Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/130

 98 said there was not; “and great joy is there on me to have you here to-night. I have talked with no one for seven years.”

The champion of the red belt said he had heard that there was with him a bottle of the water of healing, that made the dead alive; that his brother was killed. Would he give him the loan of the bottle?

“I have not got the bottle. That is the bottle that makes people alive. My stepmother took it from me seven years ago. There is not a day I don't kill three hundred men, and my stepmother brings them to life again. A hag of sorceries she turned out, to put pains on me, that they will never be killed for me, while I live; and but that providence puts strength in my heart, I would not get the better of them.”

When they took their supper the champion of the red belt asked him, “Have you any one at all but yourself?”

“No,” said the king knight of the black castle. Then he asked if he had been brought up on the island. He said, “Not he; that it was a son of the King of Erin was in it; that his mother died when he was born; that the king married another queen.”

“Were there any other (children) but yourself?” said the champion of the red belt.

“There were two other brothers.”