The Black Thief of Dubhain
Once upon a time there was a king and queen married together and among their offspring were two sons. They grew up into large fine men and the father sent them thousands of miles from the country to give them the best of learning and instruction. It was only a short while when their mother died. Again a short time after that when the great king saw himself left alone in the world with himself after he had spent his riches and his worldly goods on these two young princes and being without hope that he should ever see them again, having not gotten any news of them (and being without the company of his wife), he thought to himself that since he had comfort and a such a good abode in the world that he would marry a woman of station which was in a land near to the place where he himself dwelt. He decided on the day on which to be married and invited friends to the wedding, and there was the playing of harps and great song at the wedding--as great as was proper for a king or prince who was over a land or kingdom.
In the morning the wife went out to get some sun in a fine place which was nearby. She spent three hours in the field. There was a housewife watching her spending the three hours, and on the third hour that she spent, the housewife said:
"May God and Mary not be with you!"
This young queen looked at her with wonder and said to her:
"You must tell me what the reason is you cursed me so grievously."
"I'll tell you the reason--I didn't do it to you with malice; I ask pardon from you. I thought, since you were raised so close to this place, that you would not be without knowledge that that man had two sons by his wife, he had them in the beginning of his life."
"That's news," she said, "that I have never heard before, and if I had heard it, I would have had neither part nor parcel with him, but I now know what I shall do."
The same day she pretended to be sick, began to keen and writhe with pain. The king got up quickly so that he could find out what was the cause of her great pain or her grievous cursing.
"Indeed, there is," she said, "in a foreign country two princes and I will not be cured until I get an eyeful of the two young princes."
The father quickly sent word to them telling them to come home and to do it without any delay, that he was himself in his death bed and that he expected to make his will.
The two princes had only been home a couple of days when the stepmother thought to herself:
"I will try in the middle of this day to put an end to their life."
Then she said to them that they ought to play a game of cards together, and she succeeded in beating them two games one after another, and in another moment, the older one beat his stepmother in a game.
"Give your curse," she said.
"It's not my turn," he said, "for you are more noble."
"I place upon you both," she said, "as a curse and as a year's labor to leave and take no second meal at the same table nor sleep a second night on the same bed until you bring me her the Horse of Glory of the Knight of the Glen."
"That is a nice enough thing you have done to us," he said, "and you have caused us a great misfortune with your trick. I place on you as a curse--and you must do it--to go up in the sky and sit on top of a church steeple, if we should not return in a year and a day, and you shall have no food or drink except a sheaf of oat straw and spring water."
"Ah," she said, "that is a great curse, son. Forgive me and I will forgive you."
"The judgement you gave now, endure it also," they said.
The two departed without knowing that they would ever return to that fine place--the place where they were born and raised.
They went abroad and after three days of very tiring, travel by foot having not much at all, for they did not have any money, they sat down on a ridge until night, and gave themselves up to the King of Glory, for they were very tired and thought that they would die that day. Quite early the next morning, whom should they meet but a miserable old man, and they thought to themselves that he was like them--without any way or means.
"God bless you, gentlemen," he said, "You are like men who are going off provisioning.
"We are going," they said, "to the place of the Knight of the Glen, so that we might steal--if we can--the great Horse of Glory."
"My grief and sorrow!" said the Black Thief (for that's who it was), "This is a deed which is impossible. I went a good piece to that land for a night and a day trying to do that deed, if I could, and if I had done it, I would have been eternally better off--and my kinsmen too. But even so, if you accept me as a friend, I will go with you until midnight, and I will take you to the castle of the Horse of Glory, so that we can give the stepmother something to talk about, so we can leave no corner or place unsearched, and so that we can fulfill this curse."
"Let's sit down now until midnight comes, and when we think that the gentlemen of the house are dreaming or imagining, we will then carry off the Horse of Glory to your own country, where your kinsmen are."
The Black Thief went to the door full of courage, for often before that night he had thought of doing the same deed. But when he saw this horse, the door being closed, he shook from head to foot, because the guard which watched the kingdom had arisen, and the Knight of the Glen was with them, to throw out every sort of thief from that country.
The Knight of the Glen spoke up fiercely and said: "What brought you here, you lying thief? Don't you know what sort of death anyone who tries to do this deed gets? I have a great vessel fixed around my castle, and it is boiling night and day waiting for anyone--man or woman--who comes to my barn to do this deed, so that I can say at that moment that I have lost my esteem and my earthly goods. Now since your reputation is widely known in the land, that you didn't leave without doing an evil deed, the vat is waiting for you, and may you find your death in this place!--where no one of your kindred will be to lay you out (for burial) nor mourn you. And since you brought these two young princes to try to do this deed where they would meet their death--where they could never send word home to their kindred--you must go down in this boiling vat, where you will meet your death in five seconds."
