The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends Read online

  The message that the Bodb Dearg sent was to the effect that if Lir accepted him as king over the Children of Danu, he would arrange a marriage with one of his three foster-daughters – they were Niamh, Aoife and Aobh, daughters of Aillil, king of the Islands of Aran. Indeed, it was known that Niamh, Aoife and Aobh were the most beautiful women in Éireann, and the most intelligent and accomplished.

  Lir was delighted, for he had grown weary of his isolation and the sadness of the loss of his dearest companion. So he set out with fifty chariots until they reached the palace of the Bodb Dearg. There he embraced his king and acknowledged him in due fashion. There was a great banquet that night, and the feasting lasted for several days. All the people of Danú were happy to see Lir back in their company.

  Eventually, the three foster daughters of the Bodb Dearg were brought forward.

  Lir gazed on them with awe, for each one was as beautiful as the other. Niamh, the eldest, was dark and pale; Aoife, the middle girl, was red-haired and cream-skinned; while Aobh, the youngest, was fair-haired and bright. They combined the qualities of winter, autumn and spring. And when he spoke with them, Lir was amazed at their intelligence and wit.

  The choice was difficult, but Lir finally chose Aobh, for she was young and fresh and had the beauty of spring and the promise of the future.

  In the fullness of time, Aobh bore Lir children. In truth, she gave birth to two sets of twins. The first set was a boy and a girl whom she called Aodh and Fionnghuala (meaning “fire” and “fair-shouldered”) and the second set were two boys whom she called Fiachra and Conn (meaning “battle king” and “wisdom”). Now, in the bearing of these children, the gentle Aobh died and Lir’s sadness was great. Only his children gave him joy.

  However, the Bodb Dearg came to him and said: “Choose another wife from Niamh and Aoife, that they may comfort you and help you raise Aobh’s children”. So Lir chose Aoife of the autumn tresses and, for a while, they were happy. But Aoife grew jealous of her sister’s children, for she was not blessed with children herself. More and more did she resort into confiding herself to Druids with magical powers, who taught her the secret arts. The barbs of jealousy tortured her soul and turned it to hatred for the children so that, in the end, she became obsessed with her malice.

  The obsession turned into an excessive illness and for a year and a day she lay in her chamber, not coming out, not even for her husband. Her sickness overwhelmed her, so that her mind became unhinged. Then, after a year and a day, she rose from her bed and re-entered the world, professing herself cured.

  Lir and his children were pleased to see her so apparently recovered.

  She called the children to her and said that, as she was now so well, she was going to take them on a visit to the Bodb Dearg. Now the boys were delighted at this but Fionnghuala, with a woman’s intuition, was suspicious about her stepmother. She had a dark foreboding dream that Aoife was intending them harm and that some terrible dead was lurking in her mind.

  Yet everyone seemed happy. Lir was delighted to see his wife risen from her sick bed and well. Also he was pleased that she was taking the children on a trip to see the Bodb Dearg. So Fionnghuala kept her suspicions to herself, for fear that she would be scoffed at or be called an ungrateful brat.

  Aoife’s fine carriage came to the gates and the children went with her, with Lir bidding them a fond farewell. The carriage set off, accompanied by a bodyguard and with Aoife’s personal attendants. Off they went from Sídh Fionnachaidh. They had not journeyed many a mile when Aoife contrived to stop the carriage and drew aside her trusted manservant, Conan.

  “How well do you love me, Conan?” she whispered, so that no one else would hear.

  The old man was puzzled.

  “Didn’t I come with you from your father’s court at Aran to the palace of the Bodb Dearg, when you were but a child?” he demanded. “Have I not watched over you and seen you grow and never a hair of your head was allowed to come to harm?”

  “Then you love me well. What would you do for me in that love?”

  “There is nothing in this world, nor in the Otherworld, that I would not do,” affirmed the old man.

  “If I were in danger or about to suffer a great loss, would you serve me well?”

  “I would so, lady. I would remove the danger and restore whatever loss you encountered.”

  “I am in danger of losing my husband’s love,” sighed Aoife.

