Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/55

 Rh The king said: “It is not: loose him, and he will get the pursuit himself.”

When I was loosed, I found the scent of the blood till I came to a door of the room in which the child was. I went to the king and took hold of him, and went back again and began to tear at the door. The king followed me and asked for the key. The servant said it was in the room of the stranger woman. The king caused search to be made for her, and she was not to be found. “I will break the door,” said the king, “as I can't get the key.” The king broke the door, and I went in, and went to the trunk, and the king asked for a key to unlock it. He got no key, and he broke the lock. When he opened the trunk, the child and the hand were stretched side by side, and the child was asleep. The king took the hand and ordered a woman to come for the child, and he showed the hand to every one in the house. But the stranger woman was gone, and she did not see the king; and here she is herself (to say) if I am telling lies of her.

“Oh, it's nothing but the truth you have!”

The king did not allow me to be tied any more. He said there was nothing so much to wonder at as that I cut the hand off, and I tied.

The child was growing till he was a year old. And he was beginning to walk, and there was no one caring for him more than I was. He was