Part 12 (1/2)
So the Gruagach came up and told the king the whole story, how the Shee an Gannon had become his cowboy, had guarded the five golden cows and the bull without horns, cut off the heads of the five-headed giants, killed the wizard hare, and brought his own twelve sons to life. ”And then,” said the Gruagach, ”he is the only man in the whole world I have ever told why I stopped laughing, and the only one who has ever seen my fleece of wool.”
When the king of Erin heard what the Gruagach said, and saw the tongues of the giants fitted into the heads, he made the Shee an Gannon kneel down by his daughter, and they were married on the spot.
Then the son of the king of Tisean was thrown into prison, and the next day they put down a great fire, and the deceiver was burned to ashes.
The wedding lasted nine days, and the last day was better than the first.
THE THREE DAUGHTERS OF THE KING OF THE EAST, AND THE SON OF A KING IN ERIN.
There was once a king in Erin, and he had an only son. While this son was a little child his mother died.
After a time the king married and had a second son.
The two boys grew up together; and as the elder was far handsomer and better than the younger, the queen became jealous, and was for banis.h.i.+ng him out of her sight.
The king's castle stood near the sh.o.r.e of Loch Erne, and three swans came every day to be in the water and swim in the lake. The elder brother used to go fis.h.i.+ng; and once when he sat at the side of the water, the three swans made young women of themselves, came to where he sat, and talked to the king's son.
The queen had a boy minding cows in the place, and when he went home that night he told about what he had seen,--that there were three young women at the lake, and the king's son was talking to the three that day.
Next morning the queen called the cowboy to her, and said: ”Here is a pin of slumber; and do you stick it in the clothes of the king's son before the young women come, and when they go away, take out the pin and bring it back to me.”
That day when the cowboy saw the three young women coming, he went near and threw the pin, which stuck in the clothes of the king's son. That instant he fell asleep on the ground.
When the young women came, one of them took a towel, dipped it in the cold water of the lake, and rubbed his face; but she could not rouse him. When their time came to go, they were crying and lamenting because the young man was asleep; and one of the three put a gold pin in his bosom, so that when he woke up he would find it and keep her in mind.
After they had gone a couple of hours, the cowboy came up, took out the sleeping-pin, and hurried off. The king's son woke up without delay; and finding the gold pin in his bosom, he knew the young woman had come to see him.
Next day he fished and waited again. When the cowboy saw the young women coming out of the lake, he stole up a second time, and threw the pin, which stuck in his clothes, and that moment he was drowsy and fell asleep. When the young women came he was lying on the ground asleep. One of them rubbed him with a towel dipped in the water of the lake; but no matter what she did, he slept on, and when they had to go, she put a gold ring in his bosom. When the sisters were leaving the lake, and had put on their swan-skins and become swans, they all flew around him and flapped their wings in his face to know could they rouse him; but there was no use in trying.
After they had gone, the cowboy came and took out the sleeping-pin. When the king's son was awake he put his hand in his bosom, found the keepsake, and knew that the sisters had come to him.
When he went fis.h.i.+ng the third day, he called up the cowboy and said: ”I fall asleep every day. I know something is done to me. Now do you tell me all. In time I'll reward you well. I know my stepmother sends something by you that takes my senses away.”
”I would tell,” said the cowboy, ”but I'm in dread my mistress might kill or banish me.”
”She will not, for I'll put you in the way she'll not harm you. You see my fis.h.i.+ng-bag here? Now throw the pin, which I know you have, towards me, and hit the bag.”
The cowboy did as he was told, and threw the pin into the fis.h.i.+ng-bag, where it remained without harm to any one. The cowboy went back to his cattle, and the prince fished on as before. The three swans were out in the middle of the lake swimming around for themselves in the water, and the prince moved on, fis.h.i.+ng, till he came to a bend in the sh.o.r.e. On one side of him a tongue of land ran out into the lake. The swans came to the sh.o.r.e, leaving the piece of land between themselves and the prince. Then they took off their swan-skins, were young women, and bathed in the lake.
After that they came out, put on the dress of young women, and went to where the king's son was fis.h.i.+ng.
He spoke to them, and asked where were they from, in what place were they born, and why were they swans.
They said: ”We are three sisters, daughters of the king of the East, and we have two brothers. Our mother died, and our father married again, and had two other daughters; and these two are not so good looking nor so well favored as we, and their mother was in dread they wouldn't get such fine husbands as we, so she enchanted us, and now we are going about the world from lake to lake in the form of swans.”
Then the eldest of the three sisters said to the king's son: ”What kind are you, and where were you born?”
”I was born in Erin,” said he; ”and when I was a little boy my mother died, my father married again and had a second son, and that son wasn't to the eye what I was, and my stepmother was for banis.h.i.+ng me from my father's house because she thought her own son was not so good as I was, and I am fis.h.i.+ng here every day by the lake to keep out of her sight.”
”Well,” said the eldest sister, ”I thought you were a king's son, and so I came to you in my own form to know could we go on in the world together.”