Celtic Fairy Tales: Title Page

"Return, and when thou comest to the north angle of the house, cry aloud three times and say, 'The mountain of the Fenian women and the
sky over it is all on fire.' "
And she did so.
When the witches inside heard the call, a great and terrible cry broke from their lips, and they rushed forth with wild lamentations and
shrieks, and fled away to Slievenamon, where was their chief abode. But the Spirit of the Well bade the mistress of the house to enter and
prepare her home against the enchantments of the witches if they returned again.
And first, to break their spells, she sprinkled the water in which she had washed her child's feet, the feet-water, outside the door on the
threshold; secondly, she took the cake which in her absence the witches had made of meal mixed with the blood drawn from the sleeping
family, and she broke the cake in bits, and placed a bit in the mouth of each sleeper, and they were restored; and she took the cloth they
had woven, and placed it half in and half out of the chest with the padlock; and lastly, she secured the door with a great crossbeam
fastened in the jambs, so that the witches could not enter, and having done these things she waited.
p. 33
Not long were the witches in coming back, and they raged and called for vengeance.
"Open! open!" they screamed; "open, feet-water!"
"I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my path is down to the Lough."
"Open, open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door.
"I cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs and I have no power to move."
"Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!" they cried again.
"I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children."
Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled back to Slievenamon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit of the Well,
who had wished their ruin; but the woman and the house were left in peace, and a mantle dropped by one of the witches in her flight was
kept hung up by the mistress in memory of that night; and this mantle was kept by the same family from generation to generation for five
hundred years after.
p. 34
Conall Yellowclaw
ONALL YELLOWCLAW was a sturdy tenant in Erin: he had three sons. There was at that time a king over every
fifth of Erin. It fell out for the children of the king that was near Conall, that they themselves and the children of
Conall came to blows. The children of Conall got the upper hand, and they killed the king's big son. The king sent a
message for Conall and he said to him--"Oh, Conall! what made your sons go to spring on my sons till my big son
was killed by your children? but I see that though I follow you revengefully, I shall not be much better for it, and I
will now set a thing before you, and if you will do it, I will not follow you with revenge. If you and your sons will
get me the brown horse of the king of Lochlann, you shall get the souls of your sons."
"Why," said Conall, "should not I do the pleasure of the king, though there should be no souls of my sons in dread
at all. Hard is the matter you require of me, but I will lose my own life, and the life of my sons, or else I will do the pleasure of the king."
p. 35
Celtic Fairy Tales: Title Page
After these words Conall left the king, and he went home: when he got home he was under much trouble and perplexity. When he went to
lie down he told his wife the thing the king had set before him. His wife took much sorrow that he was obliged to part from herself, while
she knew not if she should see him more.
"Oh, Conall," said she, "why didst not thou let the king do his own pleasure to thy sons, rather than be going now, while I know not if ever
I shall see thee more?"
When he rose on the morrow, he set himself and his three sons in order, and they took their journey towards Lochlann, and they made no
stop but tore through ocean till they reached it. When they reached Lochlann they did not know what they should do. Said the old man to
his sons, "Stop ye, and we will seek out the house of the king's miller."
When they went into the house of the king's miller, the man asked them to stop there for the night. Conall told the miller that his own
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