wet.’
“We went on another while, till we came to a river. There was a great
flood in the river. The man went out. He went to the other side. I went
out after him, so that I was all but lost. I said I was all but lost. ‘If
you had your bridge with you, you would have had no fear of being lost.’
We went on another while. I said I was hungry. ‘Well,’ said the man, ‘if
you had your mother with you from home, you would not have been hungry.’”
The king was listening to him.
“Well,” said he, “when you called out that you were wet, that man had a
top-coat on, that didn’t let a drop in. When you called out you were all
but lost on the river, if you had a nag you would not have been afraid.
The other man had a good horse.”
“He had,” said the champion.
“As good as I ever saw,” said the king’s daughter.
“How far was he with you?”
“He was with me to the end of the city.”
She arose standing. She went out, nor did she stop till she was in the
city, in the place where was Kayleh-na-Bochtjinacht. She took a hold
of him by the hand. She bade him welcome home. He got up and opened a
travelling bag. He gave her a silk gown. He put it on her. He put silk
clothes entirely on her. The two went till they came to the king’s house.
The king and the champion thought the bride was in a room inside. There
was a knock at the door. The housemaid arose and opened it. The young
couple came in. They asked the maid if the priest was in the king’s
house. She said he was; that the champion and the king’s daughter were to
be married. “I would like to see the king,” said Kayleh. The maid went
to the king. She told him there was a gentleman to see the wedding. The
king arose. He opened the parlour door. Kayleh came to him. He said he
was a stranger, that he had a woman with him to get married to; he would
be thankful to the king to get the first chance of being married. The
king said he would give it to him and welcome. The young couple went into
the room where the priest was. They were married. They came out and they
married. The bride came forward to the king and the champion. She took
hold of the young champion by the shoulder. She told him to go home to
his mother—“The silly man that was with you to-day, I am married to him
now.” “You thought you were wise,” said the king; “but it is you were
the fool, not that man.” He had nothing for it then but to get up and go
home. The king’s daughter then told her father who the husband was she
had. There was great joy on the king then that the lad got on so well.
They built a big house then in the city. When it was ready, they put into
it the goods that were in the store. The master that was in London came
into the harbour with his ship. When Kayleh heard he was there he was
rejoiced. He went out to see him. The captain was rejoiced to see him.
Kayleh went praising his wife. “You are a fool,” said the captain; “maybe
she’s the worst in the world.” “How much will you wager on it? I’ll lay
my shop against your ship that you won’t find her yielding.”
They laid the wager. The captain was going out then. “What proof shall
I bring that I have had my way with her.” “There is a gold ring on her
finger. Have that for me.” “Stay you here,” said the captain, “till I
come.”
The captain went on shore. He went to her. She was rejoiced to see him.
She said to herself that the captain was taking liberties with her. She
went into a room. She locked the door and left his sight. The captain did
not know then what to do. He was afraid his ship was lost. He went to the
kitchen to the maid. He drew out a purse of money. He said he would give
her the purse if she would open the door of the room. She covered the
money. She took the lock off the door. The captain went to the woman. He
said he would not leave the room till she drank a drop of his whiskey.
To get rid of him she drank a drop of the whiskey. What was in it but
a sleeping drop! She fell asleep. The captain took the ring from her
finger. He went to Kayleh. When Kayleh saw he had the ring, the shop was
lost. He went home. When the woman saw she had lost the ring, she knew it
was all over with her. She went away. He was raging with anger. If he got
hold of her he would kill her. She went away ashamed. The captain went to
live in the house. He was selling the goods. Kayleh went off wandering.
She went and put a man’s clothes on her. She went to a city. She went
to a tailor’s shop. She asked the tailor if he wanted a young man. The
tailor said he would not mind taking one. She made it up with him. She
would sell as much as three. He thought it was a man was with him. He was
with him for a year. A poor man came to the city selling brooms. He spent
a couple of days in the city. The mob was casting it up to that tailor
that a man from his country was selling brooms. She said there was never
a man from her country who sold brooms. She rose out one evening. She
went through the city to try if she could find him. She met him, and he
with a load of brooms. She asked him if that was his means of living. The
poor man said it was—that he was all that day, and few were the brooms he
sold. She asked him how much he got for them apiece. He said he got only
a halfpenny. She put her hand in her pocket and gave him the price of his
load.
