and then the mother died. When she was buried, the youngest of the
three brothers, whose name was Arthur, went out in the world to seek
his fortune. He travelled, and was walking always for a day and a year
without finding a master, till on the afternoon of the last day of the
year he took service with a hill.
On the last day of Arthur’s service with the hill, the Half Slim Champion
came in the afternoon, and asked would he play a game of cards.
“If you win,” said the champion, “you will have a castle with lands and
cattle of all kinds; if you lose, you will do me a service.”
“I will play,” answered Arthur.
With that they sat down to play; and Arthur won. Now, Arthur had lands
and a castle, cattle of all kinds, and wealth in abundance.
The Half Slim Champion went his way; and Arthur lived for a day and a
year on his lands. On the last day of the year, the champion came in the
afternoon, and with him was the most beautiful lady that man could set
eyes on. “Will you play a second game?” asked the champion. “If you lose,
you will do me a service; if you win, I give you this lady as wife.”
“I will play with you,” said Arthur.
They played, and Arthur won.
Arthur lived with his wife in the castle for a day and a year; and on the
last afternoon, the champion came the way leading a hound.
They played the third time, and Arthur won the hound. The champion went
his way; and again Arthur lived for a day and a year with his wife in
the castle in ease, in plenty, and in great delight.
On the afternoon of the last day, the champion came the fourth time.
Arthur’s wife saw him at a distance, and said to her husband, “My advice
is to play no more with that champion. Remain as you are, and keep out of
harm’s way.”
But Arthur would not listen to the wife, nor be said by her. He went out
to play with the champion, and lost.
“I put you under bonds,” said the champion, “not to sleep two nights in
the same bed, nor eat two meals off the same table; but to be walking
through the world, and searching always till you find the birth that has
never been born, and that never will be.”
The champion turned, walked away, and disappeared. Arthur went home in
grief; and when he sat down the chair that was under him broke into
pieces.
“I told you,” said the wife, “not to play with him. What has he put on
you?”
“To be walking and searching, ever and always, through the world till I
find the birth that has never been born, and never will be.”
“Take the hound with you,” said the wife, “and go first to the castle of
the son of the King of Lochlin. Take service with him; you may learn
something there.”
Away went Arthur next morning, and the hound with him. They were long on
the road, lodging one time at a house, and another time where the night
found them, till at last a great castle was in sight. When the hound saw
the castle, he grew so wild with delight that he broke his chain, and
rushed away. But if he did, Arthur followed; and when the hound sprang
into the castle, Arthur was at his side.
“It was lucky for you,” cried the son of the King of Lochlin, “to come in
with the hound. Without that you’d have been done for. Who are you, and
where are you going?”
“I am a man in search of a master.”
“I am seeking a man,” said the king’s son. “Will you take service with
me?”
“I will,” answered Arthur.
He hired for a day and a year, and wages according to service.
Arthur went to work on the following morning, and his first task was to
bring fagots from the forest. When he went to the forest, he found half
of it green, and the other half dry. Nothing was growing in the dry part;
all was withered and dead. Arthur collected dry fagots, and brought them
to the castle. In the evening he spoke to the king’s son, and this is
what he asked of him, “Why is half of your forest green, and the other
half withered and dry?”
“A day and seven years ago,” said the king’s son, “a terrible serpent
came the way, and took half of my forest for herself. In that part she is
living till this time,—that is the green part. She knocked the life out
of my half,—that is the dry part.”
“Why do you not take wood from the green part?” asked Arthur.
“Neither you nor all who ever came before you could do that,” said the
son of the king. Next morning Arthur went out for fagots the second time.
He stopped before the largest green tree to be found in the forest, and
was cutting away at it. The moment the serpent saw this, she came out,
and called, “Why are you cutting my timber?”
“I am cutting it because I am sorry to see you as you are,” said Arthur,
“without a roof over you or a shelter of any kind. I wish to build a
house to protect you.”
When the serpent heard this, she was glad and thankful to Arthur. When
he had two wedges in the tree, and it partly cut, he said, “If yourself
would only come over now, and put your tail in the cut and help me, we
could throw down this tree.”
