To be parted from my dear children, it is that is tormenting
my heart.
"It is a bad net I put over you, bringing Aoife, daughter of Oilell of
Aran, to the house. I would never have followed that advice if I had
known what it would bring upon me.
"O Fionnuala, and comely Conn, O Aodh, O Fiachra of the beautiful arms;
it is not ready I am to go away from you, from the border of the harbour
where you are."
Then Lir went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome
before him there; and he got a reproach from Bodb Dearg for not bringing
his children along with him. "My grief!" said Lir. "It is not I that
would not bring my children along with me; it was Aoife there beyond,
your own foster-child and the sister of their mother, that put them in
the shape of four white swans on Loch Dairbhreach, in the sight of the
whole of the men of Ireland; but they have their sense with them yet,
and their reason, and their voice, and their Irish."
Bodb Dearg gave a great start when he heard that, and he knew what Lir
said was true, and he gave a very sharp reproach to Aoife, and he said:
"This treachery will be worse for yourself in the end, Aoife, than to
the children of Lir. And what shape would you yourself think worst of
being in?" he said.
"I would think worst of being a witch of the air," she said. "It is into
that shape I will put you now," said Bodb. And with that he struck her
with a Druid wand, and she was turned into a witch of the air there and
then, and she went away on the wind in that shape, and she is in it yet,
and will be in it to the end of life and time.
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