There was plenty of trouble and of grief on him, going of him, and he ought to have that on him too, and he departing without any knowledge of where he was making for, or where he would go.
A gentleman met him on the road, and asked him where he was going. The lad said that he did not himself know where he was going, but that he was going looking for work.
“What are you able to do?” says the gentleman.
“I’m as good a herd as ever you saw, but I’ll not tell you a lie—I can do nothing but herding; but, indeed, I’ll do that as well as any man that ever you saw.”
t’s you I want,” says the gentleman. “There are three giants up by my land, on the one mearing with me, and anything that will go in on their land they will keep it, and I cannot take it off them again. That’s all they’re asking—my cattle to go in across the mearing to them.”
“Never mind them. I’ll go bail that I’ll take good heed of them, and that I’ll not let anything in to them.”
The gentleman brought him home then, and he went herding for him. When the grass was getting scarce, he was driving the cows further out. There was a big stone wall between the land of the giants and his master’s land. There was fine grass on the other side of the wall. When he saw that, he threw down a gap in the wall and let in the pigs and the cows. He went up into a tree then, and was throwing down apples and all sorts (of fruit) to the pigs.
A giant came out, and when he saw the lad up on the tree throwing down the apples to the pigs, the head rose on him (i.e., he got furious). He came to the tree. “Get down out of that,” says he. “I think you big for one bite and small for two bites; come down till I draw you under my long cold teeth.”
“Arrah, take yourself easy,” says the boy; “perhaps it’s too quick I’d come down to you.”