She went to him then, and put her tail in the cut. Arthur knocked out the
wedges, and left her tail in the tree. She begged and cried, screaming,
“The tree is killing me; the tree is killing me! Let me free! Let me out
of this!”
“It wasn’t to let you out that I put you in,” replied Arthur.
What he did then was to jump behind her, and vex her until he got her in
the way that, out of rage and great strength, she tore up the tree with
its roots, and seven acres and seven ridges of land with it. Arthur was
vexing the serpent until she rushed into the dry part of the forest, and
was fastened among the trees; then he cut down dry trees, and piled them
on the serpent and on the green tree till they were the size of a hill.
In the evening he drove her to the castle before him, with all the hill
of dry wood on her. When a maid was going from the castle for water, and
saw this, she ran in with the story that Arthur was coming home with the
serpent, and all the dry wood of the forest above on her back.
When the people inside heard this, they were in dread that she’d kill
them all, and they rushed out to run away. There was one girl in the
castle who heard the tidings too late, or was slow in preparing, for when
she was ready, the serpent was at the door.
“Where are the people of the castle?” asked Arthur.
“All made away, and took their lives with them,” said she.
“Run now and call them back,” said Arthur.
“I’m in dread to go out. I will not go unless you take the head off the
serpent.”
Arthur swept the head off the serpent. The girl ran after the people, and
brought them back. Arthur piled all the wood near the castle. The king’s
son was delighted to have so much fuel, and was so glad that he took
Arthur to his bed to sleep that night with him.
“It’s a wonder,” said Arthur, “such a good king’s son as you to be
without a wife.”
“I had a wife,” said the king’s son; “but the giant with five heads, five
necks, and five lumps on his heads, came and took her to the Eastern
World.”
“Why did you not take her from him?”
“Neither I, nor you, nor all that ever came before us could do that.”
On the following morning Arthur rose, washed his face, rubbed his eyes,
and said to the king’s son, “I am going to the Eastern World to bring
back your wife.” Away he went; but the king’s son would not believe that
any man living could bring back the wife.
When Arthur came to the castle of the giant in the Eastern World, the
giant himself was not in it, only the wife of the King of Lochlin’s son,
who said, “There is no use in your delaying in this place; you’ll be
killed, if you stay till the giant comes home.”
“I’ll never leave this castle till I see the giant; and when I go home
you’ll go with me.”
It wasn’t long till Arthur heard the great voice of the giant. As he came
toward the castle the bottom of the forest was rising to the top, and the
top of the forest was going to the bottom. In front of the giant went a
shaggy goat, and another behind him. In his hand was a club with a yellow
flea on the end of it; on one shoulder he carried a dead hag, and on the
other a great hog of a wild boar.
“Fu fa my beard!” cried the giant. “I catch the smell of a lying rogue
from Erin, too big for one bite and too small for two. I don’t know
whether to blow him away through the air, or put him under my feet.”
“You filthy giant, ’tis not to give satisfaction to you, or the like of
you, that I came, but to knock satisfaction out of you.”
“I want only time till morning to give you what you came for,” said the
giant.
It was daybreak when Arthur was up and struck the pole of combat. There
wasn’t a calf, kid, lamb, foal, or child awaiting birth that didn’t turn
five times to the right and five times to the left from the strength of
the blow.
“What do you want?” asked the answering man.
“Seven hundred against me, and then seven hundred to every hundred of
these, till I find the man who can put me down.”
“You fool of the world, it would be better for you to hide under a leaf
than to stand before the giant.”
The giant came out to Arthur; and the two went at each other like two
lions of the desert or two bulls of great growth, and fought with rage.
They made the softest places hardest, and the hardest places softest;
they brought spring wells up through dry slate rocks, and great tufts of
green rushes through their own shoe-strings. The wounds that they made on
each other were so great that little birds flew through them, and men of
small growth could crawl through on their hands and knees.
It was dark and the end of the day, when Arthur cried out, “It is a bad
thing for me, filthy giant, to have a fine day spent on you!”
With that he gave him one blow on the five necks, and sent the five
heads flying through the air. After a while the heads were coming down,
croning (singing the coronach), Arthur caught them, and struck the
giant’s breast with them; the body and heads fell dead on the ground. The
wife of the son of the King of Lochlin ran out now, smothered Arthur with
kisses, washed him with tears, and dried him with a cloak of fine silk;
she put her hand under his arm, and they went to the castle of the giant.
