Donegal Fairy Tales

by Seumas Macmanus

  “Then,” says the King, “the least I can do for you is to give you a present. Here is a purse, and no matter how often and how much you pay out of it, it will never be empty.”

  Jack took it, and thanked him, and rode away. In the wood he left the mare and the bear, and was again changed into Hookedy-Crookedy, and went home to his garden. The Yellow Rose came out, and told him about the great victory a brave and beautiful soldier, brother to the fine fellow of the day before, had won for her father.

  “Well, well,” says Jack, says he, “that was very wonderful entirely. I am sorry I was not there, but I had to be away on a message for your father.”

  “But, my poor Hookedy-Crookedy,” says she, “it was better so, for what could you do?”

  Three days after that the King of the East took courage to come to battle again. The morning of the battle Jack went to the wood to consult the mare.

  “Look into my left ear, Jack, and see what you will see,” and from the mare’s left ear Jack drew out a most gorgeous soldier’s suit, done off with gold braiding and ornaments of every sort. By the mare’s advice he put it on, and himself, the mare, and the bear went off to the war.

  The King soon heard of the wonderfully grand fellow that was riding to the war to-day with the mare and the bear, and he came to Jack and welcomed him and told him how his two brothers had won the last two victories for him. He asked Jack on what side he was going to fight.

  “I will strike no stroke this day,” says Jack, “only on the King of Scotland’s side.”

  The King thanked him heartily, and said, “We will surely win the victory,” and then into the battle they rode with Jack at their head, and Jack struck east and west and in all directions, and the wind of the strokes tumbled mountains at the other end of the world, and very soon the King of the East with all his army that were left alive took to their heels and never stopped running until they went as far as the world would let them.

  Then the King came to Jack and thanked him over and over again, and said he would never be able to repay him. He then invited him to come to his castle, where he would give a little feast in his honor, but Jack said they didn’t know at home where he was and they would be uneasy about him, and so he could not go with the King.

  “But,” says he, “I and my brothers will come to feast with you at any other time.”

  “What day will the three of you come?” said the King.

  “Only one of us can leave home in one day,” said Jack. “I will come to feast with you tomorrow, and my second brother the day after, and my third brother the day after that.”

  The King agreed to this and thanked him. “And now,” said the King, “let me give you a present,” and he gave him a comb, such that every time he combed his hair with it he would comb out of it bushels of gold and silver, and it would transform the ugliest man that ever was into the nicest and handsomest. Jack took it and thanked the King and rode away.

  On this day, as on the other two days after the battle, they cured the dead and the wounded with the bottles of loca, and all were well again. When Jack went to the wood, he left the mare and the bear in it and became Hookedy-Crookedy again, and went home and to his garden. The Yellow Rose came to him and had wonderful news for him this day about the terrible grand fellow entirely, who had won the battle for her father that day; brother to the two brave fellows who had won the battles on the other two days.

  “Well,” says Jack, says he, “those must be wonderful chaps. I wish I had been there; but I had to be away on a message for your father all day.”

  “Oh, my poor Hookedy-Crookedy,” says she, “it was better so, for what could you do?”

  The next day, when it was near dinner time, he went off to the wood to the mare and the bear and got on the suit he had worn the day before in the battle, and mounted the mare and rode for the castle, and when he came there all the gates happened to be closed, but he put the mare at the walls, which were nine miles high, and leapt them.

  The King scolded the gate-keepers, but Jack said a trifle like that didn’t harm him or his mare. After dinner the King asked him what he thought of his two daughters and their husbands. Jack said they were very good and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.

  The King said he used to have another, the youngest, but she would not consent to marry as he wished, and he had banished her out of his sight.

  Jack said he would like to see her.

  The King said he never wished to let her enter company again, but he could not refuse Jack; so the Yellow Rose was sent for.

  Jack fell a-chatting with her and used all his arts to win her, and of course, in this handsome Jack she did not recognize ugly little Hookedy-Crookedy. He told her he had heard that she had the very bad taste to fall in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in her father’s garden.

  “I am a handsome fellow, and a rich prince,” says Jack, “and I will give you myself and all I possess if you will only say you will accept me.”

  She was highly insulted, and she showed him that very quickly. She said, “I won’t sit here and hear the man I love abused;” and she got up to leave.

  “Well,” says Jack, “I admire your spirit; but before you go,” says he,“ let me make you a little present,” and he handed her a tablecloth. “There,” says he, “if you marry Hookedy-Crookedy, as long as you have this tablecloth, you will never want eating and drinking of the best.” The other two sisters grabbed to get the tablecloth from her, but Jack put out his hands and pushed them back.

  At dinner-time the next day Jack came in the dress in which he had gone into the second battle, and with the mare he cleared the walls as on the day before.

  The King was enraged at the gate-keepers and began to scold them, but Jack laughed at them and said a trifle like that was nothing to him or his mare.

  After dinner was over the King asked what he thought of his two daughters and their husbands.

  Jack said they were very good, and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.

  The King said, “I have no more except one who won’t do as I wish and who has fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in my garden, and I ordered her never to come into my sight.”

