Gypsy folk-tales

There was a king in Erin once who had a leash of sons. John was the name of the youngest one, and it was said that he was not wise enough. And this good, worldly king lost the sight of his eyes and the strength of his feet. The two eldest brothers said that they would go seek three bottles of the water of the green isle that was about the heaps of the deep. And so it was that these two brothers went away. Now the fool said that he would not believe but that he himself would go also. And the first big town he reached in his father’s kingdom, there he sees his two brothers there, the blackguards.

‘Oh! my boys,’ says the young one, ‘is it thus you are?’

‘With swiftness of foot,’ said they, ‘take thyself home, or we will have thy life.’

‘Don’t be afraid, lads. It is nothing to me to stay with you.’

Now John went away on his journey till he came to a great desert of a wood. ‘Hoo, hoo!’ says John to himself, ‘it is not canny for me to walk this wood alone.’ The night was coming now, and growing pretty dark. John ties the cripple white horse to the root of a tree, and he went up in the top himself. He was but a very short time in the top, when he saw a bear coming with a fiery cinder in his mouth.

‘Come down, son of the King of Erin,’ says he.

‘Indeed, I won’t come. I am thinking I am safer where I am.’

‘But if thou wilt not come down, I will go up,’ said the bear. [273]

‘Art thou, too, taking me for a fool?’ says John. ‘A shaggy, shambling creature like thee, climbing a tree.’

‘But if thou wilt not come down, I will go up,’ says the bear, as he fell out of hand to climbing the tree.

‘Lord! thou canst do that same!’ said John; ‘keep back from the root of the tree, then, and I will go down to talk to thee.’

And when the son of Erin’s king drew down, they came to chatting. The bear asked him if he was hungry.

‘Weel, by your leave,’ said John, ‘I am a little at this very same time.’

The bear took that wonderful watchful turn, and he catches a roebuck. ‘Now, son of Erin’s king,’ says the bear, ‘whether wouldst thou like thy share of the buck boiled or raw?’

‘The sort of meat I used to get would be kind of plotted boiled,’ says John. And thus it fell out; John got his share roasted.

‘Now,’ said the bear, ‘lie down between my paws, and thou hast no cause to fear cold or hunger till morning.’

Early in the morning the bear asked, ‘Art thou asleep, son of Erin’s king?’

‘I am not very heavily,’ said he.

‘It is time for thee to be on thy soles, then. Thy journey is long—two hundred miles. But art thou a good horseman, John?’

‘There are worse than me at times,’ said he.

‘Thou hadst best get on top of me, then.’

He did this, and at the first leap John was to earth. ‘Foil! foil!’ says John. ‘What! thou art not bad at the trade thyself. Thou hadst best come back till we try thee again.’

And with nails and teeth he fastened on the bear, till they reached the end of the two hundred miles and a giant’s house.

‘Now, John,’ said the bear, ‘thou shalt go to pass the night in this giant’s house. Thou wilt find him pretty grumpy, but say thou that it was the Brown Bear of the Green Glen that set thee here for a night’s share, and don’t thou be afraid that thou wilt not get share and comfort.’

And he left the bear to go to the giant’s house. [274]

‘Son of Erin’s king,’ says the giant, ‘thy coming was in the prophecy; but if I did not get thy father, I have got his son. I don’t know whether I will put thee in the earth with my feet or in the sky with my breath.’

‘Thou wilt do neither of either,’ said John, ‘for it is the Brown Bear of the Green Glen that set me here.’

‘Come in, son of Erin’s king,’ said he, ‘and thou shalt be well taken to this night.’

And as he said, it was true. John got meat and drink without stint. But to make a long tale short, the bear took John day after day to the third giant. ‘Now,’ says the bear, ‘I have not much acquaintance with this giant, but thou wilt not be long in his house when thou must wrestle with him. And if he is too hard on thy back, say then, “If I had the Brown Bear of the Green Glen here, that was thy master.” ’

As soon as John went in, ‘Ai! ai!! or ee! ee!!’ says the giant. ‘If I did not get thy father, I have got his son.’

