“‘Well,’ says he, ‘you’re a match for me any day; and sooner than be shut up again in this dismal ould box, I’ll give you what you ask for my liberty. And the three best gifts I possess are, this brown cap, which while you wear it will render you invisible to the fairies, while they are all visible to you; this box of salve, by rubbing some of which to your lips, you will have the power of commanding every fairy and spirit in the world to obey your will; and, lastly, this little kippeen11. A little stick., which at your word may be transformed into any mode of conveyance you wish. Besides all this, you shall come with me to my palace, where all the treasures of the earth shall be at your disposal. But mind, I give you this caution, that if you ever permit the brown cap or the kippeen to be out of your possession for an instant, you’ll lose them for ever; and if you suffer any person to touch your lips while you remain in the underground kingdom, you will instantly become visible, and your power over the fairies will be at an end.’
“‘Well,’ thinks I, ‘there’s nothing so very difficult in that.’ So having got the cap, the kippeen, and the box of salve, into my possession, I opened the box, and out jumped the little fellow.
“‘Now, Felix,’ says he, ‘touch your lips with the salve, for we are just at the entrance of my dominions.’
“I did as he desired me, and, Dharra Dhie! if the little chap wasn’t changed into a big black-looking giant, sitting afore my eyes on a great rock.
“‘Lord save us!’ says I to myself, ‘it’s a marcy and a wondher how he ever squeezed himself into that weeshy box.’ ‘Why thin, Sir,’ says I to him, ‘maybe your honour would have the civilitude to tell me your name.’
“‘With the greatest of pleasure, Felix,’ says he smiling; ‘I’m called Mahoon, the Giant.’
“‘Tare an’ agers! are you though? Well, if I thought’—but he gave me no time to think; for calling on me to follow him, he began climbing up the Giant’s Stairs as asy as I’d walk up a ladder to the hay-loft. Well, he was at the top afore you could cry ‘trapstick,’ and it wasn’t long till I was at the top too, and there we found a gate opening into the hill, and a power of lords and ladies waiting to resave Mahoon, who I larned was their king, and who had been away from his kingdom for twenty years, by rason of his being shut up in the box by some great fairy-man.
“Well, when we got inside the gates, I found myself in a most beautiful city, where nobody seemed to mind anything but diversion. The music was the most illigant thing you ever hard in your born days, and there wasn’t one less than forty Munster pipers playing before King Mahoon and his friends, as they marched along through great broad streets,—a thousand times finer than Great George’s-street, in Cork; for, my dears, there was nothing to be seen but goold, and jewels, and guineas, lying like sand under our feet. As I had the little brown cap upon my head, I knew that none of the fairy people could see me, so I walked up cheek by jowl with King Mahoon himself, who winked at me to keep my toe in my brogue, which you may be sure I did, and so we kept on until we came to the king’s palace. If other places were grand, this was ten times grander, for the very sight was fairly taken out of my eyes with the dazzling light that shone round about it. In we went into the palace, through two rows of most engaging and beautiful young ladies; and then King Mahoon took his sate upon his throne, and put upon his head a crown of goold, stuck all over with di’monds, every one of them bigger than a sheep’s heart. Of coorse there was a dale of compliments past amongst the lords and ladies till they got tired of them; and then they sat down to dinner, and, nabocklish! wasn’t there rale givings-out there, with cead mille phailtagh22. A hundred thousand welcomes.. The whiskey was sarved out in tubs and buckets, for they’d scorn to drink ale or porter; and as for the ating, there was laygions of fat bacon and cabbage for the sarvants, and a throop of legs of mutton for the king and his coort. Well, after we had all ate till we could hould no more, the king called out to clear the flure for a dance. No sooner had he said the word, than the tables were all whipped away,—the pipers began to tune their chaunters. The king’s son opened the ball with a mighty beautiful young crather; but the mirinit I laid my eyes upon her I knew her at once for a neighbour’s daughter, one Anty Dooley, who had died a few months before, and who, when she was alive, could beat the whole county round at any sort of reel, jig, or hornpipe. The music struck up ‘Tatter Jack Walsh,’ and maybe it’s she that didn’t set, and turn, and thrush the boords, until the young prince hadn’t as much breath left in his body as would blow out a rushlight, and he was forced to sit down puffing and panting, and laving his partner standing in the middle of the room. I couldn’t stand that by no means; so jumping upon the flure with a shilloo, I flung my cap into the air:—the music stopped of a sudden, and I then recollected that, by throwing off the cap, I had become visible, and had lost one of Mahoon’s three gifts.
“Divil may care! as Punch said when he missed mass; I’ll have my dance out at any rate, so rouse up ‘The Rakes of Mallow,’ my beauties. So to it we set; and when the cailleen was getting tired well becomes myself, but I threw my arm around her slindher waist and took such a smack of her sweet lips, that the hall resounded with the report.
“‘Fetch me a glass of the best,’ says I to a little fellow who was hopping about with a tray full of all sorts of dhrink.