She ran to the pitcher, and there was no water in it. Then another Hag shouted out that the thirst was strangling her. The third one said she could not live another minute without a mouthful of water. She took the pitcher and started for the well. No sooner was she gone than the second Hag said she couldn’t wait for the first one to come back and she started out after her. Then the third one thought that the pair would stay too long talking at the well, and she started after them. Immediately I took the pillows off our bed and put them on the Hags’ bed, taking their pillows instead.
The Hags came back with a half-filled pitcher, and they ordered us to go to our bed. We went, and they sat for a while drinking porringers of water. “Crom Duv will be here the first thing in the morning,” I heard one of them say. They put their heads on the pillows and in the turn of a hand they were dead-fast-sound asleep. I told my foster-sisters then what I had done and why I had done it. They were very frightened, but seeing the Hags so sound asleep they composed themselves and slept too.
Before the screech of day Crom Duv came to the house. I went outside and saw the Giant. I said I was the servant of the Hags, and that they were sleeping still. He said, “They are my runners and summoners, my brewers, bakers and candle-makers, and they have no right to be sleeping so late.” Then he went away.
I knew that the three Hags would slumber until we took the pillows from under their heads. We left them sleeping while we put down a fire and made our break-fast. Then, when we were ready for our journey, we took the pillows from under their heads. The three Hags started up then, but we were out on the door, and had taken the first three steps of our journey.
V
Without hap or mishap we came at last to the domain of the King of Senlabor. Baun went to sing for the King’s foster-daughters, and Deelish went to work at the little loom in the King’s chamber. We were not long at the court of the King of Senlabor when two youths came there from the court of the King of Ireland—Dermott and Downal were their names. There was a famous sword-smith with the King of Senlabor and these two came to learn the trade from him. And my two foster-sisters fell so deeply in love with the two youths that every night the pillow on each side of me was wet with their tears.
I went to work in the King’s kitchen. Now the King had a dish of such fine earthware and with such beautiful patterns upon it that he never let it be carried from the Kitchen to the Feast-Hall, nor from the Feast-Hall to the Kitchen without going himself behind the servant who carried it. One day the servant brought it into the Kitchen to be washed and the King came behind the servant. I took the dish and cleaned it with thrice-boiled water and dried it with cloths of three different kinds. Then I covered it with sweet-smelling herbs and left it in a bin where it was sunk in soft bran. The King was pleased to see the good care I took of his dish, and he said before his servant that he would do me any favor I would ask. There and then I told him about my two foster-sisters Baun and Deelish, and how they were in love with the two youths Dermott and Downal who had come from the court of the King of Ireland. I asked that when these two youths were being given wives, that the King should remember my foster-sisters.
The King was greatly vexed at my request. He declared that the two youths had on their breasts the stars that denoted the sons of Kings and that he intended they should marry his own two foster-daughters when the maidens were of age to wed. “It may be,” he said, “that these two youths will bring what my Queen longs for—a berry from the Fairy Rowan Tree that is guarded by the Giant Crom Duv.”
The next day the King’s Councillor was feeding the birds and I was sifting the corn. I asked him what was the history of the Fairy Rowan Tree that the Giant Crom Duv guarded and why it was that the Queen longed for a berry of it. There and then he told me this story:—