  Conan’s eyes blazed. “Tell me the name of she who would steal that love, and she will not live to the sunset.”

  “It is no woman who has robbed me of Lir’s love, Conan. See those children in my carriage? They are the cause of his neglect to me. They have destroyed my happiness. If they were removed, all would be well.”

  Conan realized what she was saying. His eyes widened in horror and he took a step backwards. “But they are your sister’s children, the children of your husband,” he gasped. “As much as I nursed and looked after you, I have also looked after her.”

  Aoife’s eyes were coalfires of hell as she saw his look of admonition. Hate and jealousy were so great within her that she saw it only as a personal betrayal. She turned in anger and accosted more of her personal retainers and each one of them was as horrified as old Conan had been at what she was suggesting.

  Finally, they set off again, and came to the shores of Loch Dairbhreach, which is now the lake of Derravarragh in Co. Westmeath. There they encamped the night. And, that night, Aoife herself took a sword in her hand and went to the sleeping children. She was fully determined to kill them herself, but a strange emotion stayed her hand. She stood, sword raised, while her sister’s blood fought with her own and she found that she could not do the deed.

  But the evil in her was not to be thwarted. She went back into her own tent and came out with a magical wand which an evil wizard had given to her. The next morning, before breakfast, she suggested to the children that they go and bathe in the waters of the loch. In their joy, they cast off their clothes and ran into the waters. As they did so, Aoife touched them with her wand and sang out a cruel magical chant which turned all four into swans, with snowy white feathers.

  At first, the children struggled against their new forms, bewildered and frightened. But there was no escape. Finally, they settled down and swam close to the shore where Aoife was chuckling with evil joy. But her evil spell had not worked entirely, for each of the children still possessed the power of human speech.

  Fionnghuala called out:“Oh, step-mother, what have we done to you, that you should repay us with this terrible deed?”

  Aoife sneered at them.“Pests! You stole the love of your father from me.”

  Fionnghuala lowered her swan neck in sadness. “His love for us was not the same as his love for you. Surely you know the difference between love for one’s children and love for one’s partner?”

  Aoife stamped her foot in rage. “You will cackle with the birds on Derravarragh’s shore until you die.”

  “Oh, Aoife, step-mother, what you have done will cry out for vengeance, as long as that vengeance takes to reach you. Foolish woman. Your punishment will be greater than our plight. One thing you may do, in virtue of the common blood we share! Tell us when this misery will end?”

  Aoife smiled thinly. Her face was ugly. “It is a wiser thing not to have the answer to that question. However, as it will add to your suffering and misery, here is the answer: you will spend three hundred years on Loch Dairbhreach; three hundred more years on Sruth na Maoile, between Éireann and high-hilled Alba; and then three hundred more years off Iorras Domhnann. No power in this world, nor the Otherworld, will free you until that time is passed. Not until a Prince of Connacht marries a Princess of Mumhan. Because my spell was incomplete, you are left with the ability to make human speech and you have the gift to make sweet music which calms and soothes all who hear it. That is your only gift.”

  Then the evil Aoife turned and ordered her carriage to be made ready. She left with her reti
nue, and behind her were the four swans swimming on the lonely lake behind her. The children of Lir huddled together and raised their heads in a lament, not for themselves, but for their father.

  Sad our hearts break for Lir,

  red eyes searching the world for us,

  hopeful in seeking shadows in forests, on mountains,

  seeking forms, in skies and on land.

  Seeking his lost children torn from his bosom,

  Now in swan-form swimming, cold in waters of a

  foamy strange shore.

  Now when Aoife and her entourage arrived at the palace of the Bodb Dearg, there was great rejoicing at her recovery from her illness. A great feast had been prepared. After the Bodb Dearg had welcomed her, he peered around with curiosity.

  “I thought you were bringing your sister’s children with you? Where are they, your own foster-children, the children of Lir?”

