“I will not promise that,” said Foot-on-Shoulder; “I may send it, and I may not.”
They gave him the bottle, he went his way to his ship, and sailed home to Erin. Next morning the henwife dressed herself up as a piper, and, taking a rod of enchantment with her, went away, piping on a hill which Foot-on-Shoulder had to cross in coming to the castle. She thought he would stop to listen to the music she was making, and then she would strike him with the rod, and make a stone of him. She was piping away for herself on the hill like any poor piper making his living. Hearing Ear heard the music, and told Dyeermud. Fis Wacfis chewed his thumb at Dyeermud’s command, and found out that the piper was the king’s henwife, and discovered her plans.
“Oh,” said Fis Wacfis to Dyeermud, “unless you take her out of that, she will make trouble for us.”
“Greedy-of-Blowing, can you make away with that old woman on the hill?” asked Dyeermud.
“I can indeed,” said Greedy-of-Blowing.
With that, he ran to the foot of the hill; and with one blast from both nostrils, he sent the old hag up into the sky, and away she went sailing so that neither tale nor word of her ever came back.
Foot-on-Shoulder was at the ship outside the castle walls half an hour before noon, and gave the bottle of cure to Dyeermud. Dyeermud went that minute to the castle, and stood before the king.
“Here is the bottle of cure which I got from the three sons of Sean Mac Glinn in the Eastern World. Am I to get the daughter now?”
“I’ll send you my answer to the ship,” said the king.