road to him. He went across high hills and low dales, passing each night
where he found it, till the evening of the third day, when he came to a
house where a little old man was living. The old man had lived in that
house without leaving it for seven hundred years, and had not seen a
living soul in that time.
Coldfeet gave good health to the old man, and received a hundred thousand
welcomes in return.
“Will you give me a night’s lodging?” asked Coldfeet.
“I will indeed,” said the old man, “and is it any harm to ask, where are
you going?”
“What harm in a plain question? I am going to Lonesome Island if I can
find it.”
“You will travel to-morrow, and if you are loose and lively on the road
you’ll come at night to a house, and inside in it an old man like myself,
only older. He will give you lodgings, and tell where to go the day
after.”
Coldfeet rose very early next morning, ate his breakfast, asked aid of
God, and if he didn’t he let it alone. He left good health with the old
man, and received his blessing. Away with him then over high hills and
low dales, and if any one wished to see a great walker Coldfeet was the
man to look at. He overtook the hare in the wind that was before him, and
the hare in the wind behind could not overtake him; he went at that gait
without halt or rest till he came in the heel of the evening to a small
house, and went in. Inside in the house was a little old man sitting by
the fire.
Coldfeet gave good health to the old man, and got a hundred thousand
welcomes with a night’s lodging.
“Why did you come, and where are you going?” asked the old man. “Fourteen
hundred years am I in this house alone, and not a living soul came in to
see me till yourself came this evening.”
“I am going to Lonesome Island, if I can find it.”
“I have no knowledge of that place, but if you are a swift walker you
will come to-morrow evening to an old man like myself, only older; he
will tell you all that you need, and show you the way to the island.”
Next morning early Coldfeet went away after breakfast, leaving good
health behind him and taking good wishes for the road. He travelled this
day as on the other two days, only more swiftly, and at nightfall gave a
greeting to the third old man.
“A hundred thousand welcomes,” said the old man. “I am living alone in
this house twenty-one hundred years, and not a living soul walked the way
in that time. You are the first man I see in this house. Is it to stay
with me that you are here?”
“It is not,” said Coldfeet, “for I must be moving. I cannot spend two
nights in the one house till I go to Lonesome Island, and I have no
knowledge of where that place is.”
“Oh, then, it’s the long road between this and Lonesome Island, but I’ll
tell where the place is, and how you are to go, if you go there. The road
lies straight from my door to the sea. From the shore to the island no
man has gone unless the queen brought him, but you may go if the strength
and the courage are in you. I will give you this staff; it may help you.
When you reach the sea throw the staff in the water, and you’ll have a
boat that will take you without sail or oar straight to the island. When
you touch shore pull up the boat on the strand; it will turn into a staff
and be again what it now is. The queen’s castle goes whirling around
always. It has only one door, and that on the roof of it. If you lean on
the staff you can rise with one spring to the roof, go in at the door,
and to the queen’s chamber.
“The queen sleeps but one day in each year, and she will be sleeping
to-morrow. The sword of light will be hanging at the head of her bed, the
loaf and the bottle of water on the table near by. Seize the sword with
the loaf and the bottle, and away with you, for the journey must be made
in a day, and you must be on this side of those hills before nightfall.
Do you think you can do that?”
“I will do it, or die in the trial,” said Coldfeet.
“If you make that journey you will do what no man has done yet,” said
the old man. “Before I came to live in this house champions and hundreds
of king’s sons tried to go to Lonesome Island, but not a man of them had
the strength and the swiftness to go as far as the seashore, and that is
but one part of the journey. All perished, and if their skulls are not
crumbled, you’ll see them to-morrow. The country is open and safe in the
daytime, but when night falls the Queen of Lonesome Island sends her wild
beasts to destroy every man they can find until daybreak. You must be in
Lonesome Island to-morrow before noon, leave the place very soon after
midday, and be on this side of those hills before nightfall, or perish.”
Next morning Coldfeet rose early, ate his breakfast, and started at
daybreak. Away he went swiftly over hills, dales, and level places,
through a land where the wind never blows and the cock never crows, and
though he went quickly the day before, he went five times more quickly
that day, for the staff added speed to whatever man had it.