And to grips they go. They would make the boggy bog of the rocky rock. In the hardest place they would sink to the knee, in the softest up to the thighs; and they would bring wells of spring water from the face of every rock.1 The giant gave John a sore wrench or two.

‘Foil! foil!!’ says he. ‘If I had here the Brown Bear of the Green Glen, thy leap would not be so hearty.’

And no sooner spoke he the word than the worthy bear was at his side.

‘Yes! yes!’ says the giant, ‘son of Erin’s king, now I know thy matter better than thou dost thyself.’

So it was that the giant ordered his shepherd to bring home the best wether he had in the hill, and to throw his carcass before the great door. ‘Now, John,’ says the giant, ‘an eagle will come and she will settle on the carcass of this wether, and there is a wart on the ear of this eagle which thou must cut off with this sword, but a drop of blood thou must not draw.’ [275]

The eagle came, but she was not long eating when John drew close to her, and with one stroke he cut the wart of her without drawing one drop of blood. (Och! is not that a fearful lie?) ‘Now,’ said the eagle, ‘come on the root of my two wings, for I know thy matter better than thou dost thyself.’

He did this, and they were now on sea and now on land, and now on the wing, till they reached the Green Isle.

‘Now, John,’ says she, ‘be quick and fill thy three bottles. Remember that the black dogs are away just now.’ (‘What dogs?’—Black dogs. Dost thou not know that they always had black dogs chasing the Gregorach?)

When he filled the bottles with the water out of the well, he sees a little house beside him. John said to himself that he would go in, and that he would see what was in it. And the first chamber he opened, he saw a full bottle. (‘And what was in it?’ What should be in it but whisky.) He filled a glass out of it, and he drank it; and when he was going, he gave a glance, and the bottle was as full as it was before. ‘I will have this bottle along with the bottles of water,’ says he. Then he went into another chamber, and he saw a loaf. He took a slice out of it, but the loaf was as whole as it was before. ‘Ye gods! I won’t leave thee,’ says John. He went on thus till he came to another chamber. He saw a great cheese; he took a slice of the cheese, but it was as whole as ever. ‘I will have this along with the rest,’ says he. Then he went to another chamber, and he saw laid there the very prettiest little jewel of a woman he ever saw. ‘It were a great pity not to kiss thy lips, my love,’ says John.

Soon after John jumped on top of the eagle, and she took him on the self-same steps till they reached the house of the big giant. And they went paying rent to the giant, and there was the sight of tenants and giants and meat and drink.

‘Well, John,’ says the giant, ‘didst thou see such drink as this in thy father’s house in Erin?’

‘Pooh!’ says John, ‘hoo! my hero, thou other man, I have a drink this is unlike it.’ He gave the giant a glass out of the bottle, but the bottle was as full as it was before. [276]

‘Well!’ said the giant, ‘I will give thee myself two hundred notes,2 a bridle, and a saddle for the bottle.’

‘It is a bargain, then,’ says John; ‘but that the first sweetheart I ever had must get it if she comes the way.’

‘She will get that,’ says the giant.

But to make the long story short, he left each loaf and cheese with the two other giants, with the same covenant that the first sweetheart he ever had should get them if she came the way. Now John reached his father’s big town in Erin, and he sees his two brothers as he left them, the blackguards. ‘You had best come with me, lads,’ says he, ‘and you will get a dress of cloth and a saddle and bridle each.’ And so they did; but when they were near to their father’s house, the brothers thought that they had better kill him, and so it was that they set on him. And when they thought he was dead, they threw him behind a dyke; and they took from him the three bottles of water, and they went home.

John was not too long here, when his father’s smith came the way with a cart-load of rusty iron. John called out, ‘Whoever the Christian is that is there, oh! that he should help him.’ The smith caught him, and he threw John amongst the iron. And because the iron was so rusty, it went into each wound and sore that John had; and so it was that John became rough-skinned and bald.

