Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/193

V.] Giant came home and said, "The smell of strange girls is here," and he ordered his gillie to kill them; and the gillie was to know them from the Giant's daughters by these having twists of amber beads round their necks, and the others having twists of horse-hair. Now Maol o Chliobain, the youngest of the widow's daughters, heard this, and she changed the necklaces, and so the gillie came and killed the Giant's daughters, and Maol o Chliobain took the golden cloth that was on the bed, and ran away with her sisters. But the cloth was an enchanted cloth, and it cried out to the Giant, who pursued them till they came to a river, and then Maol plucked out a hair of her head, and made a bridge of it; but the Giant could not get over; so he called out to Maol, "And when wilt thou come again?" "I will come when my business brings me," she said; and then he went home again. They got to a farmer's house, and told him their history. Said the Farmer, who had three sons, "I will give my eldest son to thy eldest sister; get for me the fine comb of gold and the coarse comb of silver that the Giant has." So she went and fetched the combs, and the Giant