The Children of Lir

After the death of his beloved wife, King Lir of the Tuatha Dé Danann married her sister, Aoife, to provide a mother for his four children: Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra, and Conn. Though Lir loved his children dearly, Aoife grew consumed by a dark, poisonous jealousy. One day, she took the children to Lake Derravaragh and, using a druidic wand, transformed them into four beautiful white swans. Cursed to remain in swan form for nine hundred years—three hundred on Lake Derravaragh, three hundred on the Sea of Moyle, and three hundred on the Isle of Inishglora—the siblings retained their human speech and the ability to sing haunting, celestial music. They endured centuries of bitter cold and freezing storms, clinging to each other for warmth and comfort. The curse could only be broken when the sound of a Christian bell rang out across the land and a king from the north married a queen from the south. After nine centuries of suffering, the children heard the first sanctuary bell of St. Patrick. A monk named Caicher took them in, and when a nobleman tried to seize the swans, the curse finally dissolved. The swans transformed back into humans, but they were now ancient, withered figures. Before they passed away into the afterlife, they were baptized, finally finding the peace that had been denied to them for an age.