When they came to the great hill above Shee Finnaha, their wings were seized with so great a trembling that scarcely could they reach into view of Lir’s high shining house.
Descending, therefore, they alit on a rock and rested awhile. A deep sadness oppressed Fionula. There was so great a silence on every rock, on every tree. Moreover, she had seen a stag stand staring inland with idle eyes, and had seen the hill-fox and the wolf prowling in the glen where as a child she had often played.
“What is the fear that is in your eyes, Fionula?” asked one of her brothers with sudden dread.
“Alas! Aed, if Lir and the Dedannans were still here, would a stag stand staring inland, where Shee Finnaha is, with heedless eyes and no hoof lifted, and nostrils idly sniffing the unfrequented wind?”
“Of a surety no, Fionula.”
“Yet that have I seen, Aed. And if in Shee Finnaha still dwelled our Dedannan folk, would the hill-fox and the wolf prowl in the Glen of the White Water, there where we were wont to play and bathe, we and all the little children?”
“Of a surety no, Fionula.”
“Yet that have I seen, O Aed and Fiachra and Conn. Come! we are rested now. Let us hasten homeward to Shee Finnaha, that we have longed for all these years, and to our father Lir, who awaiteth us.”
Onward they flew.
But just as they soared over the shoulder of Knoc-na-Shee, Fionula uttered a piercing cry.