by W. B. Yeats
There was once a very worthy king, whose daughter was the greatest beauty that could be seen far or near, but she was as proud as Lucifer, and no king or prince would she agree to marry. Her father was tired out at last, and invited every king and prince, and duke, and earl that he knew or didn’t know to come to his court to give her one trial more. They all came, and next day after breakfast they stood in a row on the lawn, and the princess walked along in the front of them to make her choice.
One was fat, and says she, “I won’t have you, Beer-barrel!” One was tall and thin, and to him she said, “I won’t have you, Ramrod!” To a white-faced man she said, “I won’t have you, Pale Death;” and to a red-cheeked man she said, “I won’t have you, Cockscomb!”
She stopped a little before the last of all for he was a fine man in face and form. She wanted to find some defect in him, but he had nothing remarkable but a ring of brown curling hair under his chin. She admired him a little, and then carried it off with, “I won’t have you, Whiskers!”
So all went away, and the king was so vexed, he said to her, “Now to punish your impidence, I’ll give you to the first beggar-man or singing sthronshuch that calls;” and, as sure as the hearth-money, a fellow all over rags, and hair that came to his shoulders, and a bushy red beard all over his face, came next morning, and began to sing before the parlour window.
When the song was over, the hall door was opened, the singer asked in, the priest brought, and the princess married to Beardy. She roared and she bawled, but her father didn’t mind her.
“There,” says he to the bridegroom, “is five guineas for you. Take your wife out of my sight, and never let me lay eyes on you or her again.”
Off he led her, and dismal enough she was. The only thing that gave her relief was the tone of her husband’s voice and his genteel manners.
“Whose wood is this?” said she, as they were going through one.
“It belongs to the king you called Whiskers yesterday.” He gave her the same answer about meadows and cornfields and at last a fine city.
“Ah, what a fool I was!” said she to herself. “He was a fine man, and I might have him for a husband.”
At last they were coming up to a poor cabin. “Why are you bringing me here?” says the poor lady.
“This was my house,” said he, “and now it’s yours.” She began to cry, but she was tired and hungry, and she went in with him.
Ovoch! there was neither a table laid out, nor a fire burning, and she was obliged to help her husband to light it, and boil their dinner, and clean up the place after; and next day he made her put on a stuff gown and a cotton handkerchief.
When she had her house readied up, and no business to keep her employed, he brought home sallies (willows), peeled them, and showed her how to make baskets. But the hard twigs bruised her delicate fingers, and she began to cry. Well, then he asked her to mend their clothes, but the needle drew blood from her fingers, and she cried again. He couldn’t bear to see her tears, so he bought a creel of earthenware, and sent her to the market to sell them.
This was the hardest trial of all, but she looked so handsome and sorrowful, and had such a nice air about her, that all her pans, and jugs, and plates, and dishes were gone before noon, and the only mark of her old pride she showed was a slap she gave a buckeen across the face when he axed her to go in an’ take share of a quart.
Well, her husband was so glad, he sent her with another creel the next day; but faith! her luck was after deserting her. A drunken huntsman came up riding, and his beast got in among her ware, and made brishe of every mother’s son of ’em. She went home cryin’, and her husband wasn’t at all pleased.
“I see,” said he, “you’re not fit for business. Come along, I’ll get you a kitchen-maid’s place in the palace. I know the cook.”
So the poor thing was obliged to stifle her pride once more. She was kept busy, and the footman and the butler would be very impudent about looking for a kiss, but she let a screech out of her the first attempt was made, and the cook gave the fellow such a lambasting with the besom that he made no second offer. She went home to her husband every night, and she carried broken victuals wrapped in papers in her side pockets.
A week after she got service there was great bustle in the kitchen. The king was going to be married, but no one knew who the bride was to be. Well, in the evening the cook filled the princess’s pockets with cold meat and puddings, and, says she, “Before you go, let us have a look at the great doings in the big parlour.” So they came near the door to get a peep, and who should come out but the king himself, as handsome as you please, and no other but King Whiskers himself.
“Your handsome helper must pay for her peeping,” said he to the cook, “and dance a jig with me.”
Whether she would or no, he held her hand and brought her into the parlour. The fiddlers struck up, and away went him with her. But they hadn’t danced two steps when the meat and the puddens flew out of her pockets. Everyone roared out, and she flew to the door, crying piteously. But she was soon caught by the king, and taken into the back parlour.
“Don’t you know me, my darling?” said he. “I’m both King Whiskers, your husband the ballad-singer, and the drunken huntsman. Your father knew me well enough when he gave you to me, and all was to drive your pride out of you.”
Well, she didn’t know how she was with fright, and shame, and joy. Love was uppermost anyhow, for she laid her head on her husband’s breast and cried like a child.
The maids-of-honour soon had her away and dressed her as fine as hands and pins could do it; and there were her mother and father, too; and while the company were wondering what end of the handsome girl and the king, he and his queen, who they didn’t know in her fine clothes, and the other king and queen, came in, and such rejoicings and fine doings as there was, none of us will ever see, anyway.
