When the Prince heard that, his heart was troubled within him, and he said to her, “What is that forfeit that you will demand of me?”
“This is the forfeit,” the Queen replied. “Within a year and a day you shall bring to me three golden apples, and a grand black steed, and the magic puppy-hound Samur and they all belong to the King of the Fiborg people. He lives at the bottom of Lough Erne, but where that is I know not, and you must find it for yourself.”
When the Prince Conn-eda heard that, he knew the Queen had indeed tricked him, and the forfeit he was like to pay was that of his life. But he dissembled and hid his fear, and said, “The forfeit I will pay, if it be in mortal power to do so. And now we will play another game, and again it shall be for a forfeit, with the loser to pay it.”
The Queen was so full of triumph that she forgot the warning of the hen-wife and willingly agreed to play once more with Conn-eda.
But now the magic had gone out of the board, and this time the Prince was the winner.
When the Queen found she had lost, her face grew pale, and her heart sank down within her.
“You have won, Conn-eda,” said she. “And what is the forfeit I must pay to you?”
“The forfeit is this,” said Conn-eda. “For the year and the day that I am away, you must sit at the top of the highest tower of the castle and eat nothing but as much red wheat as you can pick up with the point of your bodkin.”
That was a hard fate for the Queen, but after all, it would be only for a year and a day, and at the end of that time she would be free again and rid of Prince Conn-eda forever, so the bargain was not so hard as it seemed at first hearing. So the Queen went up and took her place in the high tower, and the Prince mounted his horse and rode out into the world in search of the golden apples, the grand black steed, and the magic puppy-hound Samur.
But first Conn-eda went to a Wise Man he knew, who was a friend of his. Many and many a favor the Prince had done for him, and now it was time to ask one in return.