The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 5 (of 8): The Celtic Twilight and Stories of Red HanrahanYeats, W. B. (William Butler)
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The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 5 (of 8): The Celtic Twilight and Stories of Red Hanrahan
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
English literature -- Irish authors
The next morning Jack went out again with the cows, and he saw another
field full of grass, and he knocked down the wall and let the cows in.
All happened the same as the day before, but the giant that came this
time had two heads, and they fought together, and the little bird came
and spoke to Jack as before. And when Jack had brought the giant down,
he said, ‘Give me my life, and I’ll give you the best thing I have.’
‘What is that?’ says Jack. ‘It’s a suit that you can put on, and you
will see every one but no one can see you.’ ‘Where is it?’ said Jack.
‘It’s inside that little red door at the side of the hill.’ So Jack
went and brought out the suit. And then he cut off the giant’s two
heads, and caught them coming down and made four halves of them. And
they said it was well for him he had not given them time to join the
body.
That night when the cows came home they gave so much milk that all the
vessels that could be found were filled up.
The next morning Jack went out again, and all happened as before, and
the giant this time had four heads, and Jack made eight halves of them.
And the giant had told him to go to a little blue door in the side of
the hill, and there he got a pair of shoes that when you put them on
would go faster than the wind.
That night the cows gave so much milk that there were not vessels
enough to hold it, and it was given to tenants and to poor people
passing the road, and the rest was thrown out at the windows. I was
passing that way myself, and I got a drink of it.
That night the king said to Jack, ‘Why is it the cows are giving so
much milk these days? Are you bringing them to any other grass?’ ‘I am
not,’ said Jack, ‘but I have a good stick, and whenever they would stop
still or lie down, I give them blows of it, that they jump and leap
over walls and stones and ditches; that’s the way to make cows give
plenty of milk.’
And that night at the dinner, the king said, ‘I hear no roars at all.’
The next morning the king and the princess were watching at the window
to see what would Jack do when he got to the field. And Jack knew they
were there, and he got a stick, and began to batter the cows, that they
went leaping and jumping over stones, and walls, and ditches. ‘There is
no lie in what Jack said,’ said the king then.
Now there was a great serpent at that time used to come every seven
years, and he had to get a king’s daughter to eat, unless she would
have some good man to fight for her. And it was the princess at the
place Jack was had to be given to it that time, and the king had been
feeding a bully underground for seven years, and you may believe he got
the best of everything, to be ready to fight it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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