Pat Diver, the tinker, was a man well-accustomed to a wandering life, and to strange shelters; he had shared the beggar’s blanket in smoky cabins; he had crouched beside the still in many a nook and corner where poteen was made on the wild Innishowen mountains; he had even slept on the bare heather, or on the ditch, with no roof over him but the vault of heaven; yet were all his nights of adventure tame and commonplace when compared with one especial night.
During the day preceding that night, he had mended all the kettles and saucepans in Moville and Greencastle, and was on his way to Culdaff, when night overtook him on a lonely mountain road.
He knocked at one door after another asking for a night’s lodging, while he jingled the halfpence in his pocket, but was everywhere refused.
Where was the boasted hospitality of Innishowen, which he had never before known to fail? It was of no use to be able to pay when the people seemed so churlish. Thus thinking, he made his way towards a light a little farther on, and knocked at another cabin door.
An old man and woman were seated one at each side of the fire.
“Will you be pleased to give me a night’s lodging, sir?” asked Pat respectfully.
“Can you tell a story?” returned the old man.
“No, then, sir, I canna say I’m good at story-telling,” replied the puzzled tinker.
“Then you maun just gang farther, for none but them that can tell a story will get in here.”
This reply was made in so decided a tone that Pat did not attempt to repeat his appeal, but turned away reluctantly to resume his weary journey.
“A story, indeed,” muttered he. “Auld wives’ fables to please the weans!”
As he took his bundle of tinkering implements, he observed a barn standing rather behind the dwelling-house, and, aided by the rising moon, he made his way towards it.
It was a clean, roomy barn, with a piled-up heap of straw in one corner. Here was a shelter not to be despised; so Pat crept under the straw and was soon asleep.
He could not have slept very long when he was awakened by the tramp of feet, and, peeping cautiously through a crevice in
his straw covering, he saw four immensely tall men enter the barn, dragging a body which they threw roughly upon the floor.
They next lighted a fire in the middle of the barn, and fastened the corpse by the feet with a great rope to a beam in the roof. One of them began to turn it slowly before the fire.
“Come on,” said he, addressing a gigantic fellow, the tallest of the four – “I’m tired; you be to tak’ your turn.”
“Faix an’ troth, I’ll no’ turn him,” replied the big man.
“There’s Pat Diver in under the straw, why wouldn’t he tak’ his turn?”
With hideous clamour the four men called the wretched Pat, who, seeing there was no escape, thought it was his wisest plan to come forth as he was bidden.
“Now, Pat,” said they, “you’ll turn the corpse, but if you let him burn you’ll be tied up there and roasted in his place.”
Pat’s hair stood on end, and the cold perspiration poured from his forehead, but there was nothing for it but to perform his dreadful task.
Seeing him fairly embarked in it, the tall men went away.
Soon, however, the flames rose so high as to singe the rope, and the corpse fell with a great thud upon the fire, scattering the ashes and embers, and extracting a howl of anguish from the miserable cook, who rushed to the door, and ran for his life.
He ran on until he was ready to drop with fatigue, when, seeing a drain overgrown with tall, rank grass, he thought he would creep in there and lie hidden till morning.
But he was not many minutes in the drain before he heard the heavy tramping again, and the four men came up with their burthen, which they laid down on the edge of the drain.
“I’m tired,” said one, to the giant; “it’s your turn to carry him a piece now.”
“Faix and troth, I’ll no’ carry him,” replied he, “but there’s Pat Diver in the drain, why wouldn’t he come out and tak’ his turn?”
“Come out, Pat, come out,” roared all the men, and Pat, almost dead with fright, crept out.
He staggered on under weight of the corpse until he reached Kiltown Abbey, a ruin festooned with ivy, where the brown owl hooted all night long, and the forgotten dead slept around the walls under dense, matted tangles of brambles and ben-weed.
No one ever buried there now, but Pat’s tall companions turned into the wild graveyard, and began digging a grave.
Pat, seeing them thus engaged, thought he might once more try to escape, and climbed up into a hawthorn tree in the fence, hoping to be hidden in the boughs.
“I’m tired,” said the man who was digging the grave; “here, take the spade,” addressing the big man, “it’s your turn.”
“Faix an’ troth, it’s no’ my turn,” replied he, as before. “There’s Pat Diver in the tree, why wouldn’t he come down and tak’ his turn?”
Pat came down to take the spade, but just then the cocks in the little farmyards and cabins round the abbey began to crow, and the men looked at one another.
“We must go,” said they, “and well is it for you, Pat Diver, that the cocks crowed, for if they had not, you’d just ha’ been bundled into that grave with the corpse.”
Two months passed, and Pat had wandered far and wide over the county Donegal, when he chanced to arrive at Raphoe during a fair.
Among the crowd that filled the Diamond he came suddenly on the big man.
“How are you, Pat Diver?” said he, bending down to look into the tinker’s face.
“You’ve the advantage of me, sir, for I havna’ the pleasure of knowing you,” faltered Pat.
“Do you not know me, Pat?” Whisper – “When you go back to Innishowen, you’ll have a story to tell!”
