Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/202

 192 Collectanea.

The king's son said, " My geasa is over now, and I can go liome."

"No," said the man, "you must build a house for me."

The king's son went to lay the first stone, he could not stir the second stone. The daughter came with his dinner, and found him crying.

" Oh, why are you crying ? " she said.

" Because I cannot build."

"Sit down and eat your dinner at any rate," said she.

So she pinned up her dress, and she had the house built when he had the dinner ate. He went back to the man's house, and said he had done and that he would go home.

"No," said the man, "you must clean out the house, to take all the stuff out."

When the king's son went to throw the stuff out of the house, when he threw one shovelful out three shovelfuls would come in. When the daughter came with his dinner, she found him crying. " I get you crying always," she said, " sit down and take your dinner." And she went to work and had the house cleaned when he had his dinner ate.

Then the old man told him to roof the house ; and when he gave the first blow to the house, his hand fastened to the hatchet and the hatchet to the timber. So when she came with the dinner she found him crying, "Don't be crying," she said, "take your dinner." So she pinned up, and had the house roofed when he had the dinner taken.

The king's son said he would go home then ; the old man said no, and that he must thatch the house with the feathers of the wild birds, and that he would give him a whistle to call them.

And when he whistled there was not a bird in the world that did not come and put a feather on the house. A big storm of wind came and blew every feather away, and he began to cry. When the youngest daughter came again with his dinner, she found him crying. She said, " I believe you will be crying always, but come, sit down and take your dinner." So she pinned up her cota, and put her hand in her pocket and pulled up a whistle, and whistled, and all the birds of the air came and put a feather on the house without a head of a feather in, or the top of a feather out, and all the feathers keeping shelter and heat in the house.