“Oh, then, we were the fools,” said the scolog to his daughters. “Sure, they were the fisherman, the boat, and the rod.”
Off they went a second time in three balls of red fire; and they were coming near again when the scolog’s youngest daughter made a spinning-wheel of her mother, a bundle of flax of herself, and an old woman of her husband. Up rushed the scolog, and spoke to the spinner, “Have you seen a mare pass the way and two on her back?” asked he.
“I have, indeed,” said the old woman; “and she is not far ahead of you.”
Away rushed the scolog; and he never stopped till he raced around the whole world, and came back to his own castle a second time.
“Oh, but we were the fools!” said the scolog. “Sure, they were the old woman with the spinning-wheel and the flax, and they are gone from us now; for they are in Erin, and we cannot take our power over the border, nor work against them unless they are outside of Erin. There is no use in our following them; we might as well stay where we are.”
The scolog and his daughters remained in the castle at Ardilawn of Enchantment; but the king’s son rode home on the winged mare, with his wife on a pillion behind him.
When near the castle of the old king in Erin, the couple dismounted, and the mare took her own form of a woman. She could do that in Erin. The three never stopped till they went to the old king. Great was the welcome before them; and if ever there was joy in a castle, there was joy then in that one.