Читать книгу Old Celtic Romances - Anonymous - Страница 12
CHAPTER V.
ОглавлениеTHE FOUR WHITE SWANS ON THE SEA OF MOYLE.
As to the children of Lir, miserable was their abode and evil their plight on the Sea of Moyle. Their hearts were wrung with sorrow for their father and their friends; and when they looked towards the steep, rocky, far-stretching coasts, and saw the great, dark wild sea around them, they were overwhelmed with fear and despair. They began also to suffer from cold and hunger, so that all the hardships they had endured on Lake Darvra appeared as nothing compared with their suffering on the sea-current of Moyle.
And so they lived, till one night a great tempest fell upon the sea. Finola, when she saw the sky filled with black, threatening clouds, thus addressed her brothers—
"Beloved brothers, we have made a bad preparation for this night; for it is certain that the coming storm will separate us; and now let us appoint a place of meeting, or it may happen that we shall never see each other again."
And they answered, "Dear sister, you speak truly and wisely; and let us fix on Carricknarone, for that is a rock that we are all very well acquainted with."
And they appointed Carricknarone as their place of meeting.
Midnight came, and with it came the beginning of the storm. A wild, rough wind swept over the dark sea, the lightnings flashed, and the great waves rose, and increased their violence and their thunder.
The swans were soon scattered over the waters, so that not one of them knew in what direction the others had been driven. During all that night they were tossed about by the roaring winds and waves, and it was with much difficulty they preserved their lives.
Towards morning the storm abated, and the sea became again calm and smooth; and Finola swam to Carricknarone. But she found none of her brothers there, neither could she see any trace of them when she looked all round from the summit of the rock over the wide face of the sea.
Then she became terrified, for she thought she should never see them again; and she began to lament them plaintively in these words—
The heart-breaking anguish and woe of this life
I am able no longer to bear:
My wings are benumbed with this pitiless frost;
My three little brothers are scattered and lost;
And I am left here to despair.
My three little brothers I never shall see
Till the dead shall arise from the tomb:
How I sheltered them oft with my wings and my breast,
And I soothed their sorrows and lulled them to rest,
As the night fell around us in gloom!
Ah, where are my brothers, and why have I lived,
This last worst affliction to know?
What now is there left but a life of despair?—
For alas! I am able no longer to bear
This heart-breaking anguish and woe.[XXII.]
Soon after this she looked again over the sea, and she saw Conn coming towards the rock, with his head drooping, and his feathers all drenched with the salt spray; and she welcomed him with joyful heart.
Not long after, Ficra appeared, but he was so faint with wet and cold and hardship, that he was scarce able to reach the place where Finola and Conn were standing; and when they spoke to him he could not speak one word in return. So Finola placed the two under her wings, and she said—
"If Aed were here now, all would be happy with us."
In a little time they saw Aed coming towards them, with head erect and feathers all dry and radiant and Finola gave him a joyful welcome. She then placed him under the feathers of her breast, while Conn and Ficra remained under her wings; and she said to them—
"My dear brothers, though ye may think this night very bad, we shall have many like it from this time forth."
So they continued for a long time on the Sea of Moyle, suffering hardships of every kind, till one winter night came upon them, of great wind and of snow and frost so severe, that nothing they ever before suffered could be compared to the misery of that night. And Finola uttered these words—
Our life is a life of woe;
No shelter or rest we find:
How bitterly drives the snow;
How cold is this wintry wind!
From the icy spray of the sea,
From the wind of the bleak north east,
I shelter my brothers three,
Under my wings and breast.
Our stepmother sent us here,
And misery well we know:—
In cold and hunger and fear;
Our life is a life of woe!
Another year passed away on the Sea of Moyle; and one night in January, a dreadful frost came down on the earth and sea, so that the waters were frozen into a solid floor of ice all round them. The swans remained on Carricknarone all night, and their feet and their wings were frozen to the icy surface, so that they had to strive hard to move from their places in the morning; and they left the skin of their feet, the quills of their wings, and the feathers of their breasts clinging to the rock.
"Sad is our condition this night, my beloved brothers," said Finola, "for we are forbidden to leave the Sea of Moyle; and yet we cannot bear the salt water, for when it enters our wounds, I fear we shall die of pain."
