Word of this was brought to Lir, and he went once more to Lough Derg to the palace of Bov the Red and there he took to wife Aoife, the fair and wise, and brought her to his own home.  And Aoife held the children of Lir and of her sister in honour and affection; for indeed no one could behold these four children without giving them the love of his soul.

For love of them, too, came Bov the Red often to the house of Lir, and he would take them to his own house at times and let them spend a while there, and then to their own home again.  All of the People of Dana who came visiting and feasting to Lir had joy and delight in the children, for their beauty and gentleness; and the love of their father for them was exceeding great, so that he would rise very early every morning to lie down among them and play with them.

Only, alas! a fire of jealousy began to burn at last in the breast of Aoife, and hatred and bitter ill-will grew in her mind towards the children of Lir.  And she feigned an illness, and lay under it for the most of a year, meditating a black and evil deed.  At last she said that a journey from home might recover her, and she bade her chariot be yoked and set out, taking with her the four children.  Fionnuala was sorely unwilling to go with her on that journey, for she had a misgiving, and a prevision of treachery and of kin-slaying against her in the mind of Aoife.  Yet she was not able to avoid the mischief that was destined for her.

So Aoife journeyed away from the Hill of the White Field, and when she had come some way she spoke to her people and said, “Kill me, I pray ye, the four children of Lir, who have taken the love of their father from me, and ye may ask of me what reward ye will.”  “Not so,” said they, “by us they shall never be killed; it is an evil deed that you have thought of, and evil it is but to have spoken of it.”

When they would not consent to her will, she drew a sword and would have slain the children herself, but her womanhood overcame her and she could not.  So they journeyed on westward till they came to the shores of Loch Derryvaragh, and there they made a halt and the horses were outspanned.  Aoife bade the children bathe and swim in the lake, and they did so.  Then Aoife by Druid spells and witchcraft put upon each of the children the form of a pure white swan, and she cried to them:—­

  “Out on the lake with you, children of Lir! 
  Cry with the water-fowl over the mere! 
  Breed and seed of you ne’er shall I see;
  Woeful the tale to your friends shall be.”

Then the four swans turned their faces towards the woman, and Fionnuala spoke to her and said, “Evil is thy deed, Aoife, to destroy us thus without a cause, and think not that thou shalt escape punishment for it.  Assign us even some period to the ruin and destruction that thou hast brought upon us.”

“I shall do that,” said Aoife, “and it is this:  in your present forms shall ye abide, and none shall release you till the woman of the South be mated with the man of the North.  Three hundred years shall ye be upon the waters of Derryvaragh, and three hundred upon the Straits of Moyle between Erinn and Alba,[10] and three hundred in the seas by Erris and Inishglory, and then shall the enchantment have an end.”