The King of Ireland's Son

by Padraic Colum

I got the rope off my hands and feet and ran and ran until I came in sight of them again. And when I was coming on them I heard one say to the other, “This ugly, freckled girl will claim relationship with us wherever we go, and we will get no good man to marry us.” They laid hold of me again and put me in a lime-kiln, and put beams across it, and put heavy stones on the beams. But my Little Red Hen showed me how to get out of the lime-kiln. Then I ran and I ran until I caught up with Baun and Deelish again.

“Let her come with us this evening,” said one to the other, “and to-morrow we’ll find some way of getting rid of her.”

The night was drawing down now, and we had to look for a house that would give us shelter. We saw a hut far off the road and we went to the broken door. It was the house of the Hags of the Long Teeth. We asked for shelter. They showed us a big bed in the dormer-room, and they told us we could have supper when the porridge was boiled.

The three Hags sat round the fire with their heads together. Baun and Deelish were in a corner plaiting their hair, but the Little Red Hen murmured that I was to listen to what the Hags said.

“We will give them to Crom Duv in the morning” one said. And another said, “I have put a sleeping-pin in the pillow that will be under each, and they will not waken.”

When I heard what they said I wanted to think of what we could do to make our escape. I asked Baun to sing to me. She said she would if I washed her feet. I got a basin of water and washed Baun’s feet, and while she sang, and while the Hags thought we were not minding them, I considered what we might do to escape. The Hags hung a pot over the fire and the three of them sat around it once more.

When I had washed my foster-sister’s feet I took a besom and began to sweep the floor of the house. One of the Hags was very pleased to see me doing that. She said I would make a good servant, and after a while she asked me to sit at the fire. I sat in the corner of the chimney. They had put meal in the water, and I began to stir it with a pot-stick. Then the Hag that had asked me to the fire said, “I will give you a good share of milk with your porridge if you keep stirring the pot for us.” This was just what I wanted to be let do. I sat in the chimney-corner and kept stirring the porridge while the Hags dozed before the fire.

First, I got a dish and ladle and took out of the pot some half-cooked porridge. This I left one side. Then I took down the salt-box that was on the chimney-shelf and mixed handfuls of salt in the porridge left in the pot.

When it was all cooked I emptied it into another dish and brought the two dishes to the table. Then I told the Hags that all was ready. They came over to the table and they gave my foster-sisters and myself three porringers of goat’s milk. We ate out of the first dish and they ate out of the second. “By my sleep to-night,” said one Hag, “this porridge is salty.” “Too little salt is in it for my taste,” said my foster-sister Deelish. “It is as salt as the depths of the sea,” said another of the Hags. “My respects to you, ma’am,” said Baun, “but I do not taste any salt on it at all.” My foster-sisters were so earnest that the Hags thought themselves mistaken, and they ate the whole dishful of porridge.

The bed was made for us, and the pillows were laid on the bed, and I knew that the slumber-pin was in each of the pillows. I wanted to put off the time for going to bed so I began to tell stories. Baun and Deelish said it was still young in the night, and that I should tell no short ones, but the long story of Eithne, Balor’s daughter. I had just begun that story, when one of the Hags cried out that she was consumed with thirst.