son of a King," said Flann,
"and," said he, "I have in my hand a sword that will make you tell me."

He came towards them and they were afraid. Then the first Hag bent her
knee to him, and, said she, "Loosen the hearthstone with your sword and
you will find a token that will let you know who your father was."

Flann put his sword under the hearthstone and pried it up. But if
it were a token, what was under the hearthstone was an evil thing--a
cockatrice. It had been hatched out of a serpent's egg by a black cock
of nine years. It had the head and crest of a cock and the body of a
black serpent. The cockatrice lifted itself up on its tail and looked at
him with red eyes. The sight of that head made Flann dizzy and he fell
down on the floor. Then it went down and the Hags put the hearthstone
above it.

"What will we do with the fellow?" said one of the Hags, looking at
Flann who was in a swoon on the floor.

"Cut of his head with the sword that he threatened us with," said
another.

"No," said the third Hag. "Crom Duv the Giant is in want of a servant.
Let him take this fellow. Then maybe the Giant will give us what he has
promised us for so long--a Berry to each of us from the Fairy Rowan Tree
that grows in his courtyard."

"Let it be, let it be," said the other Hags. They put green branches on
the fire so that Crom Duv would see the smoke and come to the house. In
the morning he came. He brought Flann outside, and after awhile Flann's
senses came back to him. Then the Giant tied a rope round his arms and
drove him before him with a long iron spike that he had for a staff.

II

Crom Duv's arms stretched down to his twisted knees; he had long,
yellow, overlapping horse's teeth in his mouth, with a fall-down
under-lip and a drawn-back upper-lip; he had a matted rug of hair on his
head. He was as high as a haystack. He carried in his twisted hand an
iron spike pointed at the end. And wherever he was going he went as
quickly as a running mule.

He tied Flann's hands behind his back and drew the rope round Flann's
body. Then he started off. Flann was dragged on as if at the tail of
a cart. Over ditches and through streams; up hillsides and down into
hollows he was hauled. Then they came into a plain as round as the wheel
of a cart. Across the plain they went and into a mile-deep wood. Beyond
the wood there were buildings--such walls and such heaps of stones Flann
never saw before.

But before they had