Here we will leave John, and we will go back to the pretty little jewel that John left in the Green Isle. She became pale and heavy, and at the end of three quarters she had a fine lad son. ‘Oh! in all the great world,’ says she, ‘how did I find this?’

‘Foil! foil!’ says the hen-wife, ‘don’t let that set thee thinking. Here’s for thee a bird, and as soon as he sees the father of thy son, he will hop on the top of his head.’

The Green Isle was gathered from end to end, and the people were put in at the back door and out at the front door; but the bird did not stir, and the babe’s father was not found. Now here she said she would go through the world altogether till she should find the father of the babe. Then she came to the house of the big giant and sees the bottle. ‘Ai! ai!’ said she, ‘who gave thee this bottle?’ [277]

Said the giant, ‘It was young John, son of Erin’s king, that left it.’

‘Well, then, the bottle is mine,’ said she.

But to make a long story short, she came to the house of each giant, and she took with her each bottle and each loaf and each cheese, till at last she came to the house of the king of Erin. Then the five-fifths of Erin were gathered, and the bridge of nobles of the people; they were put in at the back door and out at the front door, but the bird did not stir. Then she asked if there was one other or any one else at all in Erin that had not been here.

‘I have a bald rough-skinned gillie in the smithy,’ said the smith, ‘but——’

‘Rough on or off, send him here,’ says she.

No sooner did the bird see the head of the bald rough-skinned gillie than he took a flight and settles on the bald top of the rough-skinned lad. She caught him and kissed him: ‘Thou art the father of my babe.’

‘But, John,’ says the great king of Erin, ‘it is thou that gottest the bottles of water for me.’

‘Indeed ‘twas I,’ says John.

‘Weel, then, what art thou willing to do to thy two brothers?’

‘The very thing they wished to do to me, do for them.’

And that same was done. John married the daughter of the king of the Green Isle, and they made a great rich wedding that lasted seven days and seven years. And thou couldst but hear Leeg, leeg, and Beeg, beeg, solid sound and peg-drawing. Gold a-crushing from the soles of their feet to the tips of their fingers, the length of seven years and seven days.

A variant clearly of John Roberts’ Welsh-Gypsy story of ‘An Old King and his Three Sons in England’ (No. 55, pp. 220–234), but I expect that Matthew Wood’s variant, ‘The Bottle of Black Water,’ would come closer still. Some day Mr. Sampson must give us that with its fellows. Which is the better story—that of John Roberts, the Welsh harper, or this of John MacDonald, the travelling tinker—is hard to determine; in some respects each is immeasurably superior. John Roberts’ is the more coherent and intelligible; but it lacks that splendid wrestling match, with which compare the much poorer one in the Bohemian-Gypsy story of ‘The Three Dragons’ (No. 44, p. 152). And then while it preserves the handkerchief ordeal, it has not the inexhaustible [278]whisky-bottle, loaf, and cheese. The occurrence of a bear in each version, though with marked differences, can hardly be accidental. For a long while after I got John Roberts’ story, I believed that its close was largely of his own invention; but that belief now seems to be inadmissible. The Polish-Gypsy story of ‘The Golden Bird and the Good Hare’ (No. 49, pp. 182–8), and its Scottish-Tinker version, ‘The Fox’ (No. 75), should be carefully studied.

There was an old soldier once, and he left the army. He went to the top of a hill that was at the upper end of the town-land, and he said, ‘Well, may it be that the Mischief may come and take me with him on his back the next time that I come again in sight of this town.’

Then he was walking till he came to the house of a gentleman that was there. John asked the gentleman if he would get leave to stay in his house that night.

