"That"s true," said Prince Underwaves. "A king"s son are you, but a son of success am I. We shall have no more mistakes and delays, but a wedding this time."
"Go easy," said the Princess of the Greeks. "Your wedding is not so near as you think yet. Till you make a castle, I won"t marry you. Not to your father"s castle nor to your mother"s will I go to dwell; but make me a castle for which your father"s castle will not make washing water."
"You, rider of the black horse, make that," said Prince Underwaves, "before the morrow"s sun rises."
The lad went out to the horse and leaned his elbow on his neck and sighed, thinking that this castle never could be made for ever.
"There never came a turn in my road yet that is easier for me to pa.s.s than this," said the black horse.
Glance that the lad gave from him he saw all that there were, and ever so many wrights and stone masons at work, and the castle was ready before the sun rose.
He shouted at the Prince Underwaves, and he saw the castle. He tried to pluck out his eye, thinking that it was a false sight.
"Son of King Underwaves," said the rider of the black horse, "don"t think that you have a false sight; this is a true sight."
"That"s true," said the prince. "You are a son of success, but I am a son of success too. There will be no more mistakes and delays, but a wedding now."
"No," said she. "The time is come. Should we not go to look at the castle? There"s time enough to get married before the night comes."
They went to the castle and the castle was without a "but"----
"I see one," said the prince. "One want at least to be made good. A well to be made inside, so that water may not be far to fetch when there is a feast or a wedding in the castle."
"That won"t be long undone," said the rider of the black horse.
The well was made, and it was seven fathoms deep and two or three fathoms wide, and they looked at the well on the way to the wedding.
"It is very well made," said she, "but for one little fault yonder."
"Where is it?" said Prince Underwaves.
"There," said she.
He bent him down to look. She came out, and she put her two hands at his back, and cast him in.
"Be thou there," said she. "If I go to be married, thou art not the man; but the man who did each exploit that has been done, and, if he chooses, him will I have."
Away she went with the rider of the little black horse to the wedding.
And at the end of three years after that so it was that he first remembered the black horse or where he left him.
He got up and went out, and he was very sorry for his neglect of the black horse. He found him just where he left him.
"Good luck to you, gentleman," said the horse. "You seem as if you had got something that you like better than me."
"I have not got that, and I won"t; but it came over me to forget you,"
said he.
"I don"t mind," said the horse, "it will make no difference. Raise your sword and smite off my head."
"Fortune will now allow that I should do that," said he.
"Do it instantly, or I will do it to you," said the horse.
So the lad drew his sword and smote off the horse"s head; then he lifted his two palms and uttered a doleful cry.
What should he hear behind him but "All hail, my brother-in-law."
He looked behind him, and there was the finest man he ever set eyes upon.
"What set you weeping for the black horse?" said he.
"This," said the lad, "that there never was born of man or beast a creature in this world that I was fonder of."
"Would you take me for him?" said the stranger.
"If I could think you the horse, I would; but if not, I would rather the horse," said the rider.
"I am the black horse," said the lad, "and if I were not, how should you have all these things that you went to seek in my father"s house. Since I went under spells, many a man have I ran at before you met me. They had but one word amongst them: they could not keep me, nor manage me, and they never kept me a couple of days. But when I fell in with you, you kept me till the time ran out that was to come from the spells. And now you shall go home with me, and we will make a wedding in my father"s house."
The Vision of MacConglinney
[Ill.u.s.tration: C]
Cathal, King of Munster, was a good king and a great warrior. But there came to dwell within him a lawless evil beast, that afflicted him with hunger that ceased not, and might not be satisfied, so that he would devour a pig, a cow, and a bull calf and three-score cakes of pure wheat, and a vat of new ale, for his breakfast, whilst as for his great feast, what he ate there pa.s.ses account or reckoning. He was like this for three half-years, and during that time it was the ruin of Munster he was, and it is likely he would have ruined all Ireland in another half-year.
Now there lived in Armagh a famous young scholar and his name was Anier MacConglinney. He heard of the strange disease of King Cathal, and of the abundance of food and drink, of whitemeats, ale and mead, there were always to be found at the king"s court. Thither then was he minded to go to try his own fortune, and to see of what help he could be to the king.
He arose early in the morning and tucked up his shirt and wrapped him in the folds of his white cloak. In his right hand he grasped his even-poised knotty staff, and going right-hand-wise round his home, he bade farewell to his tutors and started off.
He journeyed across all Ireland till he came to the house of Pichan. And there he stayed and told tales, and made all merry. But Pichan said:
"Though great thy mirth, son of learning, it does not make me glad."
"And why?" asked MacConglinney.
"Knowest thou not, scholar, that Cathal is coming here to-night with all his host. And if the great host is troublesome, the king"s first meal is more troublesome still; and troublesome though the first be, most troublesome of all is the great feast. Three things are wanted for this last: a bushel of oats, and a bushel of wild apples, and a bushel of flour cakes."
"What reward would you give me if I shield you from the king from this hour to the same hour to-morrow?"
"A white sheep from every fold between Carn and Cork."
"I will take that," said MacConglinney.
Cathal, the king, came with the companies, and a host of horse of the Munster men. But Cathal did not let the thong of his shoe be half loosed before he began supplying his mouth with both hands from the apples round about him. Pichan and all the men of Munster looked on sadly and sorrowfully. Then rose MacConglinney, hastily and impatiently, and seized a stone, against which swords were used to be sharpened; this he thrust into his mouth and began grinding his teeth against the stone.