The Gobaun Seer and his son went eastward to the eastern world to Balar Beimann to make for him a palace. “Shorten the road, my son,” said the father. The son ran out before him on the road, and the father returned home on that day. The second day they went travelling, and the father told his son to shorten the road. He ran out in front of his father the second day, and the father returned home.
“What’s the cause of your returning home like that?” said the wife of the young Gobaun.
“My father asks me to shorten the road. I run out on the road before him, and he returns.”
“Do you begin to-morrow at a story he has never heard, and I’ll go bail he will not return. And do you never be in any place that the women are not on your side.”
They went travelling the third day, and the young Gobaun began at a story his father never heard, and he returned no more till they came to the eastern world. Then they made the palace for Balar Beimann, and he did not wish to let them go back, for fear they should make for another man a palace as good as his.
“Take away the scaffolding” (said he); for he wanted to let them die on the top of the building. Balar Beimann had a girl, who went by under the building in the morning.
“Young Gobaun,” said she, “go on thy wisdom. I think it is easier to throw seven stones down than to put one up as far as you.”
“That’s true for you,” said young Gobaun.
They began to let down the work. When Balar Beimann heard that they were throwing down the works, he ordered back the scaffolding till they were down on the ground.
“Now,” said the old Gobaun Seer, “there is a crookedness in your work, and if I had three tools I left after me at home, I would straighten the work, and there would not be any work in the world to compare with it. The names of the tools are—Crooked against Crooked, Corner against Corner, and Engine against deceit;[2] and there is not a man to get them but your own son. You will find,” said he, “a woman with one hand, and a child with one eye, in the house, and a stack of corn at the door.”