"Have you looked at the things you got last night?" says he.
"I'll not deceive you, sir," says the cobbler. "I came off as soon as I was up. Sorra peep I took at them."
"Be sure to look when you get back," says the fairy man. And just as the cobbler was getting over the ditch to go home, he says:
"If my eyes don't deceive me," says he, "there's the least taste in life of dirt on your left shoe. Let me dust it with the tail of my coat."
"That means home in a twinkling," thought the cobbler, and he held up his foot.
The fairy man dusted it, and muttered something the cobbler did not hear. Then, "Sure," says he, "it's the dirty pastures that you've come through, for the other shoe's as bad."
So the cobbler held up his right foot, and the fairy man rubbed that with the tail of his green coat.
When all was done the cobbler's feet seemed to tingle, and then to itch, and then to smart, and then to burn. And at last he began to dance, and he danced all round the Rath (the fairy man laughing and holding his sides), and then round and round again. And he danced till he cried out with weariness, and tried to shake the shoes off. But they stuck fast, and the fairies drove him over, the ditch, and through the prickly furze-bushes, and he danced away. Where he danced to, I cannot tell you. Whether he ever got rid of the fairy shoes, I do not know. The jewels never were more than wayside pebbles, and they were swept out when his cabin was cleaned, which was not too soon, you may be sure.
All this happened long ago; but there are those who say that the covetous cobbler dances still, between sunset and sunrise, round Murdoch's Rath.