Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/196

 134 coming, and his gob (beak) open. The king's son drew the loop and wounded the eagle.

"Did you strike him?" said the old man.

"I struck him," said the king's son; "but here he comes again."

He drew the loop the second time and the eagle fell dead.

When they came to the land, the old man said:

"We are on the island of the Well of D'yerree-in-Dowan. The queen is asleep, and she will not waken for a day and a year. She never goes to sleep but once in seven years. There is a lion and a monster (uillphéist) watching at the gate of the well, but they go to sleep at the same time with the queen, and you will have no difficulty in going to the well. Here are two bottles for you; fill one of them for yourself, and the other for me, and it will make a young man of me."

The king's son went off, and when he came as far as the castle he saw the lion and the monster sleeping on each side of the gate. Then he saw a great wheel throwing up water out of the well, and he went and filled the two bottles, and he was coming back when he saw a shining light in the castle. He looked in through the window and saw a great table. There was a loaf of bread, with a knife, a bottle, and a glass on it. He filled the glass, but he did not diminish the bottle. He observed that there was a writing on the bottle and on the loaf; and he read on the bottle: "Water For the World," and on the loaf: "Bread For the World." He cut a piece off the loaf, but it only grew bigger.

"My grief! that we haven't that loaf and that bottle at home," said the king's son, "and there'd be neither hunger nor thirst on the poor people."

Then he went into a great chamber, and he saw the