"I came to marry your daughter."
"That life and strength may leave me if ever you get my daughter in
marriage! I'd give her to death before I would to a tinker."
Now Kil Arthur, the king's son, came in, caught the tinker and hanged
him, facing the front of the castle. When he was dead, they made seven
parts of his body, and flung them into the sea.
Then the king had a box made so close and tight that no water could
enter, and inside the box they fixed a coffin; and when they had put a
bed with meat and drink into the coffin, they brought the king's
daughter, laid her on the bed, closed the box, and pushed it into the
open sea. The box went out with the tide and moved on the water for a
long time; where it was one day it was not the next,--carried along by
the waves day and night, till at last it came to another land.
Now, in the other land was a man who had spent his time in going to sea,
till at length he got very poor, and said: "I'll stay at home now, since
God has let me live this long. I heard my father say once that if a man
would always rise early and walk along the strand, he would get his
fortune from the tide at last."
One morning early, as this man was going along the strand, he saw the
box, and brought it up to the shore, where he opened it and took out the
coffin. When the lid was off the coffin, he found a woman inside alive.
"Oh!" said he, "I'd rather have you there than the full of the box of
gold."
"I think the gold would be better for you," said the woman.
He took the stranger to his house, and gave her food and drink. Then he
made a great cross on the ground, and clasping hands with the woman,
jumped over the arms of the cross, going in the same direction as the
sun. This was the form of marriage in that land. They lived together
pleasantly. She was a fine woman, worked well for her husband, and
brought him great wealth, so that he became richer than any man; and one
day, when out walking alone, he said to himself: "I am able to give a
grand dinner now to Ri Fohin, Sladaire Mor [king under the wave, the
great robber], who owns men, women, and every kind of beast."
Then he went home and invited Ri Fohin to dinner. He came with all the
men, women, and beasts he had, and they covered the country for six
miles.
The beasts were fed outside by themselves, but the people in the house.
When dinner was over, he asked Ri Fohin: "Have you ever seen a house so
fine and rich, or a dinner so good, as mine to-night?"
"I have not," said Ri Fohin.
Then the man went to each person present. Each gave the same answer, and
said, "I have never seen such a house nor such a dinner."
He asked his wife, and she said: "My praise is no praise here; but what
is this to the house and the feasting of my father, the king of Erin?"
"Why did you say that?" asked the man, and he went a second and a third
time to the guests and to his wife. All had the same answers for him.
Then he gave his wife a flip of the thumb on her ear, in a friendly way,
and said: "Why don't you give good luck to my house; why do you give it
a bad name?"
Then all the guests said: "It is a shame to strike your wife on the
night of a feast."
Now the man was angry and went out of his house. It was growing dark,
but he saw a champion coming on a black steed between earth and air;
and the champion, who was no other than Kil Arthur, his brother-in-law,
took him up and bore him away to the castle of the king of Erin.
When Kil Arthur arrived they were just sitting down to dinner in the
castle, and the man dined with his father-in-law. After dinner the king
of Erin had cards brought and asked his son-in-law: "Do you ever play
with these?"
"No, I have never played with the like of them."
"Well, shuffle them now," said the king. He shuffled; and as they were
enchanted cards and whoever held them could never lose a game he was the
best player in the world, though he had never played a game before in
his life.
The king said, "Put them in your pocket, they may do you good." Then the
king gave him a fiddle, and asked:
"Have you ever played on the like of this?"
"Indeed I have not," said the man.
"Well, play on it now," said the king.
He played, and never in his life had he heard such music.
"Keep it," said the king; "as long as you don't let it from you, you're
the first musician on earth. Now I'll give you something else. Here is a
cup which will always give you every kind of drink you can wish for; and
if all the men in the world were to drink out of it they could never
empty it. Keep these three things; but never raise hand on your wife
again."
The king of Erin gave him his blessing; then Kil Arthur took him up on
the steed, and going between earth and sky he was soon back at his own
home.
Now Ri Fohin had carried off the man's wife and all that he had while he
was at dinner with the King of Erin. Going out on the road the king's
son-in-law began to cry: "Oh, what shall I do; what shall I do!" and as
he cried, who should come but Kil Arthur on his steed, who said, "Be
quiet, I'll go for your wife and goods."
Kil Arthur went, and killed Ri Fohin and all his people and
beasts,--didn't leave one alive. Then he brought back his sister to her
husband, and stayed with them for three years.
One day he said to his sister: "I am going to leave you. I don't know
what strength I have; I'll walk the world now till I know is there a man
in it as good as myself."
Next morning he bade good-bye to his sister, and rode away on his
black-haired steed, which overtook the wind before and outstripped the
wind behind. He travelled swiftly till evening, spent the night in a
forest, and the second day hurried on as he had the first.