‘Well, then,’ said the gentleman, ‘since thou art an old soldier, and hast the look of a man of courage, without dread or fear in thy face, there is a castle at the side of yonder wood, and thou mayest stay in it till day. Thou shalt have a pipe and baccy, a cogie full of whisky, and a Bible to read.’3

When John got his supper, he took himself to the castle. He set on a great fire, and when a while of the night had come, there came two tawny women in, and a dead man’s kist between them. They threw it at the fireside, and they sprang out. John arose, and with the heel of his foot he drove out its end, and he dragged out an old hoary bodach. And he set him sitting in the great chair; he gave him a pipe and baccy, and a cogie of whisky; but the bodach let them fall on the floor.

‘Poor man,’ said John, ‘the cold is on thee.’

John laid himself stretched in the bed, and he left the bodach to toast himself at the fireside; but about the crowing of the cock he went away.

The gentleman came well early in the morning. ‘What rest didst thou find, John?’

‘Good rest,’ said John. ‘Thy father was not the man that would frighten me.’ [279]

‘Right, good John, thou shalt have two hundred pund, and lie to-night in the castle.’

‘I am the man that will do that,’ said John.

And that night it was the very like. There came three tawny women, and a dead man’s kist with them amongst them. They threw it up to the side of the fireplace, and they took their soles out of that. John arose, and with the heel of his boot he broke the head of the kist, and he dragged out of it the old hoary man. And, as he did the night before, he set him sitting in the big chair, and gave him pipe and baccy; and he let them fall.

‘Oh! poor man,’ said John, ‘cold is on thee.’

Then he gave him a cogie of drink, and he let that fall also.

‘Oh! poor man, thou art cold.’

The bodach went as he did the night before. ‘But,’ said John to himself, ‘if I stay here this night, and that thou shouldst come, thou shalt pay my pipe and baccy, and my cogie of drink.’

The gentleman came early enough in the morning, and he asked, ‘What rest didst thou find last night, John?’

‘Good rest,’ said John. ‘It was not the hoary bodach, thy father, that would put fear on me.’

‘Och!’ said the gentleman, ‘if thou stayest to-night thou shalt have three hundred pund.’

‘It’s a bargain,’ said John.

When it was a while of the night there came four tawny women, and a dead man’s kist with them amongst them. And they set that down at the side of John. John arose, and he drew his foot, and he drove the head out of the kist. And he dragged out the old hoary man, and he set him in the big chair. He reached him the pipe and the baccy, the cup and the drink; but the old man let them fall, and they were broken.

‘Och!’ said John, ‘before thou goest this night, thou shalt pay me all thou hast broken.’

But word came there not from the head of the bodach. Then John took the belt of his abersgaic,4 and he tied the bodach to his side, and he took him with him to bed. When the heath-cock crowed, the bodach asked him to let him go. [280]

‘Pay what thou hast broken first,’ said John.

‘I will tell thee, then,’ said the old man, ‘there is a cellar of drink under, below me, in which there is plenty of drink, tobacco, and pipes. There is another little chamber beside the cellar, in which there is a caldron full of gold. And under the threshold of the big door there is a crocky full of silver. Thou sawest the women that came with me to-night?’

‘I saw,’ said John.

‘Well, there thou hast four women from whom I took the cows, and they in extremity. They are going with me every night thus, punishing me. But go thou and tell my son how I am being wearied out. Let him go and pay the cows, and let him not be heavy on the poor. Thou thyself and he may divide the gold and silver between you; and marry thyself my old girl. But mind, give plenty of gold of what is left to the poor, on whom I was too hard. And I will find rest in the world of worlds.’

The gentleman came, and John told him as I have told thee. But John would not marry the old girl of the hoary bodach. At the end of a day or two John would not stay longer. He filled his pockets full of the gold, and he asked the gentleman to give plenty of gold to the poor. He reached the house,5 but he was wearying at home, and he had rather be back with the regiment. He took himself off on a day of days, and he reached the hill above the town, from which he went away. But who should come to him but the Mischief.

‘Hoth! hoth! John, thou hast come back?’

‘Hoth on thyself!’ quoth John, ‘I came. Who art thou?’

