Coldfeet went on with the cattle, and when he came to the boundary he put them on the land of the giants. The cows were not long grazing when one of the giants at his castle caught the odor of the strange herder and rushed out. When coming at a distance he shouted, “I smell the blood of a man from Erin; his liver and lights for my supper to-night, his blood for my morning dram, his jawbones for stepping-stones, his shins for hurleys!”
When the giant came up he cried, “Ah, that is you, Coldfeet, and wasn’t it the impudence in you to come here from the butt of Brandon Mountain and put cattle on my land to annoy me?”
“It isn’t to give satisfaction to you that I am here, but to knock satisfaction out of your bones,” said Coldfeet.
With that the giant faced the herder, and the two went at each other and fought till near evening. They broke old trees and bent young ones; they made hard places soft and soft places hard; they made high places low and low places high; they made spring wells dry, and brought water through hard, gray rocks till near sunset, when Coldfeet took the heads off the giant and put the four skulls in muddy gaps to make a dry, solid road for the cows.
Coldfeet drove out his master’s cattle on a second, third, and fourth morning; each day he killed a giant, each day the battle was fiercer, but on the fourth evening the fourth giant was dead.
On the fifth day Coldfeet was not long on the land of the dead giants when a dreadful enchanted old hag came out against him, and she raging with anger. She had nails of steel on her fingers and toes, each nail of them weighing seven pounds.
“Oh, you insolent, bloodthirsty villain,” screamed she, “to come all the way from Brandon Mountain to kill my young sons, and, poor boys, only that timber is dear in this country it’s in their cradles they’d be to-day instead of being murdered by you.”
“It isn’t to give satisfaction to you that I’m here, you old witch, but to knock it out of your wicked old bones,” said Coldfeet.
“Glad would I be to tear you to pieces,” said the hag; “but ’tis better to get some good of you first. I put you under spells of heavy enchantment that you cannot escape, not to eat two meals off the one table nor to sleep two nights in the one house till you go to the Queen of Lonesome Island, and bring the sword of light that never fails, the loaf of bread that is never eaten, and the bottle of water that is never drained.”
“Where is Lonesome Island?” asked Coldfeet.