They went on then west to Loch Dairbhreach, the Lake of the Oaks, and the horses were stopped there.  And Aoife bade the children of Lir to go out and bathe in the lake, and they did as she bade them.  And as soon as Aoife saw them out in the lake she struck them with a Druid rod, and put on them the shape of four swans, white and beautiful.  And it is what she said:  “Out with you, children of the king, your luck is taken away from you for ever; it is sorrowful the story will be to your friends; it is with flocks of birds your cries will be heard for ever.”

And Fionnuala said:  “Witch, we know now what your name is, you have struck us down with no hope of relief; but although you put us from wave to wave, there are times when we will touch the land.  We shall get help when we are seen; help, and all that is best for us; even though we have to sleep upon the lake, it is our minds will be going abroad early.”

And then the four children of Lir turned towards Aoife, and it is what Fionnuala said:  “It is a bad deed you have done, Aoife, and it is a bad fulfilling of friendship, you to destroy us without cause; and vengeance for it will come upon you, and you will fall in satisfaction for it, for your power for our destruction is not greater than the power of our friends to avenge it on you; and put some bounds now,” she said, “to the time this enchantment is to stop on us.”  “I will do that,” said Aoife, “and it is worse for you, you to have asked it of me.  And the bounds I set to your time are this, till the Woman from the South and the Man from the North will come together.  And since you ask to hear it of me,” she said, “no friends and no power that you have will be able to bring you out of these shapes you are in through the length of your lives, until you have been three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach, and three hundred years on Sruth na Maoile between Ireland and Alban, and three hundred years at Irrus Domnann and Inis Gluaire; and these are to be your journeys from this out,” she said.

But then repentance came on Aoife, and she said:  “Since there is no other help for me to give you now, you may keep your own speech; and you will be singing sweet music of the Sidhe, that would put the men of the earth to sleep, and there will be no music in the world equal to it; and your own sense and your own nobility will stay with you, the way it will not weigh so heavy on you to be in the shape of birds.  And go away out of my sight now, children of Lir,” she said, “with your white faces, with your stammering Irish.  It is a great curse on tender lads, they to be driven out on the rough wind.  Nine hundred years to be on the water, it is a long time for any one to be in pain; it is I put this on you through treachery, it is best for you to do as I tell you now.

“Lir, that got victory with so many a good cast, his heart is a kernel of death in him now; the groaning of the great hero is a sickness to me, though it is I that have well earned his anger.”