"O," said the thief, "what does it matter? I was within three seconds of the same death, and I got away."
The Knight stood up and look at the Thief marvelling.
"Well indeed," said he, "I would like to hear that wonderful story."
Then the Thief told him this story:
The Second Feat
As a rogue was roaming the world, whose name was the Black Thief of Dubhain, he thought to himself one day when he was quite empty without abode, without any way or means, that there was a mill in the East, and with every sort of trouble and hard work, that he would go, before he was without way or means, to try to rob that great factory the following night.
Quite early the following day, he went off without stop or rest. He was going and going--at one time dressed in a woman's clothes and another time dressed in a man's clothes, asking a share, deceiving the people, so that he could get to the land where this great factory was situated.
He went into an in, ordered his supper and a good bed, and kept excellent company with them. They thought among themselves that it was time to go to rest, and especially, to give rest to the stranger--he was probably tired after the labor of that day. He went to sleep like everyone that night.
He got up out of bed again after midnight to go to the place he wanted to rob. He took his stick and lit his pipe, and he was going out to break in the bolts and doors, and to draw near to the place where he thought the goods of the dwelling were. As he was moving closer to the place where he thought that worldly riches were, there were three old women before him wringing their hands and keening together:
"What will we do now if the Black Thief comes on us, for he is walking about in the country?"
He had thought that he could hide in the shadow of night until he could find them in deep sleep and he could then do the deed.
He carried and the night went by quickly, and he had no way except to make his way in. He went in and put on his shoulders three bags of gold to take them home with him.
He started on the way home. The three hawks (they were the old women) rose up into the air and when he noticed them coming, he had no alternative but to go under the top of a tree that was growing favorably in the place. They changed themselves into three wolves and they were cutting the tree, tearing it apart until they were to the top of the small branch where the Black Thief was standing.
I suppose it was near twelve o'clock at night, and because they were under sorcery, they had to go away when the cocks crowed that time of the night.
The Knight of the Glen was listening to him until the tale was told.
"Now, " said the Thief, "I was not closer to death at that time--when I only had the space of three seconds--and I got safely away."
It happened that he made the story so interesting to him that he took pity on him and gave him long life.
"Do you have," said the Knight, " any other story so interesting or any adventure which you will would tell me?"
"Yes," said the Thief.
The Third Feat
I was going home one night extremely tired. I turned into a house which was standing in a wood, and when I knock on the door, a good natured woman opened it to me and said to me in pure Gaelic, "You are welcome." In the same moment she remembered herself in great danger, and tears fell from her eyes.
I asked her myself what the cause of her sorrow or misfortune was. She said to me that she was the wife of a giant, and that he ordered her to go out to him in the morning to prepare a young child for his dinner.
"Don't be sad, good woman," I said, do as I order you. Cut off the big toe of a child from its right foot, and hide the youngster, and I will bring in from the forest a piglet, and you shall have it for his dinner in place of the youngster. She told me to go quickly, that she had only five minutes until it should be got.
I got up and did not go a long way until I killed with my stick a young piglet, and she prepared it quickly at the time of day that it was customary with him to have his meal. Not much time had passed when the house wife heard the rocks and the trees banging together, and she ordered me to go quickly and hide. I quite quickly opened a door and was frightened from top to bottom when I saw the thousands of bodies, some dead and some barely alive. I had no choice then, when I heard footsteps coming to the door, but to stretch myself out in between the corpses which were dead under me on the ground.
The house wife put his dinner down on the table when he ordered it, and he was not satisfied with it.
He spoke to the housewife as cross, fierce, and cranky as could be, "There is little danger that it was a desire for meat I thought I had for dinner."
She said to him, quite crossly, that it was so, and that she thought that she would not go when she was in doubt.
"Up until now," she said, "you have not been able to find any fault with me, and I have done what you have said from the beginning of my service. This is a fine toe, some of the broken food that fell on the table."
He believed her, but even so he was not satisfied, and he took a sword of light in his hand and went to the room where the corpses were laid out, and it happened when he put his right foot inside the door, that I was the first body he came upon. He cut some from my back and some more from my right side. I didn't know at that moment if I was ever alive because of the amount of pain I suffered. Quite quickly and rapidly he went back to the cellar where he was laid out without the use of foot or hand. I took a bar of iron that was glowing red in the hearth, and I put it through his eyes. And then I took him by the heels. He followed me with one eye and he was trying to catch me and when he had no means of getting me in his hand, he threw his gold ring at me and it fell on my finger. In the same moment I turned on my foot and I took a rock which I fortunately found in the wall and I took it down and threw it away into the river. The giant called to his ring and he asked it where it was, and the ring said to him:
"I am sinking in this great river."
