While eagerly and lovingly they were conversing, none noticed that the sun was sinking upon the low wavering line of the ultimate wave. But when at last Fionula saw this, she uttered a sad cry of warning to her brothers, and all four rose on their white wings and made ready to fly back to the bleak and desolate sea of Moyle. And sad, sadder than ever, was the heart of Fionula, for she knew that they could not be there till nightfall, and that the penalty of this would be that they should not again see the face of their kind, either on the shores of Erin or Alba, until the end of the three hundred years on the wastes of the Moyle. As they circled in the air, she sang this song, the last of the swan-songs heard of any of the Dedannans who were in that company: Happy our father Lir afar, With mead, and songs of love and war: The salt brine, and the white foam, With these his children have their home. In the sweet days of long ago Soft-clad we wandered to and fro: But now cold winds of dawn and night Pierce deep our feathers thin and light. The hazel mead in cups of gold We feasted from in days of old: The sea-weed now our food, our wine The salt, keen, bitter, barren brine. On soft warm couches once we pressed While harpers lulled us to our rest: Our beds are now where the sea raves, Our lullaby the clash of waves. Alas! the fair sweet days are gone When love was ours from dawn to dawn: Our sole companion now is pain, Through frost and snow, through storm and rain. Beneath my wings my brothers lie When fierce the ice-winds hurtle by: On either side and ’neath my breast Lir’s sons have known no other rest. Ah, kisses we shall no more know, Ah, love so dear exchanged for woe, All that is sweet for us is o’er, Homeless for aye from shore to shore. A great lamentation went up from the cavalcade of the Fairy Host when Fionula ended this song, and she and her brothers flew swiftly northward athwart the waves, red and wild because of the stormy setting of the sun. Sad was the tale the Dedannans had to relate when they returned to Shee Finnaha. Nevertheless, Bove Derg, the aged king, and white-haired Lir himself, took comfort in this, that Fionula and her brothers were still alive. Moreover, they knew that in the end the spell of Aeifa would be broken and that the exiles would be freed from their sufferings. But often, often, they thought with tears, as the slow revolving seasons lapsed one into the other, of the children of Lir upon the desolate far seas of the Moyle. * * * * * Here Eilidh’s voice lapsed into silence. Then, looking no longer at Peterkin, but staring into the red heart of the peats, she sang a Gaelic song, called the Sorrow of the Grey Hairs of Lir.