“Throw them away from you. Have you any learning at all?” said she.
“I have a trifle,” said the poor man.
“Do you think you could do as a clerk in a shop?”
“I think I could do.”
The tailor went and bought a suit of clothes for him. She put them on
him. He and the tailor went to the shop.
“Here’s a young man I have got for you,” said she.
He hired the young man for a year. The young man came to him and was
serving him well. Better was the learning that he had than the shopman’s.
The tailor was content as they were together. They were the two comrades;
nor did he ever recognise the tailor. They were a couple of years in the
city. One day the tailor said they were there long enough, and would go
home for a while now. He said he would never go home. She said she would,
that they would get a place as good as to be there. They got ready and
were drawing towards Dublin. The clerk said he would not go near the
city. She said she would go. They walked on till they came to the city.
There was no going through the street for the clerk. He became sorrowful
and troubled. They were walking till they came to the house they used to
live in.
“This is a good house,” said the tailor; “we’ll go in to see if they will
keep us for the night.”
“We will not go into that house on any account.”
“We’ll go to no other place but that,” said the tailor.
They went in and got place till morning. The captain was living there
always. There were gentlemen dining with him. The tailor was making fun
for the girls in the kitchen. He began dancing and singing. The clerk was
sitting under the window, with his head bent down. When the gentlemen
heard the singing and the dancing in the kitchen, they opened the parlour
door to see the tailor playing his music. They bade him come up to the
parlour, to themselves. He said he would like to have his companion with
him. They bade the two come. The two went up. They got whiskey. They made
the tailor sing. He was performing a while. He looked about him.
“This is a fine house you have,” said he. “I have travelled far enough,
but I never in my travellings met with a better house than this of yours.”
“Simply I got this house.” He told the gentlemen how he came into the
house.
“Well,” said the tailor, “you bear witness to everything you have heard.
I was the woman, that was in the house, to whom that happened.”
She opened her bosom to show it was a woman.
“Get up, you gillie over there.” She locked the parlour door. Kayleh went
for the police. The police came. They arrested the captain. The gentlemen
were witnesses. The captain was put in prison. She put off the tailor’s
clothes then. They arrested the maid and put her in prison. They fell
into their house and place again. They were then as they were ever. The
report went out through the city that Kayleh and the king’s daughter were
in their own house again. The king then made a dinner and invited them to
it. They were eating and drinking for three nights and three days.
[10] Or “Spouse of Poverty.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_SIMON AND MARGARET._
_Narrator, MICHAEL FAHERTY, Renvyle, co. Galway._
Long ago there was a king’s son called Simon, and he came in a ship from
the east to Eire. In the place where he came to harbour he met with a
woman whose name was Margaret, and she fell in love with him. And she
asked him if he would take her with him in the ship. He said he would not
take her, that he had no business with her, “for I am married already,”
said he. But the day he was going to sea she followed him to the ship,
and such a beautiful woman was she that he said to himself that he would
not put her out of the ship; “but before I go farther I must get beef.”
He returned back and got the beef. He took the woman and the beef in
the ship, and he ordered the sailors to make everything ready that they
might be sailing on the sea. They were not long from land when they saw
a great bulk making towards them, and it seemed to them it was more like
a serpent than anything else whatever. And it was not long till the
serpent cried out, “Throw me the Irish person you have on board.”
“We have no Irish person in the ship,” said the king’s son, “for it is
foreign people we are; but we have meat we took from Eire, and, if you
wish, we will give you that.”
“Give it to me,” said the serpent, “and everything else you took from
Eire.”
He threw out a quarter of the beef, and the serpent went away that day,
and on the morrow morning she came again, and they threw out another
quarter, and one every day till the meat was gone. And the next day the
serpent came again and she cried out to the king’s son, “Throw the Irish
flesh out to me.”
“I have no more flesh,” said the prince.
“If you have not flesh, you have an Irish person,” said the serpent, “and
don’t be telling your lies to me any longer. I knew from the beginning
that you had an Irish person in the ship, and unless you throw her out to
me, and quickly, I will eat yourself and your men.”
