The Black Swan of Lir

‘We must get back to the carriage, children.  Your father will worry.’  Aoife pulled her cloak around her neck, missing the warmth of her black bountiful curls. 
        Fionnula grabbed her hands excitedly, pulling her away from their carriage and further up the snowy path.  ‘But Mother Aoife, Loch Dairbhreach is so beautiful.  Father will understand.’ 
        ‘He knows this was our favourite place to come with Mother,’ said Fiachra as he and his twin, Conn, pushed her along the path from behind.  ‘She used to allow Conn and me to skate upon the surface when it froze.  Will you, Mother Aoife?’        
        ‘Be like our real mother more and we will like you more,’ said Conn.  ‘Will you let us?’
        ‘Well, maybe a short while,’ Aoife said, hoping the child’s words true.  She was trying so hard to win their affections. 
        ‘Hurray!’ said Aodh, the youngest as he skipped ahead. 

        Their silver hair shone brighter than the falling snow; their cheeks pinched pink; their smiles warmer than a hearth fire.  The children of Lir’s beauty outshone the very season of Winter.  It was difficult to deny the wishes of such cherubic children— especially when they were so cruel. 
        Aoife remembered her austere childhood, void of affection from a man too busy being the High King of Ireland to be a father.  Knowing herself to plain for marriage, she had busied herself with the druid arts and dreamed of one day marrying for love and having a family.  Her children would know love and affection, the like she and her sister Maeve had not. 
        Maeve had been married first— wed to Lir, the King of Leinster as a gift from her Father to ease a bloody take over that had crowned him High King.  The next time Aoife saw her sister again was fourteen years later, lying dead upon her funeral pyre, surrounded by her grieving husband and their four beautiful children. 
        When she heard the news first— that she was to marry Lir in her sister’s stead—she thought it a multiple blessing.  She could help to heal the deep mourning her sister’s passing had left on her family and would finally have the family that life had denied her.  Those children would know a love they had never experienced before and would grow to be wise and noble kings and queens of Ireland.  For the first time ever, she knew true happiness.
        It had been a month since their wedding.  How fast true happiness had been replaced with a deep sorrow the like she had never felt before.  No doubt abhorred by her plainness, her new husband refused to acknowledge her as a wife and ordered her to sleep in the servants quarters— the furthest chambers from his own.  Aoife had expected such behaviour from a grieving widower and it mattered not to her.  She had hoped the love for his children would warm him to her but Aoife had never known children to be so cruel. 
        No matter how kind or how comforting or how attentive she tried to be, they spurned her with absolute hatred.  They rejected her affections with cruel words and harsh fists.  If it was just beatings, Aoife would not care.  She had suffered many a beating from her father, but as time went on, they became wicked. 
        They filled her bed with leeches and cut her hair off as she slept and had burned all of her clothes and even tried to conceal ground glass in her porridge.  She had asked for help but they had anticipated that.  They whispered lies of a wicked step-witch and told all at court who would listen of their cruel treatment at her hands.  Within two weeks, no servant, guard or townsperson would speak to her. 
        She had spent the last week praying to the Gods for solace and crying herself to sleep on her pillow.  Hope had returned to her this morning.  They had heard her crying and come to comfort her, calling her Mother Aoife.  They had never addressed her as this before.  The carriage ride around the lake was their idea.   Maybe their hatred for her was thawing? 

