Page:West Irish folk-tales and romances - William Larminie.djvu/94

 62 When Maunus arose he asked where was his wife.

“Oh, she is not your wife,” said Blue Niall, “but she is my wife.”

“Oh, she is my wife,” said Feathery Clerk.

By the laws of the land she belonged to Blue Niall.

“Well,” said Maunus, “I will make laws for myself. Any man who will not go for a day and a year into the Bake-house, and suffer three drops of the molten torrent, he shall not get the woman. But any man of you two who goes there, he must get the woman and welcome.”

“Oh, we will not go there, as we have got ourselves out of it.”

“I will go for a year,” said Maunus, “but I must get the woman when I come back.”

“Oh, we will bestow her on you, but you will not go there, nor any one else that we can keep out of it.”

Maunus got the wife; and they prepared a month's fire and a year's embers, till he and the daughter of the High King of Greece were married together; and they spent a fortnight after the month in celebrating the wedding with every sort of sport and play. When everything was ended, and each champion was going to his own home, Bioultach said,—

“I believe it is good and right for me to go home to see Erin, and my father and mother.”