Free Irish Folk Tales by Henry Glassie Page B

have you the comb, and tell her that you have, and the head that was combed with it, and throw her the skull.”
    When she came asking if he had the comb, he said he had, and the head that was combed with it, and he threw her the head of the King of Poison.
    When she saw the head there was great anger on her, and she told him he never would get her to marry until he got a footman to travel with her runner for three bottles of the healing-balm out of the well of the western world; and if her own runner should come back more quickly than his runner, she said his head was gone.
    She got an old hag—some witch—and she gave her three bottles. The short green man bade them give three bottles to the man who was keeping the field of hares, and they were given to him. The hag and the man started, and three bottles with each of them. And the runner of the king’s son was coming back halfway on the road home, while the hag had only gone halfway to the well. “Sit down,” said the hag to the foot-runner, when they met, “and take your rest, for the pair of them are married now, and don’t be breaking your heart running.” She brought over a horse’s head and a slumber-pin in it, and laid it under his head, and when he laid down his head on it he fell asleep. She spilt out the water he had and she went.
    The short green man thought it long until they were coming, and he said to the earman: “Lay your ear to the ground and try are they coming.”
    “I hear the hag a-coming,” said he. “But the footman is in his sleep, and I hear him a-snoring.”
    “Look from you,” said the short green man to the gunman, “till you see where the foot-runner is.”
    The gunman looked, and he said that the footman was in such and such a place, and a horse’s skull under his head, and he in his sleeping.
    “Lay your gun to your eye,” said the short green man, “and put the skull away from under his head.”
    He put the gun to his eye and he swept the skull from under his head. The footman woke up, and he found that the bottles which he had were empty, and it was necessary for him to return to the well again.
    The hag was coming then, and the foot-runner was not to be seen. Says the short green man to the man who was sending round the windmill with his nostril: “Rise up and try would you put back that hag.” He put his finger to his nose, and when the hag was coming he put a blast of wind under her that swept her back again. She was coming again, and he did the same thing to her. Every time she used to be coming near them he would be sending her back with the wind he would blow out of his nostril. At last he blew with the two nostrils and swept the hag back to the western world again. Then the foot-runner of the king of Ireland’s son came, and the day was won.
    There was great anger on the woman when she saw that her own foot-runner did not arrive first, and she said to the king’s son: “You won’t get me now till you have walked three miles, without shoes or stockings, on steel needles.” She had a road three miles long, and sharp needles of steel shaken on it as thick as the grass, and their points up. Said the short green man to the man who broke stones with the side of his thigh: “Go and blunt those.” That man went on them with one thigh, and he made stumps of them. He went on them with the double thigh, and he made powder and prashuch of them. The king of Ireland’s son came and walked the three miles, and then he had his wife gained.
    The couple were married then, and the short green man was to have the first kiss. The short green man took the wife with him into a chamber, and he began on her. She was full up of serpents, and the king’s son would have been killed with them when he went to sleep, but that the short green man picked them out of her.
    He came then to the son of the king of Ireland, and he told him: “You can go with your wife now. I am the man who was in the coffin that day, for whom you paid the ten