e. I asked Baun to sing to me. She said she would if I
washed her feet. I got a basin of water and washed Baun's feet, and
while she sang, and while the Hags thought we were not minding them, I
considered what we might do to escape. The Hags hung a pot over the fire
and the three of them sat around it once more.

When I had washed my foster-sister's feet I took a besom and began to
sweep the floor of the house. One of the Hags was very pleased to see me
doing that. She said I would make a good servant, and after a while she
asked me to sit at the fire. I sat in the corner of the chimney. They
had put meal in the water, and I began to stir it with a pot-stick.
Then the Hag that had asked me to the fire said, "I will give you a good
share of milk with your porridge if you keep stirring the pot for us."
This was just what I wanted to be let do. I sat in the chimney-corner
and kept stirring the porridge while the Hags dozed before the fire.

First, I got a dish and ladle and took out of the pot some half-cooked
porridge. This I left one side. Then I took down the salt-box that was
on the chimney-shelf and mixed handfuls of salt in the porridge left in
the pot.

When it was all cooked I emptied it into another dish and brought the
two dishes to the table. Then I told the Hags that all was ready. They
came over to the table and they gave my foster-sisters and myself three
porringers of goat's milk. We ate out of the first dish and they ate out
of the second. "By my sleep to-night," said one Hag, "this porridge is
salty." "Too little salt is in it for my taste," said my foster-sister
Deelish. "It is as salt as the depths of the sea," said another of the
Hags. "My respects to you, ma'am," said Baun, "but I do not taste any
salt on it at all." My foster-sisters were so earnest that the Hags
thought themselves mistaken, and they ate the whole dishful of porridge.

The bed was made for us, and the pillows were laid on the bed, and I
knew that the slumber-pin was in each of the pillows. I wanted to put
off the time for going to bed so I began to tell stories. Baun and
Deelish said it was still young in the night, and that I should tell no
short ones, but the long story of Eithne, Balor's daughter. I had just
begun that story, when one of the Hags cried out that she was consumed
with thirst.

She ran to the pitcher, and there was no water in it. Then another Hag
shouted out that the thirst was strangling her. The third one sai