Margaret came up, and no sooner did the serpent see her than she opened
her mouth, and put on an appearance as if she were going to swallow the
ship.
“I will not be guilty of the death of you all,” said Margaret; “get me
a boat, and if I go far safe it is better; and if I do not go, I had
rather I perished than the whole of us.”
“What shall we do to save you?” said Simon.
“You can do nothing better than put me in the boat,” said she, “and lower
me on the sea, and leave me to the will of God.”
As soon as she got on the sea, no sooner did the serpent see her than she
desired to swallow her, but before she reached as far as her, a billow
of the sea rose between them, and left herself and the boat on dry land.
She saw not a house in sight she could go to. “Now,” said she, “I am as
unfortunate as ever I was. There is no place at all for me to get that I
know of, and this is no place for me to be.” She arose and she began to
walk, and after a long while she saw a house a good way from her. “I am
not as unfortunate as I thought,” said she. “Perhaps I shall get lodging
in that house to-night.” She went in, and there was no one in it but an
old woman, who was getting her supper ready. “I am asking for lodging
till morning.”
“I will give you no lodging,” said the old woman.
“Before I go farther, there is a boat there below, and it is better for
you to take it into your hands.”
“Come in,” said the old woman, “and I will give you lodging for the
night.”
The old woman was always praying by night and day. Margaret asked her,
“Why are you always saying your prayers?”
“I and my mother were living a long while ago in the place they call the
White Doon, and a giant came and killed my mother, and I had to come away
for fear he would kill myself; and I am praying every night and every day
that some one may come and kill the giant.”
The next morning there came a gentleman and a beautiful woman into the
house, and he gave the old woman the full of a quart of money to say
paters for them till morning. The old woman opened a chest and took out a
handsome ring, and tried to place it on his finger, but it would not go
on. “Perhaps it would fit you,” said she to the lady. But her finger was
too big.
When they went out Margaret asked the old woman who were the man and
woman. “That is the son of a king of the Eastern World, and the name that
is on him is Stephen, and he and the woman are going to the White Doon to
fight the giant, and I am afraid they will never come back; for the ring
did not fit either of them; and it was told to the people that no one
would kill the giant but he whom the ring would fit.”
The two of them remained during the night praying for him, for fear the
giant should kill him; and early in the morning they went out to see
what had happened to Stephen and the lady that was with him, and they
found them dead near the White Doon.
“I knew,” said the old woman, “this is what would happen to them. It is
better for us to take them with us and bury them in the churchyard.” When
they were buried, “Come home,” said the old woman, “and we’ll know who is
the first person comes the same way again.”
About a month after a man came into the house, and no sooner was he
inside the door than Margaret recognised him.
“How have you been ever since, Simon?”
“I am very well,” said he; “it can’t be that you are Margaret?”
“It is I,” said she.
“I thought that billow that rose after you, when you got into the boat,
drowned you.”
“It only left me on dry land,” said Margaret.
“I went to the Eastern World, and my father said to me that he sent my
brother to go and fight with the giant, who was doing great damage to the
people near the White Doon, and that my wife went to carry his sword.”
“If that was your brother and your wife,” said Margaret, “the giant
killed them.”
“I will go on the spot and kill the giant, if I am able.”
“Wait till I try the ring on your finger,” said the old woman.
“It is too small to go on my finger,” said he.
“It will go on mine,” said Margaret.
“It will fit you,” said the old woman.
Simon gave the full of a quart of money to the old woman, that she might
pray for him till he came back. When he was about to go, Margaret said,
“Will you let me go with you?”
“I will not,” said Simon, “for I don’t know that the giant won’t kill
myself, and I think it too much that one of us should be in this danger.”
“I don’t care,” said Margaret. “In the place where you die, there am I
content to die.”
“Come with me,” said he.
When they were on the way to the White Doon, a man came before them.
“Do you see that house near the castle?” said the man.
“I see,” said Simon.
“You must go into it and keep a candle lighted till morning in it.”
“Where is the giant?” said Simon.
“He will come to fight you there,” said the man.
They went in and kindled a light, and they were not long there when
Margaret said to Simon,—
“Come, and let us see the giants.”
