Page:The Grateful Dead.djvu/79

Rh and cheeks as red as blood. Ten pounds of the twenty which he takes with him he pays to release the corpse of a man on which writs are laid. He meets a short green man, who goes with him for his wife's first kiss; and he comes upon a gunner, a man listening to the growing grass, a swift runner, a man blowing a windmill with one nostril, and a strong man, all of whom accompany him for the promise of a house and garden apiece. After various adventures in the castles of giants, they arrive in the east, where the prince's lady dwells. She says that her suitor must loose her geasa from her before she can marry him. With the help of the short green man he gives her the scissors, the comb, and the King of Porson's head, which she requires. He is then told to get three bottles of healing water from the well of the western world. The runner sets out for them, and is stopped and put to sleep by an old hag on the way back; but the earman hears him snoring, the gunman sees him and wakes him up, and the windman keeps the hag back till he returns. Finally the strong man crushes three miles of steel needles so that the prince can walk over them. Thus the bride is won. The short green man claims the first kiss, and finds her full of serpents, which he picks out of her. He then tells the youth that he is the man who was in the coffin, and disappears with his fellows.

In Irish III. three brothers set out from home with three pounds apiece. The youngest gives his all to pay a dead man's debts to three giants. He shares his food with a poor man, who offers to be his servant, saying that the corpse was his brother, and had appeared to him in a dream. Jack the servant frightens the first giant into giving up his sword of sharpness, the second giant his cloak of darkness, and the third giant his shoes