Then they showed him the bird that was on the waves of the lake--a swan
she was and she floated proudly. The swan came towards them and as she
drew nearer they could hear her voice. The sounds she made were not
like any sound of birds, but like the sounds bards make chanting their
verses. Words came on high notes and low notes, but they were like words
in a strange language. And still the swan chanted as she drew near to
the shore where Gilly and the six robbers stood.
She spread out her wings, and, raising her neck she curved it, while
she stayed watching the men on the bank. “Hear the Swan of Endless
Tales--the Swan of Endless Tales” she sang in words they knew. Then she
raised herself out of the water, turned round in the air, and flew back
to the middle of the lake.
“Time for us to be leaving the place when there is a bird on the lake
that can speak like that,” said Mogue, who had been the Captain of the
Robbers. “To-night I’m leaving this townland.”
“And I am leaving too,” said another robber. “And I too,” said another.
“And I may be going away from this place,” said Gilly of the Goatskin.
The robbers went away from him and back to the house and Gilly sat by
the edge of the lake waiting to see if the Swan of Endless Tales would
come back and tell him something. She did not come. As Gilly sat there
the farmer who had lost his goat, his sheep and his bullock came by. He
was dragging one foot after the other and looking very downcast. “What
is the matter with you, honest man?” said Gilly.
The farmer told him how he had lost his goat, his sheep and his bullock.
He told him how he had thought he heard his goat bleating and his sheep
ba’ing, and how he went through the wood to search for them, and how his
bullock was gone when he came back to the road. “And what to say to
my wife Ann I don’t know,” said he, “particularly as I have brought no
shawl to put her in good humor. Heavy is the blame she’ll give me on
account of my losing a goat, a sheep and a bullock.”
Gilly took a key out of his pocket. “Do you see this key?” said he.
“Take it and open the byre door at such a place, and you’ll find in that
byre your goat, your sheep and your bullock. There are robbers in that
house, but if they try to prevent your taking your own tell them that
all the threshers of the country are coming to beat them with flails.”
The farmer took the key and went away very thankful to Gilly. The story
says that he got back his goat, his sheep and his bullock and made it an
excuse that he had seen three magpies on the road for not going to the
fair to buy a shawl for his wife Ann. The robbers were very frightened
when he told them about the threshers coming and they went away from
that part of the country.
As for Gilly, he thought he would go back to the Old Woman of Beare for
his name. He took the path by the edge of the lake. And as he journeyed
along with his holly-stick in his hand he heard the Swan of Endless
Tales chanting.