Donegal Fairy Tales - McManus Seumas (книги читать бесплатно без регистрации TXT) 📗

“Now,” says the mare, “he cannot reach us until he drinks his way through the lough, and very likely he will drink until he bursts, and then we shall be rid of him altogether.”

Jack thanked God, and on he went. It was not long now until he reached the borders of Scotland, and there he saw a great wood.

“Now,” says the mare and the bear, “this wood must be our hiding-place.”

“And what about me?” says Jack.

“For you, Jack,” says the mare, “you must push on and look for employment. The castle of the King of Scotland is near by, and I think you will be likely to get employment there; but first I must change you into an ugly little hookedy-crookedy fellow, because the King of Scotland has three beautiful daughters, and he won’t take into his service a handsome fellow as you, for fear his daughters would fall in love with you.”

Then the mare put her nostrils to Jack’s breast and blew her breath over him, and Jack was turned into an ugly little hookedy-crookedy fellow.

“Jack,” says the mare, “before you go, look into my left ear, and take what you see there.”

Out of the mare’s left ear Jack took a little cap.

“Jack,” says she, “that is a wishing-cap, and every time you put it on and wish to have anything done, it will be done. Whenever you are in any trouble,” the mare says, “come back to me, and I will do what I can for you, and now good-bye.”

So Jack said good-bye to the mare and to the bear, and set off. When he got out of the wood, he soon saw a castle, and walked up to it and went in by the kitchen. A servant was employed scouring knives. He told her he wanted employment. She said the King of Scotland would employ no man in his house, so he might as well push on. But Jack insisted that the King would employ him, and at length the girl consented to go and let the King know.

When the girl had gone away, Jack put on his wishing-cap and wished the knives and forks scoured, and all at once the knives and forks, that were piled in a stack ten yards high, were scoured as brightly as new pins; and though the King of Scotland did not want to employ him, when he found how quickly Jack had scoured all the big stack of knives and forks, he agreed to keep him. But first he brought down his three daughters to see Jack, so that he could observe what impression Jack made upon them. When they came into the kitchen and saw the ugly little fellow, every one of the three fainted and had to be carried out.

“It is all right,” says the King; “we will surely keep you,” and Jack was employed, and sent out into the garden to work there.

Now at this time the King of the East declared war on the King of Scotland. The King of the East had a mighty army entirely, and he threatened to wipe the King of Scotland off the face of the earth.

The King of Scotland was very much troubled and he consulted with his Grand Adviser what was best to be done, and his Grand Adviser counseled that he should at once give his three daughters in marriage to sons of kings, and in that way get great help for the war. The King said this was a grand idea.

So he sent out messengers to all parts of the world to say that his three beautiful daughters were open for marriage. In a very short time the son of the King of Spain came and married the eldest daughter, and the son of the King of France came and married the second, and a whole lot of princes came looking for the youngest, who was the most beautiful of the three and whose name was Yellow Rose; but she would not take one of them, and for this the King ordered her never to come into his sight, nor into company, again.

Yellow Rose got very downhearted, and spent almost all her time now wandering in the garden, where the Hookedy-Crookedy was looking after the flowers, and she used to come around again and again, chatting to Hookedy-Crookedy. And so it was not long until Hookedy-Crookedy saw that the Yellow Rose was in love with him, and he got just as deeply in love with her, for she was a beautiful and charming girl.

The next thing the Grand Adviser counseled the King was that he should send his two new sons-in-law, the Prince of Spain and the Prince of France, to the Well of the World’s End for bottles of loca to take to battle with them, that they might cure the wounded and dead men. Loca was a liquid that cured all wounds and restored the dead to life. So the King ordered his sons-in-law to go to the Well of the World’s End and bring him back two bottles of loca.

The Yellow Rose told Hookedy-Crookedy all about this, and when he had turned it over in his mind, he said to himself, “I will go and have a chat with the mare and the bear about this.”

So off to the woods he went, and right glad the mare and the bear were to see him. He told them all that had happened, and then he told them how the King’s two sons-in-law were to start to the Well of the World’s End the next day, and asked the mare’s advice about it.

“Well, Jack,” says the mare, “I want you to go with them. Take an old hunter in the King’s stable, an old bony, skinny animal that is past all work, and put an old straw saddle on him, and dress yourself in the most ragged dress you can get, and join the two men on the road, and say that you are going with them. They will be heartily ashamed of you, Jack, and your old horse, and they will do everything to get rid of you. When you come to the cross-roads, one of them will propose to go in and have a drink; and while you are chatting over your drink, they will propose that the three of you separate and every one take a road by himself to go to the Well of the World’s End, and that all three shall meet at the cross-roads again, and whoever is back first with the bottle of water is to be the greatest hero of them all. You agree to this. When they start on their roads, they will not go many miles till they fill their bottles from spring wells by the roadside and hurry back to the meeting-place, and then continue on home to the King of Scotland and give him these bottles as bottles of loca from the Well of the World’s End. But you will be before them. After you have set out on the road, and when you have gone around the first bend, put on your wishing-cap and wish for two bottles of loca from the Well of the World’s End, and at once you will have them.” And then the mare directed Jack fully all that he was to do after.

Jack thanked the mare, and bade goodby to her, and went away.

The next day, when the King’s two sons-in-law set out on their grand steeds to go to the Well of the World’s End, they had not gone far when Jack, in a ragged old suit and sitting on a straw saddle on an old white skinny horse, joined them and told them he too was going with them for a bottle of loca. Right heartily ashamed were they of Jack and ready to do anything to get rid of him.

By and by, when they came to where the road divided into three, they proposed to have a drink, and as they set off to drink they proposed that each take a road for himself, and whoever got back first with a bottle of loca would be the greatest hero. All agreed, and each chose his own road and set out.

When Jack had got around the first bend, he put on his wishing-cap and wished for two bottles of loca from the Well of the World’s End, and no sooner had he wished than he had them; and back again he came, and when the other two came riding up, surprised the were to find Jack there before them. They said that Jack had not been to the Well of the World’s End and it was no loca he had with him, but some water from the roadside.

Said Jack, “Take care that is not your own story. Just test them; when the servant comes in, you cut off his head and then cure him with water from your bottles.”

But both refused to do this, for they knew the water in their bottles could not cure anything, and they defied Jack to do it.