Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/228

 166 "If it is in my power, and it not to be against the faith," said the bishop.

"A week from to-day," said the hag, "there will be seven vultures dead at the door of our house in the wood. Give orders to bury them in the quarry that is between the wood and Ballyglas; that is all I am asking of you."

"I shall do that if I am alive," said the bishop. Then she left him, and he was not sorry she to go from him.

A week after that day, the bishop came to Loch Glynn, and the day after he took men with him and went to the hags' house in the wood of Driminuch.

The big black dog was at the door, and when he saw the bishop he began running and never stopped until he went into the lake.

He saw the seven vultures dead at the door, and he said to the men: "Take them with you and follow me."

They took up the vultures and followed him to the brink of the quarry. Then he said to them: "Throw them into the quarry: There is an end to the hags of the enchantment."

As soon as the men threw them down to the bottom of the quarry, there rose from it seven swans as white as snow, and flew out of their sight. It was the opinion of the bishop and of every person who heard the story that it was up to heaven they flew, and that the big black dog went to the castle under the lake.

At any rate, nobody saw the hags of the long tooth or the big black dog from that out, any more.