Hudden and Dudden and Donald O’Nery were near neighbours in the barony of Balinconlig, and ploughed with three bullocks; but the two former, envying the present prosperity of the latter, determined to kill his bullock, to prevent his farm being properly cultivated and laboured, that going back in the world he might be induced to sell his lands, which they meant to get possession of. Poor Donald finding his bullock killed, immediately skinned it, and throwing the skin over his shoulder, with the fleshy side out, set off to the next town with it, to dispose of it to the best of his advantage.
Going along the road a magpie flew on the top of the hide, and began picking it, chattering all the time. The bird had been taught to speak, and imitate the human voice, and Donald, thinking he understood some words it was saying, put round his hand and caught hold of it. Having got possession of it, he put it under his greatcoat, and so went to town.
Having sold the hide, he went into an inn to take a dram, and following the landlady into the cellar, he gave the bird a squeeze which made it chatter some broken accents that surprised her very much.
“What is that I hear?” said she to Donald. “I think it is talk, and yet I do not understand.”
“Indeed,” said Donald, “it is a bird I have that tells me everything, and I always carry it with me to know when there is any danger. Faith,” says he, “it says you have far better liquor than you are giving me.”
“That is strange,” said she, going to another cask of better quality, and asking him if he would sell the bird.
“I will,” said Donald, “if I get enough for it.”
“I will fill your hat with silver if you leave it with me.”
Donald was glad to hear the news, and taking the silver, set off, rejoicing at his good luck. He had not been long at home until he met with Hudden and Dudden.
“Mr,” said he, “you thought you had done me a bad turn, but you could not have done me a better; for look here, what I have got for the hide,” showing them a hatful of silver; “you never saw such a demand for hides in your life as there is at present.”
Hudden and Dudden that very night killed their bullocks, and set out the next morning to sell their hides. On coming to the place they went through all the merchants, but could only get a trifle for them; at last they had to take what they could get, and came home in a great rage, and vowing revenge on poor Donald.
He had a pretty good guess how matters would turn out, and he being under the kitchen window, he was afraid they would rob him, or perhaps kill him when asleep, and on that account when he was going to bed he left his old mother in his place, and lay down in her bed, which was in the other side of the house, and they taking the old woman for Donald, choked her in her bed, but he making some noise, they had to retreat, and leave the money behind them, which grieved them very much.
However, by daybreak, Donald got his mother on his back, and carried her to town. Stopping at a well, he fixed his mother with her staff, as if she was stooping for a drink, and then went into a public house convenient and called for a dram.
“I wish,” said he to a woman that stood near him, “you would tell my mother to come in; she is at yon well trying to get a drink, and she is hard of hearing; if she does not observe you, give her a little shake and tell her that I want her.”
The woman called her several times, but she seemed to take no notice; at length she went to her and shook her by the arm, but when she let her go again, she tumbled on her head into the well, and, as the woman thought, was drowned. She, in her great surprise and fear at the accident, told Donald what had happened.
“O mercy,” said he, “what is this?” He ran and pulled her out of the well, weeping and lamenting all the time, and acting in such a manner that you would imagine that he had lost his senses.
The woman, on the other hand, was far worse than Donald, for his grief was only feigned, but she imagined herself to be the cause of the old woman’s death.
The inhabitants of the town, hearing what had happened, agreed to make Donald up a good sum of money for his loss, as the accident happened in their place, and Donald brought a greater sum home with him than he got for the magpie. They buried Donald’s mother, and as soon as he saw Hudden and Dudden he showed them the last purse of money he had got.
“You thought to kill me
last night,” said he, “but it was good for me it happened on my mother, for I got all the purse for her to make gunpowder.”
That very night Hudden and Dudden killed their mothers, and the next morning set off with them to town. On coming to the town with their burthen on their backs, they went up and down crying, “Who will buy old wives for gunpowder,” so that everyone laughed at them, and the boys at last clotted them out of the place. They then saw the cheat, and vowed revenge on Donald, buried the old women, and set off in pursuit of him.
Coming to his house they found him sitting at his breakfast, and seizing him, put him in a sack, and went to drown him in a river at some distance. As they were going along the highway they raised a hare, which they saw had but three feet, and throwing off the sack, ran after her, thinking by her appearance she would be easily taken.
In their absence there came a drover that way, and hearing Donald singing in the sack, wondered greatly what could be the matter.
“What is the reason,” said he, “that you are singing, and you confined?”
“O, I am going to heaven,” said Donald, “and in a short time I expect to be free from trouble.”
“O dear,” said the drover, “what will I give you if you let me to your place?”
“Indeed, I do not know,” said he, “it would take a good sum.”
“I have not much money,” said the drover, “but I have twenty head of fine cattle, which I will give you to exchange places with me.”
“Well,” says Donald, “I do not care if I should lose the sack, and I will come out.”
In a moment the drover liberated him, and went into the sack himself, and Donald drove home the fine heifers, and left them in his pasture.
Hudden and Dudden having caught the hare, returned, and getting the sack on one of their backs, carried Donald, as they thought, to the river and threw him in, where he immediately sank. They then marched home, intending to take immediate possession of Donald’s property, but how great was their surprise when they found him safe at home before them, with such a fine head of cattle, whereas they knew he had none before.