🦢 An old Irish story
The Children of Lir
Four children, one spell, and nine hundred years as swans.
A very long time ago, before Ireland had any towns or roads, there lived a king called Lir.
He had four children, and he loved them more than anything in the world.
This is the story of what happened to them.
Part one
The Hill of the White Field
Lir lived in a great house on a green hill. The hill had a name, the Hill of the White Field, because every spring it was covered in small white flowers.
His wife was called Aobh (say: eve). First they had a daughter, Fionnuala. Then a son, Aodh. A few years later Aobh had twins, two boys, Fiachra and Conn.
Four children. A house full of noise. Lir was the happiest king in Ireland.
Fionnuala first, then Aodh, then the twins, racing each other down the hill.
The names
The names are old Irish, so they look harder than they sound. Tap one to see how to say it.
Start with Fionnuala. She is the one to remember.
Part two
The quiet house
Then, when the twins were still small, Aobh got sick. She did not get better. She died, and the big house on the hill went quiet.
Lir did not know what to do with himself. So he did the thing he was good at. He looked after his children. He carried the twins on his shoulders. He taught Fionnuala to ride. He let Aodh sit beside him when the grown-ups talked.
After a while, the king over all the other kings, a man called Bodb Dearg (say: bove DAR-ug), came to visit. He said, “Lir, your children need a mother. Marry Aobh’s sister, Aoife.”
So Lir married Aoife. And at first, it was fine. Aoife was kind to the children. She brushed Fionnuala’s hair and sang the twins to sleep.
But Aoife watched.
She watched Lir laugh with his children.
She watched him love them more than he would ever love her.
And something in her went cold.
Part three
The lake
One summer morning, Aoife said, “Come on. We are going to visit your grandfather.” She put the four children in her chariot and drove out across the country.
Halfway there, they came to a lake called Lough Derravaragh (say: lock DERRA-varra). The water was flat and shining. “Go and swim,” said Aoife. “You have been sitting for hours.”
The children ran into the water, laughing and splashing.
Aoife stood on the shore and took out a wand. It was a druid’s wand, made of dark wood, and she had learned how to use it. She pointed it at the water and said:
Aoife is pointing the wand. Tap the button to cast the spell.
It was done. Where four children had been splashing, four white swans floated on the still water.
Fionnuala looked at her wings. She looked at her brothers. Then she looked at Aoife and said, “Why?”
Even Aoife could not take everything. She left them their voices, so they could still speak. And she gave them one gift, though she did not mean it as one: the four swans could sing more sweetly than anyone in Ireland.
Nine hundred years.
Longer than anyone in the world has ever lived.
Fionnuala stretched out her wings, and pulled her brothers in under them.
Part four
What Lir did
Aoife drove on to her father’s house alone. Bodb Dearg asked, “Where are Lir’s children?” Aoife told a lie. She said Lir would not let them come.
Bodb Dearg did not believe her. He sent a messenger to Lir, and the truth came out. Lir rode to the lake as fast as his horses could go. He found four swans on the water. And the swans called out to him by name.
Bodb Dearg was so angry that he used his own magic on Aoife. He turned her into a spirit of the wind. Up she went into the sky, and she has never come down. On wild, windy nights, some people in Ireland still say, “That’s Aoife.”
Lir could not undo the spell. Nobody could. So he did the only thing left to do. He set up camp on the shore of the lake, and he stayed.
Every evening the swans came in close to the bank and sang, and Lir sat and listened.
Every evening, the four swans swam close to the shore and sang. People came from all over Ireland to hear them. Anyone who was sad, or ill, or worn out, would sit by the lake and listen, and feel better.
It was not the life Lir had wanted for them. But they could see him, and he could see them. And that was how the first three hundred years went by.
Where it happened
The three waters
Aoife’s spell sent the swans to three places, one after the other. All three are real. So is the hill. Tap a dot on the map, or a button under it.
The story starts on the hill, in the north.
Then the three hundred years were up.
The swans could feel it, the way you can feel winter coming.
They had to fly north. And they had to go alone.
