In a time of bards and chieftains, when the bright ones walked the land
And beauty slipped from silver strings touched by a minstrel’s hand
In a time when giants held the hills and stone circles rang with song
And the Lia Fail stood in the soil and Tara’s walls stood strong.

A man of the De Dannan, from a noble line was Lir
His wife the daughter of Ireland’s king and four children he loved dear
But Niamh his wife lost her life, in childbed she did pass
And left four children filled with grief and Lir a broken heart

The King he sent to Lir his second daughter as a bride
And though she had a love for Lir no child could she abide
For Aoife had a jealous heart and took them far from home
To be rid of them for evermore and have the love of Lir alone.

It was at the Lake of Oaks that it came to pass
With the power of her druids’ wand a mighty spell she cast
From now you’ll take the shape of swans, and wild birds you will be
Nine hundred years will keep you on the lakes and on the sea

And over the wild waves flew the children of Lir
Down to the land of the ever living
This spell was laid upon them for nine hundred years
And till then there would be no returning

In the first three hundred years you’ll be trapped upon this shore
Then northward to the Sea of Moyle for yet three hundred more
Then to the stormy Atlantic, the waters chill and deep
And in the Bay of Eris waves will rock you as you sleep

And when a queen from the South goes North to wed a king
And when you first reach dry land and you hear a lone bell ring
And when you find the lake of birds only then will you be free
But until then this mighty curse will keep you far from me

Across the winds of time the four swan children flew
And for the next nine hundred years only gales and storms they knew
Their beds were on the crest of waves and upon the rocky shore
And they keened a sad lament for all that had gone before

A new age dawned upon the land, strangers to the Isle had come
Into the Hollow hills and mounds the Faerie folk had gone
So to the lake of Birds they flew high on snowy wings
To be free of the curse and hear a lone bell ring

And like wind striping leaves from trees their swan bodies fell away
Their sweet singing voices stilled all turned to dust and clay
Blessings go with you Children of Lir beyond nine waves now fly
And their spirits made a final flight against the fading sky.

And over the wild waves flew the children of Lir
Down to the land of the ever living
This spell was laid upon them for nine hundred years
And till then there would be no returning