The two had good entertainment, plenty to eat, and no bit dry. They made
three parts of that night,—one part for conversation, one for tales, and
one for soft sleep.
When they rose in the morning, the woman said, “It is a poor thing for us
to go and leave here behind all the gold the giant had.”
“Let us not be in so great a hurry; we’ll find a cure for that,” said
Arthur.
They went out, found three ships belonging to the giant, and filled them
with gold. When the three ships were laden, Arthur took hawsers and
lashed the first ship to the second, the second to the third, raised the
anchors, and sailed away. When he was in sight of Lochlin, a messenger
was walking toward the water, and saw the ships coming. He ran to the
castle, and cried to the king’s son, “The servant-boy is coming, and
bringing your wife with him.”
“That I will never believe,” said the king’s son, “till she puts her hand
in my hand.”
The king’s son had kept his head by the fire, without rising from the
hearth, all the time that Arthur was away. When the wife came in, and
put her hand on his hand, he rose up, and shook seven tons of ashes from
himself, with seven barrels of rust.
There was great gladness in the castle; and the king’s son was ready to
do anything for Arthur, he was so thankful to him. Arthur’s time was out
on the following day. The king’s son spoke to him, and asked, “What am I
to give you now for the service? What wages do you expect?”
“No more than is just. I hope that you will find out for me who is the
birth that has never been born, and that never will be.”
“That is no great thing for me to discover,” said the king’s son.
There was a hollow place in the wall of the castle near the fireplace,
and in that hollow the king’s son kept his own father, and gave him food.
He opened a secret door, and brought out the old king.
“Now tell me, father,” said he, “who is it that has never been born, and
never will be?”
“That’s a thing of which no tidings have been given, or ever will be,”
replied the king.
When the father wasn’t giving him the answer he wanted, the son put the
old king, standing, on a red-hot iron griddle.
“It’s fried and roasted you’ll be till you answer my question, and tell
who is the birth that has never been born, and that never will be,” said
the son.
The old king stood on the griddle till the marrow was melting in the
bones of his feet. They took him off then; and the son asked him a second
time.
“That’s a question not to be answered by me,” said the king.
He was put, standing, again on the red-hot griddle, and kept on it, till
the marrow was melting in the bones to his knees.
“Release me out of this now,” cried the king; “and I will tell where that
birth is.”
They took him from the griddle. He sat down then, and told this story to
his son, in presence of Arthur:—
“I was walking out beyond there in the garden one day, when I came on a
beautiful rod, which I cut and took with me. I discovered soon after that
that was a rod of enchantment, and never let it go from me. When I went
walking or riding in the day, I took the rod with me. In the night, I
slept with it under my pillow. Misfortune came on me at last; for I left
the rod in my chamber one time that I started away to go fowling. After
I had gone a good piece of road, I remembered the rod, and hurried home
then to get it.
“When I came to the castle I found a dark tall man inside in my chamber
with the queen. They saw me, and I turned from the door to let them slip
out, and think that I had not seen them. I went to the door not long
after, and opened it. Your mother was standing inside, not two feet from
the threshold. She struck me right there with the rod, and made a wild
deer of me.
“When she had me a deer, she let out a great pack of hounds; for every
hand’s breadth of my body there was a savage dog to tear me, and hunt me
to death. The hounds chased me, and followed till I ran to the far away
mountains. There I escaped. So great was my swiftness and strength that I
brought my life with me.
“After that I went back to injure the queen; and I did every harm in my
power to her grain, and her crops, and her gardens.
“One day she sprang up from behind a stone wall, when I thought no one
near, struck me with the rod, and made a wolf of me. She called a hunt
then. Hounds and men chased me fiercely till evening. At nightfall I
escaped to an island in a lake where no man was living. Next day I went
around each perch of that island. I searched every place, and found only
a she-wolf.
“But the wolf was a woman enchanted years before,—enchanted when she was
within one week of her time to give birth to a hero. There she was; but
the hero could not be born unless she received her own form again.
