Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/174

 142 went home and left the son of the King of Prussia and the young girl in the glen, and she sat down on a stone chair, and the son of the King of Prussia was coming about her, thinking to make free with her, till he ran to his hole and left her there.

Then he saw the ship coming under sail, three lengths before she came near to land, and the giant cast anchor, and gave a step on the land, and he all but sank the ship after him; and the land, when he came on it, shook so greatly that the old castles fell, and the castles that were made last stooped; every (old) tree was broken, and the young tree was bent; and he left not foal with mare, nor calf with cow, nor lamb with sheep, nor hare in a bush, nor rabbit in hole, that didn't go off in terror. And he came up to the girl and put the tip of his finger under the edge of her girdle, and threw her over the tip of his shoulder.

“My mischief and misfortune! Hadn't your father a man, cow-boy nor sheep-boy, to-day to fight me? Or where is the son of the King of Prussia, who has been feeding for a year to fight me? Don't think it's on feather beds I'll put you, nor up the stairs, when I bring you home; but you are big for one bite and small for two, and if I had a grain of salt I would eat you at one bite; and small is the morsel you are between myself and my two brothers.”