very evening he came to the cave where the giant lived, and who was there before him but his own wife? She gave him food and hid him under clothes at the upper end of the cave. And when the giant came home he sniffed about and said, “The smell of a stranger is in the cave.” But she said no, it was only a little bird she had roasted. “And I wish you would tell me,” said she, “where you keep your life, that I might take good care of it.” “It is in a grey stone over there,” said he. So next day when he went away, she took the grey stone and dressed it well, and placed it in the upper end of the cave. When the giant came home in the evening he said to her, “What is it that you have dressed there?” “Your own life,” said she, “and we must be careful of it.” “I perceive that you are very fond of me, but it is not there,” said he. “Where is it?” said she. “It is in a grey sheep on yonder hillside,” said he. On the morrow, when he went away, she got the grey sheep, dressed it well, and placed it in the upper end of the cave. When he came home in the evening he said, “What is it that you have dressed there?” “Your own life, my love,” said she. “It is not there as yet,” said he. “Well!” said she, “you are putting me to great trouble taking care of it, and you have not told me the truth these two times.” He then said, “I think that I may tell it to you now. My life is below the feet of the big horse in the stable. There is a place down there in which there is a small lake. Over the lake are seven grey hides, and over the hides are seven sods from the heath, and under all these are seven oak planks. There is a trout in the lake, and a duck in the belly of the trout, an egg in the belly of the duck, and a thorn of blackthorn inside of the egg, and till that thorn is chewed small I cannot be killed. Whenever the seven grey hides, the seven sods from the heath, and the seven oak planks are touched I shall feel it wherever I shall be. I have an axe above the door, and unless all these are cut through with one blow of it the lake will not be reached; and when it will be reached I shall feel it.” Next day, when the giant had gone out hunting on the hill, the herdsman of Cruachan contrived, with the help of the friendly animals—the hawk, the duck, the fox, and the otter—to get possession of the fateful thorn and to chew it before the giant could reach him; and no sooner had he done so than the giant dropped stark and stiff, a corpse.(373)