Long, long before the Clandonnell ruled these hills and glens and cliffs they were the home of Celtic legend. Over the waters of the wee river Margy, with its half-mile course, often sailed the four white swans, those enchanted children of Lir, king of the Isle of Man, who had been transformed into this guise by their cruel stepmother, with a stroke of her druidical fairy wand. After turning them into four beautiful white swans she pronounced their doom, which was to sail three hundred years on smooth Lough Derryvara, three hundred on the Sea of Erris--sail, and sail, until the union of Largnen, the prince from the north, with Decca, the princess from the south; until the Taillkenn [**] should come to Erinn, bringing the light of a pure faith, and until they should hear the voice of a Christian bell. They were allowed to keep their own Gaelic speech, and to sing sweet, plaintive, fairy music, which should excel all the music of the world, and which should lull to sleep all who listened to it. We could hear it, we three, for we loved the story; and love opens the ear as well as the heart to all sorts of sounds not heard by the dull and incredulous. You may hear it, too, any fine soft day if you will sit there looking out on Fair Head and Rathlin Island, and read the old fairy tale. When you put down the book you will see Finola, Lir's lovely daughter, in any white-breasted bird; and while she covers her brothers with her wings, she will chant to you her old song in the Gaelic tongue. ** A name given by the Druids to St. Patrick. 'Ah, happy is Lir's bright home today With mirth and music and poet's lay; But gloomy and cold his children's home, For ever tossed on the briny foam. Our wreath-ed 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 robes of snow. On Moyle's bleak current our food and wine Are sandy seaweed 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!' Joyce's translation. The Fate of the Children of Lir is the second of Erin's Three Sorrows of Story, and the third and greatest is the Fate of the Sons of Usnach, which has to do with a sloping rock on the north side of Fair Head, five miles from us. Here the three sons of Usnach landed when they returned from Alba to Erin with Deirdre--Deirdre, who was 'beautiful as Helen, and gifted like Cassandra with unavailing prophecy'; and by reason of her beauty many sorrows fell upon the Ultonians.