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The Steed O' Bells |
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ONCE upon a time when pigs were swine, when pigeons built their nests in old men's beards, and turkeys chewed tobacco, there was a King and Queen who had three sons, and the Queen died and the King married again, and the stepmother hated the three young Princes, was very bad to them, and strove all she could to get them put away. But the King, though he liked her very much and would humor her in everything else, would never consent to give in to her on this point: and no matter what she did or what she tried it was all no use-she couldn't persuade the King to an agreement with her.
There was an oldhen-wife living near the castle, and the Queen went to consult her regard ing how she should get rid of her three stepsons.
The hen-wife said she would manage it for her if she was well paid.
"What payment do you want?" says the Queen.
"Three things," says the old hen-wife. "As much meal as will make my breakf ast, as much milk as will sup it, and as much wool as will stuff my ears."
The Queen said she would readily agree to that.
And then the hen-wife told her to invite her stepsons to play a game of cards, and when they would ask what they would play for she would say for geasa (obligations). She said, "If they win they will lay something trifling on you; but if you win, which is most likely, you lay geasa upon them to steal for you the Knight of the Glen's Steed of Bells, which three hundred champions have gone to steal before, and every one of them lost their lives."
The Queen was pleased at this, and said she would send the hen-wife her pay, but she asked the hen-wife how much meal would make her breakfast. And she said all the grinding of seven times seven mills for seven years. How much milk would sup it? She said the yield of the cows of seven times seven hills for seven years. And how much wool would stuff her ears? The produce of the sheep of seven times seven plains for seven years. And as the Queen had bargained so, there was no way out of it but to pay her hire.
The Queen went home, and invited her stepsons to play her a game of cards. They agreed, and asked her what they should play for.
"For geasa," said she.
Well and good; down to the card-table they sat, and when they had finished she had won two games off the two oldest, but had lost the game to the youngest. These two demanded to know their geasa, and she said that they were to set out on the morrow and never come home till they brought with them to her the Knight of the Glen's Steed of Bells that three hundred champions had gone before to steal, and none ever come back alive.
The youngest was sad and sorry when he heard such geasa put upon his brothers. And he said, "If my brothers go I will not stay behind; I will go with them." And says he, "The geasa I will leave upon you is that you stand on the top of my father's tower with your face to the wind, and for food and drink a sheaf of corn and a tub of water; and there remain till we come back with the Knight of the Glen's Steed of Bells."
And this she had to do.
They set off, and when they had been traveling three days and three nights they met a man on horseback who asked them where they were going, and what errand they were on. They told him where they were going and what was their errand.
"Oh, well, well!" says he. "I tell you three hundred champions have tried that before, and every one of them lost his life. I am the famous Black Thief of Sloan; I myself tried to steal the Steed of Bells three times, and the most my cleverness got for me was to bring me off with my life again. The Knight of the Glen has an army of men guarding his Steed of Bells by day and by night, and, moreover, every time a thief would lay his hands upon the horse, the horse gives himself one shake and the sound of his bells is heard over half the world."
"Well," they said, "all we can do is make the best of a bad matter, and the worst that can come upon us is to lose our lives; and we are prepared for that."
"You're brave, bold fellows," said the Thief, "and I admire you, and if you are bent on trying, why, I will go with you and give you any help I can, and at the worst lose my life along with you."
They were very, very thankful to the Black Thief of Sloan, so they joined with him, and all four journeyed far and far before them, till they came to the castle of the Knight of the Glen.
The Black Thief of Sloan said the luck was in their favor, for there was a great feast in the castle that night, and every one was drinking and carousing. The Black Thief very easily stole a keg of wine, and rolled it out of the castle yard among the guards who stood upon the stables. They fell to drinking the wine, and before midnight they were all lying asleep.
"Now is our chance," said the Black Thief; "we'll try."
Into the stable they went, and the moment they touched the Steed he shook himself, and the sound of the bells was heard over half the world.
The Knight was roused inside, and called on his men to rush to the stables, for there was a thief in them. The Black Thief hid himself and the three brothers in a loft. The men came in and examined the stables, went back and reported to the Knight that there was no thief.
