Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/203

 Rh "You were not at the Well of D'yerree-in-Dowan," said the queen.

Then she asked the king if he had any other son, and the king said he had. "But," said he, "it's a half fool he is, that never left home."

"Bring him here," said the queen.

When Cart came, she asked him: "Were you at the Well of D'yerree-in-Dowan?"

"I was," said Cart, "and I saw you there."

"Go up to the top of that ladder," said the queen.

Cart went up like a cat, and when he came down she said: "You are the man who was at the Well of D'yerree-in-Dowan, and you are the father of my son."

Then Cart told the trick his brothers played on him, and the queen was going to slay them, until Cart asked pardon for them. Then the king said that Cart must get the kingdom.

Then the father dressed him out and put a chain of gold beneath his neck, and he got into the coach along with the queen, and they departed to the Well of D'yerree-in-Dowan.

The waiting-maidens gave a great welcome to the king's son, and they all of them came to him, each one asking him to marry herself.

He remained there for one-and-twenty years, until the queen died, and then he brought back with him his twelve sons, and came home to Galway. Each of them married a wife, and it is from them that the twelve tribes of Galway are descended.