The princess would not let him go; but he broke away from her. He
takes his horse and his dog, and starts off. He looks, and looks
all round, and cannot find the door. An old woman appears to him,
and says to him--
"What do you think will become of you here? They who go in there do
not come out."
"But that is why I wish to go in, to know what passes within."
Then the old woman gives him a pigeon, cooked and prepared for eating,
and said to him,
"Inside there is an old woman. She will try and force you to eat;
but, if you are wise, you will not eat. You will show her the pigeon
that you have in your pocket which remains after your repast, and you
must make her eat some of the pigeon, and you will have full power
over her."
When he has found the door, he knocks. This old woman comes, and asks
him what he wants. He says that he only wishes to see this house. She
lets him in. He takes his dog, also, with him. He sees this splendid
table. She wishes absolutely to make him eat; but he says that it
is altogether impossible--that he has in his pocket a pigeon which
he has not been able to eat, and that she must eat some of that. The
old woman says she will not. He compels her, and tells her she must;
and at last she eats it. He then asks her what she has done with his
brothers. She says that she knows nothing about them; that she does
not know what he means. He forces her to tell him, and says to her,
"I will make my dog strangle you if you do not tell me."
He frightens her so, that she shows him some terrible monsters. He
tells her to restore them as they were before, otherwise some
misfortune shall happen to her, and to mind what she is about. At
last she set to work to change them as they were before, and their
horses and dogs as well.
They all go to the king's palace, where everyone is immensely
astonished to see three gentlemen arrive exactly alike in all
respects. They ask the princess which is her husband. But the poor
young lady is greatly embarrassed. She could not distinguish them,
because they were exactly alike. At last he who had killed the serpent
said that he was her husband. They make great rejoicings, and give a
great deal of money to the two brothers, and to their parents, and they
went off. They burnt the old woman in the midst of the market-place,
and this handsome castle was given to the newly-married pair, and they
lived happily at court; and, as they lived well, so they died happily.
Catherine Elizondo.
All the latter part of this tale is much more detailed than in
the Gaelic, and it is singular to read this note from Campbell's
collector:--"The Gaelic is given as nearly as possible in the words
used by Mackenzie; but he thinks his story rather shortened." Of
the identity of the two stories there can be no doubt, although each
supplies what is wanting to the other.