"Oh no, I will not eat thee," said the fox. "When I am swimming I cannot eat anything at all." He went into the fox's mouth. "Oh! ho!" said the fox, "I may do my own pleasure on thee now. It was long ago said that a hard morsel is no good in the mouth." The fox ate the little bonnach. Then he went to a loch, and he caught hold of a duck that was in it, and he ate that. He went up to a hillside, and he began to stroke his sides on the hill. "Oh, king! how finely a bullet would spank upon my rib just now." Who was listening but a hunter. "I'll try that upon thee directly," said the hunter. "Bad luck to this place," quoth the fox, "in which a creature dares not say a word in fun that is not taken in earnest." The hunter put a bullet in his gun, and he fired at him and killed him, and that was the end of the Russet Dog. [Illustration] Smallhead and the King's Sons [Illustration: L] Long ago there lived in Erin a woman who married a man of high degree and had one daughter. Soon after the birth of the daughter the husband died. The woman was not long a widow when she married a second time, and had two daughters. These two daughters hated their half-sister, thought she was not so wise as another, and nicknamed her Smallhead. When the elder of the two sisters was fourteen years old their father died. The mother was in great grief then, and began to pine away. She used to sit at home in the corner and never left the house. Smallhead was kind to her mother, and the mother was fonder of her eldest daughter than of the other two, who were ashamed of her. At last the two sisters made up in their minds to kill their mother. One day, while their half-sister was gone, they put the mother in a pot, boiled her, and threw the bones outside. When Smallhead came home there was no sign of the mother. "Where is my mother?" asked she of the other two. "She went out somewhere. How should we know where she is?" "Oh, wicked girls! you have killed my mother," said Smallhead. Smallhead wouldn't leave the house now at all, and the sisters were very angry. "No man will marry either one of us," said they, "if he sees our fool of a sister." Since they could not drive Smallhead from the house they made up their minds to go away themselves. One fine morning they left home unknown to their half-sister and travelled on many miles. When Smallhead discovered that her sisters were gone she hurried after them and never stopped till she came up with the two. They had to go home with her that day, but they scolded her bitterly. The two settled then to kill Smallhead, so one day they took twenty needles and scattered them outside in a pile of straw. "We are going to that hill beyond," said they, "to stay till evening, and if you have not all the needles that are in that straw outside gathered and on the tables before us, we'll have your life."