Coldfeet came to the sea, threw the staff into the water, and a boat was
before him. Away he went in the boat, and before noon was in the chamber
of the Queen of Lonesome Island. He found everything there as the old
man had told him. Seizing the sword of light quickly and taking the
bottle and loaf, he went toward the door; but there he halted, turned
back, stopped a while with the queen. It was very near he was then to
forgetting himself; but he sprang up, took one of the queen’s golden
garters, and away with him.
If Coldfeet strove to move swiftly when coming, he strove more in going
back. On he raced over hills, dales, and flat places where the wind never
blows and the cock never crows; he never stopped nor halted. When the
sun was near setting he saw the last line of hills, and remembering that
death was behind and not far from him, he used his last strength and was
over the hilltops at nightfall.
The whole country behind him was filled with wild beasts.
“Oh,” said the old man, “but you are the hero, and I was in dread that
you’d lose your life on the journey, and by my hand you had no time to
spare.”
“I had not, indeed,” answered Coldfeet. “Here is your staff, and many
thanks for it.”
The two spent a pleasant evening together. Next morning Coldfeet left his
blessing with the old man and went on, spent a night with each of the
other old men, and never stopped after that till he reached the hag’s
castle. She was outside before him with the steel nails on her toes and
fingers.
“Have you the sword, the bottle, and the loaf?” asked she.
“I have,” said Coldfeet; “here they are.”
“Give them to me,” said the hag.
“If I was bound to bring the three things,” said Coldfeet, “I was not
bound to give them to you; I will keep them.”
“Give them here!” screamed the hag, raising her nails to rush at him.
With that Coldfeet drew the sword of light, and sent her head spinning
through the sky in the way that ’tis not known in what part of the world
it fell or did it fall in any place. He burned her body then, scattered
the ashes, and went his way farther.
“I will go to my mother first of all,” thought he, and he travelled till
evening. When his feet struck small stones on the road, the stones never
stopped till they knocked wool off the spinning-wheels of old hags in the
Eastern World. In the evening he came to a house and asked lodgings.
“I will give you lodgings, and welcome,” said the man of the house; “but
I have no food for you.”
“I have enough for us both,” said Coldfeet, “and for twenty more if they
were in it;” and he put the loaf on the table.
The man called his whole family. All had their fill, and left the loaf as
large as it was before supper. The woman of the house made a loaf in the
night like the one they had eaten from, and while Coldfeet was sleeping
took his bread and left her own in the place of it. Away went Coldfeet
next morning with the wrong loaf, and if he travelled differently from
the day before it was because he travelled faster. In the evening he came
to a house, and asked would they give him a night’s lodging.
“We will, indeed,” said the woman, “but we have no water to cook supper
for you; the water is far away entirely, and no one to go for it.”
“I have water here in plenty,” said Coldfeet, putting his bottle on the
table.
The woman took the bottle, poured water from it, filled one pot and then
another, filled every vessel in the kitchen, and not a drop less in the
bottle. What wonder, when no man or woman ever born could drain the
bottle in a lifetime.
Said the woman to her husband that night, “If we had the bottle, we
needn’t be killing ourselves running for water.”
“We need not,” said the man.
What did the woman do in the night, when Coldfeet was asleep, but take
a bottle, fill it with water from one of the pots, and put that false
bottle in place of the true one. Away went Coldfeet next morning, without
knowledge of the harm done, and that day he travelled in the way that
when he fell in running he had not time to rise, but rolled on till the
speed that was under him brought him to his feet again. At sunset he was
in sight of a house, and at dusk he was in it.
Coldfeet found welcome in the house, with food and lodgings.
“It is great darkness we are in,” said the man to Coldfeet; “we have
neither oil nor rushes.”
“I can give you light,” said Coldfeet, and he unsheathed the sword
from Lonesome Island; it was clear inside the house as on a hilltop in
sunlight.
When the people had gone to bed Coldfeet put the sword into its sheath,
and all was dark again.
“Oh,” said the woman to her husband that night, “if we had the sword we’d
have light in the house always. You have an old sword above on the loft.
Rise out of the bed now and put it in the place of that bright one.”
The man rose, took the two swords out doors, put the old blade in
Coldfeet’s sheath, and hid away Coldfeet’s sword in the loft. Next
morning Coldfeet went away, and never stopped till he came to his
mother’s cabin at the foot of Mount Brandon. The poor old woman was
crying and lamenting every day. She felt sure that it was killed her son
was, for she had never got tale or tidings of him. Many is the welcome
she had for him, but if she had welcomes she had little to eat.
