In Chimney Corners - McManus Seumas. Страница 11

In the evening, as she ate her bread and drank her milk for supper, under the trees in the garden, a cat came creeping up to lick the drops of milk that fell from the basin.

“Oh, poor puss!” said she, “you’re thirsty and that’s not much milk for you. Here,” said she, giving the half-finished basin to the creature—“Here is a drop for you, for you’re thirstier than me, and I can easily do without it.”

When the cat had finished the milk, “Miaow! Miaow!” it said, “put out your foot fair lady, till I lick half the blood off it.”

“There it is, good cat,” said she, putting it out, “but when I couldn’t wash it off myself, I fear you won’t be able.”

But in a few moments the cat licked off half the blood. She thanked it very much and it went away, leaving her eating her bread.

Soon the robin redbreast came hopping up to pick the crumbs that fell from her.

“Poor robin,” she said, “you are hungry and more in need of this bread than me, for I can easily do without it,” and she laid down her bread till the robin had pecked to satisfaction of it.

“Toowhit! toowhit!” said the robin then—“I can tell you, kind lady, how to take the other half of the blood off your foot, if you do it.”

“Very well, then, good robin,” she said, “I’ll try. But when I wasn’t able to wash it off myself I fear you won’t be able to help me.”

“Pluck ten leaves of the yarrow to-night at midnight,” said the robin. “Throw the tenth away and boil the other nine. Then wash your foot in the boiled juice and the blood will wash off.”

She thanked the little robin, who flew away, and at midnight she went into the garden and plucked ten leaves of the yarrow, throwing the tenth away, and boiling the other nine. In the juice she washed her foot, and every trace of the blood was gone.

When, at the end of the three days, the prince returned, he demanded the keys.

“I hope,” said he, “you haven’t disobeyed me, and opened the forbidden room. Show me your feet.”

She showed him her feet which would shame snow in whiteness.

“I see you have not disobeyed me,” he said, “and I am glad, for I would not like to kill so beautiful a lady. Your two sisters whom I took away, and many other beautiful ladies before that, when put to the test, disobeyed me, and I killed them and hung them up by the hair in that very room. You have not disobeyed me, and I will make you my wife, for you have nothing more to fear now that I have found you are without that curiosity which is the great blemish on most women. Here,” he said, handing her a white rod, “is a wand. Go to the secret room, open it, and going in, strike the bodies of your sisters with it.”

She did this, and lo! her sisters came to life once more. The prince then allowed her to bring to life in the same way all the other young ladies who had been killed and hung up in the room, and they were sent to their homes again.

The young princess found herself very much in love with the prince, for he was a most handsome man; and she now gladly agreed to become his wife. Her mother was soon made acquainted with what had happened, and her joy was great at finding her beautiful daughters still alive. She came to the marriage, as did all the other nobility; and it was allowed on all hands that a more beautiful or a happier pair had never before been united. The marriage lasted nine days and nine nights; the last day and night was as good as the first, and the first as good as the last; and the handsome prince and his beautiful princess lived happily ever.

