“Oh!” said she, “my mother is coming, and she will kill me.”
“Not at all,” said the second wife; “we will go down to meet her.”
Silver-tree came ashore. “Come down, Gold-tree, love,” said she, "for your own mother has come to you with a precious drink.”
“It is a custom in this country,” said the second wife, “that the person who offers a drink takes a draught out of it first.”
Silver-tree put her mouth to it, and the second wife went and struck it so that some of it went down her throat, and she fell dead. They had only to carry her home a dead corpse and bury her.
The prince and his two wives were long alive after this, pleased and peaceful.
I left them there.
King O’Toole and His Goose
Och, I thought all the world, far and near, had heerd o’ King O’Toole–well, well, but the darkness of mankind is untellible! Well, sir, you must know, as you didn’t hear it afore, that there was a king, called King O’Toole, who was a fine old king in the old ancient times, long ago; and it was he that owned the churches in the early days. The king, you see, was the right sort; he was the real boy, and loved sport as he loved his life, and hunting in particular; and from the rising o’ the sun, up he got, and away he went over the mountains after the deer; and fine times they were.
Well, it was all mighty good, as long as the king had his health; but, you see, in course of time the king grew old, by raison he was stiff in his limbs, and when he got stricken in years, his heart failed him, and he was lost entirely for want o’ diversion, because he couldn’t go a-hunting no longer; and, by dad, the poor king was obliged at last to get a goose to divert him. Oh, you may laugh, if you like, but it’s truth I’m telling you; and the way the goose diverted him was this-a-way: You see, the goose used to swim across the lake, and go diving for trout, and catch fish on a Friday for the king, and flew every other day round about the lake, diverting the poor king. All went on mighty well until, by dad, the goose got stricken in years like her master, and couldn’t divert him no longer, and then it was that the poor king was lost entirely. The king was walkin’ one mornin’ by the edge of the lake, lamentin’ his cruel fate, and thinking of drowning himself, that could get no diversion in life, when all of a sudden, turning round the corner, who should he meet but a mighty decent young man coming up to him.