  Now Aoife blushed in shame, but she had a story ready. “They are not with me because Lir refused to let me bring them. He has turned against me. Likewise, he says he is no friend to you, for you usurped the love of the Dé Danaan and the title of king which should rightfully be his. He does not want his children placed in your safe-keeping, for you will surely harm them.”

  Now the Bodb Dearg was truly astonished when he heard these words from Aoife. “This surely cannot be? Lir knows how much I love those children, as if they were my own. How can he turn against me in this fashion?”

  The Bodb Dearg was no fool and some suspicion of mischief formed in his mind. He sent a messenger immediately to Lir, telling him that Aoife had arrived alone and was saying that Lir had refused to allow the children to come with her.

  Immediately he received this word, Lir mounted his fastest chariot and was away to the palace of the Bodb Dearg. In the meantime, the Bodb Dearg grew more uneasy for, when he questioned Aoife more closely, he found many discrepancies in her answers and so he summoned her servants and began to question them.

  Meanwhile, Lir and his escort had decided to encamp the night on the shores of Loch Dairbhreach.

  The four children of Lir, in their guise as swans, saw their father and his warriors approaching and they swam to the shallows, raising their voices in a sad song.

  Lir heard the song and came racing to the shore and listened to the swans crying in human voices. Then he recognized the voice of his daughter, Fionnghuala.

  “Father, dearest father, know you that I am your daughter, Fionnghuala, and these are your sons, now changed into swans and ruined by the hatred and evil crafts of Aoife, our step-mother, sister to our own mother.”

  Lir raised his voice in a terrible cry of grief, at which his warriors were sure that he must have lost his reason. But, having given three shouts of grief which rocked the very mountains of the countryside, he resumed his command on sanity.

  “Tell me, daughter, how I may restore you to your human form?”

  “Alas, dear father, there is nothing you can do, for no one has the power to release us either in this world nor in the Otherworld. Not until nine hundred years have passed and a Prince of Connacht marries a Princess of Mumhan.”

  Lir, this time joined by his warriors, raised another three shouts of grief. And their grief was carried over all Éireann, so that the trees bent before it and the waves receded from the shores in terror.

  “We are left only with our speech and our reason,” Fionnghuala explained.

  “That being so,” replied Lir, “you will come and dwell with me at my palace again and still live as if you were in human shape.”

  “Alas, dear father, that cannot be so, for Aoife has condemned us to live on water and we are only allowed speech in order to make sweet music to those who wish to hear it.”

  Lir and his warriors encamped that night and the children of Lir sang and made music for them and so sweetly did they sing that they all fell into a calm sleep.

  In the morning Lir went to the water’s edge. “My heart is broken that I must leave you here, far from my empty hall. I now curse the first moment I saw Aoife’s smiling face, that hid a cruelty which none could plumb the depths of. I shall know no rest, no sleep, from now on. I shall go into the never-ending night, for never more will I know a tranquil hour.”

  In tears and sadness they bade farewell and Lir rode on to the Bodb Dearg’s palace.

  He was greeted with respect by the Bodb Dearg and, when he met Aoife, his face was a mask to hide his feelings. Then the Bodb Dearg said: “I was hoping that you would come with your children, for I love them as if they were my own. But Aoife has told me that you refuse to let them come near me, lest harm befall them.”

  Then Lir turned to Aoife. “Let Aoife bear witness to the truth. She has treacherously turned them into swans on Loch Dairbhreach.”

  The Bodb Dearg had suspected something, especially when none of Aoife’s servants would answer his questions, but he could not believe such a terrible thing. He turned to Aoife to seek her denial and saw the truth of Lir’s accusation written on her guilty features.

  For a moment or two, the Bodb Dearg stood before Aoife with his shoulders hunched, bowed down in sorrow and anguish. He had been foster-father to Aoife and her sister Aobh and he loved them both, just as he loved Aobh’s children as if they had been his own.

  Then he raised himself and his brows were creased in anger. “Aoife, once my foster-daughter, what you have done is beyond forgiveness. As bad as the suffering of the poor children of Lir is, your suffering will be worse.”

