Secrets of the Druids

Chapter 3. The childern of Lir.

Book 2. Chapter 3.

The children of Lir.

Once upon a time there was a king called Lir. Who as was the custom of most kings married not for love but for greed.

His high king, King Bov the red, of the Tuatha_De Danann, had two daughters.

Eva and Aoife.

Lir threatened to go to war if Bov the red refused to give him one of his daughters for his wife. This would place Lir next in line for Bov's throne.

Aoife volunteered to marry Lir.

Bov agreed for Eva was his favourite and it would brake his heart to give her up.

Then a servant boy told king Bov the red that he overheard king Lir and Aoife plotting to kill him as soon as their wedding was over and take his throne.

When King Bov the red confronted Aoife she killed the servant boy and escaped to a far off Tower guarded by a dark Druid with red hair and a heart as crooked and black as his walking stick.

Alas with the servant boy now dead so was all prove of the plot.

Bov the red had little choice but to offer Lir his daughter Ava to be his wife.

Lir still plotted to kill Bov. Take the throne and also kill his new wife.

His ambitions were stopped however by the one thing he could not plan on.

Falling in love with Ava.

Her beauty made all men abandon their foolish ambitions.

Lir"s heart no longer belonged to him.

Ava once she had put him in his place decided she too loved him and bore him four children.

Three handsome boys Aoidh, Fiacha, and Conn.

But none could hold a candle to the eldest daughter Fionnula of the fair shoulder, who it was said was more beautiful than her mother.

Lirs kingdom flourished under his and Ava's rule.

News of Lirs family and their love for one another spread throughout Ireland reaching the jealous ears of Aoife, who with the dark Druid had bore a son.

The Druid had taught her all his evil magic and all three set out to kill Lir and his family.

The Druid killed Lir with a poisonous snake.

Aoife killed her sister with a poisonous kiss.

The son was sent to kill the children by drowning them all in Lough Derravaragh.

But the son took one look at Fionnula and fell instantly in love.

He could not harm her or the children.

Fearing his mother and father's wraith he sent his hawk to betray them to king Bov the red.

He also knew somehow he had to hide the children .

He remembered seeing his father change people into birds, so the boy tried that spell.

He turned the children and his life's love into swans.

The hawk found King Bov the red and told the king what his masters mother and father had done.

The high king raised an army against them and killed his mother. His evil Druid father fled back to his tower.

King Bov the red and his army found the boy standing on the bank of the lake.

"Boy! Where are the children of Lir ?"