Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/201

 Collectanea. 191

she got to the well, she found the ram had been killed by the servant boy, and the duck taken out of the ram, and the egg taken out of the duck. When she came back with, the can of water the lady was surprised, and she told her to strip to her waist. And the wife bade her strip herself. And in vexation the lady stripped, and the wife saw the mole on her left side, and threw the egg at the mole and killed her.

So the husband was happy at being released from his enchant- ment, and he brought his family together, and they lived long and happily.

The Man under the Sea.

There was a king's son who went out fowling and met an old man, and they had a game of cards. The old man put a geasa on him not to eat two meals at one table or sleep two nights in one bed until he said " God save all here." The king's son went to his wise man, and put his back to the fire and sighed, and the wise man said, " I never saw one more like a king's son than you."

"I am that to my sorrow," said the king's son.

The wise man said, "That man's house is under the sea, and a hatchet is in his hand well edged to cut the head of you when you enter his house. But his four daughters come as four swans once a year to this island to bathe, and you had better hide in this island and see what they can do for you." So the king's son did, and the four swans came to bathe, and left their four cochulls on the island, and went out to bathe.

They were not long out when he took up one of the cochulls. And they knew there was a stranger in the island, and they came in at once and ran to take up their cochulls, and the youngest one's cochull was missing. They went away and left her in the island, she begged him to give her the hoodi and she might do some good for him hereafter.

" My father is sitting at the door," she said, " and he has the hatchet in his hand to kill you. I will go looking at his head, and I will put a sleeping pin in his head till you come in. He won't let you go, if he can, till he kills you."

The king's son went then to the house, and she was at her father's head till he came in and said " God save all here."