Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/103

 The giant answered:

'Come hither that I may see thee,' and he placed a chair at his feet so that Kilhugh could gaze up under the overhanging eyebrows and exchange glances with the one small dodging brown eye which remained to him.

'Is it thou that seekest my daughter?'

'It is I.'

'I must have thy pledge that thou wilt be just in dealing with me. When I have got what I am going to ask for, thou shalt have my daughter.'

'Willingly I promise. Name what thou dost desire, Uspathadden Penkower.'

Still looking down, he said to Kilhugh:

'Seest thou yonder red ploughland? '

'I see it.'

'When first I met the mother of this maiden, nine bushels of flax were sown therein, and none has yet sprung up, neither white nor black; and I have the measure by me still. I require to have the flax to sow in the new land yonder, that when it grows up it may make a white wimple for my daughter's head, on the day of thy wedding.'

Kilhugh looked out through the door of the hall to the red land on the hill-side below the rocks, and said:

'It will be easy for me to do this.'

'If thou canst do this, there is something else thou canst not do which I require. For thy wedding I must shave this beard,' Kilhugh looked up at what seemed bushes of dry gorse growing on the ledge of the giant's chin—'and to shave it I must have the tusk of Yskithyrwyn Penbaeth, the boar, and the tusk has to be drawn out of his jaw while he is alive.'

'It will be easy for me to do this.'

'Supposing thou canst do it, there is something yet