The Old Hag of the Forest

ONCE on a time, long long ago, when there were more kings and queens in Ireland than O’Donnell’s old castle has windows, and when witches and enchantments were as plentiful as blackthorn bushes, there was a king and a queen with three sons, and to every one of these sons the queen had given a hound, a hawk and a filly. The filly could overtake anything, the hound could catch anything it pursued on dry land, and the hawk could come up with anything in the air or in the water. In the course of time, when these three lads had grown up to be fine, able, strapping young men, the oldest said one day that he would go away to push his fortune. The king and the queen were vexed at this, and wrought him high up and low down to keep him from going, but it was all no use, he wouldn’t be said by them, and so, asking their blessing, he mounts the filly, and, with the hawk on his shoulder, and the hound at his heels, sets out. And he told them as he was setting out, to watch, from day to day, the water that settled in the filly’s hoof-tracks outside the gate, “for,” says he, “as long as that water keeps clear I’m all right; but when you see it frothing, I’m fighting a hard battle; and if ever you see it turn bloody I’m either dead or under enchantment.” So himself, the hound, the hawk and the filly, they started, and off with them, and they traveled away, and away, far further than I could tell you and twice further than you could tell me, till at last one evening late he comes in sight of a great castle. When he got sight of the castle he pulls up his filly, and, looking about him, he sees a small wee house convaynient and he drew on this house, and, going in, found only one old woman in it and saw that it was a neat, clean little house entirely. “God save ye, young gentleman,” says the woman. “God save yerself, kindly, and thanky; and can I have lodging for the night for myself, my hound, my hawk, and my filly?” says he. “Well for yourself, you can,” says the old woman, says she, “but I don’t like them other animals, but sure you can house them outside,” says she. Very well and good, he agreed to this. When the old woman was getting his supper for him she said she supposed he was for the big fight the morrow. He axed her, “What big fight?” “And och,” says she, “is that all you know about it,” commencing and telling to him how that the king’s daughter of the castle beyond was to be killed by a great giant the next day unless there was a man there able to beat the giant, and to any man that would fight him and beat him the king was to give his daughter in marriage and the weight of herself three times over in goold. “Och,” says he, “I’ll find something better to do. I’ll not go near it.” So the next morning early he was up betimes and pretending he was going away to hunt; but doesn’t he go instead to the king’s castle, and there he saw no end of a crowd gathered together from the four winds of the world, some of them thinking to fight the giant and win the king’s daughter, and more of them only come out of curiosity, just to look on. But when the giant made his appearance, and they saw the sight of him, not a man of all the warriors there, covered all over as they were in coats of iron mail from the crown of their heads to the soles of their feet—the sorra resaive the one of them, but went like that, trembling with fear, for the like of such a tar-riffic giant none of them ever saw or heerd tell of before. So, my brave king’s son waited on till he saw there was none of them present would venture to fight the giant, and then out he steps himself; and the giant and him to it, and the like of their fight was never witnessed in Ireland before or since, and he gave the giant enough to do, and the giant gave him enough to do; till at last, when it was going hard with him, he gave one leap into the air, and coming down with his sword just right on the giant’s neck, he cut off his head, clean off, and then when he had that done he disappeared in the crowd, and after killing some game on the hills came home and gave the old woman the game for supper. That night when the old woman was giving him his supper she told him about the great gentleman that had killed the giant that day, and then disappeared all of a suddint into the air. And then she said that giant’s brother was to be there the morra to fight anyone that would fight for the king’s daughter, and she told him he should go, for it would be well worth seeing. But, “Och,” says he, “I’ll find something better worth doing—I’ll not go near it.” So after his supper, to bed he went, and he was up again early betimes in the morning, and making pretend he was going to hunt, he went off to the castle again. This day the crowd was bigger than ever, and when the giant appeared, if the first giant was tar-riffic, this one was twice over double as tar-riffic, and he could get no man with the heart to venture to fight him, till at length my brave king’s son had to step out this day again and encounter him. Well, if the fight was hard the first day, it was this day double as hard, and the giant gave him his fill of it, and he gave the giant his fill of it, till at long and at last when it was going hard on him he takes one spring right up into the air and landing down with his sword on the giant’s neck he cuts the head right off from the body and then again disappeared in the crowd, and after a while’s hunting on the hills he come home with plenty of game; and this night, just like the night afore, when the old woman was giving him his supper she made great wonders of telling him of the tar-riffic fight that day again between