“Indeed, I will not do that.”
“Then, my poor goat, I’ll not untie the rope that’s round your neck, for you can’t go to the Hill of Horns without this cat riding on your back.”
“Let him sit on my back then and hold my horns, and I’ll take no notice of him.”
The Hag of the Ashes untied the rope that was round his neck, the King of the Cats jumped up on the goat’s back, and they started off on the path through the wood. “Oh, how I’ll miss my goat, until he comes back to me with gold on his horns and silver on his hooves,” the Hag of the Ashes cried after them.
VI
The King of Ireland’s Son did not leave the Castle the next day, but stayed to question those who came to it about the Sword of Light. And some had heard of the Sword of Light and some had not heard of it. In the afternoon he was in the chambers of the Castle and he watched his two foster-brothers, Dermott and Downal, the sons of Caintigern, the Queen, playing chess. They played the game upon his board and with his figures. And when he went up to them and told them they had permission to use the board and the figures, they said, “We had forgotten that you owned these things.” The King’s Son saw that everything in the Castle was coming into the possession of his foster-brothers.
He found another board with other chess-men and he played a game with the King’s Steward. And Art said, “The coming of the King of the Cats into King Connal’s Dominion is a story still to be told.
“To your father’s Son in all truth be it told “—
What should a goat do but ramble down laneways, wander across fields, stray along hedges and stay to rest under shady trees? All this the Hag’s goat did. But at last he brought the King of the Cats to the foot of the Hill of Horns.
And what was the Hill of Horns like, asks my kind foster-child. It was hills of stones on the top of a hill of stones. Only a goat could foot it from pebble to stone, from stone to boulder, from boulder Ko crag, and from crag to mountain-shoulder. It was well and not ill what the Hag’s goat did. But then thunder sounded; lightning struck fire out of the stones, the wind mixed itself with the rain and the tempest pelted cat and goat. The goat stood on a mountain-shoulder. The wind rushed up from the bottom and carried the companions to the top of the Hill of Horns. Down sprang the cat. But the goat stood on his hind-legs to butt back at the wind. The wind caught him between the beard and the under-quarters and swept him from the top and down the other side of the hill (and what happened to the Hag’s goat after this I never heard). The King of the Cats put his claws into the crevices of a standing stone and held to it with great tenacity. And then, when the wind abated and he looked across his shoulder, he found that he was standing beside the nest of the Eagle-Emperor.