“Oh, they’re middlin’—middlin’ fairish,” says Jack—“for this counthry. But they’re nothin’ at all to the bees we have in Donegal. If one of our bees was flying across the fields,” says Jack, “and one of your bees happened to come in its way, an’ fall into our bee’s eye, our bee would fly to the skep, an’ ax another bee to take the mote out of his eye.”
“Do you tell me so, Jack?” says the King. “You must have great monsthers of bees.”
“Monsthers,” says Jack. “Ah, yer Highness, monsthers is no name for some of them. I remimber,” says Jack, says he, “a mighty great breed of bees me father owned. They were that big that when my father’s new castle was a-buildin’ (in the steddin’ of the old one which he consaived to be too small for a man of his mains), and when the workmen closed in the roof, it was found there was a bee inside, an’ the hall door not bein’ wide enough, they had to toss the side wall to let it out. Then the queeny bee—ah! she was a wondherful baste entirely!” says Jack. “Whenever she went out to take the air she used to overturn all the ditches and hedges in the country; the wind of her wings tossed houses and castles; she used to swallow whole flower gardens; an’ one day she flew against a ridge of mountains nineteen thousand feet high and knocked a piece out from top to bottom, an’ it’s called Barnesmore Gap to this day. This queeny bee was a great trouble an’ annoyance to my father, seein’ all the harm she done the naybours round about; and once she took it in her head to fly over to England, an’ she created such mischief an’ disolation there that the King of Englan’ wrote over to my father if he didn’t come immaidiately an’ take home his queeny bee that was wrackin’ an’ ruinin’ all afore her he’d come over himself at the head of all his army and wipe my father off the face of the airth. So my father ordhered me to mount our wondherful big horse that I tould ye about, an’ that could go nineteen mile at every step, an’ go over to Englan’ an’ bring home our queeny bee. An’ I mounted the horse an’ started, an’ when I come as far as the sea I had to cross to get over to Englan’, I put the horse’s two fore feet into my hat, an’ in that way he thrashed the sea dhry all the way across an’ landed me safely. When I come to the King of Englan’ he had to supply me with nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand men an’ ninety-nine thousand mile of chains an’ ropes to catch the queeny bee an’ bind her. It took us nine years to catch her, nine more to tie her, an’ nine years and nine millions of men to drag her home, an’ the King of Englan’ was a beggar afther from that day till the day of his death. Now what do ye think of that bee?” says Jack, thinkin’ he had the King this time sure enough.
But the King was a cuter one than Jack took him for, an’ he only smiled again, an’ says he,—
“Well, Jack, that was a wondherful great queeny bee entirely.”
Next, for poor Jack’s third an’ last chance, the King took him to show him a wondherful field of beans he had, with every bean-stalk fifteen feet high an’ every bean the size of a goose’s egg.
“Well, Jack,” says the King, says he, “I’ll engage ye never saw more wondherful bean-stalks than them?”
“Is it them?” says Jack. “Arrah, man, yer Kingship,” says he, “they may be very good—for this counthry; but sure we’d throw them out of the ground for useless afther-shoots in Donegal. I mind one bean-stalk in partickler, that my father had for a show an’ a cur’osity, that he used to show as a great wondher entirely to sthrangers. It stood on ninety-nine acres of ground, it was nine hundred mile high, an’ every leaf covered nine acres. It fed nine thousand horses, nine thousand mules, an’ nine thousand jackasses for nineteen years. He used to send nine thousand harvestmen up the stalk in spring to cut and gather off the soft branches at the top. They used to cut these off when they’d reach up as far as them (which was always in the harvest time), an’ throw them down, an’ nine hundred and ninety-nine horses an’ carts were kept busy for nine months carting the stuff away. Then the harvestmen always reached down to the foot of the stalk at Christmas again.”
“Faix, Jack,” says the King, “it was a wondherful bean-stalk, that, entirely.”
“You might say that,” says Jack, trying to make the most of it, for he was now on his last leg. “You might say that,” says he. “Why, I mind one year I went up the stalk with the harvestmen, an’ when I was nine thousand mile up, doesn’t I miss my foot, and down I come. I fell feet foremost, and sunk up to my chin in a whinstone rock that was at the foot. There I was in a quandhary—but I was not long ruminatin’ till I hauled out my knife, an’ cut off my head, an’ sent it home to look for help. I watched after it, as it went away, an’ lo, an’ behould ye, afore it had gone half a mile I saw a fox set on it, and begin to worry it. ’By this an’ by that,’ says I to meself, ’but this is too bad!’—an’ I jumped out an’ away as hard as I could run, to the assistance of my head. An’ when I come up, I lifted my foot, an’ give the fox three kicks, an’ knocked three kings out of him—every one of them a nicer an’ a better jintleman than you.”