“There was little to eat on the island for the she-wolf, and still less
after I came. What I suffered from hunger in that place no man can know;
for I had a wolf’s craving, and only scant food to stop it. One day above
another, I was lying half asleep, half famished, and dreaming. I thought
that a kid was there near me. I snapped at it, and awoke. I had torn open
the side of the she-wolf. Before me was an infant, which grew to the size
of a man in one moment. That man is the birth that has never been born,
and never will be; that man is the Half Slim Champion.
“When I snapped at the she-wolf, I bit her so deeply that I took a piece
from behind the ear of the child, and killed the mother. When you go back
to the Half Slim Champion, and he asks who is the man that has never been
born, and never will be, you will say: Try behind your own ear, you will
find the mark on him.
“The infant, grown to a man before my eyes, attacked me, to kill me. I
ran, and he followed. He hunted me through every part of that island. At
last I had no escape but to swim to the country-side opposite. I sprang
to the water, though I had not the strength of the time when I went from
the hunters; but on the way were two rocks. On these I drew breath, and
then came to land. I could not have swum five perches farther.
“I lived after that in close hiding, and met with no danger till I was
going through a small lane one evening, and, looking behind, saw the hero
whose mother I killed on the island. I started; he rushed along after me.
I came to a turn, and was thinking to go over the wall, and escape by
the fields, when I met my false queen. She struck me with the rod in her
fright, and I got back my own form again. I snatched the rod quickly, and
struck her. ‘You’ll be a wolf now,’ said I; ‘you’ll have your own share
of misfortune.’ With that she sprang over the wall, a gray wolf, and ran
off through the pastures.
“The dark tall man was a little behind and saw everything. He turned to
escape; but I struck him with the rod, and made a sheep of the traitor,
in hopes that the gray wolf might eat him. The hero saw all, saw the wolf
that I was, turned into a man. I entered the castle; he followed me. I
took you at once with me, showed you this hollow place near the chimney,
and hid in it. The hero searched every foot of the castle, but found no
trace of me. He had no knowledge of who I was; and when you denied that
I was here, he waited one day, a second day, and then went away, taking
your sister and the best hound at the castle.
“That hero of the island, whose mother I killed, is the Half Slim
Champion. There is nothing he wishes so much as my death; and when he
hears who it was that has never been born, and never will be, he will
know that I am alive yet, and he’ll kill half the people in Lochlin,
unless he kills me first of all, or this champion kills him.”
When Arthur heard this story, he went away quickly from the castle of
the King of Lochlin, and never stopped till he came to the hill where he
played cards the first time. The Half Slim Champion was before him there,
standing.
“Have you found the answer, and can you tell who has never been born, and
never will be?”
“Try behind your own ear, and you’ll find the mark on him.”
“That’s true,” said the champion, “and the man who killed my mother is
alive yet; but if he is, he will not be so long, and you’ll not leave
this till you and I have a trial.”
The two went at each other then; and it was early enough in the day when
Arthur had the head off the champion. He put a gad through his ears, took
the head on his shoulder, hurried back to the King of Lochlin, and threw
it on the floor, saying, “Here is the head of the Half Slim Champion.”
When the old king heard these words in his place of concealment, he burst
out the wall, and went through the end of the castle, so great was his
joy. As soon as he was in the open air, free from confinement and dread,
he became the best man in Lochlin.
They made three parts of that night, which they passed in great
enjoyment, and discovered that Arthur’s wife was the sister of the son
of the King of Lochlin, the lady who was carried away by the Half Slim
Champion, and lost in a game of cards.
When the old king got the head of the Half Slim Champion, he gave the
three ships full of gold to Arthur, and would have given six ships, if he
had had them, he was so glad to be free. Arthur took farewell of the old
king and his son, and sailed away with his three ships full of gold to
Erin, where his wife was.
BLAIMAN, SON OF APPLE, IN THE KINGDOM OF THE WHITE STRAND.
There was a king in Erin long ago who had two sons and one daughter. On a
day of days, the daughter walked into her father’s garden, in which she
saw an apple-tree with only one apple on it; she took the apple, and ate
it.
There was an old druid in the castle, who saw the king’s daughter going
out, and met her coming in.
“Well,” said he, “you had the look of a maiden when you were going out,
and you have the look of a married woman coming in.”