the strange gentleman and the giant, and how he killed the giant and then disappeared right up into the sky before all their eyes. And then she said that on the morra the third and last giant was to fight, and she said this would be a wonderful day entirely, and he should surely go to see it, and to see the wonderful gentleman that killed the other two giants. But “Och,” says he, “I’ll find something better to do—I’ll not go near it, to look at him or it.” And the third morning again he went to the castle, purtending that it was to hunt he was goin’, and the third giant appeared, and him far more tar-riffic than the first two put together. And to make a long story short, my brave king’s son and himself went at it, and the fighting was the most odious ever was witnessed before or since, and the short and the long of it was that he sprung up at length into the air, and coming down on the giant’s neck cut off his head, and then again disappeared in the crowd and went home; but as he was disappearing, doesn’t one of the king’s men snap the shoe off his foot; so home he had to go that night wanting one shoe. Next day, and for eight days after, the king had all his men out scouring the country far and wide to see if they could find the owner of the shoe; but though they flocked to the castle in thousands not one of them would the shoe fit. And every one of these days the king’s son was out with his filly, his hawk and his hound on the hills hunting. At last one day the old woman went to the castle and told how she had a lodger that come home the night the last giant was kilt with one boot wanting. And the next day the king came there himself with a carriage and four horses and took the king’s son away to his castle, and there when they tried on him the boot, doesn’t it fit him like as if it was made on his foot; and the king gave him his daughter, and the marriage was performed, and all the whole gentry and nobility of all the land was invited in to a big faist. But, lo and behould ye, on that very night when all the spree was going on, and the fun was at its heighth in the ballroom, and all were as busy as bees in the kitchen, what would ye have of it but at that very ins’ant doesn’t there come to the kitchen window a hare, and puts in its head and commences licking a plate of some particular nice dainty that was cooling inside the window, and the cook was so enraged at one of her very best dishes being destroyed that she got up in a passion and put off her all sorts and said it was a nice how do ye do that, with a hairo in the house that had killed giants, a dirty hare would be allowed to come in and spoil her cooking. This word soon came to the groom’s ears in the ball-room, and though the king and the queen and the bride and all the nobility and gentry tried to persuade him against it he wouldn’t stop, and there was no holding of him. He said he wouldn’t sleep two nights in the one bed, or eat two meals’ meat in the one house, till he would catch that hare and bring it back dead or alive. So mounting his filly, and taking with him his hawk and his hound, he started off hot-foot in pursuit. He pursued the hare all that night and all the next day, and at evening late he drew on a little wee house he saw in a hollow, and he went in, for he was tired, and determined to rest that night. He wasn’t long in, and he was warming himself at the fire, with his hound, his hawk and his filly, when he hears a noise at the wee window of the house, and there he sees a dirty wizened old hag of a woman, trembling and shaking, down to her very finger tips. “Och, och, och, it’s cold, cold, cold,” says she, and her teeth rattling in her head. “Why don’t you come in and warm yourself?” says he. “Och, I can’t, I can’t,” says she. “I’m afeerd of them wild animals of yours. But here,” says she, pulling three long hairs out of her head, and handing them in by the window to him, “here,” says she, “is three of the borochs we used to have in old times, and if you tie them wild beasts of yours with them then I’ll go in.” So he took the three hairs and tied the hawk, the hound and the filly with them, and then the old hag came in, but she was trembling no longer, and, says she, with her eyes flashing fire, “Do you know who I am?” says she. “They call me the Old Hag of the Forest, and it was my three sons you killed to win the king’s daughter, but you’ll pay dearly for it now,” says she. With that he drew his sword, and the hag drew another, and both of them fell to it, and I couldn’t be able to describe to you the terrible fight they had entirely. But at length the Old Hag of the Forest was getting too many for him, and he had to call on the help of the hound. “Hound, hound,” says he, “where are you at my command?” And at this, “Hair, hair,” says the old hag, says she, “hold tight.” “O,” says the hound, “it’s hard for me to do anything and my throat a-cutting.” Then he called on the hawk. “Hawk, hawk,” says he, “where are you at my command?” And, “Hair, hair,” says the old hag, says she, “hold tight.” “O,” says the hawk, “sure it’s hard for me to do anything and my throat a-cutting. And then he called on the filly. ”Filly, filly,“ says he, ”where are you at my command?“ ”Hair, hair,“ says the old hag, says she, ”hold tight.“ ”O,“ says the filly, ”sure it’s hard for me to do anything and my throat a-cutting.“ So the end of it all was that the hag overcome him, and then taking out of her pocket a little white rod she struck him with it, and turned him into a gray rock, just outside her door, and then striking the hound, the hawk and the filly with the rod she turned them into white rocks just beside him.