The Beauty Born from Hatred: The Children of Lir
How does envy bring about beauty? How come that emotion full of animosity leads to the emergence of creatures of purity? Hundreds of years ago, the Irish people told a story in which the destructive power of jealousy laid a foundation for new, divine lives. This was the story of the Children of Lir.
The story of the Children of the Lir, including magical properties, holds elements of both Irish mythology and Christianity. While there are minor variations in the narratives, the gist of the story is the same in all variations. We will narrate the version in Richard Duffy’s 1883 book The Fate of the Children of Lir.
Once upon a time, there was a lord named Lir who relinquished the throne to an older lord named Bodb Derg. At first, Lir was happy with his decision, but later became angry and refused to swear allegiance to him. Seeing that, Bodb Derg proposed he marry his daughter Aoibh (pronounced Eve) to keep the peace.
Lir and Aoibh were happily married and had four children, respectively, a daughter named Fionnuala and three sons named Aodh, the twins Fiachra and Conn. Shortly after their twins were born, Aoibh died.
Then, Bodb Derg ordered Lir to marry his other daughter, Aoife, who was beautiful yet fierce. Although Aoife was the sister of Aoibh, she grew jealous of the Lir’s intense attention and love for his children.
Feeling left out and deadly jealous, Aoife became even more enraged and asked her subjects to kill the children, but no one agreed to this request. So, she decided to kill the children herself and tried to kill them during one of their visits to the lake. She had mastered magic and was going to kill children by casting a deadly spell on them, but something deep in her heart prevented her from doing so. So, she offered them a swim in the lake.
When the children accepted the offer and entered the lake, Aoife cast a spell on them from the shore. The four lovely children turned into beautiful, white swans floating on the lake. Although her magic skills were incredible, Aoife had to limit the duration of the spell. Thus, she uttered that the swans would spend three hundred years in the sparkling waters of Lough Derravargh in County Westmeath,
and three hundred years in the rough and treacherous waters of the Sea of Moyle;
and finally, the last three hundred years on Inis Glora, a rocky island in County Mayo.
“Out with you upon the wild waves, Children of the King!
Henceforth your cries shall be heard as a flock of birds.”
These were the incantations of Aoife’s magic. She sentenced the children to a nine-hundred-year curse, but in her final mercy, she allowed them to retain their powers of speech, reason, and dignity. More, a member of Tuatha De Danann, the god-race ruled Ireland in the ancient times and from which Aoife gained her cursed magic skills, determined that the curse on the children would break “when they hear the ringing of a Christian church bell.”
When Aoife turned back home alone, both her father Bodb and her husband got suspicious. Having dashed off to the lake where his children were last seen, Lir faced the bitter reality there. As he was getting closer to the shore, the voices of the swans turned into the familiar singing of humans. Seeing the swans, he identified his children and understood what Aoife had done.
When Bodb Derg learned what had happened from Lir, he got furious and cursed Aoife to turn into the shape of the demon of the air. It is said that she is still remains in that state.
Unfortunately, the swans couldn’t break the spell and turn back to their human form and their home. But, they amazed many generations with their beauty and their songs which they song with one voice. Furthermore, their songs had magical features that made people happy and healed their diseases.
After they spent their 300 years in Lough Derravargh, their time for going to the Sea of Moyle came. There, the freezing water froze their feathers, the big waves dragged them around and countless storms stroke fear into their hearts but they never separated. Together they endured for 300 years and survived in deadly waters.
Then, the time for island of Inis Glora came and the swans, which were old at that time, stepped on the land. Since they were frustrated for a long time and then felt miserable at the island, they started to pray to God for his favour. The God heard them and made their remaining 300 years liveable and enjoyable. At the same time, while the years were passing, Christianity came to the island and began to spread.
The last 300 years passed and the curse disallowing them from going back to their home was lifted but the swans couldn’t turn back to their human forms. They returned straight to their father and land, but there was nothing but the ruins of the city. With the feeling of deep sorrow, they went back to the island Inis Glora, where they had had good times.
The time they stepped onto the land, they heard the ringing of the bell from a church and they recalled that their curse would be completely broken. But they still needed a little more time for this. Then, they followed the ringing and found the church. While they were singing beside the church, a monk heard them. Since he knew the story of the children of Lir, he took them along with him and protected them.
One day, King Lairgnen, the king of Connacht, visited the monk. He had heard many praises of the swans’ fascinating songs, and he wanted to take them under his protection. But the swans didn’t want to leave the monk as they loved him very much and were thankful for everything he had done. The king promised them comfort and prosperity and persisted to take them with him. Then, just as the king touched the swans, the church bell rang, and the swans returned to their human forms — a woman and three men, after being covered by a cloud of fog.
Since they had spent 900 years as swans, they turned out to be very old humans. Thus, the monk kept taking care of them until they die. The day before they died, they asked the monk to baptize them. After the monk fulfilled their wish, they died peacefully and were buried side by side in the garden of the church.
Like almost all mythological tales, the Children of Lir have influenced people with their story. The influence has been seen in nearly all forms of art.
The most impressive manifestation of their story is Swan Lake. Being the most popular ballet of all time, Swan Lake was written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in the 1870s. In its two acts, Swan Lake tells the story of a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse. The ballet was staged in many countries and by many performers over the years. An example from The Kirov Ballet, which was founded by Jean-Baptiste Landé in 1740 in St. Petersburg:
In music, the Irish pagan-metal band Primordial released a song named Children of the Harvest in their 2000 album Spirit the Earth Aflame. The ballad-like lyrics of the song tells the exact story of the children of Lir.
The Children of Lir also influenced the modernist artists:
