Then Aoife by Druid spells and witchcraft put upon each of the children the form of a pure white swan, and she cried to them:-- "Out on the lake with you, children of Lir! Cry with the water-fowl over the mere! Breed and seed of you ne'er shall I see; Woeful the tale to your friends shall be." Then the four swans turned their faces towards the woman, and Fionnuala spoke to her and said, "Evil is thy deed, Aoife, to destroy us thus without a cause, and think not that thou shalt escape punishment for it.

Assign us even some period to the ruin and destruction that thou hast brought upon us." "I shall do that," said Aoife, "and it is this: in your present forms shall ye abide, and none shall release you till the woman of the South be mated with the man of the North.

Three hundred years shall ye be upon the waters of Derryvaragh, and three hundred upon the Straits of Moyle between Erinn and Alba,[10] and three hundred in the seas by Erris and Inishglory, and then shall the enchantment have an end." [10] Scotland.

Inishglory is an island in the Bay of Erris, on the Mayo coast.
Upon this, Aoife was smitten with repentance, and she said, "Since I may not henceforth undo what has been done, I give you this, that ye shall keep your human speech, and ye shall sing a sad music such as no music in the world can equal, and ye shall have your reason and your human will, that the bird-shape may not wholly destroy you." Then she became as one possessed, and cried wildly like a prophetess in her trance:-- "Ye with the white faces! Ye with the stammering Gaelic on your tongues! Soft was your nurture in the King's house-- Now shall ye know the buffeting wind! Nine hundred years upon the tide.
"The heart of Lir shall bleed! None of his victories shall stead him now! Woe to me that I shall hear his groan, Woe that I have deserved his wrath!" Then they caught and yoked her horses, and Aoife went on her way till she reached the palace of Bov the Red.

Here she and her folk were welcomed and entertained, and Bov the Red inquired of her why she had not brought with her the children of Lir.
"I brought them not," she replied, "because Lir loves thee not, and he fears that if he sends his children to thee, thou wouldst capture them and hold them for hostages." "That is strange," said Bov the Red, "for I love those children as if they were my own." And his mind misgave him that some treachery had been wrought; and he sent messengers privily northwards to the Hill of the White Field.