"We have no power over them," the chief men said,
"but we are glad they are living yet, for they will get help in the end
of time."
As to the children of Lir, they went back towards their old place in the
Maoil, and they stopped there till the time they had to spend in it was
spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to leave this
place. And it is to Irrus Domnann we must go now," she said, "after our
three hundred years here. And indeed there will be no rest for us there,
or any standing ground, or any shelter from the storms. But since it is
time for us to go, let us set out on the cold wind, the way we will not
go astray."
So they set out in that way, and left Sruth na Maoile behind them, and
went to the point of Irrus Domnann, and there they stopped, and it is a
life of misery and a cold life they led there. And one time the sea
froze about them that they could not move at all, and the brothers were
lamenting, and Fionnuala was comforting them, for she knew there would
help come to them in the end.
And they stayed at Irrus Domnann till the time they had to spend there
was spent. And then Fionnuala said: "The time is come for us to go back
to Sidhe Fionnachaidh, where our father is with his household and with
all our own people."
"It pleases us well to hear that," they said.
So they set out flying through the air lightly till they came to Sidhe
Fionnachaidh; and it is how they found the place, empty before them, and
nothing in it but green hillocks and thickets of nettles, without a
house, without a fire, without a hearthstone.
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