dedannan folk lived—and a score of years is to them what one year is to us—would enable him to see his dear ones again. Three hundred years on Darvra, these he might mayhap live to see; but not the three hundred years on the bleak and wild region of the Moyle, nor the three hundred on the wild tempestuous western seas, nor the far-off day when a prophet called Taillken would come to Erin with a new faith, and in the glens and across the plains would be heard the strange chiming of Christ’s bell.
Yet was he comforted when he heard that his children were to keep their Gaelic speech, and to be human in all things save only in their outward shape. And glad he was that they were to be able to chant music so wild and sweet that all who should hear it would be filled with joy and peace. For music is the most beautiful and wonderful thing in the world, and is the oldest, as it will be the latest speech.
“Remain with us this night, here by the lake,” said Fionula, “and we shall sing to you our fairy music.”
So all abode there, and so sweet was the song of the children of Lir, that he himself and all his company fell into a deep, restful slumber. All night long they sang their sweet sad song, and were glad because of the quiet dark figures by the lake-side lying drowned in shadow. Slowly the moon sank behind the hills. Then the stars glistened whitelier and smaller, and a soft rosy flush came over the mountain crest in the east. Then Lir awoke, and Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn ceased their singing, and spread out their white pinions to the light of a new day, and ruffled their snowy breasts against the frothing that the dawn-wind made upon the lake.