‘I am the Mischief, the man to whom thou gavest thyself when thou was here last.’

‘Ai! ai!’ said John, ‘it’s long since I heard tell of thee, but I never saw thee before. There is glamour on my eyes; I will not believe that it is thou at all. But make a snake of thyself, and I will believe thee.’

The Mischief did this.

‘Make now a lion of roaring.’

The Mischief did this.

‘Spit fire now seven miles behind thee and seven miles before thee.’ [281]

The Mischief did this.

‘Well,’ said John, ‘since I am to be a servant with thee, come into my abersgaic, and I will carry thee. But thou must not come out till I ask thee, or else the bargain’s broke.’

The Mischief promised, and he did this.

‘Now,’ said John, ‘I am going to see a brother of mine that is in the regiment. But keep thou quiet.’

So now John went into the town; and one yonder and one here would cry, ‘There is John the desairtair.’ There was gripping of John, and a court held on him; and so it was that he was to be hanged about mid-day on the morrow. And John asked no favour but to be floored with a bullet.

The Coirneal said, ‘Since he was an old soldier, and in the army so long, that he should have his asking.’

On the morrow, when John was to be shot, and the soldiers foursome round all about him, ‘What is that they are saying?’ said the Mischief. ‘Let me amongst them, and I won’t be long scattering them.’

‘Cuist! cuist!’ said John.

‘What’s that speaking to thee?’ said the Coirneal.

‘Oh! it’s but a white mouse,’ said John.

‘Black or white,’ said the Coirneal, ‘don’t thou let her out of the abersgaic, and thou shalt have a letter of loosing, and let’s see no more of thee.’

John went away, and in the mouth of night he went into a barn where there were twelve men threshing. ‘Oh! lads,’ said John, ‘here’s for you my old abersgaic; and take a while threshing it, it is so hard that it is taking the skin off my back.’

They took as much as two hours of the watch at the abersgaic with the twelve flails; and at last, every blow they gave it, it would leap to the top of the barn, and it was casting one of the threshers now and again on his back. When they saw that, they asked him to be out of that, himself and his abersgaic; they would not believe but that the Mischief was in it.

Then he went on his journey, and he went into a smithy where there were twelve smiths striking their great hammers. ‘Here’s for you, lads, an old abersgaic, and I will give you half-a-crown, and take a while at it with the twelve great [282]hammers; it is so hard that it is taking the skin off my back.’

But that was fun for the smiths; it was good sport for them, the abersgaic of the soldier. But every sgaile it got, it was bounding to the top of the smithy. ‘Go out of this, thyself and it,’ said they; ‘we will not believe that the Bramman6 is in it.’

So then John went on, and the Mischief on his back; and he reached a great furnace that was there.

‘Where art thou going now, John?’ said the Mischief.

‘Patience a little, and thou’lt see that,’ said John.

‘Let me out,’ said the Mischief, ‘and I will never put trouble on thee in this world.’

‘Nor in the next?’ said John.

‘That’s it,’ said the Mischief.

‘Stop, then,’ said John, ‘till thou get a smoke.’

And so saying, John cast the abersgaic and the Mischief into the middle of the furnace: and himself and the furnace went as a green flame of fire to the skies.

The first half is a variant, and a good one, of the Welsh-Gypsy story of ‘Ashypelt’ (No. 57, p. 235); the second half is a variant, a better one, of the latter part of the Welsh-Gypsy ‘Old Smith’ (No. 59, p. 247), and of the confused and imperfect Slovak-Gypsy ‘Old Soldier’ (No. 60, p. 250). The prominence given to tobacco-smoking in both ‘Ashypelt’ and in the Scottish-Tinker story suggests that the forebears of Cornelius Price and those of John MacDonald must have parted company at some time later than the beginning of the seventeenth century, unless, indeed, this resemblance is accidental. About the beginning of the nineteenth century English Gypsies must have visited Scotland much more than they did in 1870–80, when a few of the Smiths or Reynolds, Maces, and Lees, all closely connected, were the only English Gypsies who ‘travelled’ north of the Tweed. Since 1880, again, there has been a great influx of English Gypsydom,—one reason that fortune-telling seems to be not illegal in Scotland. In his notes upon Campbell’s story in Orient und Occident (ii. 1864, pp. 679–680), Reinhold Köhler makes an odd slip, very unusual with him. He renders ‘the Mischief’ by ‘das Unglück,’ and is puzzled why poor Unglück should be so scurvily handled.

