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."

That evening when she sat at the door-step of her house and when the sun
was setting behind the elder-bushes the Spae-Woman told Gilly the third
part of the Unique Tale. Then she baked a cake and killed a cock for him
and told him to start on the morrow's morning for the house of the Old
Woman of Beare.

Well, he started off in the morning bright and early, leaving good
health with the Spae-Woman behind him, and away he went, crossing high
hills, passing low dales, and keeping on his way without halt or rest,
the clear day going and the dark night coming, taking lodgings each
evening wherever he found them, and at last he came to the house of the
Old Woman of Beare.

He went into the house and found her making marks in the ashes of her
fire while her cuckoo, her corncrake and her swallow were picking grains
off the table.

"And what can I do for you, good youth?" said the Old Woman of Beare.

"Give me a name," said Gilly, "and listen to the story I have to tell
you."

"That I will not," said the Old Woman of