Page:Celtic Fairy Tales.djvu/142

 Jack and His Comrades

NCE there was a poor widow, as often there has been, and she had one son. A very scarce summer came, and they didn't know how they'd live till the new potatoes would be fit for eating. So Jack said to his mother one evening, "Mother, bake my cake, and kill my hen, till I go seek my fortune; and if I meet it, never fear but I'll soon be back to share it with you."

So she did as he asked her, and he set out at break of day on his journey. His mother came along with him to the yard gate, and says she, "Jack, which would you rather have, half the cake and half the hen with my blessing, or the whole of 'em with my curse?"

"O musha, mother," says Jack, "why do you ax me that question? sure you know I wouldn't have your curse and Damer's estate along with it."

"Well, then, Jack," says she, "here's the whole lot of 'em, with my thousand blessings along with them." So she stood on the yard fence and blessed him as far as her eyes could see him.

Well, he went along and along till he was tired, and