[283]

Brian, the son of the king of Greece, fell in love with the hen-wife’s daughter, and he would marry no other but she. His father said to him on a day of days, before that should happen that he must get first for him the most marvellous bird that there was in the world. Then here went Brian, and he put the world under his head, till he came much further than I can tell, or you can think, till he reached the house of the Carlin of Buskins.7 He got well taken to by the carlin that night; and in the morning she said to him, ‘It is time for thee to arise. The journey is far.’

When he rose to the door, what was it but sowing and winnowing snow. He looked hither and thither, and what should he see but a fox drawing on his shoes and stockings. ‘Sha! beast,’ said Brian, ‘thou hadst best leave my lot of shoes and stockings for myself.’

‘Och!’ said the fox, ‘it’s long since a shoe or a stocking was on me; and I’m thinking that I shall put them to use this day itself.’

‘Thou ugly beast, art thou thinking to steal my foot-webs, and I myself looking at thee?’

‘Well,’ said the fox, ‘if thou wilt take me to be thy servant, thou shalt get thy set of shoes and stockings.’

‘O poor beast!’ said he, ‘thou wouldst find death with me from hunger.’

‘Ho! hoth!’ said the fox, ‘there is little good in the servant that will not do for his own self and for his master at times.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said he, ‘I don’t mind; at all events thou mayst follow me.’

They had not gone far on their journey when the fox asked him if he was good at riding. He said he was, if it could be known what on.

‘Come on top of me a turn of a while,’ said the fox.

‘On top of thee! Poor beast, I would break thy back.’

‘Ho! huth! son of the king of Greece,’ said the fox, ‘thou didst not know me so well as I know thee. Take no care but that I am able to carry thee.’ [284]

But never mind. When Brian went on top of the fox, they would drive spray from each puddle, spark from each pebble. And they took no halt nor rest till they reached the house of the Giant of Five Heads, Five Humps, and Five Throttles.

‘Here’s for thee,’ said the fox, ‘the house of the giant who has the marvellous bird. And what wilt thou say to him when thou goest in?’

‘What should I say but that I came to steal the marvellous bird?’

‘Hu! hu!’ said the fox, ‘thou wilt not return. But,’ said the fox, ‘take thou service with this giant to be a stable-lad. And there is no sort of bird under the seven russet rungs of the world that he has not got. And when he brings out the marvellous bird, say thou, “Fuith! fuith! the nasty bird, throw it out of my sight. I could find braver birds than that on the middens at home.” ’

Brian did thus.

‘S’tia!’ said the big one, ‘then I must go to thy country to gather a part of them.’

But Brian was pleasing the giant well. But on a night of the nights Brian steals the marvellous bird, and drags himself out with it. When he was a good bit from the giant’s house, ‘S’tia!’ said Brian to himself, ‘I don’t know if it is the right bird I have after every turn.’ Brian lifts the covering off the bird’s head, and he lets out one screech, and the screech roused the giant.

‘Oh! oh! son of the king of Greece,’ said the giant, ‘that I have coming to steal the marvellous bird. The prophet was saying that he would come to his gird.’

Then here the giant put on the shoes that could make nine miles at every step, and he wasn’t long catching poor Brian. They returned home to the giant’s house, and the giant laid the binding of the three smalls on him, and he threw Brian into the peat-corner, and he was there till the morning on the morrow’s day.

