Donegal Fairy Tales - McManus Seumas. Страница 9

And the old woman she started up to the room, and she told the old man what had happened to the scowder; and the old fellow got into a mighty rage entirely, and was for getting up and going down to have the life of Manis, for he was starving with the hunger. But she tried to soothe him as well as she could. And then he told her to go down to the kitchen and make something else on the fire for him.

“O, it’s no use,” says she, “a-trying to make anything on the fire, for there’ll be some other ache coming on that fellow’s ankle or some other trouble on his mind, and he’ll be getting up in the middle of it all to tell me about it. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” says she, “I’ll go out and I’ll milk the cow, and give you a good jug of sweet milk to drink, and that will take the hunger off you till morning.”

He told her to get up quick and do it, or she would find him dead of the hunger.

And off she went as quickly as she could, and took a jug off the kitchen dresser, and slipped out, leaving Manis snoring loudly in the kitchen. But when Manis thought that she had had time to have the jug near filled from the cow, he slips out to the byre, and as it was dark he talked like the old man: “And,”says he, “I’ll die with the hunger if you don’t hurry with that.”

So she filled the jug, and she reached it to him in the dark, and he drank it off, and gave her back the empty jug, and went in and lay down.

Then she milked off another jug for herself and drank it, and came slipping in, and put the jug easy on the dresser, so as not to waken Manis, and went up to the room.

When she came up, the old fellow was raging there. Says he: “You might have milked all the cows in the county since, an’ me dead with hunger here waitin’ on it. Give me my jug of milk,” says he.

“And what do ye mean?” says she.

“What does yourself mean, you old blather-skite?” says the old man, says he.

Says she, “Didn’t you come out to the byre and ask me for the jug of milk there, an’ didn’t I give it to you, and didn’t you drink it all?”

“Be this and be that,” says he, “but this is a nice how-do-ye-do. It’s that scoundrel,” says he, “in the kitchen that’s tricked ye again. An’ be this an’ be that,” says he, “I’m goin’ down now to have his life.”

And when she heard how she had been tricked, she was not a bit sorry to let him go and have Manis’s life.

But Manis had been listening with his ear to the keyhole to hear what was going on, and when he heard this, and while the man was preparing to go down and take his life, he hauled in a calf, and put it by the fireside where he had been lying, and threw the cover over it.

And when the man came down with the sledge-hammer, he went to the place where he knew Manis had been lying, and he struck with all his might, and he drove the hammer through the calfs skull, and the calf only just gave one moo! and died. And then the old fellow went back to his bed content, and the miller went out and off home again.

When the old fellow and his woman got up in the morning early to go and bury the miller, they found the trick he had played on them, and they were in a pretty rage. But when the breakfast was made this morning, and Donal and all of them sat down, I can tell you the old fellow was in no hurry saying grace, and Donal he got his hearty fill for once in his life anyhow, and so did he at night.

And when Donal was going back home on Monday morning, he leapt the mill-race, and Manis came out, and gave him a cheer. He took Manis’s both hands, and he shook them right hearty.

And every Monday morning after, for the three years that the old fellow lived, Manis always saw Donal leap the mill-race as easy as a sparrow might hop over a rod.

At the end of the three years, the old fellow died, and Donal went to live on the farm altogether, and there was no friend ever came to see him that was more heartily welcomed than Manis the Miller.

Hookedy-Crookedy

ONCE on a time there was a King and Queen in Ireland, and they had one son named Jack, and when Jack grew up to be man big, he rose up one day and said to his father and mother that he would go off and push his fortune.

All his father and mother could say to Jack, they could not keep him from going. So with his staff in his hand and his father’s and mother’s blessing on his head, off he started, and he traveled away far, farther than I could tell you, and twice as far as you could tell me. At length one day, coming up to a big wood, he met a gray-haired old man. The old man asked him, “Jack, where are you going?”

He says, “I am going to push my fortune.”

“Well,” says the old man, says he, “if ’tis looking for service you are, there is a Giant who lives at the other side of that wood that they call the Giant of the Hundred Hills, and I believe he wants a fine, strong, able, clever young fellow like you.”

“Very well,” says Jack, “I will push on to him.”

Push on Jack did, away through the wood, until he got to the other side, and then he saw a big castle, and going up he knocked at the door, and a big Giant came out.

“Welcome, Jack,” says he, “the King of Ireland’s Son! Where are you going and what do you want?”

“I come,” says Jack, “to push my fortune, and am looking for honest service. I have been told,” he says to the Giant of the Hundred Hills, “that you wanted a clean, clever boy like me.”

“Well,” says the Giant, “I am the Giant of the Hundred Hills, and do want such a fine fellow as you. I have to go away every day,” he says, “to battle with another giant at the other end of the world, and when I am away, I want somebody to look after my house and place. If you will be of good, faithful service to me, and do everything I tell you, I will give you a bag of gold at the end of the time.”

Jack promised he would do all that. The Giant then gave him a hearty supper and a good bed, and well he slept that night. In the morning the Giant had him called up before the first lark was in the sky.

“Jack, my brave boy,” says he, “I have got to be off to the other end of the world to-day to fight the Giant of the Four Winds, and it is time you were up and looking after your business. You have got to put this house in order, and look after everything in it until I come back tonight. To every room in the house and to every place about the house you can go, except the stable. My stable door is closed, and on the peril of your life, don’t open it or go into the stable. Keep that in mind.”

Jack said he certainly would. Then the Giant visited the stable, and started off; and as soon as he was gone, Jack went fixing and arranging the house and setting everything in order. And a wonderful house it was to Jack, so big and so great; and after that he went to the castle yard and into every house and building there, except the stable: and when he had visited all the rest of them, he stood before the stable and looked at it a long time. “And I wonder,” says Jack, says he, “I wonder what can be in there, and what is the reason he wants me on the peril of my life not to go into it? I would like to go and peep in, and there certainly would be no harm.”

Every door in and about the Giant’s place was opened by a little ring turning on a pivot in the middle of the door. Forward to the stable door Jack then steps, turns the little ring, and the door flew open. Inside what does Jack see but a mare and a bear standing by the manger, and neither of them eating. There was hay before the bear and meat before the mare.

“Well,” says Jack, “it is no wonder, poor creatures, you are not eatin’. That was a nice blunder of the Giant,” and he stepped in and changed their food, putting hay before the mare and meat before the bear, and at once both of them fell to it and Jack went out and closed the stable door. As he did so his finger stuck in the ring, and he pulled and struggled to get it away, but he could not.