As they flew, they passed over the spot where their
father's castle had stood and where they had been happy children
together. Not a stone of the beautiful castle could they see. It had
all crumbled down, and the grass had grown over it for many a year.
They saw the fox that had its hole where their father's bright hearth
fire had been, and they saw the ditch of dirty water where their
father used to welcome kings and bards and wise men at his gate. They
kept their way through the air and saw no more; yet they had seen all
that there was to see. It gave the poor swans only a little ache at
the heart, for they were past hope now. They had suffered too much to
believe anything or to think of anything but the suffering that was
past and the more suffering that was to come.
"The end of their journey came and they swam in a new sea. Again the
sister tried to cheer her brothers, but they could not be cheered. The
strange men with the shaven heads would never come, they thought. They
had waited for them too long.
"But the hundreds of years that had passed had done more than to bring
sorrow to the poor swans.
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