“Ye’re a liar, an’ a rascally liar,” says the King.
“More power to ye!” says Jack, givin’ three buck leaps clean into the air, “an’ it’s proud I am to get you to confess it; for I have won yer daughter.”
Right enough the King had to give up to Jack the daughter—an’ be the same token, from the first time she clapped her two eyes on Jack she wasn’t the girl to gainsay him—an’ her weight in goold. An’ they were both of them marrid, an’ had such a weddin’ as surpassed all the weddin’s ever was heerd tell of afore or since in that country or in this. An’ Jack lost no time in sendin’ for his poor ould mother, an’ neither herself nor Jack ever after knew what it was to be in want. An’ may you an’ I never know that same naither.
The Giant of the Band Beggar’s Hall
ONCE upon a time when there were plenty of Kings and Queens in Ireland—it’s many of them often we heard of, but few of them ever we seen, except in dhrawin’s and picthurs—there was a King and a Queen, and they had one son called Jack. Now, this Jack, when he grew up, was a fine, strong, strapping, able fellow, and he was very fond of fishing. There was one river in particular, alive with trout and fishes of all descriptions, that Jack would never be tired fishing in, but at length the trouts and other fishes in this river begun to get so old-fashioned for him that when they’d find him fishing on one side of the river they would all swim to the other side; and then when my poor Jack would take a boat and cross over to the other side after them, back they’d all swim, and be at the opposite side again by the time he’d have got to the far bank, and they’d then commence wagging their tails, the creatures, out of the water at him tauntingly. Well, it wasn’t in human nature to stand that sort of thing; no more was it in Jack, for Jack, of course, was only human; and then Jack would come home in the evening in the very devil of a temper, and maybe commence kicking the cat out of spite, bekase the trouts wagged their tails at him. So this, of course, more or less vexed the King and the Queen, and they put their heads together and had long confabs, consulting what they could do to mollify poor Jack; but the short and the long of it was, they agreed, let it cost what it might, that a bridge must be built over the river for Jack, so that he would be across the river and back before the trouts could have time to get up their tails and wag them. Well, the very next day after this conclusion was come to, all the masons in the country were got together and the bridge built. Early the next morning Jack was up and out, and swearing that there would be no more tails wagged at him or he’d know the reason why. But, lo, and behold you! when he come to the place where the bridge was put up the day afore, there wasn’t two stones of it a-top of other; it was tumbled to the ground and scattered aist and waist, and there didn’t seem to be a trout in the river but was gathered to the place, and as soon as Jack put in an appearance ye would think they were wagging their tails for a wager. Jack turned and went home, and he met the cat on the hall-door steps, and he hit her a kick that knocked her clean through the bottom of a new oaken milk-tub his mother had out on the steps airing.
“Well, Jack,” sez the King, “surely the trouts aren’t wagging their tails at you this morning, now that we have built ye that beautiful new bridge, that there isn’t the like of it in the country again?”
“Aren’t they though?” sez Jack, sez he. “Its a nice show, your bridge is, this morning, if ye’d be so kind as to go out and look at it, and see how there isn’t the second stone of it together, and it’s the trouts that know it—the sweet sorra,” sez he, “seize the little sowls of the rascals; I never saw them going through such tantrums; it’s what one old boyo of a trout that I have had my eye on for the last month curled his tail actually round to his nose,” sez he, “and winked his eye out at me,” sez he.
“Ye don’t tell me so, Jack?” sez the King. “Well, well, this is a purty how d’ye do. Well, Jack,” sez he, “I suppose there’s no use crying over spilt masonry, no more nor spilt milk, and all we can do is call the masons together again, and build it up.”
So, called together they were, and the bridge was up again afore night. And my brave Jack was up with the lark in the morning, and down to the river with his rod, but oh, sorra seize the bridge or bridge was there! It was scattered to the four winds; and the trouts, the scoundhrils, they were ten times more provoking then ever, actually standing on their heads with delight. There was no holding of Jack this morning. He came back from the river in the very mischief of a temper, and not meeting with the cat this time—for she found him coming back—he lifted the milk-tub that his mother had got a new bottom in since, and knocked it clean through the hall-door and the partition beyond, into the parlour where the King and the Queen were sitting at breakfast, scattering the table and the fine spread of pancakes and tea all over the room.