Part five
The Sea of Moyle
The Sea of Moyle is the strip of sea between the top of Ireland and Scotland. It is one of the coldest, roughest stretches of water anywhere.
On the lake, the water had been still. Here, it never stopped. The waves were as high as houses. In winter the sea froze around their feet at night, and in the morning they had to pull themselves free.
One night a storm came that was worse than all the others. In the dark, the swans lost each other. Fionnuala found a rock, the Rock of the Seals, and she waited on it, calling out. First Conn came. Then Fiachra. Then, at last, Aodh, with his feathers all torn.
Conn under her right wing, Fiachra under her left, and Aodh against her chest.
Fionnuala tucked Conn under her right wing and Fiachra under her left, and held Aodh against her chest, and the four of them stayed like that until morning.
That is how they got through the Sea of Moyle. Three hundred years of it. Whenever it got too hard, Fionnuala opened her wings, and the others came in.
Part six
The sea in the west
The last three hundred years were on the sea off the west coast of Ireland, near a small island called Inishglora (say: inish-GLOR-a). It was still cold, and still wild. But it was not the Sea of Moyle. There were sea birds for company, and calm days between the storms.
And near the end, the swans decided to do something they had wanted to do for six hundred years.
They flew home.
They flew across Ireland to the Hill of the White Field.
There was no house.
There was no one.
Just grass, and nettles, and the wind.
Part seven
The bell
Nine hundred years is a long time. Lir was long gone. Everyone the swans had ever known was long gone. The house had fallen down so long ago that grass had grown over the stones. The swans stayed one night on the hill, and sang one song, the way they used to sing for Lir. Then they flew back to the island.
While they had been away, Ireland had changed. A holy man had come to Inishglora. His name was Mochaomhóg (say: mo-KWEE-vogue), and he had built a little stone church there, with a bell.
One morning, the bell rang. The swans had never heard anything like it. The three brothers were frightened. But Fionnuala said, “Listen. Do you not remember? A bell. That is the sound Aoife said we would hear.”
Tap the button and ring the bell they heard.
When the bell stopped, the swans sang, and Mochaomhóg came running down to the shore. He knew the story of the four swans. Everybody did. He looked after them. He had a silversmith make two thin silver chains, one for Fionnuala and Aodh, one for Fiachra and Conn, so that the four would never lose each other again, not even in a storm.
For the first time in nine hundred years, the swans were not afraid of anything.
Part eight
A man from the north, a woman from the south
Now. Do you remember the last part of the spell?
Around that time, the king of Connacht, in the north-west, married a princess from Munster, in the south. Her name was Deoch. She had heard about the four singing swans, and she wanted them for herself.
The king came to the island with his soldiers. Mochaomhóg said no. So the king grabbed the silver chains, and pulled.
And the feathers fell away.
The spell was over.
Part nine
The end of the spell
Where the four swans had been, there stood four people. They were not children any more. Nine hundred years had passed, and they were the oldest people anyone had ever seen, with white hair down to the ground.
The king let go of the chains and ran.
Mochaomhóg knelt beside them. Fionnuala said, “Bury us together. Conn on my right, Fiachra on my left, and Aodh in front of me, the way I held them on the Sea of Moyle.”
He promised. The four of them held hands, and closed their eyes, and that was the end of the children of Lir.
Four feathers on the grass at Inishglora, and the sun coming up over the sea.
Nine hundred years as swans.
Every one of those years, together.
And that is why, in Ireland, you never harm a swan.
Still here
Where you can find them now
In Dublin, in the Garden of Remembrance, there is a huge statue of the four children turning into swans. Their arms are already wings.
Lough Derravaragh, the Sea of Moyle and Inishglora are all real places. People still go to them because of this story.
Swans are protected in Ireland, and plenty of people will tell you it is bad luck to hurt one. Now you know where that comes from. And the next time you see four swans together on a lake, you will know what to think.
Tell it back
Now you know it, you can tell it. Here are the five big moments. Tap one for a reminder, then say what happens in your own words. If you can get from the first picture to the last without reading the story again, it is yours.
Five pictures. One story.
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