Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/116

94 stone was that the liagaun was exacted by a father from the slayer of his son, and was the length of the victim. The story of Prince Lachtna (ante 840) tells that an adviser of King Phelim of Cashel tried to arouse his suspicions of Lachtna by an alleged oracle of a pillar stone Liag na neasain, near Killaloe, against "a fair man from Craglea."

There was, and there was a man and a woman. The man was a hunter. On the day of his death, he said,—"Wife, I am going to die." (His wife was with child.) "I know you are going to bear a son, and he will follow my calling. Let me not hear of his going a-hunting to Black Rock."

The father dies; the son is born; he grows up, and he goes a-hunting. The mother says,—"Son, your father left a command, saying,—"When my son follows my calling, let me not hear of his going to Black Rock."" But the son pays no attention to testament or command. He mounts his horse, and goes a-hunting to Black Rock. And, lo! he sees a goblin riding on a gigantic horse, approaching between heaven and earth. "Ho!" cries the goblin, "How is it that you have not heard my name, and venture to go a-hunting upon my land?" With that he gives the fellow three fisticuffs. The young man utters the name of God, and by God's help he becomes no bigger than a fly, and fastens himself underneath the horse. Then he lets fly two arrows, and the goblin falls to the ground in a dying condition.

Then the young man says to himself,—"Now I will mount the goblin's horse, and it will surely take me somewhere or other."