“I cannot,” said the king, “for the light will go out if I leave the
house.”
“It will not go out,” said Margaret; “I will keep it lighted till we come
back.”
And they went together and got into the castle, to the giant’s house,
and they saw no one there but an old woman cooking; and it was not long
till she opened an iron chest and took out the young giants and gave them
boiled blood to eat.
“Come,” said Margaret, “and let us go to the house we left.”
They were not long in it when the king’s son was falling asleep.
Margaret said to him, “If you fall asleep, it will not be long till the
giants come and kill us.”
“I cannot help it,” he said. “I am falling asleep in spite of me.”
He fell asleep, and it was not long till Margaret heard a noise
approaching, and the giant cried from outside to the king’s son to come
out to him.
“Fum, faw, faysogue! I feel the smell of a lying churl of an Irishman.
You are too great for one bite and too little for two, and I don’t know
whether it is better for me to send you into the Eastern World with a
breath or put you under my feet in the puddle. Which would you rather
have—striking with knives in your ribs or fighting on the grey stones?”
“Great, dirty giant, not with right or rule did I come in, but by rule
and by right to cut your head off in spite of you, when my fine, silken
feet go up and your big, dirty feet go down.”
They wrestled till they brought the wells of fresh water up through the
grey stones with fighting and breaking of bones, till the night was all
but gone. Margaret squeezed him, and the first squeeze she put him down
to his knees, the second squeeze to his waist, and the third squeeze to
his armpits.
“You are the best woman I have ever met. I will give you my court and my
sword of light and the half of my estate for my life, and spare to slay
me.”
“Where shall I try your sword of light?”
“Try it on the ugliest block in the wood.”
“I see no block at all that is uglier than your own great block.”
She struck him at the joining of the head and the neck, and cut the head
off him.
In the morning when she wakened the king’s son, “Was not that a good
proof I gave of myself last night?” said he to Margaret. “That is the
head outside, and we shall try to bring it home.”
He went out, and was not able to stir it from the ground. He went in and
told Margaret he could not take it with him, that there was a pound’s
weight in the head. She went out and took the head with her.
“Come with me,” said he.
“Where are you going?”
“I will go to the Eastern World; and come with me till you see the place.”
When they got home Simon took Margaret with him to his father the king.
“What has happened to your brother and your wife?” said the king.
“They have both been killed by the giants. And it is Margaret, this woman
here, who has killed them.”
The king gave Margaret a hundred thousand welcomes, and she and Simon
were married,[11] and how they are since then I do not know.
[11] Simon’s wife, mentioned at the beginning of the story, has
apparently been forgotten.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_THE SON OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA._
_Narrator, P. M’GRALE, Achill, co. Mayo._
There were giants at that time, and every seven years three daughters
of kings were left to them to be eaten, unless some one were found to
fight them. In this year the kings came together, and they cast lots to
see which of them should give his children to the giants to be eaten.
And the lot fell on the High King of Erin to give his three daughters to
the giants. Then came the son of the King of Prussia to ask the king’s
daughter in marriage, and the king said he could not give her to him
unless he would fight the giants, and he said he would fight if he got
good feeding.
And the king asked him, “What sort of food would you like best?”
Said he, “Marrow of deer and sinews of beeves.” And the king said he
would give him that.
There were servants killing for him his sufficiency of food, and he rose
out, the son of the King of Prussia, and he went among the work-people,
and when he would strike one of them a blow of his fist and kill him the
king would not say anything for fear of making him angry. Then, when he
came within a month of the time, he went to the glen, and tools with him
to make a hole in the glen, and he was at home every evening, and he
dirty.
When it came within a week of the time, the son of the King of Scotland
spoke to his father. Said he, “A good neighbour to you was the King of
Erin ever.”
“Good he was, my son, and I to him likewise.”
“And he never put war nor battle on you.”
“Nor I on him, my son.”
“I am making one request of you, father.”
“Every request you make of me I will give you, except to go to fight in
Erin.”
“Won’t you give me that, father?”
“I have fear of your getting married.”
“My hand and my word to you, father, that that woman I will not wed till
I come back to you.”
