Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/184

 152 “When you were gone a day and a year I went to the sea, hoping to see a ship or boat that would give me tidings of you, or to see if I would see a board that I would recognise; and one day I met a pretty bird-serpent, and a stone with him, and it was written on the stone that that was the stone that would kill the bird; and I took the stone and the bird home with me, and I put the bird into a cage, and kept it there for a week, and it became so big I had to put it into the stable; and it went on growing bigger and bigger till I had to make a place for it in the wood, and to tie the brambles round it, and I had four men killing beef and giving it food. And one day I was walking round near it, and it made a lunge at me to eat me, and I said it would do that at last. I went and took a ship, and went to sea, and I was sailing three days when my sister rose up to me, and I did not know she was on board the ship. We were sailing till we came to the harbour, and the serpent was following us, and I went up on the land, and the serpent followed; and, as God was helping me, I had my waistcoat on that day, and the stone was in the pocket, and I flung the stone at her, and she spouted so much blood that I and my sister were drowned. I don't know what happened to us since then.”

“I took you with me, and cleansed you, and put herbs of the hill round about you, and there