  But Jack said he would very much like to see her.

  The King said that on Jack’s account he would break his vow and let her come in. So the Yellow Rose was brought in, and Jack fell to chatting with her. He did all he could to make her fall in love with him, and told her of all his great wealth and possessions and offered himself to her, and said if she only would marry him she should live in ease and luxury and happiness all the days of her life, as she never could do with Hookedy-Crookedy.

  But Yellow Rose got very angry, and said: “I won’t sit here and listen to such things,” and she got up to leave the room.

  “Well,” says Jack, “I admire your spirit, and before you go let me make you a little present.”

  So he handed her a purse. “Here,” says he, “is a purse, and all the days yourself and Hookedy-Crookedy live you will never want for money, for that purse will never be empty.”

  Her sisters made a grab to snatch it from her, but Jack shoved them back, and went out. And Jack rode away with the mare after dinner and left her in the wood.

  When he came back to his garden he always came in the Hookedy-Crookedy shape and always pretended he had been off on a message for the King.

  The third day he went to the wood again. He dressed in the suit in which he had gone to the first battle, and when he came back he went to the castle and cleared the walls, and when the King scolded the gate-keepers Jack told him never to mind, as that was a small trifle to him and his mare.

  A very grand dinner indeed Jack had this day, and when they chatted after dinner the King asked him how he liked his two daughters and their husbands.

  He said he liked them very well, and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.

  The King said no, except one foolish one who w
ouldn’t do as he wished, and who had fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in his garden, and she was never to come within his sight again.

  Says Jack, “I would like to see that girl.”

  The King said he could not refuse Jack any request he made, so he sent for the Yellow Rose. When she came in, Jack fell into chat with her, and did his very, very best to make her fall in love with him. But it was of no use. He told her of all his wealth and all his grand possessions, and said if she would marry him she should own all these, and all the days she should live she should be the happiest woman in the wide world, but if she married Hookedy-Crookedy, he said, she would never be free from want and hardships, besides having an ugly husband.

  If the Yellow Rose was in a rage on the two days before, she was in a far greater rage now. She said she wouldn’t sit there to listen. She told Jack that Hookedy-Crookedy was in her eyes a far more handsome and beautiful man than he or than any king’s son she had ever seen. She said to Jack, that if he were ten times as handsome and a hundred times as wealthy, she wouldn’t give Hookedy-Crookedy’s little finger for himself, or for all his wealth and possessions, and then she got up to leave the room.

  “Well,” says Jack, says he, “I admire your spirit very much, and,” says he, “I would like to make you a little present. Here is a comb,” he said, “and it will comb out of your hair a bushel of gold and a bushel of silver every time you comb with it, and, besides,” says he, “it will make handsome the ugliest man that ever was.”

  When the other sisters heard this they rushed to snatch the comb from her, but Jack threw them backwards so very roughly that their husbands sprang at him. With a back switch of his two hands Jack knocked the husbands down senseless. The King flew into a rage, and said, “How dare you do that to the two finest and bravest men of this world ?”

  “Fine and brave, indeed!” said Jack. “One and the other they are worthless creatures, and not even your lawful sons-in-law.”

  “How dare you say that ?” says the King.

  “Strip their backs where they lie and see far yourself.” And there the King saw written, “An unlawfully married man.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” says the King. “They were lawfully married to my two daughters, and they have the golden tokens of the marriage.”

  Jack drew out from his pocket the golden balls and handed them to the King, and said, “It is I who have the tokens.”

  The Yellow Rose had gone off to the garden in the middle of all this. Jack made the King sit down, and told him all his story, and how he came by the golden balls. He told him how he was Hookedy-Crookedy, and that it reflected a great deal of honor on his youngest daughter that she whom the King thought so worthless should refuse to give up Hookedy-Crookedy for the one she thought a wealthy prince. The King, you may be sure, was now highly delighted to grant him all he desired. A couple of drops of loca brought the King’s two sons to their senses again, and at Jack’s request, they were ordered to go and live elsewhere. Jack went off, left his mare in the wood, and came into the garden as Hookedy-Crookedy. He told the Yellow Rose he had been gathering bilberries.

  “Oh,” says she, “I have something grand for you. Let me comb your hair with this comb.”

  Hookedy-Crookedy put his head in her lap, and she combed out a bushel of gold and silver and when he stood up again, she saw Hookedy-Crookedy no more, but instead the beautiful prince that had been trying to win her in her father’s drawing-room for the last three days; and then and there to her Jack told his whole story, and it’s Yellow Rose who is the delighted girl.

  With little delay they were married. The wedding lasted a year and a day, and there were five hundred fiddlers, five hundred fluters and a thousand fifers at it, and the last day was better than the first.

  Shortly after the marriage, Jack and his bride were out walking one day. A beautiful young woman crossed their path. Jack addressed her, but she gave him a very curt reply.

  “Your manners are not so handsome as your looks,” said Jack to her.

  “And bad as they are, they are better than your memory, Hookedy-Crookedy,” says she.

  “What do you mean?” says Jack.

