At last Lêr’s wife died, to the sea-god’s great sorrow. When Bodb the Red heard the news, he sent a messenger to Lêr, offering him one of his own foster-daughters, Aebh[171], Aeife[172], and Ailbhe[173], the children of Ailioll of Arran. Lêr, touched by this, came to visit Bodb the Red at his _sídh_, and chose Aebh for his wife. “She is the eldest, so she must be the noblest of them,” he said. They were married, and a great feast made; and Lêr took her back with him to Sídh Fionnachaidh. Aebh bore four children to Lêr. The eldest was a daughter called Finola, the second was a son called Aed; the two others were twin boys called Fiachra and Conn, but in giving birth to those Aebh died. Bodb the Red then offered Lêr another of his foster-children, and he chose the second, Aeife. Every year Lêr and Aeife and the four children used to go to Manannán’s “Feast of Age”, which was held at each of the _sídhe_ in turn. The four children grew up to be great favourites among the people of the goddess Danu. But Aeife was childless, and she became jealous of Lêr’s children; for she feared that he would love them more than he did her. She brooded over this until she began, first to hope for, and then to plot their deaths. She tried to persuade her servants to murder them, but they would not. So she took the four children to Lake Darvra (now called Lough Derravargh in West Meath), and sent them into the water to bathe. Then she made an incantation over them, and touched them, each in turn, with a druidical wand, and changed them into swans. But, though she had magic enough to alter their shapes, she had not the power to take away their human speech and minds. Finola turned, and threatened her with the anger of Lêr and of Bodb the Red when they came to hear of it. She, however, hardened her heart, and refused to undo what she had done. The children of Lêr, finding their case a hopeless one, asked her how long she intended to keep them in that condition. “You would be easier in mind,” she said, “if you had not asked the question; but I will tell you. You shall be three hundred years here, on Lake Darvra; and three hundred years upon the Sea of Moyle[174], which is between Erin and Alba; and three hundred years more at Irros Domnann[175] and the Isle of Glora in Erris[176]. Yet you shall have two consolations in your troubles; you shall keep your human minds, and yet suffer no grief at knowing that you have been changed into swans, and you shall be able to sing the softest and sweetest songs that were ever heard in the world.” Then Aeife went away and left them. She returned to Lêr, and told him that the children had fallen by accident into Lake Darvra, and were drowned.