https://www.facebook.com/1174832965914324/posts/2306689496061993/In celebration of St Patrick’s day we felt it fitting to announce the news of our new single and original song written by CaraNua.
“900 Years - The Children of Lir”
We are passionate about Irish folklore and feel very lucky to have such a wealth of rich history, myths and legends to draw from.
Listen now on Spotify!!!!!!
Here’s the background story of how St Patrick saved the beautiful Children of Lir.
“The Children of Lir is a bittersweet tale of love, loss and mysticism and is one of Ireland’s best known tales.
Many years ago, in ancient Ireland lived a King and ruler of the sea, called Lir. He had a beautiful wife, called Eva, who gave him four children – eldest son Aodh, a daughter called Fionnula and twin boys, Fiachra and Conn. When children were young, their mother Eva died. Lir and children were very sad, and King wanted a new mother for his young sons and daughter, so he married Eva’s sister Aoife who, it was said, possessed magical powers.
Aoife loved the children and Lir at first, but soon she became very jealous of the time that King spent with Aodh, Fionnula, Fiachra, and Conn. She wanted to have the kings attention for herself. So one day she took them to drive in her chariot. They were beautiful children, the legend says, with skins as white and soft as swans’ feathers, and with large blue eyes and very sweet voices. Reaching a lake, she told them that they might bathe in the clear water; but so soon as they were in it she struck them with a fairy wand, for she was of the race of the Druids, who had magical powers. She turned them into four beautiful snow-white swans. But they still had human voices, and Finola said to her,
“This wicked deed of yours shall be punished, for the doom that awaits you will surely be worse than ours.” Then Finola asked, “How long shall we be in the shape of swans?” “900 years she said, 300 years on smooth Lake Darvra; then three hundred years on the sea of Moyle” (this being the sea between Ireland and Scotland); “and then three hundred years at Inis Glora, in the Great Western Sea” (this was a rocky island in the Atlantic). “Until St. Patrick shall come to Ireland and bring the Christian faith, and until you hear the Christian bell, you shall not be freed. Neither your power nor mine can now bring you back to human shape; but you shall keep your human reason and your Gaelic speech, and you shall sing music so sweet that all who hear it shall gladly listen.”
But the time came when the nine hundred years of banishment were ended,
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, who was bringing, as had been so long foretold, 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.”
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