“Oh, then, mother, you needn’t be complaining,” said Coldfeet, “we have
as much bread now as will do us a lifetime;” with that he put the loaf on
the table, cut a slice for the mother, and began to eat himself. He was
hungry, and the next thing he knew the loaf was gone.
“There is a little meal in the house,” said the mother. “I’ll go for
water and make stirabout.”
“I have water here in plenty,” said Coldfeet. “Bring a pot.”
The bottle was empty in a breath, and they hadn’t what water would make
stirabout nor half of it.
“Oh, then,” said Coldfeet, “the old hag enchanted the three things before
I killed her and knocked the strength out of every one of them.” With
that he drew the sword, and it had no more light than any rusty old blade.
The mother and son had to live in the old way again; but as Coldfeet was
far stronger than the first time, he didn’t go hungry himself, and the
mother had plenty. There were cattle in the country, and all the men
in it couldn’t keep them from Coldfeet or stop him. The old woman and
the son had beef and mutton, and lived on for themselves at the foot of
Brandon Mountain.
In three quarters of a year the Queen of Lonesome Island had a son, the
finest child that sun or moon could shine on, and he grew in the way that
what of him didn’t grow in the day grew in the night following, and what
didn’t grow that night grew the next day, and when he was two years old
he was very large entirely.
The queen was grieving always for the loaf and the bottle, and there was
no light in her chamber from the day the sword was gone. All at once she
thought, “The father of the boy took the three things. I will never sleep
two nights in the one house till I find him.”
Away she went then with the boy,—went over the sea, went through the land
where wind never blows and where cock never crows, came to the house of
the oldest old man, stopped one night there, then stopped with the middle
and the youngest old man. Where should she go next night but to the woman
who stole the loaf from Coldfeet. When the queen sat down to supper the
woman brought the loaf, cut slice after slice; the loaf was no smaller.
“Where did you get that loaf?” asked the queen.
“I baked it myself.”
“That is my loaf,” thought the queen.
The following evening she came to a house and found lodgings. At supper
the woman poured water from a bottle, but the bottle was full always.
“Where did you get that bottle?”
“It was left to us,” said the woman; “my grandfather had it.”
“That is my bottle,” thought the queen.
The next night she stopped at a house where a sword filled the whole
place with light.
“Where did you find that beautiful sword?” asked the queen.
“My grandfather left it to me,” said the man. “We have it hanging here
always.”
“That is my sword,” said the queen to herself.
Next day the queen set out early, travelled quickly, and never stopped
till she came near Brandon Mountain. At a distance she saw a man coming
down hill with a fat bullock under each arm. He was carrying the beasts
as easily as another would carry two geese. The man put the bullocks in a
pen near a house at the foot of the mountain, came out toward the queen,
and never stopped till he saluted her. When the man stopped, the boy
broke away from the mother and ran to the stranger.
“How is this?” asked the queen; “the child knows you.” She tried to take
the boy, but he would not go to her.
“Have you lived always in this place?” asked the queen.
“I was born in that house beyond, and reared at the foot of that mountain
before you. I went away from home once and killed four giants, the first
with four, the second with six, the third with eight, and the fourth with
twelve heads on him. When I had the giants killed, their mother came
out against me, and she raging with vengeance. She wanted to kill me at
first, but she did not. She put me under bonds of enchantment to go to
the castle of the Queen of Lonesome Island, and bring the sword of light
that can never fail to cut or give light, the loaf of bread that can
never be eaten, and the bottle of water that can never be drained.”
“Did you go?” asked the queen.
“I did.”
“How could you go to Lonesome Island?”
“I journeyed and travelled, inquiring for the island, stopping one night
at one place, and the next night at another, till I came to the house of
a little man seven hundred years old. He sent me to a second man twice as
old as himself, and the second to a third three times as old as the first
man.
“The third old man showed me the road to Lonesome Island, and gave me a
staff to assist me. When I reached the sea I made a boat of the staff,
and it took me to the island. On the island the boat was a staff again.
“I sprang to the top of the queen’s turning castle, went down and entered
the chamber where she was sleeping, took the sword of light, with the
loaf and the bottle, and was coming away again. I looked at the queen.
