The Children of Lir

The mighty Lir was once a great king of Ireland. With his first wife, he had four lovely children. But after her untimely death, King Lir remarried a new queen, and like any proper fairytale, the stepmother did not have her new children’s best interests at heart. And unfortunately for them, his new wife grew increasingly jealous of Lir’s attention to his children, and that she dabbled in magic.

Essentially, the myth of the Children of Lir is the story of the jealous stepmother. The evil queen took her revenge upon the four children for taking up so much of King Lir’s time and love by turning them into four white swans.

As swans, the evil queen cursed the four children of Lir to wander Ireland as swans for 900 years.