Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/212

 180 “Why do you say that?” said the queen.

“Because the wife that was here before was better than you.”

“Was there a wife before me?”

“There was; and that one is her daughter, and there are three sons also in an island in the sea, and the daughter goes every night to them with food.”

“What shall I do with the three of them, to put them to death?”

“I'll tell you,” said the hen-wife, “if you will do what I advise you.”

“I will do it,” said she.

“Promise a dowry to your eldest daughter if she will follow the (other) daughter out when she is going with food to her brothers.”

And she sent her daughter after the one who was going with food; but she looked behind her and saw the other coming, and she made a bog and a lake between them, so big that she went astray. She came to her mother, and told her she was wandering all the night, and the mother went to the hen-wife again and told her that her daughter had not made her way to the men; and the hen-wife said to her, “Promise a dowry to your second daughter.”

And she did this, and the second daughter followed as the first did, and fared in the same way, and she came and told her mother. And