West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances

by Unknown

He said to her that he would be riding in the morning on the pony; and he was going, and he came on an apple of gold upon the strand, and the pony told him not to take up the apple or it would give him abundance of trouble.

“Whatever trouble it may give me I will take it up!”

He went home and the pearl of gold with him. In the morning he went to the old druid, and the old druid told him that it was the daughter of a king of the eastern world, who lost it from her hair;—that there was a pearl of gold on every rib of hair upon her head, and that she and her twelve attendant women were bathing in such a place the day she lost it.

“I will never stop,” said he, “till I see the woman who lost it.”

The pony told him she was hard to see.

“There are seven miles of hill on fire to cross before you come to where she is, and there are seven miles of steel thistles, and seven miles of sea for you to go over. I told you to have nothing to do with the apple. All the same it is as good for you to go riding on me till we try to go to her place.”

He went on his two knees, and he went riding on him, till he crossed the seven miles of hill on fire, and the seven miles of steel thistles, and the seven miles of sea. When they came to the castle in which she was, there was a great dinner that day with her, and a great gathering of company. There were three-and-twenty feet of moat to cross before the pony could get in. He rose with a high leap and crossed the three-and-twenty feet. He came down on the inside of the moat, and a report went in (to the castle) that such and such a stranger was there; and she heard it and sent one of her servants to him. He told the servant he could not go in till he got leave to put the pony in the stable. She herself came out to him, with a golden goblet in her hand full of wine, and she offered it to him; but he said he would be obliged to her if she would drink of it first. She drank some of the wine first, and then held it out to him; and what he did was to leap again upon the pony, and throw his arm round her waist, and lift her up beside him on the pommel; and the pony gave his head towards the gates and crossed out beyond them, and made no stop till he came to their own castle with the lady.

“Now,” said the pony, “strike a blow with your rod of druidism upon me, and make of me a rock of stone, and whatever time at all you are in need of me, you have nothing to do but strike another blow on me, and I am up as I was before.”

The woman was with him then; and the young queen he first married did not know there was such a person in the castle till the hen-wife told her. “Well!” said the hen-wife, “do you know what to do? He has no regard for you beside the other. There is an apple of gold on every rib of hair upon her head. You and he will be (playing cards) together to-night, and you will win the first game, and you will put him under bonds to go and bring you the black horse of the bank.”

The two went playing that night. She won the first game, and he was to bring her the black horse of the bank. He went to the pony and struck a blow with his rod of druidism on him, and told her the news, that she put him under bonds to bring her the black horse of the bank. “I told you the first day,” said the pony, “to leave the pearl alone, or it would give you abundance of trouble; you must go now and cover me with leather all over, and put pitch and tar on the outside of the leather. I will then go down to the cliff to fight with the black horse of the bank, till I see if I’ll be able to bring him to you. There is not a bit that he takes out of me that he will not get the full of his mouth of leather and pitch and tar, to my ribs.”