‘Now,’ said the giant, ‘son of the king of Greece, thou hast thy two rathers—Whether wouldst thou rather thy head to be on yonder stake, or go to steal the White Glaive of Light that is in the realm of Big Women?’

‘A man is kind to his life,’ said Brian. ‘I will go to steal the White Glaive of Light.’ [285]

But never mind. Brian had not gone far from the giant’s house when the fox met with him. ‘O man without mind or sense, thou didst not take my counsel, and what will now arise against thee? Thou art going to the realm of Big Women to steal the White Glaive of Light. That is twenty times as hard for thee as the marvellous bird of that carl of a giant.’

‘But what help for it now but that I must betake myself to it?’ said poor Brian.

‘Well, then,’ said the fox, ‘come thou on top of me, and I am in hopes thou wilt be wiser the next time.’

They went then further than I can remember, till they reached the knoll of the country at the back of the wind and the face of the sun, that was in the realm of Big Women.

‘Now,’ said the fox, ‘thou shalt sit here, and thou shalt begin at blubbering and crying; and when the Big Women come out where thou art, they will lift thee in their oxters; and when they reach the house with thee, they will try to coax thee. But never thou cease of crying until thou get the White Glaive of Light; and they will leave it with thee in the cradle the length of the night, to keep thee quiet.’

Worthy Brian was not long blubbering and crying when the Big Women came, and they took Brian with them as the fox had said. And when Brian found the house quiet, he went away with the White Glaive of Light. And when he thought he was a good way from the house, he thought he would see if he had the right sword. He took it out of the sheath, and the sword gave out a ring. This awoke the Big Women, and they were on their soles. ‘Whom have we here,’ said they, ‘but the son of the king of Greece coming to steal the White Glaive of Light.’

They took after Brian, and they were not long bringing him back. They tied him roundly (like a ball), and they threw him into the peat-corner till the white morrow’s day was. When the morning came, they asked him to be under the sparks of the bellows,8 or to go to steal the Sun Goddess, daughter of the king of the gathering of Fionn. [286]

‘A man is kind to his life,’ said Brian. ‘I will go steal the Sun Goddess.’

Never mind. Brian went, but he was not long on the path when the fox met him. ‘O poor fool,’ said the fox, ‘thou art as silly as thou wert ever. What good for me to be giving thee counsel? Thou art now going to steal the [287]Sun Goddess. Many a better thief than thou went on the same journey, but ever a man came never back. There are nine guards guarding her, and there is no dress under the seven russet rungs of the world that is like the dress that is on her but one other dress, and here is that dress for thee. And mind,’ said the fox, ‘that thou dost as I ask thee, or, if thou dost not, thou wilt not come to the next tale.’

Never mind. They went, and when they were near the guard, the fox put the dress on Brian, and he said to him to go forward straight through them, and when he reached the Sun Goddess to do as he bid him. ‘And, Brian, if thou gettest her out, I will not be far from you.’

But never mind. Brian took courage, and he went on, and each guard made way for him, till he went in where the Sun Goddess, daughter of the king of the gathering of Fionn, was. She put all-hail and good-luck on him, and she it was who was pleased to see him, for her father was not letting man come near her. And there they were.

‘But how shall we get away at all, at all?’ said she in the morning.

Brian lifted the window, and he put out the Sun Goddess through it.

The fox met them. ‘Thou wilt do yet,’ said he. ‘Leap you on top of me.’

And when they were far, far away, and near the country of Big Women, ‘Now, Brian,’ said the fox, ‘is it not a great pity for thyself to give away this Sun Goddess for the White Glaive of Light?’

‘Is it not that which is wounding me at this very time?’ said Brian.

‘It is that I will make a Sun Goddess of myself, and thou shalt give me to the Big Women,’ said the fox.

‘I had rather part with the Sun Goddess herself than thee.’

‘But never thou mind, Brian, they won’t keep me long.’

