“Well! I will give you my daughter if you save us,” said the king.
He threw down the bag with the dogs’ food. Then he got the apple that he had as a gift. He threw it into the air. Where the apple fell there rose a court and castle. There came food and drink enough for a hundred men. They were hungry, and they ate enough and drank enough. Then they fell asleep. When they woke in the morning, they were lying in a smooth flat of rushes, and they sweating. There was great joy on them. The gentleman then said he should get the woman. When the butler came he had no wife to get. He was vexed. He went home then, and the woman who was in the greenawn said she would not marry a man at all, but the man who would ride the nine-legged steed under the window of the greenawn. The report went out through the island that any man at all who would ride the nine-legged steed, had the king’s daughter to get. The people were all gathered. There was a great gathering there. The red boy brought out the nine-legged steed under the windows of the greenawn. The butler would let no one ride till he went riding himself the first time. Then he went riding on her. The nine-legged steed asked him was he ready; he said he was. She lifted her rump and jerked him up in the air. He fell and was killed. Then there was another rider then and he went riding. She played the same trick with him. She was there, and no one at all was going to ride on her. The king’s son went, and bought himself clothes. He put them on. He went riding then on the nine-legged steed. She walked up and down under the windows of the greenawn, and she stirred not head nor foot. The lady was looking out of the window. When she saw him riding, she knew him and she came down. She ran out and they caught hold of each other by the hands. There was great joy on her that she saw him. She smothered him with kisses, and drowned him with tears; she dried him with finest cloths and with silk.
Came the priest of the pattens and the clerk of the bells. The pair were married. When they were married there were three champions there. They asked him if he knew them. He said that he knew them; that it was they gave him the gifts. There came a beautiful girl then. She asked him if he knew her. He said he did not know.
“Well,” said she, “I was in the place of the nine-legged steed, and those are my three brothers, and I am sister to them. We were all under spells till your wife was married.”
I found the ford; they the stepping-stones. They were drowned, and I came away.
THE PHONETIC TEXT.
When folk-lore is narrated by peasants in their own dialect, it seems desirable, for various reasons, that the tales should be recorded in that dialect, and not in some form of speech differing from it more or less widely. This being conceded, the question arises, when one takes to recording Irish folk-lore, how the object is to be attained. It needs but a very small acquaintance with the ordinary Irish orthography to perceive that, if it is adhered to, the object cannot be even aimed at. The greatest defect in the English language is admitted to be its extraordinary spelling. But in this respect it is completely outdone by Irish Gaelic, which is troubled in an aggravated form with every evil that afflicts English. Different sounds are written in the same way. Identical sounds are written in different ways. Silent letters attain to a tropical forestine luxuriance, through which the tongue of the learner despairs of hewing a way. There are, moreover, cases in which there is no indication in writing of single sounds, and even syllables, which are actually pronounced; and there is at least one case of a word being written as if it began with a vowel, while it really begins with a consonant.