Jack, he came walking over to see Donal like to bid him the time of day in the morning. “Good morning to you, Donal,” says he, “and how do you find yourself this morning?”
“Och! Och! Och! Jack! Jack!” says Donal, says he, “I’m in a terrible fix entirely.”
“Why, what’s the matter? ”says Jack.
“Why,” says he, “my old mother-in-law got up out of the grave in the night time and came back; and when I went down to the cellar in the morning to get a drink of wine, there was the old lady sitting by the puncheon, and she having the puncheon drunk empty. What am I to do at all, at all?” says he.
“ Well,” says Jack, says he, “I know why she got up out of her grave again.”
“For what did she?” says Donal.
“Because you didn’t bury her half decently,” says Jack, “you only put ten pound under her head, and it’s fifty pound you should have put.”
“Well, I’m sure I’m sorry for that,” says Donal, “and I’ll make certain that I’ll bury her decently enough this time.”
So Jack went with him to help him bury her this day again, and he saw Donal put a purse of fifty sovereigns under her head. “Now,” says Donal, says he, “she’ll surely not come back to bother me.”
But that night Jack went to the graveyard and raised the body again, and got the fifty pounds. And he took the body then with him on his shoulder off to Donal’s, and he went into the stables, and he put the body sitting on the finest big horse in Donal’s stable, and he tied it there, and he tied a sword into its hand. Now Donal was to have gone off next morning, riding on a little black mare that was a favorite of his, to the town to pay the accounts of the funeral; and Jack, he had known this, and when Donal came down in the very early morning, when it was still dark, he went into the stable, and he took out the little black mare.
The horse on which Jack had tied the old woman was a great companion of this little black mare, and both of them used to run on the grass together; so when the little black mare was taken out by Donal, the horse (which Jack had left loose) trotted out after.
When Donal saw the appearance of the horse coming out of the stable, and on its back the old mother-in-law with the sword lifted up in her hand, he gave a yell, and he jumped up on the mare, and off as fast as he could gallop.
Off after the little mare the big horse started, and the faster Donal went, the faster came the big horse trotting behind him; and every time he looked over his shoulder, there he saw his old mother-in-law with the sword lifted, ready, as he thought, to cut him down, and all that he could do, he couldn’t gain ground.
Jack, he was prepared for all this. He was concealed half a mile along the way, and when Donal came tearing up he came out of where he was concealed, and said to Donaclass="underline" “What’s the matter?”
And Donal pointed back, and Jack he leaped and got hold of the big horse and stopped it, and led it back home, and took the old woman off its back.
When Donal ventured home again, he was in very low spirits entirely, and he said that if his mother-in-law was going to rise every time she was buried and haunt him all the days of his life, he might as well end his life at once.
“Not too quick! ”says Jack, says he. “What will you give me, and I’ll save you from your mother-in-law?”
“O! I’ll give you,” says he, “anything at all, in moderation, that you ask.”
“Well,” says Jack, says he, “if you pension me, I’ll live here always, and I’ll watch by your mother-in-law’s grave every night, and keep her from rising.”
Says Donaclass="underline" “If you do that, I’ll give you any. pension you ask.”
Jack asked one hundred pounds a year, and Donal agreed to it. They buried the mother-in-law the third time, and Jack worked for his pension so faithfully and so well, that she never rose more.
Donal and his wife lived middling happy, but Jack and his wife and children, with their pension of one hundred pounds a year, were the happiest family in all Ireland.
The Snow, the Crow, and the Blood
ONE day in the dead of winter, when the snow lay like a linen tablecloth over the world, Jack, the King of Ireland’s son, went out to shoot. He saw a crow, and he shot it, and it fell down on the snow. Jack went up to it, and he thought he never saw anything blacker than that crow, or redder than its blood, nor anything whiter than the snow round about.
He said to himself: “I’ll never rest till I get a wife whose hair is as black as that crow, whose cheeks are as red as that blood, and whose skin is as white as that snow.”
So he went home, and told his father and mother this. He said he was going to set off before him and look for such a girl.
The King and Queen told Jack that it would be impossible ever to get a girl that would answer that description, and tried to persuade Jack from setting out, but Jack wouldn’t be persuaded.
He started off with his father’s and his mother’s blessing, and a hundred guineas that his father had given him in his pocket. He traveled away and away very far, and about the middle of the day on the second day out, passing a graveyard, he saw a crowd there wrangling over a corpse. He went in and inquired what was the matter, and he found there were bailiffs wanting to seize the corpse for a debt of a hundred guineas. Jack was sorry for the poor corpse, so he put his hand in his pocket, took out the hundred guineas, and paid them down; and then the friends of the corpse thanked him heartily and buried the body.
That very same evening Jack was overtaken by a little red man who asked him where he was going.
Says Jack: “I’m going in search of a wife.”
“Well,” says the little red man, “such a handsome young fellow as you won’t have to go far.”
“Far enough,” says Jack, “because the girl I want must have hair as black as the blackest crow, cheeks as red as the reddest blood, and skin as white as the whitest snow.”
“Then,” said the little red man, “there’s only one such woman in the world, and she is the Princess of the East. There’s many a brave young man went there before you to court her, but none of them ever came back alive again.”
“For life or for death,” says Jack, “I’ll never rest until I reach the Princess of the East and court her.”
“Well,” said the little red man, “you’ll want a boy with you. Let me be your boy.”
“But I have no money to pay you,” says Jack. “That will be all right,” says the little red man. “I’ll go with you.”
That night late they reached a great castle. “This castle,” says the little red man, “is the castle of the Giant of the Cloak of Darkness.”
“Oh,” says Jack, “I’ve heard of that terrible giant. We’ll pass on, and look for somewhere else to stop.”
“No other place we’ll stop than here,” says the little red man, knocking at the gates.
Jack was too brave to run away, so he stood by the little red man till a great and terrible giant came to the gates and opened them, and asked them what they wanted.
“We want supper and a bed for the night,” says the red fellow.
“That’s good,” says the giant. “I want supper and bed too. I’ll make my supper off you both, and my bed on your bones.” And then he let a terrible laugh out of him that made the hair stand up on poor Jack’s head.
But in a flash, the wee red fellow whips out his sword and struck out at the giant, and the giant then pulled out his, and struck out at the wee red man. Both of them fell to it hard and fast, and they fought a terrible fight for a long time; but in the end the wee red man ran the giant through the heart and killed him.