“I am asking nothing of you except your sword of light and the divided stone of your druidism.”
“Those are the two things that it is worst for me to part from.”
He went in and brought them out to her, and she went with herself to the smith, and she spent that night at the smith’s house, and gave him a good hansel of gold for the sword he gave her. “Now,” said the smith, “though he put you under bonds to bring the sword to him, you did not promise more than to bring it to him. When you come to him and the things with you, and you take them up in your two hands and show them to him, you will say, though you promised to bring them to him, you did not promise to bring them for him and you will let them go, and they will be with me here in the winking of your eye. Unless they come back to me, the King of Rye will put me to death, as he knows I gave you my sword; and there will be peace made between him and me, and the quarrel between us will be at an end.”[17]
And when the first wife saw the second wife with her own eyes, she could esteem herself no longer, and she died of a broken heart.
[14] It must be supposed that the druid gave him further directions for his conduct as appears by the sequel.
[15] Piast is a Gaelic monster, not exactly equivalent to either serpent or dragon.
[17] The narrator’s memory failed him at this point, and he was unable to relate the further developments of this remarkable game of plot and counterplot. Although the hen-wife was successful in the last event mentioned, it must be inferred that she was ultimately defeated. I believe there are other deficiencies in the story. One hears nothing more of the skin of the wild pig after its first mention, p. 203. The same remark applies to the Gruagach of the Apple, p. 206. On the other hand, “the divided stone of druidism” is brought in without explanation. It had not been asked for.
_Narrator, P. MINAHAN, Malinmore, co. Donegal._
There was a poor man there. He had a great family of sons. He had no means to put them forward. He had them at school. One day, when they were coming from school, he thought that whichever of them was last at the door he would keep him out. It was the youngest of the family was last at the door. The father shut the door. He would not let him in. The boy went weeping. He would not let him in till night came. The father said he would never let him in; that he had boys enough.