Then he sat down, and began sharpening his knife again. The fox put out her little snout, and asked him: "Be so kind, dear daddy, and tell me why you are sharpening your knife!" "Little foxes," said the old man, "have nice skins that do capitally for collars and trimmings, and I want to skin you!" "Oh! Don't take my skin away, daddy dear, and I will bring you hens and geese." "Very well, see that you do it," and he let the fox go. The hare now alone remained, and the old man began sharpening his knife on the hare's account. "Why do you do that?" asked Puss. He replied: "Little hares have nice little, soft, warm skins, which will make me nice gloves and mittens against the winter!" "Oh! daddy dear! Don't flay me, and I'll bring you kale and good cauliflower, if only you let me go!" Then he let the hare go also. Then they went to bed; but very early in the morning, when it was neither dusk nor dawn, there was a noise in the doorway like "Durrrrrr!" "Daddy!" cried the old woman, "there's some one scratching at the door; go and see who it is!" The old man went out, and there was the bear carrying a whole hive full of honey. The old man took the honey from the bear; but no sooner did he lie down again than there was another "Durrrrr!" at the door. The old man looked out and saw the wolf driving a whole flock of sheep into the court-yard. Close on his heels came the fox, driving before him the geese and hens, and all manner of fowls; and last of all came the hare, bringing cabbage and kale, and all manner of good food. And the old man was glad, and the old woman was glad. And the old man sold the sheep and oxen, and got so rich that he needed nothing more. As for the straw-stuffed ox, it stood in the sun till it fell to pieces. 187 "The Adventures of Connla the Comely" is one of the romances in _The Book of the Dun Cow_, the oldest manuscript of miscellaneous Gaelic literature in existence. It was made about 1100 A.D. and is now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy at Dublin. The contents were transcribed from older books, some of the stories being older by many centuries. The story of Connla is "one of the many tales that illustrate the ancient and widespread superstition that fairies sometimes take away mortals to their palaces in the fairy forts and pleasant green hills." This conception is often referred to as the Earthly Paradise or the Isle of Youth. It is represented in the King Arthur stories by the Vale of Avalon to which the weeping queens carried the king after his mortal wound in "that last weird battle in the west." Conn the Hundred-fighter reigned in the second century of the Christian era (123-157 A.D.), and this story of his son must have sprung up soon after. According to Jacobs, it is the oldest fairy tale of modern Europe.