“There was a king not long ago in Erin, and he had three beautiful daughters. When they grew up to be old enough for marriage, they were enchanted in the way that the three became brazen-faced, old-looking, venomous hags every night, and were three beautiful, harmless young women every day, as before.
“I was living for myself on my land, and had laid in turf enough for seven years, and I thought it the size of a mountain. I went out at midnight, and what did I see but the hags at my reek; and they never stopped till they put every sod of the turf into three creels on their backs, and made off with it.
“The following season I brought turf for another seven years, and the next midnight the witches stole it all from me; but this time I followed them. They went about five miles, and disappeared in a broad hole twenty fathoms deep. I waited, then looked down, and saw a great fire under a pot with a whole bullock in it. There was a round stone at the mouth of the hole. I used all my strength, rolled it down, broke the pot, and spoiled the broth on the witches.
“Away I ran then, but was not long on the road when I saw the three racing after me. I climbed a tree to escape from them. The witches came in a rage, stopped under the tree, and looked up at me. The eldest rested awhile, then made a sharp axe of the second, and a venomous hound of the third, to destroy me. She took the axe herself then, gave one blow of it, and cut one-third of the tree; she gave a second blow, and cut another third; she had the axe raised a third time when a cock crowed, and there before my eyes the axe turned into a beautiful woman, the hag who had raised it into a second, and the venomous hound into a third. The three walked away then, harmless and innocent as any young women in Erin. Wasn’t I nearer death that time than this young man?”
“Oh, you were,” said the king; “I give him his life, and it’s his brother that’s near death now. He has but ten minutes to live.”
“Well, I was nearer death than that young man,” said the Black Thief.
“Tell how it was. If you convince me, I’ll give him his life, too.”
“After I broke their pot, the witches destroyed my property night after night, and I had to leave that place and find my support on the roads and in forests. I was faring well enough till a year of hunger and want came. I went out once into a great wood, walked up and down to know could I find any food to take home to my wife and my children.
“I found an old white horse and a cow without horns. I tied the tails of the two to each other, and was driving them home for myself with great labor; for when the white horse pulled backward, the cow would pull forward, and when the horse tried to go on, the cow wouldn’t go with him. They were that way in disagreement till they drew the night on themselves and on me. I had a bit of flint in my pocket, and put down a fire. I could not make my way out of the wood in the night-time, and sat down by the fire. I was not long sitting when thirteen cats, wild and enormous, stood out before me. Of these, twelve were each the bulk of a man; the thirteenth, a red one, the master of the twelve, was much larger. They began to purr on the opposite side of the fire, and make a noise like the rumbling of thunder. At last the big red cat lifted his head, opened his wide eyes, and said to me, ‘I’ll be this way no longer; give me something to eat.’”
“I have nothing to give you,” said I, “unless you take that white horse below there and kill him.”