The heart softened within me at sight of her beauty. I turned back and
came near forgetting my life with her. I brought her gold garter with me,
took the three things, sprang down from the castle, ran to the water,
made a boat of the staff again, came quickly to mainland, and from that
hour till darkness I ran with what strength I could draw from each bit of
my body. Hardly had I crossed the hilltop and was before the door of the
oldest old man when the country behind me was covered with wild beasts.
I escaped death by one moment. I brought the three things to the hag who
had sent me, but I did not give them. I struck the head from her, but
before dying she destroyed them, for when I came home they were useless.”
“Have you the golden garter?”
“Here it is,” said the young man.
“What is your name?” asked the queen.
“Coldfeet,” said the stranger.
“You are the man,” said the queen. “Long ago it was prophesied that a
hero named Coldfeet would come to Lonesome Island without my request or
assistance, and that our son would cover the whole world with his power.
Come with me now to Lonesome Island.”
The queen gave Coldfeet’s old mother good clothing, and said, “You will
live in my castle.”
They all left Brandon Mountain and journeyed on toward Lonesome Island
till they reached the house where the sword of light was. It was night
when they came and dark outside, but bright as day in the house from the
sword, which was hanging on the wall.
“Where did you find this blade?” asked Coldfeet, catching the hilt of the
sword.
“My grandfather had it,” said the woman.
“He had not,” said Coldfeet, “and I ought to take the head off your
husband for stealing it when I was here last.”
Coldfeet put the sword in his scabbard and kept it. Next day they reached
the house where the bottle was, and Coldfeet took that. The following
night he found the loaf and recovered it. All the old men were glad to
see Coldfeet, especially the oldest, who loved him.
The queen with her son and Coldfeet with his mother arrived safely in
Lonesome Island. They lived on in happiness; there is no account of their
death, and they may be in it yet for aught we know.
LAWN DYARRIG, SON OF THE KING OF ERIN, AND THE KNIGHT OF TERRIBLE VALLEY.
There was a king in his own time in Erin, and he went hunting one day.
The king met a man whose head was out through his cap, whose elbows and
knees were out through his clothing, and whose toes were out through his
shoes.
The man went up to the king, gave him a blow on the face, and drove three
teeth from his mouth. The same blow put the king’s head in the dirt. When
he rose from the earth the king went back to his castle, and lay down
sick and sorrowful.
The king had three sons, and their names were Ur, Arthur, and Lawn
Dyarrig. The three were at school that day and came home in the evening.
The father sighed when the sons were coming in.
“What is wrong with our father?” asked the eldest.
“Your father is sick on his bed,” said the mother.
The three sons went to their father and asked what was on him.
“A strong man that I met to-day gave me a blow in the face, put my head
in the dirt, and knocked three teeth from my mouth. What would you do to
him if you met him?” asked the father of the eldest son.
“If I met that man,” replied Ur, “I would make four parts of him between
four horses.”
“You are my son,” said the king. “What would you do if you met him?”
asked he then, as he turned to the second son.
“If I had a grip on that man I would burn him between four fires.”
“You, too, are my son. What would you do?” asked the king of Lawn Dyarrig.
“If I met that man I would do my best against him, and he might not stand
long before me.”
“You are not my son. I would not lose lands or property on you,” said the
father. “You must go from me, and leave this to-morrow.”
On the following morning the three brothers rose with the dawn; the
order was given Lawn Dyarrig to leave the castle, and make his own way
for himself. The other two brothers were going to travel the world to
know could they find the man who had injured their father. Lawn Dyarrig
lingered outside till he saw the two, and they going off by themselves.
“It is a strange thing,” said he, “for two men of high degree to go
travelling without a servant.”
“We need no one,” said Ur.
“Company wouldn’t harm us,” said Arthur.
The two let Lawn Dyarrig go with them then as a serving-boy, and set out
to find the man who had struck down their father. They spent all that day
walking, and came late to a house where one woman was living. She shook
hands with Ur and Arthur, and greeted them. Lawn Dyarrig she kissed and
welcomed, called him son of the King of Erin.
“’Tis a strange thing to shake hands with the elder and kiss the
younger,” said Ur.
“This is a story to tell,” said the woman; “the same as if your death
were in it.”
