_Source_.--Kennedy, _Legendary Fictions_, pp. 23-31. The Adventures of
"Gilla na Chreck an Gour'."
_Parallels_.--"The Lad with the Skin Coverings" is a popular Celtic
figure, _cf._ MacDougall's Third Tale, MacInnes' Second, and a
reference in Campbell, iii. 147. According to Mr. Nutt (_Holy Grail_,
134), he is the original of Parzival. But the adventures in these tales
are not the "cure by laughing" incident which forms the centre of our
tale, and is Indo-European in extent (_cf._ references in _English
Fairy Tales_, notes to No. xxvii.). "The smith who made hell too hot
for him is Sisyphus," says Mr. Lang (Introd. to Grimm, p. xiii.); in
Ireland he is Billy Dawson (Carleton, _Three Wishes_). In the
Finn-Saga, Conan harries hell, as readers of _Waverley_ may remember
"'Claw for claw, and devil take the shortest nails,' as Conan said to
the Devil" (_cf._ Campbell, _The Fians_, 73, and notes, 283).
Red-haired men in Ireland and elsewhere are always rogues (see Mr.
Nutt's references, MacInnes' _Tales_, 477; to which add the case in
"Lough Neagh," Yeats, _Irish Folk-Tales_, p. 210).