Those who were near heard the saying of the druid, and it was going the
rounds till it came to the king. The king went at once to the druid, and
asked, “What is this that you say about my daughter?”
“I say nothing,” answered the druid.
“You must tell me your words,” said the king, “and prove them, or lose
your head.”
“Oh, as you are going that far you must give me time, and if a few months
do not prove my words true, you may cut the head off me.”
The princess was then taken to the top of the king’s castle, where no one
could see her but her maid. There she remained till she gave birth to a
son with a golden spot on his poll, and a silver spot on his forehead.
He was so beautiful that if sunshine and breeze ever rested on a child,
they would rest on him; and what of him did not grow in the day grew at
night. He grew so quickly that soon he was as large as the king’s sons,
his uncles, and rose out to be a great champion.
One day when the two sons of the king were hunting, there was snow on
the ground, and they killed a hare. Some of the hare’s blood fell on the
snow, and they said that that was a beautiful meeting of colors. They
were wondering could any woman be found with such colors on her face,
white shining through the red. When they came home in the evening, they
asked the old druid could a woman of that sort be found. He answered that
if she could itself, little good would it do them; they could find wives
good enough for them near home. They said that that was no matter, but to
tell them where was the woman they had asked for.
“That woman,” said the druid, “is the daughter of the King of the
kingdom of the White Strand. Hundreds of champions have lost their heads
for her; and if you go, you will lose your heads too.”
The elder son said, “We do not mind that; we will go.”
The brothers had no vessel to take them to the kingdom of the White
Strand; and the elder said he would build one. He took tools one morning,
and started for the seashore. When just outside the castle, he heard a
voice, asking, “Where are you going, king’s son?”
“I am going to make a turkey-pen,” answered the young man. “May you
prosper in justice and truth,” said the voice.
The king’s son began to build the ship that day; and in the evening what
had he built but a turkey-pen? When he came home, they asked what had he
made.
“Nothing; I made only a turkey-pen.”
“Oh,” said the second son, “you are a fool. I knew that you could do
nothing good.”
On the following morning, the second son started for the seashore; and
the voice spoke to him, and asked, “Where are you going, king’s son?”
“To build a pig-sty,” answered he. “May you prosper in justice and
truth,” said the voice.
He worked all day; and in the evening it was a pig-sty that he had. He
came home; and now the brothers were doleful because they had not a ship
in which to sail to the princess.
The following morning, the king’s grandson said, “Give me the tools, to
see can I myself do anything.”
“What can you do, you fool?” asked the uncles.
“That matters not,” replied he. He left the castle; and at the place
where the voice spoke to his uncles, it spoke to him also, and asked,
“What are you going to do, Blaiman, son of Apple?” (He did not know his
origin till then.)
“I am going to build a ship,” said Blaiman.
“That it may thrive with you in justice and truth,” said the voice.
He went off to the edge of a wood that was growing at the seashore, gave
one blow to a tree, and it went to its own proper place in the vessel. In
the evening Blaiman had the nicest ship that ever moved on the deep sea.
When finished, the ship was at the edge of the shore; he gave it one blow
of a sledge, and sent it out to deep water. Blaiman went home full of
gladness.
“What have you made?” asked the uncles.
“Go out and see for yourselves,” answered Blaiman.
The two went, and saw the ship in the harbor. They were delighted to see
the fine vessel, as they themselves could not build it. The voice had
built it with Blaiman in return for his truth.
Next morning provisions for a day and a year were placed in the vessel.
The two sons of the king went on board, raised the sails, and were moving
out toward the great ocean. Blaiman saw the ship leaving, and began to
cry; he was sorry that, after building the ship, it was not he who had
the first trial of his own work. When his mother heard him, she grew
sorry too, and asked what trouble was on him; and he told her that after
he had built the ship, he wanted to have the first trial of it.
“You are foolish,” said she. “You are only a boy yet; your bones are not
hard. You must not think of going to strange countries.”
He answered, that nothing would do him but to go. The old king, the
grandfather, wanted Blaiman to stay; but he would not.
“Well,” said the king, “what I have not done for another I will do now
for you. I will give you my sword; and you will never be put back by any
man while you keep that blade.”