And after that time
there came a great Druid to visit her. You know who and what the
Druids were, I think. They were the priests of the old religion of
Ireland, before St. Patrick came and made the people Christians. They
were powerful in magic; they could bring storms and could drive them
away; they could foretell the future; they could work powerful
enchantments on people and beasts, and trees and stones, and they
could do many other marvellous things.
"This Druid talked with the wife of Lir for a long time alone. He made
her tell him all that troubled her, and then he told her what she
could do to be rid of her husband's children. He gave her a magic wand
and went on his way.
"Then she rose from her bed and took the four children with her in her
chariot and set out for her father's castle. On the way she ordered
the driver of the chariot to kill the children, but he refused. Then
they passed near a lake, and the step-mother told the children to go
into the water and bathe. But Fair-shoulder believed that she meant
them some harm, and she refused to go, and begged her brothers not to
go.
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