        ‘Fasten your cloaks about you children.  I would not see you with sickness upon you.’  She attempted to fasten the twin’s wolf-pelt cloaks about them but they ran towards the lake, squealing with laughter as they startled a bevy of swans hiding in a stretch of yellowed reeds.   ‘Conn!  Fiachra!  Be careful!  Swans are more dangerous that they look when provoked!’
        ‘Isn’t the lake simply breath-taking, Mother Aoife?’  Fionnula said, tightened her grip on her hand, bringing her attention back to the waters.  The falling snow touched its still surface and disappeared into the reflection of the grey storm clouds they fell from.  Such displays of the Gods were truly beautiful. 
        ‘Come to the water’s edge, Mother Aoife.  Let us test its firmness.’ 
        Her dress was soaked before she could protest.  Fionnula lead Aoife through the shallows to where the three boys were splashing each other, the water coming above their knees. 
        ‘Children, I must protest.  We will all catch our deaths out here if we stay much longer!’
        ‘We won’t, Mother Aoife,’ said Fionnula with honeyed charm.  ‘…But you will.’  Fionnula thrust Aoife forward and pushed her down into the icy waters.  Shocks rippled through her body from the freezing water rushing into her lungs, stealing her breath from her.  Muffled sounds of laughing children danced in her ears as the weight of four bodies pressed down upon hers. 
        Her hands found the wet earth below.  She tried to push her head up for air but a pair of hands forced her head back beneath the water. 
         Frantically, she trashed through the earth for something...anything, releasing clouds silt that raked through her burning chest.  Her hands closed upon a slender staff of wood.  Divine power rushed into her body from the wood with such force she could not contain it.  It erupted from her in an explosion of spray and silt, lifting the bodies from above her and tossing them out onto the lake.    
        Choking, she stood—a twisted wand of yew in her hand.  Was this an omen?  Were the Gods sparing her life so she could teach these children a lesson?  This was indeed an omen and one she would use to her advantage.  
        The children were screaming.  The bevy of swans were exacting their revenge on the children who disturbed them.  Honking wildly, they flapped their wings and raked pale skin with their black claws.  She had warned them.  Swans may look beautiful and serene but they would quickly turn ugly when provoked.  She saw no difference between the birds and the silver haired children of Lir.  It gave her an idea. 
        With a trembling hand, she raised the druid wand towards them and recited an incantation she had learned from an Arc Druid at Dun Aengus.  Yellow light erupted from the wand tip and touched each of the children, one after the other. 
        When the light touched them, they went rigid, their eyes wide, as if struck by lightning.  The children twisted and contorted and dropped thrashing into the water. 
        Assuming they had successful killed their attackers, the swans honked loudly in and lifted to the air, making for the centre of the lake.  
        Four swans remained upon the water, looking at each other with bewilderment. 
        ‘What have you done to us?’ screamed the largest swan. 
        ‘You have cursed us!’
        ‘We knew you were a witch!’ cried the identical swans beside her. 
        ‘An evil witch!’ screamed the signet.
        Aoife stood to her full height.  ‘Let this be a lesson to each of you!  This will be the last time you dare cross Aoife Ní Dearg, Druidess of Dun Aengus, daughter of Bodb Dearg and High Queen of Éire.  From this day forth you will do as I command.  You will pledge to me that you will accept me into your family.  You will respect me and be kind to me and maybe one day grow to love me.  Do this and I will lift this curse.’ 
        ‘You are not our mother!  Our mother is dead!’
        I have never tried to be your mother, nor will I!  I just want to be a friend, a companion, a confidant.  Do this. Pledge to me that you will try and I will make you children again.’
        The swans swam together and whispered. 
        Aoife smiled in hope.  It would all change this day.  They would see the light. 
        The swans lifted from the water in a flurry of white wings and circled her.  ‘Father will know of this witchcraft!  Father will know and will burn you at the stake!’
        ‘Every man, woman and child of Ireland will know that you tried to murder us upon this lake!  They will know you as a wicked step-witch!  Mothers will scare their children to sleep with tales of your wickedness!’
        The four swans rose up to the sky and disappeared into the snow. 

        She reached the castle and was immediately locked in fetters.  Six guards dragged her by the hair into the throne room and threw her at the feet of King Lir who sat surrounded by four white swans.  
        ‘You accursed witch!  You will pay for what you have done to my darling children!’ thundered Lir, slamming his fists down onto the throne. 
        Tears continued to fall from her eyes.  They had started at the lake and would not stop.  ‘It was the children that…’ 
        ‘Do not let her speak Father!  She will curse you!’ whispered the largest swan. 
        ‘Lift the curse upon my children, witch and I will make your death a swift one.’
        ‘You cannot make….’ whispered Aoife through sobs. 
        ‘He cannot, but I can!’ shouted her Father as he wrenched her upright by the hair and grabbed her about the throat.  ‘I come to Leinster to parley peace and this is how my daughter is behaving?  Shaming my name with murder?!  He spat into her face and threw her back to the ground.  ‘One daughter punishes us by dying.  The other punishes us all by living!  Do as I command.  Use the wand to transform them back!’  Bodb threw the yew wand in front of her.  ‘Do as I command, or I will kill you myself!’
        Trembling, Aoife picked up the wand with fettered hands. She looked to her bound wrists, then to King Lir and his children and then to her father.  All were one and the same—fetters, every one of them. 
        ‘Come to me, my child…’ said a voice. 
        Aoife scanned about the room but could not find its source.  ‘Come to me and be free,’ it said again.  
        ‘Do it!’ bellowed her father, kicking her into the back. 
        She fell to the ground in agony, still clutching the wand. 
        ‘Come to me and be free, my child,’ said the voice again.  It was coming from the wand.  She knew what she must do. 
        Raising the wand up, she pointed it at the children of Lir and charged her magic through it.  Just as yellow light was about to burst from its tip, she pressed it to her own heart. 
        The four swans screamed and flew furiously towards her, moments before the blinding flash of light.  As the light diminished, a beautiful black swan rose above them.  It circled the throne room as the voice spoke again, this time aloud. 
        ‘Out with you, children of Lir; it is with flocks of birds your cries will be heard for ever.’ 
        Amid screams of despair, five swans flew from the throne room.  Four white swans were tethered to lake, sea and land for nine hundred season spins, cursed to atone for their evils.  A single black swan soared through the sky, touched by divinity for her beauty, purity and serenity; finally free.