IV

I was reared in the Spae-Woman’s house with two other girls, Baun and

Deelish, my foster-sisters. The Spae-Woman’s house is on the top of a

knowe, away from every place, and few ever came that way.

One morning I went to the well for water. When I looked into it I saw,

not my own image, but the image of a young man. I drew up my pitcher

filled with water, and went back to the Spae-Woman’s house. At noontide

Baun went to the well for water. She came back and her pitcher was only

half-filled. Before dark Deelish went to the well. She came back without

a pitcher, for it fell and broke on the flags of the well.

The next day Baun and Deelish each plaited their hair, and they said

to her who was foster-mother for the three of us: “No one will come to

marry us in this far-away place. We will go into the world to seek our

fortunes. So,” said they, “bake a cake for each of us before the fall of

the night.”

The Spae-Woman put three cakes on the griddle and baked them. And when

they were baked she said to Baun and Deelish: “Will you each take the

half of the cake and my blessing, or the whole of the cake without my

blessing?” And Baun and Deelish each said, “The whole of the cake will

be little enough for our journey.”

Each then took her cake under her arm and went the path down the knowe.

Then said I to myself, “It would be well to go after my foster-sisters

for they might meet misfortune on the road.” So I said to my

foster-mother, “Give me the third cake on the griddle until I go after

my foster-sisters.”

“Will you have half of the cake and my blessing or the whole of the cake

without my blessing?” said she to me.

“The half of the cake and your blessing, mother,” said I.

She cut the cake in two with a black-handled knife and gave me the even

half of it. Then said she:--

May the old sea’s

Seven Daughters

They who spin

Life’s longest threads,

Protect and guard you!

She put salt in my hand then, and put the Little Red Hen under my arm,

and I went off.

I went on then till I came in sight of Baun and Deelish. Just as I

caught up on them I heard one say to the other, “This ugly, freckled

girl will disgrace us if she comes with us.” They tied my hands and feet

with a rope they found on the road and left me in a wood.

I got the rope off my hands and feet and ran and ran until I came in

sight of them again. And when I was coming on them I heard one say to

the other, “This ugly, freckled girl will claim relationship with us

wherever we go, and we will get no good man to marry us.” They laid hold

of me again and put me in a lime-kiln, and put beams across it, and put

heavy stones on the beams. But my Little Red Hen showed me how to get

out of the lime-kiln. Then I ran and I ran until I caught up with Baun

and Deelish again.

“Let her come with us this evening,” said one to the other, “and

to-morrow we’ll find some way of getting rid of her.”

The night was drawing down now, and we had to look for a house that

would give us shelter. We saw a hut far off the road and we went to the

broken door. It was the house of the Hags of the Long Teeth. We asked

for shelter. They showed us a big bed in the dormer-room, and they told

us we could have supper when the porridge was boiled.

The three Hags sat round the fire with their heads together. Baun and

Deelish were in a corner plaiting their hair, but the Little Red Hen

murmured that I was to listen to what the Hags said.

“We will give them to Crom Duv in the morning” one said. And another

said, “I have put a sleeping-pin in the pillow that will be under each,

and they will not waken.”

When I heard what they said I wanted to think of what we could do to

make our escape. I asked Baun to sing to me. She said she would if I

washed her feet. I got a basin of water and washed Baun’s feet, and

while she sang, and while the Hags thought we were not minding them, I

considered what we might do to escape. The Hags hung a pot over the fire

and the three of them sat around it once more.

When I had washed my foster-sister’s feet I took a besom and began to

sweep the floor of the house. One of the Hags was very pleased to see me

doing that. She said I would make a good servant, and after a while she

asked me to sit at the fire. I sat in the corner of the chimney. They

had put meal in the water, and I began to stir it with a pot-stick.

Then the Hag that had asked me to the fire said, “I will give you a good

share of milk with your porridge if you keep stirring the pot for us.”

This was just what I wanted to be let do. I sat in the chimney-corner

and kept stirring the porridge while the Hags dozed before the fire.

First, I got a dish and ladle and took out of the pot some half-cooked

porridge. This I left one side. Then I took down the salt-box that was

on the chimney-shelf and mixed handfuls of salt in the porridge left in

the pot.

