"Well, then, indeed, I don't rightly know," said the Buideach.
"I will know soon," said the friar; "come with me."
He followed the old friar down under the earth, until they came to a little chamber that was cut in the rock. "Now," said the friar, "go down on your knees and make your confession and do not conceal any crime."
The Buideach went down on his knees and told everything that happened to him concerning the Tinker and the Black Donkey.
The friar then put him under penance for seven days and seven nights, without food or drink, walking on his bare knees amongst the rocks and sharp stones. He went through the penance, and by the seventh day there was not a morsel of skin or flesh on his knees, and he was like a shadow with the hunger. When he had the penance finished the old friar came and said, "It's time for you to be going home."
"I have no knowledge of the way or of how to go back," said the Buideach.
"Your friend the Black Donkey will bring you back," said the friar. "He will be here to-night; and when you go home spend your life piously and do not tell to anyone except to your father-confessor that you were here."
"Tell me, father, is there any danger of me from the Tinker?"
"There is not," said the friar; "he is an ass [himself now] with a tinker from the province of Munster, and he will be in that shape for one and twenty years, and after that he will go to eternal rest. Depart now to your chamber. You will hear a little bell after the darkness of night [has fallen], and as soon as you shall hear it, go up on to the island, and the Black Donkey will be there before you, and he will bring you home; my blessing with you."
The Buideach went to his room, and as soon as he heard the bell he went up to the island and his friend the Black Donkey was waiting for him.