And she spoke this lay—
Our fate is mournful here to-day;
Our bodies bare and chill,
Drenched by the bitter, briny spray,
And torn on this rocky hill!
Cruel our stepmother's jealous heart
That banished us from home;
Transformed to swans by magic art,
To swim the ocean foam.
This bleak and snowy winter day,
Our bath is the ocean wide;
In thirsty summer's burning ray,
Our drink the briny tide.
And here 'mid rugged rocks we dwell,
In this tempestuous bay;
Four children bound by magic spell;—
Our fate is sad to-day!
They were, however, forced to swim out on the stream of Moyle, all wounded and torn as they were; for though the brine was sharp and bitter, they were not able to avoid it. They stayed as near the coast as they could, till after a long time the feathers of their breasts and wings grew again, and their wounds were healed.
After this they lived on for a great number of years, sometimes visiting the shores of Erin, and sometimes the headlands of Alban. But they always returned to the sea-stream of Moyle, for it was destined to be their home till the end of three hundred years.
One day they came to the mouth of the Bann, on the north coast of Erin, and looking inland, they saw a stately troop of horsemen approaching directly from the south-west. They were mounted on white steeds, and clad in bright-coloured garments, and as they wound towards the shore their arms glittered in the sun.
"Do ye know yonder cavalcade?" said Finola to her brothers.
"We know them not," they replied; "but it is likely they are a party of the Milesians, or perchance a troop of our own people, the Dedannans."
They swam towards the shore, to find out who the strangers were; and the cavalcade on their part, when they saw the swans, knew them at once, and moved towards them till they were within speaking distance.
Now these were a party of the Dedannans; and the chiefs who commanded them were the two sons of Bove Derg, the Dedannan king, namely, Aed the Keen-witted, and Fergus the Chess-player, with a third part of the Fairy Host.[XXIII.] They had been for a long time searching for the children of Lir along the northern shores of Erin, and now that they had found them, they were joyful; and they and the swans greeted each other with tender expressions of friendship and love. The children of Lir inquired after the Dedannans, and particularly after their father Lir, and Bove Derg, and all the rest of their friends and acquaintances.
"They are all well," replied the chiefs; "and they and the Dedannans in general are now gathered together in the house of your father, at Shee Finnaha, celebrating the Feast of Age,[2] pleasantly and agreeably. Their happiness would indeed be complete, only that you are not with them, and that they know not where you have been since you left Lake Darvra."
"Miserable has been our life since that day," said Finola; "and no tongue can tell the suffering and sorrow we have endured on the Sea of Moyle."
And she chanted these words—
Ah, happy is Lir's bright home to-day,
With mead and music and poet's lay:
But gloomy and cold his children's home,
For ever tossed on the briny foam.
Our wreathèd feathers are thin and light
When the wind blows keen through the wintry night:
Yet oft we were robed, long, long ago,
In purple mantles and furs of snow.
On Moyle's bleak current our food and wine
Are sandy sea-weed and bitter brine:
Yet oft we feasted in days of old,
And hazel-mead drank from cups of gold.
Our beds are rocks in the dripping caves;
Our lullaby song the roar of the waves:
But soft rich couches once we pressed,
And harpers lulled us each night to rest.
Lonely we swim on the billowy main,
Through frost and snow, through storm and rain:
Alas for the days when round us moved
The chiefs and princes and friends we loved!
My little twin brothers beneath my wings
Lie close when the north wind bitterly stings,
And Aed close nestles before my breast;
Thus side by side through the night we rest.
Our father's fond kisses, Bove Derg's embrace,
The light of Mannanan's[1] godlike face, The love of Angus[1]—all, all are o'er; And we live on the billows for evermore!
After this they bade each other farewell, for it was not permitted to the children of Lir to remain away from the stream of Moyle. As soon as they had parted, the Fairy Cavalcade returned to Shee Finnaha, where they related to the Dedannan chiefs all that had passed, and described the condition of the children of Lir. And the chiefs answered—
"It is not in our power to help them; but we are glad that they are living; and we know that in the end the enchantment will be broken, and that they will be freed from their sufferings."
As to the children of Lir, they returned to their home on the Sea of Moyle, and there they remained till they had fulfilled their term of years.