  She led Jack aside, and she told him, “I am the mare who was so good to you. I was condemned to that shape for a number of years, and now my enchantment is over. I had a brother who was enchanted into a bear, and whose enchantment is over now also. I had hopes,” she says, “that some day you would be my husband, but I see,” she says, “that you quickly forgot all about me. No matter now,” she says; “I couldn’t wish you a better and handsomer wife than you have got. Go home to your castle, and be happy and live prosperous. I shall never see you, and you will never see me again.”

  Donal That Was Rich and Jack That Was Poor

  ONCE there were two brothers named Donal and Jack. Donal was hired by a rich man who had one daughter, and when his master died, he married the daughter.

  Jack, he lived close by, with his wife and a big family of children, and he was very poor; but Donal, he was no way good to Jack, and would never reach his hand to him with a thing. And when the hunger would come into Jack’s house, Jack, he used to think it little harm to steal a bullock out of Donal’s big flock, and kill it for his family.

  At length Donal began to suspect that Jack was taking his bullocks, but he didn’t know how he would find out for sure. Donal’s old mother-in-law proposed a plan by which she could catch Jack. She made Donal put her into a big chest that had little spy-holes in it, and put in with her beef and brandy enough to last her nine days. Then Donal was to take the chest to Jack’s, and have it left there on some excuse.

  Donal went to Jack, and said he had a big chest of things that was in his way, and asked Jack if he would be so good as to allow him to leave it in his kitchen for a week or so. Jack said he was very welcome to put in ten chests if he liked. So Donal had the chest with the mother-in-law and her provisions in it, carried to Jack’s, and planted in a good place in the kitchen.

  On the very first night that the chest and the mother-in-law were at Jack’s, he stole and killed and brought in another bullock, and the old woman was watching it all through the spy-holes of the chest. And after Jack and his wife and children had eaten a hearty supper off the bullock, he and his wife began talking over one thing and another, and says he: “I’d like to know what Donal has in that chest.”

  So off he went to a locksmith, and he got the loan of a whole bundle of keys, and he came and tried them all in the chest till he got one that opened it.

  When Jack found what was in the chest, he lost little time taking away the beef and the brandy, and he put in their place empty bottles and clean-picked bones, and locked the old woman up with these again.

  At the end of nine days, Donal came for the chest. He thanked Jack for giving him house room for it for so long, and said he had now room for it himself and so he had come to take it home. And behold you, when Donal and his wife opened the chest at home, there was the old woman dead of starvation, and a lot of bones and empty bottles in the chest.

  Says Donal: “She got greedy, and ate and drank the whole of the provisions the first day, and this is her deserving.”

  Well, Donal and the wife waked her and buried her, with a purse of money under her head to pay her way in the next world, as they used to do in those days.

  Jack, of course, he went to the wake and to the funeral, and sympathized sore with Donal and Donal’s wife both. But the very next night after the funeral, Jack dug up the corpse to get the money, as it was so useful to him. Then he took the old woman’s body on his shoulder and carried it off to Donal’s, and went down into Donal’s wine cellar. He put it sitting in a chair by a puncheon there, and put a glass into its hand, and turned on the wine.

  In the morning Donal’s first race was always to the cellar to have a drink, and when he came down this morning he fell over and fainted with the fright when he saw his old mother-in-law sitting by the puncheon drinkin
g. When he came to himself he had her taken up and laid out in the wake-room again.

  Jack, he came walking over to see Donal like to bid him the time of day in the morning. “Good morning to you, Donal,” says he, “and how do you find yourself this morning?”

  “Och! Och! Och! Jack! Jack!” says Donal, says he, “I’m in a terrible fix entirely.”

  “Why, what’s the matter? ”says Jack.

  “Why,” says he, “my old mother-in-law got up out of the grave in the night time and came back; and when I went down to the cellar in the morning to get a drink of wine, there was the old lady sitting by the puncheon, and she having the puncheon drunk empty. What am I to do at all, at all?” says he.

  “ Well,” says Jack, says he, “I know why she got up out of her grave again.”

  “For what did she?” says Donal.

  “Because you didn’t bury her half decently,” says Jack, “you only put ten pound under her head, and it’s fifty pound you should have put.”

  “Well, I’m sure I’m sorry for that,” says Donal, “and I’ll make certain that I’ll bury her decently enough this time.”

  So Jack went with him to help him bury her this day again, and he saw Donal put a purse of fifty sovereigns under her head. “Now,” says Donal, says he, “she’ll surely not come back to bother me.”

  But that night Jack went to the graveyard and raised the body again, and got the fifty pounds. And he took the body then with him on his shoulder off to Donal’s, and he went into the stables, and he put the body sitting on the finest big horse in Donal’s stable, and he tied it there, and he tied a sword into its hand. Now Donal was to have gone off next morning, riding on a little black mare that was a favorite of his, to the town to pay the accounts of the funeral; and Jack, he had known this, and when Donal came down in the very early morning, when it was still dark, he went into the stable, and he took out the little black mare.

  The horse on which Jack had tied the old woman was a great companion of this little black mare, and both of them used to run on the grass together; so when the little black mare was taken out by Donal, the horse (which Jack had left loose) trotted out after.