Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/240

 208 two feet. Many's the good champion I've seen crossing yonder bridge, and a man of them to tell the story came back never. Unless you do the thing I tell you, you will get the like death. Go to-night,” said he, “and rise in the morning, and I will give you a sword if you pay me for my service; and I will cut off the tip of the little finger on your other hand, and you will go to the hall-door at the time when he is at his breakfast, and he will ask you, ’Haven't you a sudden desire to die that you come to me so early?’”

She went in the morning to the hall-door of the King of Rye, and he said to her,—

“Sudden is your desire to die since you come to me so early, and haven't given me leave to eat my breakfast; but that is the thing that will make your own life shorter. Stretch out your hand that I may see if it was you were here yesterday.”

She stretched out her two hands and he found the tips of her two little fingers were cut off, and he said she must have got advice from the smith when she did that. She took up from the ground the sword the smith gave her. When he saw the sword he begged for quarter for his life, for he knew the sword was equal to half the world, and that it was no good for him to fight against it. He said he would give her all he ever saw upon the earth, but would not face that sword she had.