The second time they laid hands on the horse, and the second time he shook his bells. And the Knight ordered his men to see if there was a thief in it this time. The Thief hid himself and the brothers so that the men returned to the Knight and reported that there was no thief. Then a third time they tried the Steed of Bells, and the third time the Steed sounded the alarm.
The Knight said, "There is surely a thief in the stable. Come, I will go with you and search myself."
And the Knight searched so thoroughly that he discovered all four of them. He made his soldiers march them into the hall. He had a big caldron brought in from the courtyard, put on the fire and filled with oil; for the sentence upon any one who attempted to steal the Knight of the Glen's Steed of Bells was that he should be boiled in this caldron of oil.
The Knight said to the Black Thief that three times before he had attempted to steal his Steed, and three times he had escaped. "But now," he says, "your minute is come. You will be the first man boiled in the caldron. How does it feel," says the Knight, "to know you are so near your death?"
But the Black Thief made light of it.
"Oh," said he, "I have been as near death before and escaped, and maybe I will escape this time too."
"Hardly," says the Knight. "But," says the Knight, "before we put you into the caldron you might prove to us you were as near death before and escaped."
"I will do that," says the Thief, "if you will pardon the youngest of the brothers on condition that my story shows I was as near death before."
"I will do that," says the Knight.
"Well, there was once," says the Thief, "when I went to rob a gentleman's castle. I had my face blackened all over, and when I came to the castle in the middle of the night I found it all lit up and the place in a great furore. It seems that robbers had been there not an hour before and had robbed the castle, and alarmed it, and gone off, and the gentleman's servants and soldiers were scouring the country to find them. If they found me I knew they would have my life on the spot, so I took to my heels in a great fright and didn't stop running for nine miles. Then I drew on a house with a fire lit in it, but nobody to be seen without or within, and I went in and was warming myself in the kitchen when I heard voices and the tramp of people coming up to the door. I said to myself it was the gentlemen's servants still pursuing the robbers, and that I was caught.
"Without any delay I jumped on the half loft overhead, and lay among sheepskins and horses' harness that were there. I wasn't right up when in at the door comes three men, who were no other than the three robbers that had robbed the castle, and they dragging the boxes of gold and silver with them.
"They sat down at the fire, and began to count the money. They were saying to one another how well it was for them that they happened to reach the castle before the Black Thief of Sloan. From what they had heard I was going to rob the castle that night, and that was why they went earlier to get all the wealth before I did. They said I had been too long robbing the country, and my cleverness was such that no other honest robber got a chance, and all the robbers of the country, including themselves, were sworn in conspiracy to have my life and put me out of the way.
"As ill luck would have it, I gave a sneeze above their heads, and all three of them that moment jumped to their feet and drew their knives. For poor me, I had neither knife nor else on or about me, for in my race for safety I had thrown everything away.
"They said, `Some one is over our heads watching all we're doing and listening to all we're saying. We can never let him go out of this house alive.'
"There was one big black fellow of them who said it was better not to kill him yet awhile, but leave him there till they would have the pot boiled, and then they could kill half the life of him and boil out the other half. All of them at once agreed to this. So the black fellow put on the pot and the three of them began to sharpen the knives.
"Myself was lying on a loose plank above, and all at once I was seized with a terrible fit of trembling. I trembled and shook so much that the plank very soon gave way, and down into the middle of them I tumbled, with the harness chains rattling after me. My face was black, and a ram's skin on top of me with the horns resting right on my head.
" `It's the devil l It's the devil l It's the devil l' all three of them shouted at once, and took to their heels yelling and screeching; and flew out, one of them at the front door, another at the back door, another clean through the window, and left me in possession of all the gold and silver.
"And don't you think," says the Black Thief to the Knight of the Glen, "that I was as near death then as I am now and escaped?"
"I agree," says the Knight of the Glen, "that you were, and I give the youngest his life."
"And for all that," says the Black Thief, "there was another time when death was as near me as either that time or this time."
"Will you tell us that and let us judge for ourselves before we put you in the caldron?" says the Knight.
"I will," says the Black Thief, "on condition that you pardon the second brother."
And the Knight of the Glen said he would agree to that, if this escape was as narrow and as wonderful.
"Well," said the Black Thief of Sloan, "there were, one time, three witches in Scotland, who were known to all the robbers of the world as having immense wealth; but no robber had ever been able to rob them-only lost his life in the attempt.
