So there the swans continued, suffering cold and misery upon the tides of Moyle; and one while they would be upon the coast of Alba and another upon the coast of Erinn, but the waters they might not leave.  At length there came upon them a night of bitter cold and snow such as they had never felt before, and Fionnuala sang this lament:—­

  “Evil is this life. 
  The cold of this night,
  The thickness of the snow,
  The sharpness of the wind—­

  “How long have they lain together,
  Under my soft wings,
  The waves beating upon us,
  Conn and Hugh and Fiachra?

  “Aoife has doomed us,
  Us, the four of us,
  To-night to this misery—­
  Evil is this life.”

Thus for a long time they suffered, till at length there came upon the Straits of Moyle a night of January so piercing cold that the like of it had never been felt.  And the swans were gathered together upon the Seal Rock.  The waters froze into ice around them, and each of them became frozen in his place, so that their feet and feathers clung to the rock; and when the day came and they strove to leave the place, the skin of their feet and the feathers of their breasts clove to the rock, they came naked and wounded away.

“Woe is me, O children of Lir,” said Fionnuala, “we are now indeed in evil case, for we cannot endure the salt water, yet we may not be away from it; and if the salt water gets into our sores we shall perish of it.”  And thus she sang:—­

   “To-night we are full of keening;
   No plumage to cover our bodies;
   And cold to our tender feet
   Are the rough rocks all awash.

   “Cruel to us was Aoife,
   Who played her magic upon us,
   And drove us out to the ocean,
   Four wonderful, snow-white swans.

   “Our bath is the frothing brine
   In the bay by red rocks guarded,
   For mead at our father’s table
   We drink of the salt blue sea.

   “Three sons and a single daughter—­
   In clefts of the cold rocks dwelling,
   The hard rocks, cruel to mortals. 
   —­We are full of keening to-night.”

So they went forth again upon the Straits of Moyle, and the brine was grievously sharp and bitter to them, but they could not escape it nor shelter themselves from it.  Thus they were, till at last their feathers grew again and their sores were healed.

On one day it happened that they came to the mouth of the river Bann in the north of Erinn, and there they perceived a fair host of horsemen riding on white steeds and coming steadily onward from the south-west “Do ye know who yon riders are, children of Lir?” asked Fionnuala.  “We know not,” said they, “but it is like they are some party of the People of Dana.”  Then they moved to the margin of the land, and the company they had seen came down to meet them; and behold, it was Hugh and Fergus, the two sons of Bov the Red, and their nobles and attendants with them, who had long been seeking for the swans along the coast of the Straits of Moyle.