“Why, yes,” said Oonagh. “Turn it about, you know, so the wind won’t be blowing in at the door. It’s always what Fin does when he’s at home.”
“Indeed!” thought Cucullin to himself. “This Fin must be more of a lad than they’ve been telling me.” But never a word more did he say. Instead he pulled the middle finger of his right hand till it cracked three times. For it was from that finger all his strength came.
Up the hill he stepped, and putting his great arms around the house, gave a tug and a twist,—and there it was, faced about completely. Fin’s cradle, inside, banged back and forth; Oonagh’s great bread loaves bounced about; the dishes clattered. As for Fin himself, his breath left him entirely, and there he lay, tight squeezed in the cradle, gasping and spluttering, and quite blue with terror.
Cucullin turned to go down the hill again as if he had done nothing unusual at all. But Oonagh curtsied before him.
“Thank you kindly, sir,” said she. “And since you’re so obliging, maybe you’d do another civil turn for me. You see it’s a dry stretch of weather we’ve been having, and there’s scarcely a drop of water from here to Cullamore. But under the rocks hereabout, Fin says there’s a good spring-well; and he was just about to pull them apart to find it when along came the news that you were at the Causeway, and off he dashed. So here we are, still without water; and indeed if you’d take a minute to pull the rocks open for me, truly, I’d feel it a kindness.”
So, she led him to a place, all solid rock for a mile or so. “Now, here’s the spot,” said she.
Cucullin looked at it for a while without speaking. Then he cracked his middle finger nine times, and bending down, tore a cleft a quarter-mile long and four hundred feet deep.
When Oonagh saw that, her courage oozed down to the soles of her shoes. But she was never one to give up anything she had once decided. So, after a moment she said, “I’m much obliged to you, sir. And now, you’ll be coming back to the house with me to take a bite of such humble fare as I can give you.”
“Indeed,” replied Cucullin, mopping his large red brow, “that’s an invitation I’ll not be refusing. It’s warm work tearing up landscapes and moving houses, and I can’t say that I’m not hungry either.”
So into the house they went; and down before him Oonagh set a side or two of bacon, a mountain of cabbage, and ten or twelve loaves of the bread she had baked the day before.