Blair Collection > Beside the fire

THIÍ KING OF IRELAND S SON. 45
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 that 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 i^owaer a.ná pr as hue h
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