"I determined that I would try. I set out to Scotland and came to their place, and went into the house in the middle of the night when I knew they were asleep. And I found them sleeping with their bags of gold under their heads for pillows. I got three pillow-slips and went and filled them with shingles and took them in, and as I worked the bag of gold from under each witch's head I was working the bag of shingles under her head instead. I got the three bags safe with me and away. But, behold you, I hadn't put three hills behind me when I saw the three witches coming in hot pursuit in the shape of three hounds, and I believed my lifewas as good as done for.
I dropped the three bags of gold and ran for all I was worth. Fast and fast as I ran, they, were gaining ground on me very quickly, and they got that near me that I almost felt their breath.
"I rushed up an ash tree, and when they reached the bottom of it one of them turned into a hatchet and one of them into a saw, and began chopping and sawing the tree at the bottom, and the other turned herself into her own shape, and waited for the tree to fall down, till she would tear me limb from limb. The hatchet and the saw were working faster and faster and nearly meeting through the tree, when at last I found the tree beginning to tremble, and the heart was in my mouth for I felt now it was all over with me.
"But at that very instant the cock crew for break of day, and the witches had to change themselves immediately into their own shape and away with them as fast as ever they could.
"And don't you think, Knight, that that was a narrow escape?"
"It was," said the Knight, "and I pardon the second brother. But I am sure you never had another escape so narrow."
"I had that," says the Black Thief of Sloan, "and I will tell it to you and prove it to you, if you will pardon the third brother."
THE STEED O' BELLS
"Agreed," says the Knight. "I was not so anxious to kill these boys, anyhow; it's yourself I'm most wishful to. kill, for while you were alive I was never content and could not think my Steed safe."
"There was once when I was away on, a robbing expedition," says the Black Thief of Sloan, "and was traveling through wild and rocky mountains many hundred miles from here, I stumbled over a spink one evening and fell and rolled, and rolled and fell, till I reached the bottom in a narrow gorge with steep sides far below. And what should I find there but a great, big, ugly Giant cooking his supper. He said, `I'm glad, I'm glad, for I hadn't as much meat here as would take the edge off my appetite.'
"So he went to reach for me, but I took hold of a spit that was lying with its point reddened in the fire and ran his two eyes out with it. He roared that loud that I thought the hills would crack, and he yelled that he would give me the most beautiful death that ever a man got in the world before. He couldn't see anything now, of course, but he came along towards me with his two hands spread out, and the little gorge was that narrow that there was no chance 'of passing him without his feeling me, though I backed away and away up the gorge before him.
"At the end of the gorge was a cave, and into this cave I went. It was deep and wide and filled with goats, and I said to myself that when he came into the cave to look for me I could very easily escape him and get out. But he was too wise for that. He sat down in the narrow mouth of the cave and slept there all night, and he told me he would never leave that spot till I would come out and he could catch me.
"In the morning he called on his goats to come out. They crept past him one by one, and he caught hold of every one as it passed, putting his arms round its neck, and said, `Oh, my dear, good goat, you can see me, your master, but I can't see you since the Black Thief put out my eyes. But I'll soon put his life out for it.'
"Now, there was one great big buck-goat in the cave. When I found the goats beginning to go out, I got the big buck by the throat and put his life out. I took his skin and got into it, then went on my hands and knees into the line of goats that were passing out.
"The Giant was embracing every goat as it passed him, and talking to it, and when I came up he got his arms round my neck too, and said, `Oh, my dear, good old buck, you see me but I can't see you, since the Black Thief put out my eyes, but I will soon put his life out for it.' Then he let me go and got hold of the next goat, and I wasn't long showing a clean pair of heels and getting out of the gorge and free.
"Don't you think, Knight," said he, "that that was as narrow an escape?"
"Yes, it was surely," said the Knight, "and I pardon the third brother. But now you go into the caldron yourself and die."
"I'm not so sure of that," says the Black Thief of Sloan, "for I was nearer death before and escaped."
Says the Knight, "On no account can I think of sparing your life. But all the same," says he, we'll spare it for half an hour to hear the wonderful story."
"Good," says the Black Thief of Sloan. "When I was returning through the same country again where I had the encounter with the Giant, I came late one evening to a castle, and went into it to ask lodgings for the night. I found a girl sitting at the kitchen fire with a baby on her knee, and she crying hard.
