“Don’t put the knife to me. I’ll pay the dues for all,” said the Churl. “You heard what he said,” said Gilly to the people. “He will pay me wages in full, give me double wages to hand to the servant-boys he has injured, and pay the mummers’ dues for everyone.” “We heard him say that,” said the people. “Stand up and dress yourself,” said Gilly to the Churl. “What do I want with a strip of your skin? But I hope all here will go home with you and stand in your house until you have paid all the money that’s claimed from you.” “We’ll go home with him,” said the mummers. “We’ll stand on his floor until he has paid all the money he has agreed to pay,” said the others. “And now I must tell you, neighbors,” said Gilly, “that I never cut the legs of a living horse--neither his horse nor anyone else’s. This pair was taken off a poor dead horse by the skinners that were cutting it up.” Well, they all went to the Churl’s house and there they stayed until he opened his stone chest and took out his money-box and paid to the mummers the dues of all the people with sixpence over, and paid Gilly his wages in full, one guinea, one groat and a tester, and handed him double wages to give to each of the servant-boys he had injured. Gilly took the money and left the house of the Churl of the Townland of Mischance, and the people and the mummers went to the road with him, and cheered him as he went on his way. XIV So, without hap or mishap, Gilly came again to the house of the Spae-Woman. She was sitting at her door-step grinding corn with a quern when he came before her. She cried over him, not believing that he had come safe from the Townland of Mischance. And as long as he was with her she spoke to him of his “poor back.” He stayed with her for two seasons. He mended her fences and he cleaned her spring-well; he ground her corn and he brought back her swarm of bees; he trained a dog to chase the crows out of her field; he had the ass shod, the sheep washed and the goat spancelled. The Spae-Woman was much beholden to him for all he did for her, and one day she said to him, “Gilly of the Goat-skin you are called, but another name is due to you now.” “And who will give me another name?” said Gilly of the Goatskin. “Who’ll give it to you? Who but the Old Woman of Beare,” said the Spae-Woman. The next day she said to him, “I had a dream last night, and I know now what you are to do. You must go now to the Old Woman of Beare for the name that is due to you. And before she gives it to you, you must tell her and whoever else is in her house as much as you know of the Unique Tale.” “But I know nothing at all of the Unique Tale,” said Gilly of the Goatskin. “There is always a blank before a beginning,” said the Spae-Woman. “This evening, when I am grinding the corn at the quern I shall tell you the Unique Tale.”