DYEERMUD ULTA AND THE KING IN SOUTH ERIN.
There was a king in South Erin once, and he had an only daughter of great beauty. The daughter said that she would marry no man but the man who would sail to her father’s castle in a three-masted ship, and the castle was twenty miles from deep water. The father said that even if the daughter was willing, he’d never give her to any man but the man who would come in a ship.
Dyeermud Ulta was the grandson of a great man from Spain who had settled in Erin, and he lived near Kilcar. Dyeermud heard of the daughter of the king in South Erin, and fixed in his mind to provide such a ship and go to the castle of the king.
Dyeermud left home one day, and was walking toward Killybegs, thinking how to find such a ship, or the man who would make it. When he had gone as far as Buttermilk Cliff, he saw a red champion coming against him in a ship that was sailing along over the country like any ship on the sea.
“What journey are you on?” asked the red champion of Dyeermud; “and where are you going?”
“I am going,” answered Dyeermud, “to the castle of a king in South Erin to know will he give me his daughter in marriage, and to know if the daughter herself is willing to marry me. The daughter will have no husband unless a man who brings a ship to her father’s castle, and the king will give her to no other.”
“Come with me,” said the red man. “Take me as comrade, and what will you give me.”
“I will give you what is right,” said Dyeermud.
“What will you give me?”
“I will give you the worth of your trouble.”