"Says I, `My girl, what's the matter?' And she told me.
" `In this castle,' she says, `there lives a Giant who is blind, because his eyes were put out somehow or other. He has compelled me into his service, and makes me do whatever he wants. This is a little child that he stole from somewhere and brought me last night, and when he was leaving this morning he ordered me to have it cooked for his supper when he would return this night.' She says, `I can't do it, and when he comes home and finds it not killed or cooked, he will kill me.'
"I says, `Never mind, I'll fix that.' So I went out to the yard and killed a little pig; I cut off the left-hand little finger of the child and made her cook it with the pig, and when the Giant at length came home and asked for his supper, she gave him the pig in a dish.
"But he wasn't long eating till he got up in a thundering rage and asked her was it the pig she cooked for him instead of the child. She denied it, and she went to the dish and lifted the little finger of the child and gave it to him as proofwhich contented him and he finished the supper. Then he said he hadn't half enough and asked for a knife, saying he must get some more.
I ran away out of his road, and stumbled into a room where there were a row, of dead bodies freshly killed. But wasn't this the very place the Giant was coming to! I lay down among the bodies myself, stiff like the others. He came and he felt the bodies one after another and threw them from him, till at last to my great terror he got hold of myself and he said, `This corpse feels all right. I think I should like a bit of it:'
"He lifted up his knife and he took a slice of flesh off me, and I never had a more terrible time trying to keep from moving or screeching whilst he was cutting the flesh off me; but I did succeed.
"When he had finished his supper he lay down to sleep. But where did he lie only right across the door of the room in which I was! I was suffering so much from fright that I wouldn't stay in the house any longer, so when he was asleep I leaped over him, and made for the door, and got out. But my leap wakened him and he reached after me, and taking a ring from his finger threw it from him, saying, `Ring, ring, hold fast.' On the big toe of my right foot the ring fell and there stuck. He called, `Ring, ring, where are you?' And the ring answered, `Master, master, I am here.'
"So that no matter whither I ran the ring informed him and kept him on my track. For always he would call, `Ring, ring, where are you?" and always the ring would answer, `Master, master, I am here.' And I ran about and dodged about for hours. But though he could not see anything, he always kept close to me, and vas still getting closer and closer.
"At length I was passing by a great bottomless pool. I pulled a knife from my pocket, cut off my big toe and threw it with the ring into the heart of the pool; and when next the Giant called, `Ring, ring, where are you?' and it replied from the bottom of the pool, `Master, master, I am here', into the heart of the pool he dashed, and sank and never rose more, and I was safe.
"And now," said the Thief, reaching out a foot from which he had just stripped both shoe and stocking, "you can see that I lack the big toe of my right foot. And did you ever hear a more wonderful or narrower escape than that?"
"A wonderful and a narrow escape it was," says an old woman who was sitting in the corner. "And what is more," says she, "it's true as it's wonderful. For, I am the very girl, and you," says she to the Knight, "were the very child that he saved-and that is the reason of your wanting the little finger of your left hand."
And when the Knight heard this, it was he who was the surprised, and the astonished, and the glad man.
"For all my life," he says, "I was trying to find out the man who had saved my life, and I was giving up the search in vain, for I thought I never could discover him.
"Now, Black Thief of Sloan," says he, "you will never leave my castle more. You must live with me from this time, and you will never want for anything that's in my power to give. For your friends here, they can not only have their freedom, but what is more, I freely bestow on them my Steed of Bells."
And the Knight and his friends and the Black Thief saw them safely off on their way, the Steed with them; and they thanked the Knight, and they told the Black Thief they could never thank him enough.
They traveled on and on before them till at last they came in sight of their father's castle. Away on the tip-top of it they saw their bad stepmother standing with her face against the wind, a sheaf of corn on the one side of her, and a tub of water on the other, and she thin and woebegone, and the instant she saw them she dashed herself from the tower and broke her neck below.
Home they reached, and it's glad their father the King was to see them. He divided his kingdom into three parts and gave a part to each, and got them three of the most beautiful Princesses in marriage.
And happy men and women they were, and happy and prosperous were their kingdoms all their days.
(from The Donegal Wonder Book , by Seumas MacManus)
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