They made three parts of that night. The first part they spent in
conversation, the second in telling tales, the third in eating and
drinking, with sound sleep and sweet slumber. As early as the day dawned
next morning, the old woman was up and had food for the young men. When
the three had eaten she spoke to Ur, and this is what she asked of him,
“What was it that drove you from home, and what brought you to this
place?”
“A champion met my father, took three teeth from him, and put his head
in the dirt. I am looking for that man to find him alive or dead.”
“That was the Green Knight from Terrible Valley. He is the man who took
the three teeth from your father. I am three hundred years living in
this place, and there is not a year of the three hundred in which three
hundred heroes fresh, young, and noble have not passed on the way to
Terrible Valley, and never have I seen one coming back, and each of them
had the look of a man better than you. And now, where are you going,
Arthur?”
“I am on the same journey with my brother.”
“Where are you going, Lawn Dyarrig?”
“I am going with these as a servant,” said Lawn Dyarrig.
“God’s help to you, it’s bad clothing that’s on your body,” said the
woman; “and now I will speak to Ur. A day and a year since a champion
passed this way; he wore a suit as good as was ever above ground. I had a
daughter sewing there in the open window. He came outside, put a finger
under her girdle, and took her with him. Her father followed straightway
to save her, but I have never seen daughter or father from that day to
this. That man was the Green Knight of Terrible Valley. He is better than
all the men that could stand on a field a mile in length and a mile
in breadth. If you take my advice you’ll turn back and go home to your
father.”
’Tis how she vexed Ur with this talk, and he made a vow to himself to go
on. When Ur did not agree to turn home, the woman said to Lawn Dyarrig,
“Go back to my chamber, you’ll find in it the apparel of a hero.”
He went back, and there was not a bit of the apparel that he did not go
into with a spring.
“You may be able to do something now,” said the woman, when Lawn Dyarrig
came to the front. “Go back to my chamber and search through all the old
swords. You will find one at the bottom; take that.”
He found the old sword, and at the first shake that he gave he knocked
seven barrels of rust out of it; after the second shake, it was as bright
as when made.
“You may be able to do well with that,” said the woman. “Go out now to
that stable abroad, and take the slim white steed that is in it. That one
will never stop nor halt in any place till he brings you to the Eastern
World. If you like, take these two men behind you; if not, let them walk.
But I think it is useless for you to have them at all with you.”
Lawn Dyarrig went out to the stable, took the slim white steed, mounted,
rode to the front, and catching the two brothers, planted them on the
horse behind him.
“Now, Lawn Dyarrig,” said the woman, “this horse will never stop till he
stands on the little white meadow in the Eastern World. When he stops,
you’ll come down and cut the turf under his beautiful right front foot.”
The horse started from the door, and at every leap he crossed seven hills
and valleys, seven castles with villages, acres, roods, and odd perches.
He could overtake the whirlwind before him seven hundred times before the
whirlwind behind could overtake him once. Early in the afternoon of the
next day he was in the Eastern World. When he dismounted, Lawn Dyarrig
cut the sod from under the foot of the slim white steed in the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and Terrible Valley was down under him
there. What he did next was to tighten the reins on the neck of the steed
and let him go home.
“Now,” said Lawn Dyarrig to the brothers, “which would ye rather be
doing, making a basket or twisting gads (withes)?”
“We would rather be making a basket; our help is among ourselves,”
answered they.
Ur and Arthur went at the basket and Lawn Dyarrig at twisting the gads.
When Lawn Dyarrig came to the opening with the gads, all twisted and made
into one, they hadn’t the ribs of the basket in the ground yet.
“Oh, then, haven’t ye anything done but that?”
“Stop your mouth,” said Ur, “or we’ll make a mortar of your head on the
next stone.”
“To be kind to one another is the best for us,” said Lawn Dyarrig. “I’ll
make the basket.”
While they’d be putting one rod in the basket he had the basket finished.
“Oh, brother,” said they, “you are a quick workman.”
They had not called him brother since they left home till that moment.
“Who will go in the basket now?” asked Lawn Dyarrig, when it was
finished, and the gad tied to it.
“Who but me?” said Ur. “I am sure, brothers, if I see anything to
frighten me ye’ll draw me up.”
“We will,” said the other two.
He went in, but had not gone far when he cried to pull him up again.