“With that request, go, and I will give you my blessing.”
He went with himself, then, and he arrayed himself in his clothes, and
the stars of the son of a king by a queen were on the breast of his coat,
and a poor man’s suit outside, till he came to the sea, and took a great
ship, till he came to Erin, and drew up his ship on the land, and put on
her fastening for a day and a year, though he might chance to be there
but an hour.
He went then to the house of the hen-wife, and asked for lodging; and he
got lodging for the night; and the old woman asked him what was the news,
and he said he had no news at all unless he would get it from her.
“I’d say,” said she, “that it was under a docking you came out, when
you’ve heard nothing of the great gathering that’s to be here to-morrow.
There are three giants to come, on three days, one after the other, and
they are to get the three daughters of the King of Erin, and the son of
the King of Prussia, is to fight for them; and, if he kills the giants,
the first person to-morrow that brings the news the giant’s head is cut
off, will get a shovel of gold.”
Then the poor man and the hen-wife spent the night pleasantly, and in
the morning he got up and washed his hands and his face, and ate his
breakfast, and went to the glen, and he sat down in a clump of ferns,
brambles, and nettles, and there was he.
Then the king and his people went drawing to the glen, and when they were
near it the son of the King of Prussia told them to go home, for fear the
giant might come and kill some of them before he could stop him. The king
and his people went home and left the son of the King of Prussia and the
young girl in the glen, and she sat down on a stone chair, and the son of
the King of Prussia was coming about her, thinking to make free with her,
till he ran to his hole and left her there.
Then he saw the ship coming under sail, three lengths before she came
near to land, and the giant cast anchor, and gave a step on the land, and
he all but sank the ship after him; and the land, when he came on it,
shook so greatly that the old castles fell, and the castles that were
made last stooped; every (old) tree was broken, and the young tree was
bent; and he left not foal with mare, nor calf with cow, nor lamb with
sheep, nor hare in a bush, nor rabbit in hole, that didn’t go off in
terror. And he came up to the girl and put the tip of his finger under
the edge of her girdle, and threw her over the tip of his shoulder.
“My mischief and misfortune! Hadn’t your father a man, cow-boy nor
sheep-boy, to-day to fight me? Or where is the son of the King of
Prussia, who has been feeding for a year to fight me? Don’t think it’s
on feather beds I’ll put you, nor up the stairs, when I bring you home;
but you are big for one bite and small for two, and if I had a grain of
salt I would eat you at one bite; and small is the morsel you are between
myself and my two brothers.”
He went with her, drawing to the ship to get on board; and the son of
the King of Scotland spoke to him, and said he should not get her like
that without fighting. And the giant said that it wasn’t worth his while
to let her out of his hands, but for him to come and prevent him taking
her with him. But the other man said that was not right, that he should
put the woman down on the land, and fight honourably. And then the giant
asked him which he liked best, wrestling on the red flagstones, or green
knives at the top of his ribs. He said that he liked best wrestling on
the red flagstones, in the place where his noble white feet should be
rising above the giant’s clumsy club feet. The two champions caught hold
of each other in the grip of the close, keen wrestling. If you were to go
seeking for sport from the west of the world to the world’s beginning,
it is to that pair you would go. They made soft of the hard, and hard of
the soft, till they drew the springs of fresh water under the red stones;
till the son of the King of Scotland remembered that he came there
without the King of Erin knowing, nor his daughters, that he was come;
and also that his father was not pleased with his coming; and he gave the
giant a squeeze, and put him down to his two knees in the ground, and the
second squeeze to the waist of his trousers, and the third squeeze to the
back of his neck.
“A green sod over you, churl!”
“Stay, stay! best of champions that ever I saw. I am but a third of the
world, and my brother is the half of the world, and the other is as
strong as the world; and if you spare me, I and my brothers will be your
helpers, and we will conquer the world.”
“That’s not what I will do,” said the son of the King of Scotland; “but I
will cut the head off you.”
And he caught hold of his sword and cut the head off the giant. And the
young girl all the time was watching the young champion; and she ran to
him and kissed him, and asked him if he would come home with her, and he
said he would not come. She took a pair of scissors and cut away a piece
of the champion’s suit that was on him.