to get firewood to defend themselves against the cold, which increased
from day to day, that a poor pilgrim came to the ogre's wood, and made
faces at an ape that was perched up in a pine-tree; whereupon the ape
threw down one of the fir-apples from the tree upon the man's pate,
which made such a terrible bump that the poor fellow set up a loud cry.
Cianna hearing the noise went out, and taking pity on his disaster, she
quickly plucked a sprig of rosemary from a tuft which grew upon the
ogre's grave; then she made him a plaster of it with boiled bread and
salt, and after giving the man some breakfast she sent him away.

Whilst Cianna was laying the cloth, and expecting her brothers, lo! she
saw seven doves come flying, who said to her, "Ah! better that your
hand had been cut off, you cause of all our misfortune, ere it plucked
that accursed rosemary and brought such a calamity upon us! Have you
eaten the brains of a cat, O sister, that you have driven our advice
from your mind? Behold us, turned to birds, a prey to the talons of
kites, hawks, and falcons! Behold us made companions of water-hens,
snipes, goldfinches, woodpeckers, jays, owls, magpies, jackdaws, rooks,
starlings, woodcocks, cocks, hens and chickens, turkey-cocks,
blackbirds, thrushes, chaffinches, tomtits, jenny-wrens, lapwings,
linnets, greenfinches, crossbills, flycatchers, larks, plovers,
kingfishers, wagtails, redbreasts, redfinches, sparrows, ducks,
fieldfares, woodpigeons and bullfinches! A rare thing you have done!
And now we may return to our country to find nets laid and twigs limed
for us! To heal the head of a pilgrim, you have broken the heads of
seven brothers; nor is there any help for our misfortune, unless you
find the Mother of Time, who will tell you the way to get us out of
trouble."

Cianna, looking like a plucked quail at the fault she had committed,
begged pardon of her brothers, and offered to go round the world until
she should find the dwelling of the old woman. Then praying them not to
stir from the house until she returned, lest any ill should betide
them, she set out, and journeyed on and on without ever tiring; and
though she went on foot, her desire to aid her brothers served her as a
sumpter-mule, with which she made three miles an hour. At last she came
to the seashore, where with the blows of the waves the sea was banging
the rocks which would not repeat the Latin it gave them to do. Here she
saw a huge whale, who said to