Here Brian went in with the fox as a Sun Goddess, and he got the White Glaive of Light. Brian left the fox with the Big Women, and he went forward. In a day or two the fox overtook them, and they got on him. And when they were nearing the house of the big giant, ‘Is it not a great pity for thyself, O Brian, to part with the White Glaive of Light for that filth of a marvellous bird?’ [288]

‘There is no help for it,’ said Brian.

‘I will make myself a White Glaive of Light,’ said the fox; ‘it may be that thou wilt yet find a use for the White Glaive of Light.’

Brian was not so much against the fox this time, since he saw that he had got off from the Big Women.

‘Thou art come with it,’ said the big man. ‘It was in the prophecies that I should cut this great oak-tree at one blow, which my father cut two hundred years ago with the same sword.’

Brian got the marvellous bird, and he went away. He had gone but a short distance from the giant’s house when the fox made up to him with his pad to his mouth.

‘What’s this that befell thee?’ said Brian.

‘Oh! the son of the great one,’ said the fox, ‘when he seized me, with the first blow he cut the tree all but a small bit of bark. And look thyself, there is no tooth in the door of my mouth which that filth of a Bodach has not broken.’

Brian was exceedingly sorrowful that the fox had lost the teeth, but there was no help for it. They were going forward, walking at times, and at times riding, till they came to a spring that there was by the side of the road. ‘Now, Brian,’ said the fox, ‘unless thou dost strike off my head with one blow of the White Glaive of Light into this spring, I will strike off thine.’

‘S’tia,’ said Brian, ‘a man is kind to his own life.’

And he swept the head off him with one blow, and it fell into the well. And in the wink of an eye what should rise up out of the well but the son of the king that was father to the Sun Goddess.

They went on till they reached his father’s house. And his father made a great wedding with joy and gladness, and there was no word about marrying the hen wife’s daughter when I parted from them.

‘On the 25th of April 1859, [at Inverary], John [MacDonald] the tinker gave the beginning of this as part of his contribution to the evening’s entertainment. He not only told the story, but acted it, dandling a fancied baby when it came to the adventure of the Big Women, and rolling his eyes wildly. The story which he told varied from that which he dictated in several particulars. It began:—

‘ “There was a king and a knight, as there was and will be, and [289]as grows the fir-tree, some of it crooked and some of it straight. And it was the King of Eirinn, it was. And the queen died with her first son, and the king married another woman. Oh! bad straddling queen, thou art not like the sonsy, cheery queen that we had ere now.”

‘And here came a long bit which the tinker put into another story, and which he seems to have condensed into the first sentence of the version which I have got and translated. He has also transferred the scene from Ireland to Greece, perhaps because the latter country sounds better, and is further off, or perhaps because he had got the original form of the story from his old father in the meantime.

‘Some of the things mentioned in the tinker’s version have to do with Druidical worship—the magic well, the oak-tree, the bird. For the Celtic tribes, as it is said, were all guided in their wanderings by the flight of birds. The Sun Goddess, for the Druids are supposed to have worshipped the sun, and the sun is feminine in Gaelic. These are all mixed up with Fionn and the Sword of Light and the Big Women, personages and things which do not appear out of the Highlands.’

The whole of this last paragraph seems to me more than questionable, for ‘The Fox’ is beyond all question identical with the Polish-Gypsy story of ‘The Golden Bird and the Good Hare’ (No. 49, pp. 182–8), in the excellent Servian version of which it is a fox, not a hare. Druidism is hardly to be looked for in either Poland or Servia. In some respects the Polish-Gypsy story is better than the Tinker one, but in others the Tinker version is greatly superior. Each, indeed, supplies the other’s deficiencies. The original beginning, given by Campbell, seems to point to a form of the story where, as in the Indian versions of ‘The Bad Mother,’ cited on p. 35, note, the hero is sent on his quest by a stepmother. In his notes on the Gaelic story in Orient und Occident (ii. 1864, pp. 685–6), Reinhold Köhler cites an interesting Wallachian version.