So, without hap or mishap, Gilly came again to the house of the
Spae-Woman. She was sitting at her door-step grinding corn with a quern
when he came before her. She cried over him, not believing that he had
come safe from the Townland of Mischance. And as long as he was with her
she spoke to him of his “poor back.”
He stayed with her for two seasons. He mended her fences and he cleaned
her spring-well; he ground her corn and he brought back her swarm of
bees; he trained a dog to chase the crows out of her field; he had the
ass shod, the sheep washed and the goat spancelled. The Spae-Woman was
much beholden to him for all he did for her, and one day she said to
him, “Gilly of the Goat-skin you are called, but another name is due
to you now.” “And who will give me another name?” said Gilly of the
Goatskin. “Who’ll give it to you? Who but the Old Woman of Beare,” said
the Spae-Woman.
The next day she said to him, “I had a dream last night, and I know now
what you are to do. You must go now to the Old Woman of Beare for the
name that is due to you. And before she gives it to you, you must tell
her and whoever else is in her house as much as you know of the Unique
Tale.”
“But I know nothing at all of the Unique Tale,” said Gilly of the
Goatskin.
“There is always a blank before a beginning,” said the Spae-Woman. “This
evening, when I am grinding the corn at the quern I shall tell you the
Unique Tale.”
That evening when she sat at the door-step of her house and when the sun
was setting behind the elder-bushes the Spae-Woman told Gilly the third
part of the Unique Tale. Then she baked a cake and killed a cock for him
and told him to start on the morrow’s morning for the house of the Old
Woman of Beare.
Well, he started off in the morning bright and early, leaving good
health with the Spae-Woman behind him, and away he went, crossing high
hills, passing low dales, and keeping on his way without halt or rest,
the clear day going and the dark night coming, taking lodgings each
evening wherever he found them, and at last he came to the house of the
Old Woman of Beare.
He went into the house and found her making marks in the ashes of her
fire while her cuckoo, her corncrake and her swallow were picking grains
off the table.
“And what can I do for you, good youth?” said the Old Woman of Beare.
“Give me a name,” said Gilly, “and listen to the story I have to tell
you.”
“That I will not,” said the Old Woman of Beare, “until you have done a
task for me.”
“What task can I do for you?” said Gilly of the Goatskin. “I would
know,” said she, “which of us four is the oldest creature in the
world--myself or Laheen the Eagle, Blackfoot the Elk or the Crow of
Achill--I leave the Salmon of Assaroe out of account altogether.”
“And how can a youth like me help you to know that?” said Gilly of the
Goatskin.
“An ox was killed on the day I was born and on every one of my birthdays
afterwards. The horns of the oxen are in two quarries outside. You must
count them and tell me how much half of them amounts to and then I shall
know my age.”
“That I’ll do if you feed me and give me shelter,” said Gilly of the
Goatskin. “Eat as you like,” said the Old Woman of Beare. She pushed him
a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. When he cut a slice of the loaf
it was just as if nothing had been cut off, and when he took a cupful
out of the bottle it was as if no water had been taken out of it at
all. When he had drunk and eaten he left the complete loaf and the full
bottle of water on the shelf, went outside and began to count the horns
on the right-hand side.
On the second day a strange youth came to him and saluted him, and then
went to count the horns in the quarry on the left-hand side. This youth
was none other than the King of Ireland’s Son.
On the third day they had the horns all counted. Then Gilly of the
Goatskin and the King of Ireland’s Son met together under a bush. “How
many horns have you counted?” said the King of Ireland’s Son. “So many,”
said Gilly of the Goatskin. “And how many horns have you counted?” “So
many,” said the King of Ireland’s Son.
Just as they were adding the two numbers together they both heard sounds
in the air--they were like the sounds that Bards make chanting their
verses. And when they looked up they saw a swan flying round and
round above them. And the swan chanted the story of the coming of the
Milesians to Eirinn, and as the two youths listened they forgot the
number of horns they had counted. And when the swan had flown away they
looked at each other and as they were hungry they went into the house
and ate slices of the unwasted loaf and drank cupfuls out of the
inexhaustible bottle. Then the Old Woman of Beare wakened up and asked
them to tell her the number of her years.
“We cannot tell you although we counted all the horns,” said the King of
Ireland’s Son, “for just as we were putting the numbers together a swan
sang to us and we forgot the number we had counted.”
“You didn’t do your task rightly,” she said, “but as I promised to give
this youth a name and to listen to the story he had to tell, I shall
have to let it be. You may tell the story now, Gilly of the Goatskin.”
They sat at the fire, and while the Old Woman of Beare spun threads on
a very ancient spindle, and while the corncrake, the cuckoo and the
swallow picked up grains and murmured to themselves, Gilly of the
Goatskin told them the Unique Tale. And the story as Gilly of the
Goatskin told it follows this.--