For that, Bov Derg, one of the Gods, changed her into a demon of the air, and she flew away shrieking, and was heard of no more.  But there was no taking the fate from the swan-children; and the Danaans sought them on their lake, and found they had human speech left to them, and the gift of wonderful Danaan music.  From all parts they came to the lake to talk with them and to hear them singing; and that way it was for three hundred years.  Then they must depart, Fionuala and her three brothers, the swan-children, and wing their way to the northern sea, and be among the wild cliffs and the foam; and the worst of loneliness and cold and storm was the best fate there was for them.  Their feathers froze to the rocks on the winter nights; but they filled the drear chasms of the tempest with their Danaan singing.  It was Fionuala wrapped her plumage about her brothers, to keep them from the cold; she was their leader, heartening them.  And if it was bad for them on the Straits of Moyle, it was worse on the Atlantic; three hundred years they were there, and bitter sorrow the fate on them.

When their time to be freed was near, they were for flying to the palace of Lir their father, at the hill of the White Field in Armagh.  But long since the Milesians had come into Ireland, and the Danaans had passed into the hills and the unseen; and with the old centuries of their enchantment heavy on them, their eyes had grown no better than the eyes of mortals:  gorse-grown hills they saw, and green nettles growing, and no sign of the walls and towers of the palace of Lir.  And they heard the bells ringing from a church, and were frightened at the “thin, dreadful sound.”  But afterwards, in their misery, they took refuge with the saint in the church, and were converted, and joined him in singing the services.  Then, after a while, the swanhood fell from them, and they became human, with the whole of their nine centuries heavy on them.  “Lay us in one grave,” said Fionuala to the saint; “and place Conn at my right hand, and Fiachra at my left, and Aed before my face; for there they were wont to be when I sheltered them many a winter night upon the seas of Moyle.”  So it was they were buried; but the saint sorrowed for them till the end of his days.  And there, if you understand it, you have the forgotten story of Ireland.

She was once Danaan, and fortunate in the Golden Age.  Then she was enchanted, and fell from her high estate; and sorrow and the wildness of ages of decivilizing wars were her portion; but she retained her wonderful Danaan gift of song.  Then came Christianity, and she sang her swan-song in the services of the Church;—­when she had overcome her terror of the ominous sound of the bells.  She became human again:  that is, enjoyed one more period of creative greatness, a faint revival of her old splendor; and then,—­Ah, it was a long time ago; a long time the hermit had been sorrowing over her grave!  But listen, by the lake of Derryvaragh, on the seas of Moyle, or by Erris and Innishglory, and you will hear still the ghostly echoes of the singing of Danaan swans. Danaan swans:  music better than of the world of men!