Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/183

Rh man has returned from Eillen-Phir-Mòhr your subjects are all dead men. "What now will we do with him ?" cried the king. "Let us order him," said the counsellor, "to leap twelve times backwards and forwards over the ditch, twelve feet broad, which surrounds the castle, and cause him to be shot at with arrows from both banks," and the gillie leapt, but, leaping, caught the arrows with his hands before they touched him. "What now?" said the king to the counsellor. "Make him try a race with Cuillie" (swift as the wind, and brother of the king). And the gillie ran; but, before starting, he bid Cuillie start, saying he should himself wait for a little to rest. This set the whole court laughing. When Cuillie was halfway over the course, and scarce halfway up the hill, the gillie set off, overtook him, and, striking him with the hand on the shoulder, changed him into a white deer. After this he left the country of the Faen, and went to visit the Ben-ee. He remained with her for a year, till one day he told her that he wished to return to the country of the Faen to free Cuillie from the enchantment. He did so, and he returned with Cuillie to the castle, where the king joyfully received him, but shortly after informed Gillie-na-Cochlan-Crackenach that he had had that day a letter from the queen of Eillen-na-Muick but could not go to her, nor to her country, unless Gillie-na-Cochlan-Crackenach went with him. "Through the world," said he, "I will go with the king, but not to one place, and that place is Eillen-na-Muick." The king would take no refusal, upon which Gillie-na-Cochlan-Crackenach said that, if the king could get the consent of the Ben-ee, his mother, he would then gladly go. The king then asked where the Ben-ee was to be found. "On the hill by the sea, combing her hair, you will find my mother." The king went and found the Ben-ee, as her son had said. He caught her by the hair. Winding the long locks round his hand, he swore to her that he would not let her go till she gave leave for her son to go with him to Eillen-na-Muick. "Let him go then," she said; "but, if you bring my son home alive, let the sails you hoist up as you sail in the bay be red; if not, let them be black in your vessels." The king swore it to her, and they sailed for Eillen-na-Muick.