but I beat them; and I would beat seven times as many.
Don't you know I'm a Connachtman?"

"Give me the ring," says the old King.

"Indeed, I won't give it," says he. "I fought hard for it. But do you
give me my wife; I want to be going."

The old King brought him in, and said, "My three daughters are in that
room before you. The hand of each of them is stretched out, and she on
whom you will keep your hold until I open the door, that one is your
wife."

The King's son thrust his hand through the hole that was in the door,
and caught hold of the hand with the broken little finger, and kept a
tight hold of it until the old King opened the door of the room.

"This is my wife," said the King's son. "Give me now your daughter's
fortune."

"She has no fortune to get, but the brown slender steed to bring you
home, and that ye may never come back, alive or dead!"

The King's son and Finnuala went riding on the brown slender steed, and
it was not long till they came to the wood where the King's son left his
hound and his hawk. They were there before him, together with his fine
black horse. He sent the brown slender steed back then. He set Finnuala
riding on his horse, and leaped up himself--

His hound at his heel,
His hawk on his hand--

and he never stopped till he came to Rathcroghan.

There was great welcome before him there, and it was not long till
himself and Finnuala were married. They spent a long, prosperous life.
But it is scarcely that even the track of this old castle is to be found
to-day in Rathcroghan of Connacht.

DOUGLAS HYDE.

The Piper and the Puca

In the old times there was a half fool living in Dunmore, in the county
Galway, and though he was excessively fond of music, he was unable to
learn more than one tune, and that was the "Black Rogue." He used to get
a good deal of money from the gentlemen, for they used to get sport out
of him. One night the Piper was coming home from a house where there had
been a dance, and he half drunk. When he came up to a little bridge that
was by his mother's house, he squeezed the pipes on, and began playing
the "Black Rogue." The Puca came behind him, and flung him on his own
back. There were long horns on the Puca, and the Piper got a good grip
of them, and then he said:

"Destruction on you, you nasty beast; let me home. I have a
tenpenny-piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff."

"Never mind your mother," said the Puca, "bu