When it was all cooked I emptied it into another dish and brought the

two dishes to the table. Then I told the Hags that all was ready. They

came over to the table and they gave my foster-sisters and myself three

porringers of goat’s milk. We ate out of the first dish and they ate out

of the second. “By my sleep to-night,” said one Hag, “this porridge is

salty.” “Too little salt is in it for my taste,” said my foster-sister

Deelish. “It is as salt as the depths of the sea,” said another of the

Hags. “My respects to you, ma’am,” said Baun, “but I do not taste any

salt on it at all.” My foster-sisters were so earnest that the Hags

thought themselves mistaken, and they ate the whole dishful of porridge.

The bed was made for us, and the pillows were laid on the bed, and I

knew that the slumber-pin was in each of the pillows. I wanted to put

off the time for going to bed so I began to tell stories. Baun and

Deelish said it was still young in the night, and that I should tell no

short ones, but the long story of Eithne, Balor’s daughter. I had just

begun that story, when one of the Hags cried out that she was consumed

with thirst.

She ran to the pitcher, and there was no water in it. Then another Hag

shouted out that the thirst was strangling her. The third one said she

could not live another minute without a mouthful of water. She took the

pitcher and started for the well. No sooner was she gone than the

second Hag said she couldn’t wait for the first one to come back and she

started out after her. Then the third one thought that the pair

would stay too long talking at the well, and she started after them.

Immediately I took the pillows off our bed and put them on the Hags’

bed, taking their pillows instead.

The Hags came back with a half-filled pitcher, and they ordered us to

go to our bed. We went, and they sat for a while drinking porringers of

water. “Crom Duv will be here the first thing in the morning,” I heard

one of them say. They put their heads on the pillows and in the turn of

a hand they were dead-fast-sound asleep. I told my foster-sisters then

what I had done and why I had done it. They were very frightened, but

seeing the Hags so sound asleep they composed themselves and slept too.

Before the screech of day Crom Duv came to the house. I went outside and

saw the Giant. I said I was the servant of the Hags, and that they were

sleeping still. He said, “They are my runners and summoners, my brewers,

bakers and candle-makers, and they have no right to be sleeping so

late.” Then he went away.

I knew that the three Hags would slumber until we took the pillows from

under their heads. We left them sleeping while we put down a fire and

made our break-fast. Then, when we were ready for our journey, we took

the pillows from under their heads. The three Hags started up then,

but we were out on the door, and had taken the first three steps of our

journey.

V

Without hap or mishap we came at last to the domain of the King of

Senlabor. Baun went to sing for the King’s foster-daughters, and Deelish

went to work at the little loom in the King’s chamber. We were not long

at the court of the King of Senlabor when two youths came there from the

court of the King of Ireland--Dermott and Downal were their names. There

was a famous sword-smith with the King of Senlabor and these two came

to learn the trade from him. And my two foster-sisters fell so deeply in

love with the two youths that every night the pillow on each side of me

was wet with their tears.

I went to work in the King’s kitchen. Now the King had a dish of such

fine earthware and with such beautiful patterns upon it that he never

let it be carried from the Kitchen to the Feast-Hall, nor from the

Feast-Hall to the Kitchen without going himself behind the servant who

carried it. One day the servant brought it into the Kitchen to be washed

and the King came behind the servant. I took the dish and cleaned it

with thrice-boiled water and dried it with cloths of three different

kinds. Then I covered it with sweet-smelling herbs and left it in a bin

where it was sunk in soft bran. The King was pleased to see the good

care I took of his dish, and he said before his servant that he would

do me any favor I would ask. There and then I told him about my two

foster-sisters Baun and Deelish, and how they were in love with the two

youths Dermott and Downal who had come from the court of the King of

Ireland. I asked that when these two youths were being given wives, that

the King should remember my foster-sisters.

The King was greatly vexed at my request. He declared that the two

youths had on their breasts the stars that denoted the sons of Kings and

that he intended they should marry his own two foster-daughters when the

maidens were of age to wed. “It may be,” he said, “that these two youths

will bring what my Queen longs for--a berry from the Fairy Rowan Tree

that is guarded by the Giant Crom Duv.”

The next day the King’s Councillor was feeding the birds and I was

sifting the corn. I asked him what was the history of the Fairy Rowan

Tree that the Giant Crom Duv guarded and why it was that the Queen

longed for a berry of it. There and then he told me this story:--