“That I will not give you,” said Soul of Steel.
“Then,” Ciad said, “I will fight you for it.”
“You will only throw away your life,” said Soul of Steel, “for no man can conquer me but one.”
“And who is that one?” said Ciad.
“The man who can kill the Giant of the Great Seas,” said Soul of Steel.
“Then,” said Ciad, “I’m that man;” and he told his story to Soul of Steel.
Soul of Steel said he was a great hero, surely, and that he was glad to give him buaidh.
“Break a branch,” he said, “from that oak tree that grows before my castle, and it will give you buaidh.”
Ciad went to the oak tree and broke a branch, but when it fell to the ground, it sprang up into a great tree, and with every other branch he broke the same thing happened.
Soul of Steel came out and gave him his cloak. He said, “Spread this under the branch.”
He broke another branch, which fell on the cloak, and he carried it off, and went in search of Mountain of Fierceness.
He traveled away and away before him, far further than I can tell you, and twice as far as you could tell me, over height, hill, and hollow, mountain, moor and scrug, lone valley and green glen, until at last and at length, he found, in Africa, Mountain of Fierceness with all his men, gathered together on a hilltop. He walked up to them, and asked what was happening.
They said Mountain of Fierceness was being married to the Queen of the Indies. He pushed his way to where the priests were marrying them.
Mountain of Fierceness asked the stranger what he wanted.
Ciad said, “I have come to conquer you.”
“That, my good man, you can’t do,” said Mountain of Fierceness. “It’s better for you to return to your home, for I’m getting married.”
“I’ll never return until I’ve taken your life or, made you grant me one request,” said Ciad.
“I’ll not give you my life, and I’ll not grant you one request,” said Mountain of Fierceness. “But I’ll spit you on the point of my spear if you don’t leave this and go whence you came.”
Then Ciad asked him to step out for a fight.
“I don’t want to take your life or any man’s to-day,” said Mountain of Fierceness, “as I am to be married. Yet no man can overcome me unless he has buaidh from Soul of Steel, the Prince of India.”
“And that I have,” said Ciad, throwing the oak branch at his feet.
Mountain of Fierceness looked at this, and then said: “Will you spare my life?”
“On one condition,” said Ciad, “and that is that you tell me where Blue Gold, Prince of Africa, whom you carried off from his wife a year ago, is, and how I may get him.”
“Where he is and what he is, I can tell you,” said Mountain of Fierceness, “and how you may get him, but I very much doubt if ever you can get him. He is a wild pigeon in the Eastern Skies -- nothing can catch him but the magic net of the King of Ireland’s Druid, and this net could only be purchased by one-third of the Riches of the World; and nothing can disenchant him but nine grains of wheat that lie at the bottom of the Well of the World’s End, which can only be emptied by three thousand men in three thousand years.”
When Ciad heard this he bade him good-by. He sent Swift Sword to Ireland to get the loan of the magic net of the King of Ireland’s Druid, on the promise of paying him one-third of the Riches of the World, and told Swift Sword to meet him at the Well of the World’s End.
Away and away then he traveled, far further than I can tell you, and twice as far as you can tell me. Over hills a hundred miles high, and valleys a hundred miles deep; across plains where living man had never been before, and through great woods that were so far from the world that the birds themselves had never reached them, until at length and at last he reached the Well of the World’s End and there he found Swift Sword before him, with the net of the King of Ireland’s Druid.
With three blows of the sword Swift Sword blew the Well of the World’s End dry, and they took from the bottom the nine grains of wheat. They spread the net in the Eastern World and caught in it a hundred thousand pigeons, amongst them one great wild pigeon, which was Blue Gold.
They gave him to eat the nine grains of wheat, and there stood up a handsome prince before them -- Blue Gold.
With him they traveled back away and away, until they came to the Lake of the Singing Shore, and to the little house where they found Pearl Mouth, who was rejoiced to get her Blue Gold back again.
Then the four of them set out, and traveled away and away, over mountains and valleys and great long plains, until they came to her father, the King of Persia, from whom she demanded the bottle of loca and the Riches of the World to give them to Ciad and repay him for his services.
The King of Persia said: “No man could ever take these from me, but I give them willingly to the brave champion, Ciad.”
He and Swift Sword spent that night in the King of Persia’s castle, and in the morning set out for home. When they came to the Plain of Blood, they shook one drop from the bottle of loca on Swift Sword’s army, and all of them stood up alive and well.
Ciad then parted with Swift Sword, who was going on to conquer the East, and he himself -- for his time was now getting short -- did not turn aside, but went direct for home. And on the evening of the day on which the three years and a day would have expired, Ciad stood upon the spot on the seashore from which he had set out, and there he found Dark Eye awaiting him.
He gave her the bottle of loca, and her stepmother’s spells were at once taken off her. They went to the island on which he had left his two brothers, Ceud and Mith-Ceud; he shook on them one drop from the bottle of loca, and the two were again alive and well. All of them set out, and sailed to Ciad’s father’s castle -- he and his two brothers and Dark Eye, with the bottle of loca and the Riches of the World.
A messenger was sent at once to France, to invite the King to come to his daughter’s marriage, and to bring his sons and his great lords with him. And another messenger brought to the King of Ireland’s Druid his magic net and a third of the Riches of the World, and invited the King of Ireland and all his court to come to the marriage also. One hundred kings sat down to the wedding feast. The wedding lasted ninety-nine days and ninety-nine nights, and the last night was better than the first.
Ciad and Dark Eye lived a long life and a happy one, and may you and I do the same.
The Bee, the Harp, the Mouse, and the Bum-Clock
ONCE there was a widow, and she had one son, called Jack. Jack and his mother owned just three cows. They lived well and happy for a long time; but at last hard times came down on them, and the crops failed, and poverty looked in at the door, and things got so sore against the poor widow that for want of money and for want of necessities she had to make up her mind to sell one of the cows. “Jack,” she said one night, “go over in the morning to the fair to sell the branny cow.”
Well and good: in the morning my brave Jack was up early, and took a stick in his fist and turned out the cow, and off to the fair he went with her; and when Jack came into the fair, he saw a great crowd gathered in a ring in the street. He went into the crowd to see what they were looking at, and there in the middle of them he saw a man with a wee, wee harp, a mouse, and a bum-clock [cockroach], and a bee to play the harp. And when the man put them down on the ground and whistled, the bee began to play the harp, and the mouse and the bum-clock stood up on their hind legs and got hold of each other and began to waltz. And as soon as the harp began to play and the mouse and the bum-clock to dance, there wasn’t a man or woman, or a thing in the fair, that didn’t begin to dance also; and the pots and pans, and the wheels and reels jumped and jigged, all over the town, and Jack himself and the branny cow were as bad as the next.