Fairy tales from far and near

by Katharine Pyle

The Wise Man heard Conn-eda galloping up and came out of the house to meet him, and the Prince lighted down from his horse and greeted him respectfully.

“I am in great trouble,” Conn-eda began, “and I have come to you to see if you can help me.”

“That I guessed at once from your face,” replied the Wise Man, “and you had best begin at the beginning and tell me the whole story, for it’s only after I’ve heard the whole of it that I’ll best know how to help you.”

So the Prince began and told the Wise Man the whole matter from beginning to end. He told of the Queen’s hatred toward him and of the ways she had tried to injure him; he told of how she had bidden him to play a game of chess with her, and of how he had feared her and yet made no doubt of winning the game; and he told of how in some strange way he had become the loser, and how the Queen had claimed a forfeit from him, and what it was she had claimed.

“And we played still again, and that time it was for her to pay the forfeit”; and he told what the forfeit was that he had demanded of her.

“And it was no more than her just dues,” said the Wise Man. “I make no doubt but that the Queen has sought to make you lose your life in this business, and it was a clever brain that thought out this trick. There is some one back of it other than the Queen.”

He thought for a while, and then he spoke again. “There is but one person who would have known of the golden apples, the grand black steed, and the magic hound Samur, and that one is the Wise Woman who lives in the hut down back of the palace. She calls herself a hen-wife, but of a truth she is Carlleach of Lough Corib, and the sister of the Water King himself. There are four of the water people, three brothers and one sister. The first is King of the Fiborgs, and the second is under some enchantment. The third lives in a house next to that of the hen-wife, and the fourth is Carlleach herself. And now, my son, I will do what I can to help you. Where Lough Corib is I know not, but out in my stable is a little shaggy black horse. He is not much to look at, but he is great in power. Take him and ride whithersoever he carries you, and leave the rein loose on his neck that he may choose his own way. He will take you to the crag where the Bird of Wisdom sits. Three days in every three years the bird sits there, and it’s little that goes on in the world that he does not know about. This is the time for him to be sitting on the crag, and if he will but speak, he can tell you how to set about finding the lake and the Water King’s treasures.”

The Wise Man then took out a very beautiful and very precious jewel from a box that stood on a shelf behind the door and gave it to Conn-eda.

“If the Bird of Wisdom will not speak,” said he, “give him this jewel in his claw, and then it may be that he will answer you.”

Conn-eda took the jewel and thanked the Wise Man kindly, and then he went out to the stable and led forth the shaggy little black horse and mounted himself on him, instead of his own fine steed, and indeed the little horse was not much to look at. But no sooner was Conn-eda on his back than he found what a worth-while horse he was, for away he went lighter than a bird and swifter than the wind, and it was like no other riding that Conn-eda had ever done.