"I have lost my kingdom now," said the giant, "and my good friend, the Sword of Light. I will never seek for magic spells, and I will sit down in affliction and sorrow and great misfortune."
"Now," said the Black Thief, "I was at that time within two seconds of death, and I got away, and I am finally here without chill or fear."
"O Princes," said the woman of the house, "after living two hundred years in this kingdom--that is, I have spent my life in this place, and my seven ancestors too--I have not heard a story so wonderful. You are a child. Five kingdoms are waiting for you, but you would not be alive, even if many others had been waiting for you, if the Black Thief had not come along--he is the man who saved your life for you. As proof, take off your right shoe and show the whole world that you have lost your toe."
He smothered the Black Thief with kisses and baptized him with tears and he put him in the gold chair and put the two young princes in silver chairs.
"Come with me now, " said the Knight, "gentlemen, and I will give them, as a gift, the Horse of Glory."
When the stepmother saw them coming, her heart broke and tore itself apart, because she thought that they would never in the world return. And she threw herself from the high steeple of the church.
The Third Feat
I was going home one night extremely tired. I turned into a house which was standing in a wood, and when I knock on the door, a good natured woman opened it to me and said to me in pure Gaelic, "You are welcome." In the same moment she remembered herself in great danger, and tears fell from her eyes.
I asked her myself what the cause of her sorrow or misfortune was. She said to me that she was the wife of a giant, and that he ordered her to go out to him in the morning to prepare a young child for his dinner.
"Don't be sad, good woman," I said, do as I order you. Cut off the big toe of a child from its right foot, and hide the youngster, and I will bring in from the forest a piglet, and you shall have it for his dinner in place of the youngster. She told me to go quickly, that she had only five minutes until it should be got.
I got up and did not go a long way until I killed with my stick a young piglet, and she prepared it quickly at the time of day that it was customary with him to have his meal. Not much time had passed when the house wife heard the rocks and the trees banging together, and she ordered me to go quickly and hide. I quite quickly opened a door and was frightened from top to bottom when I saw the thousands of bodies, some dead and some barely alive. I had no choice then, when I heard footsteps coming to the door, but to stretch myself out in between the corpses which were dead under me on the ground.
The house wife put his dinner down on the table when he ordered it, and he was not satisfied with it.
He spoke to the housewife as cross, fierce, and cranky as could be, "There is little danger that it was a desire for meat I thought I had for dinner."
She said to him, quite crossly, that it was so, and that she thought that she would not go when she was in doubt.
"Up until now," she said, "you have not been able to find any fault with me, and I have done what you have said from the beginning of my service. This is a fine toe, some of the broken food that fell on the table."
He believed her, but even so he was not satisfied, and he took a sword of light in his hand and went to the room where the corpses were laid out, and it happened when he put his right foot inside the door, that I was the first body he came upon. He cut some from my back and some more from my right side. I didn't know at that moment if I was ever alive because of the amount of pain I suffered. Quite quickly and rapidly he went back to the cellar where he was laid out without the use of foot or hand. I took a bar of iron that was glowing red in the hearth, and I put it through his eyes. And then I took him by the heels. He followed me with one eye and he was trying to catch me and when he had no means of getting me in his hand, he threw his gold ring at me and it fell on my finger. In the same moment I turned on my foot and I took a rock which I fortunately found in the wall and I took it down and threw it away into the river. The giant called to his ring and he asked it where it was, and the ring said to him:
"I am sinking in this great river."
"I have lost my kingdom now," said the giant, "and my good friend, the Sword of Light. I will never seek for magic spells, and I will sit down in affliction and sorrow and great misfortune."
"Now," said the Black Thief, "I was at that time within two seconds of death, and I got away, and I am finally here without chill or fear."
"O Princes," said the woman of the house, "after living two hundred years in this kingdom--that is, I have spent my life in this place, and my seven ancestors too--I have not heard a story so wonderful. You are a child. Five kingdoms are waiting for you, but you would not be alive, even if many others had been waiting for you, if the Black Thief had not come along--he is the man who saved your life for you. As proof, take off your right shoe and show the whole world that you have lost your toe."
He smothered the Black Thief with kisses and baptized him with tears and he put him in the gold chair and put the two young princes in silver chairs.
"Come with me now, " said the Knight, "gentlemen, and I will give them, as a gift, the Horse of Glory."
When the stepmother saw them coming, her heart broke and tore itself apart, because she thought that they would never in the world return. And she threw herself from the high steeple of the church.
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