Then, slowly and sadly, did the four swans glide to the margin of the
lake. Never had the snowy whiteness of their plumage so dazzled the
beholders, never had music so sweet and sorrowful floated to Lake Darvra's
sunlit shores. As the swans reached the water's edge, silent were the
three brothers, and alone Finola chanted a farewell song.
With bowed white heads did the Dedannan host listen to Finola's chant, and
when the music ceased and only sobs broke the stillness, the four swans
spread their wings, and, soaring high, paused but for one short moment to
gaze on the kneeling forms of Lir and Bove Derg. Then, stretching their
graceful necks toward the north, they winged their flight to the waters of
the stormy sea that separates the blue Alba from the Green Island of Erin.
And when it was known throughout the Green Isle that the four white swans
had flown, so great was the sorrow of the people that they made a law that
no swan should be killed in Erin from that day forth.
* * * * *
With hearts that burned with longing for their father and their friends,
did Finola and her brothers reach the sea of Moyle. Cold and chill were
its wintry waters, black and fearful were the steep rocks overhanging
Alba's far-stretching coasts. From hunger, too, the swans suffered. Dark
indeed was all, and darker yet as the children of Lir remembered the still
waters of Lake Darvra and the fond Dedannan host on its peaceful shores.
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