I apologise for the brief response in my last post, so many other posts covered this in earlier threads that i didnt google will ifnd the relevent bits if you cant be bothered to go through (this thread also mentioned not bothering to read through so i just corrected leeneia's previous comment.

I notice you didnt take umbrage at the lack reference in that post, if it had more reference i would have gone into more detail in my response. perhaps we should be both feel castigated.

Even so Garg, no offence, but i will write how i like depending on how time, motivation and relevence to an issue seems to me at the time

Still its the internet and you take or leave what is said or written

I originally planned to summerise some of the earlier thread arguments, such as Padraig Colum being credited with it, but some take this to mean he was the originall author while some seem to accept that it is a modernised version of a traditional gaelic poem. Certainly Padraig Colum collected rewrote with modern language and published it in 1909.

One theory i have which is all my own (so you can take or leave it)is that the line "swan in the evening over the lake" is a litarary allusion to the the middle tale of the "Three Great Sorrows" of irish story telling,   All involve the death of family, particulary siblings. In the second tale "The Children of Lir" the family is cursed by being turned into swans once a month, so the hunting of the swan was made illegal in case one of the shapechangers was accidently klled.
You can look this story up on the internet or even *gasp* read it in a book.

Cllr