they had been reared.

One May morning, as the children of Lir floated in the air around the
island of Inis Glora, they heard a faint bell sounding across the eastern
sea. The mist lifted, and they saw afar off, beyond the waves, a vision of
a stately white-robed priest, with attendants around him on the Irish
shore. They knew that it must be St. Patrick, the Tailkenn, or Tonsured
One, who was bringing, as had been so long promised, Christianity to
Ireland. Sailing through the air, above the blue sea, towards their native
coast, they heard the bell once more, now near and distinct, and they knew
that all evil spirits were fleeing away, and that their own hopes were to
be fulfilled. As they approached the land, St. Patrick stretched his hand
and said, "Children of Lir, you may tread your native land again." And the
sweet swan-sister, Finola, said, "If we tread our native land, it can only
be to die, after our life of nine centuries. Baptize us while we are yet
living." When they touched the shore, the weight of all those centuries
fell upon them; they resumed their human bodies, but they appeared old and
pale and wrinkled. Then St. Patrick baptized them, and they died; but,
even as he did so, a change swiftly came over them; and they lay side by
side, once more children, in their white night-clothes, as when their
father Lir, long centuries ago, had kissed them at evening and seen their
blue eyes close in sleep and had touched with gentle hand their white
foreheads and their golden hair. Their time of sorrow was ended and their
last swan-song was sung; but the cruel stepmother seems yet to survive in
her bat-like shape, and a single glance at her weird and malicious little
face will lead us to doubt whether she has yet fully atoned for her sin.



IV