The second night he spent in a forest; and next morning as he rose from
the ground he saw before him a man covered with blood from fighting, and
the clothes nearly torn from his body.
"What have you been doing?" asked Kil Arthur.
"I have been playing cards all night. And where are you going?" inquired
the stranger of Kil Arthur.
"I am going around the world to know can I find a man as good as
myself."
"Come with me," said the stranger, "and I'll show you a man who couldn't
find his match till he went to fight the main ocean."
Kil Arthur went with the ragged stranger till they came to a place from
which they saw a giant out on the ocean beating the waves with a club.
Kil Arthur went up to the giant's castle, and struck the pole of combat
such a blow that the giant in the ocean heard it above the noise of his
club as he pounded the waves.
"What do you want?" asked the giant in the ocean, as he stopped from the
pounding.
"I want you to come in here to land," said Kil Arthur, "and fight with a
better man than yourself."
The giant came to land, and standing near his castle said to Kil Arthur:
"Which would you rather fight with,--gray stones or sharp weapons?"
"Gray stones," said Kil Arthur.
They went at each other, and fought the most terrible battle that either
of them had ever seen till that day. At last Kil Arthur pushed the giant
to his shoulders through solid earth.
"Take me out of this," cried the giant, "and I'll give you my sword of
light that never missed a blow, my Druidic rod of most powerful
enchantment, and my healing draught which cures every sickness and
wound."
"Well," said Kil Arthur, "I'll go for your sword and try it."
He went to the giant's castle for the sword, the rod, and the healing
draught. When he returned the giant said: "Try the sword on that tree
out there."
"Oh," said Kil Arthur, "there is no tree so good as your own neck," and
with that he swept off the head of the giant; took it, and went on his
way till he came to a house. He went in and put the head on a table; but
that instant it disappeared,--went away of itself. Food and drink of
every kind came on the table. When Kil Arthur had eaten and the table
was cleared by some invisible power, the giant's head bounded on to the
table, and with it a pack of cards. "Perhaps this head wants to play
with me," thought Kil Arthur, and he cut his own cards and shuffled
them.
The head took up the cards and played with its mouth as well as any man
could with his hands. It won all the time,--wasn't playing fairly. Then
Kil Arthur thought: "I'll settle this;" and he took the cards and showed
how the head had taken five points in the game that didn't belong to it.
Then the head sprang at him, struck and beat him till he seized and
hurled it into the fire.
As soon as he had the head in the fire a beautiful woman stood before
him, and said: "You have killed nine of my brothers, and this was the
best of the nine. I have eight more brothers who go out to fight with
four hundred men each day, and they kill them all; but next morning the
four hundred are alive again and my brothers have to do battle anew. Now
my mother and these eight brothers will be here soon; and they'll go
down on their bended knees and curse you who killed my nine brothers,
and I'm afraid your blood will rise within you when you hear the curses,
and you'll kill my eight remaining brothers."
"Oh," said Kil Arthur, "I'll be deaf when the curses are spoken; I'll
not hear them." Then he went to a couch and lay down. Presently the
mother and eight brothers came, and cursed Kil Arthur with all the
curses they knew. He heard them to the end, but gave no word from
himself.
Next morning he rose early, girded on his nine-edged sword, went forth
to where the eight brothers were going to fight the four hundred, and
said to the eight: "Sit down, and I'll fight in your place."
Kil Arthur faced the four hundred, and fought with them alone; and
exactly at midday he had them all dead. "Now some one," said he,
"brings these to life again. I'll lie down among them and see who it
is."
Soon he saw an old hag coming with a brush in her hand, and an open
vessel hanging from her neck by a string. When she came to the four
hundred she dipped the brush into the vessel and sprinkled the liquid
which was in it over the bodies of the men. They rose up behind her as
she passed along.
"Bad luck to you," said Kil Arthur, "you are the one that keeps them
alive;" then he seized her. Putting one of his feet on her two ankles,
and grasping her by the head and shoulders, he twisted her body till he
put the life out of her.
When dying she said: "I put you under a curse, to keep on this road till
you come to the 'ram of the five rocks,' and tell him you have killed
the hag of the heights and all her care."
He went to the place where the ram of the five rocks lived and struck
the pole of combat before his castle. Out came the ram, and they fought
till Kil Arthur seized his enemy and dashed the brains out of him
against the rocks.
Then he went to the castle of the beautiful woman whose nine brothers he
had killed, and for whose eight brothers he had slain the four hundred.
When he appeared the mother rejoiced; the eight brothers blessed him and
gave him their sister in marriage; and Kil Arthur took the beautiful
woman to his father's castle in Erin, where they both lived happily and
well.