Celts -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Fairy tales -- Great Britain; Folklore -- Great Britain; Tales -- Great Britain
"Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and
healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are
cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me,
for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in
Norway before I sleep."
Kayn Mac Loy said:
"May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I
be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a
salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me whether any
search was made for the daughter of the King of the Universe."
"Ah! the mischief is upon you," said the big man; "I will tell
you another short tale. I came home with my mother and sister,
and the daughter of the King of the Universe, and I married the
daughter of the King of the Universe. The first son I had I named
Machkan-na-skaya-jayrika (son of the red shield). Not long after this
a hostile force came to enforce compensation for the King of the Red
Shield, and a hostile force came from the King of the Universe to
enforce compensation for the daughter of the King of the Universe. I
took the daughter of the King of the Universe with me on the one
shoulder and Machkan-na-skaya-jayrika on the other, and I went on
board the ship and set the sails to her, and I placed the ensign of
the King of the Great Universe on the one mast, and that of the King
of the Red Shield on the other, and I blew a trumpet, and passed
through the midst of them, and I said to them that here was the man,
and that if they were going to enforce their claims, this was the
time. All the ships that were there chased me; and we set out on the
expanse of ocean. My ship would be equalled in speed by but few. One
day a thick dark mist came on, and they lost sight of me. It happened
that I came to an island called The Wet Mantle. I built a hut there;
and another son was born to me, and I called him Son of the Wet
Mantle.
"I was a long time in that island; but there was enough of fruit, fish,
and birds in it. My two sons had grown to be somewhat big. As I was one
day out killing birds, I saw a big, big man coming towards the island,
and I ran to try if I could get into the house before him. He met me,
and caught me, and put me into a bog up to the armpits, and he went into
the house, and took out on his shoulder the daughter of the King of the
Universe, and passed close to me in order to irritate me the more. The
saddest look that I ever gave or ever shall give was that I gave when I
saw the daughter of the King of the Universe on the shoulder of another,
and could not take her from him. The boys came out where I was; and I
bade them bring me the short spear from the house. They dragged the
short spear after them, and brought it to me; and I cut the ground
around me with it till I got out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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