“Now listen well to what I tell you,” said the hen-wife. “You have paid me faithfully and fully, and I am ready to keep my part of the bargain, too. Far and far enough from here, there lies a great dark lake, and the name of it is Lough Erne. Under its waters lives the King of the Fiborg race, a race that lives in the water most happily. There, in the King’s garden, grow three golden apples. In his stable stands a grand black steed. In his castle lies the puppy-hound Samur, and great are the magic powers of that hound. You must send Conn-eda to get these things for you, and to fetch them back within a year and a day and it’s not a living being who can seek those things and not lose his life in the seeking, unless he has magic to help him.”
“But how can I send Conn-eda?” asked the Queen, “for he is not a child that he must do my bidding.”
“That also I will tell you,” replied the hen-wife.
She then brought out a chessboard and chessmen and gave them to the Queen. “Do you take these home with you,” she said, “and call Conn-eda to come and play a game of chess with you. I have set a charm on the men, and I have set a charm on the board, so that you will be sure to win; but before you play you must make a bargain with the Prince that whichever loses shall pay a forfeit to the winner, and the forfeit you shall ask of him is that he fetch to you the three things I have told you of. But be sure that you play only the one game, for after that is played the charm will lose its power.”
The Queen was pleased with the advice the hen-wife gave her, and she took the chessboard and the chessmen and promised to do in all things as she had been told. Then she hastened back to the castle.
No sooner was she there than she sent for Conn-eda to come and have a game of chess, and he came at her command and sat down at the board with her.
“It is not for nothing we will play together this day,” said the Queen, “but whichever loses shall pay a forfeit to the other, and the forfeit shall be whatever the winner chooses to demand.”
To this Conn-eda agreed. He had it in his head that the Queen was planning some trick against him, but he did not fear her, for he made sure he could beat her at the game.
So they sat down to play, and Conn-eda was a good player, and the Queen was a poor one, but it seemed as though there were a mist before the Prince’s eyes, and when he thought he had made one play he found he had made another, and presently he saw he had lost the game, and the Queen was the winner.
Then she laughed aloud and pushed the board from her. “The game is mine, Conn-eda,” she cried, “and it is for you to pay the forfeit. Whatever I ask for, that shall you pay, no matter what be the cost.”