  Aoife, terrified, dropped to her knees, her hands held out in supplication. There was fear on her face, for she knew what vengeance the gods could take. But the Bodb Dearg’s face was filled with a terrible, tormented anger and he did not heed her protestations.

  “Spare my life,” she cried.

  “That I will, for the snuffing out of your soul is but to show you mercy. Answer this question, for you are bound to do so: of everything that is on the earth, or above it, or beneath it, of everything that flies or creeps or burrows, seen or unseen, horrible in itself or in its nature, tell me what do you most fear and abhor?”

  Aoife crouched with shaking limbs. “I fear Macha, Badb and Nemain, the three forms of the Mórrígán, the goddess of war, of death and slaughter, and most of all, her blood-drinking raven form.”

  “Then that is what you shall be, for as long as mortals believe in the goddess of death and battles.”

  Then the Bodb Dearg struck her with his wand of office and she was immediately transformed into the hideous form of a croaking raven, with blood dripping on its beak. All the people in the palace of the Bodb Dearg were forced to turn away and hide their eyes from the terrible, malignant form. All save the Bodb Dearg and Lir himself, who gazed on her form without any expression at all.

  The eyes of Aoife stared up from the raven head and sought mercy in their gaze, but found none. Then, with her leathery wings flapping, the blood drooling from her gaping mouth, the raven rose upwards and, croaking hoarsely, flew away into the sky, doomed to remain so until the end of time.

  Then the Bodb Dearg embraced Lir and they shared their anguish and all the Tuatha Dé Danaan, all the gods and goddesses of Éireann, went down to the shores of Loch Dairbhreach and encamped there. And the Sons of Míle Easpain came from their courts, and even the misshapen Fomorii and the Nemedians, and all the people of the land of Éireann came. A great camp was made at the lakeside. There the children of Lir raised their voices and sang sweet music to them and it is said that no sweeter and sadder music was ever heard in any part of this world, nor the Otherworld.

  Around the shores of the lake, the encampment became permanent and the children of Lir never wanted for company. The people remained, held by their love for the four white swans. The children of Lir talked with the people and, during the evenings, sang their incomparable songs and, no matter what trouble beset those who heard the music, they drifted into a calm sleep and awoke refreshed and at peace.

  For three hundred yea
rs, the children of Lir rested on the waters of Loch Dairbhreach.

  At the end of three hundred years, Fionnghuala said to her brothers: “The time has come when we must bid farewell to these waters and to all our friends, and to our father, Lir, for we must travel to the stormy waters of Sruth na Maoile which gushes in its passage between Éireann and high-hilled Alba.”

  So on the following morning, they spread their wings and rose, among the sadness and sorrow, and the wailing of their father.

  Fionnghuala called out, as she rose: “Tears swell down our cheeks, grief in our hearts, now time dictates our departure. Sad our tears like the waters of the lake, calm deep waters we may not tread again for it is to the black storms, the endless wrath of Moyle’s sea, there to linger in fear for the next three hundred years.”

  And all the children cried: “Our paths are drawn down the twisting road of time; destiny traps us, in spite of men and gods, and no hopes may come even in our dreams; no laughter; no wish for tomorrow, until the sorrow of our lives are ended. Though we go from here, dear father, Lir the storm-tossed, our hearts will forever remain with you.”

  Then they circled once more in the sky and flew away to the north-east.

  Great was the sadness on the gods and men of Ireland then. Great the sadness of the goddesses and the women, too. None were so loved as the children of Lir.

  The High King summoned the Brehons, the learned lawyers and, from that day forward, according to the law, no subject of the High King, nor anyone in any of the five provinces, was ever allowed to kill a swan. Thus states the law of the Fenéchus.

  The children of Lir had now alighted on the Sruth na Maoile, which is the Sea of Moyle, called the North Channel which runs its turbulent way between Ireland and Scotland. It was a harsh stormy sea; cold and tumultuous. They were cold and fearful, those four poor children. The sea was not like the pleasant waters of Dairbhreach. Here the violent winds drove them up and down with sleet and snow and there was little or no food for them. No misery could be worse than the restless sea between them.