the verses above.)

Then the young man gaed on a bit farther, and came to another very old
man herding goats; and when he asked whose goats they were, the answer
was:

"The Red Etin of Ireland"--
(Repeat the verses again.)

This old man also told him to beware of the next beasts that he should
meet, for they were of a very different kind from any he had yet seen.

So the young man went on, and by-and-by he saw a multitude of very
dreadfu' beasts, ilk ane o' them wi' twa heads, and on every head four
horns. And he was sore frightened, and ran away from them as fast as he
could; and glad was he when he came to a castle that stood on a hillock,
wi' the door standing wide to the wa'. And he gaed into the castle for
shelter, and there he saw an auld wife sitting beside the kitchen fire.
He asked the wife if he might stay there for the night, as he was tired
wi' a lang journey; and the wife said he might, but it was not a good
place for him to be in, as it belanged to the Red Etin, who was a very
terrible beast, wi' three heads, that spared no living man he could get
hold of. The young man would have gone away, but he was afraid of the
beasts on the outside of the castle; so he beseeched the old woman to
conceal him as well as she could, and not to tell the Etin that he was
there. He thought, if he could put over the night, he might get away in
the morning without meeting wi' the beasts, and so escape. But he had
not been long in his hidy-hole before the awful Etin came in; and nae
sooner was he in than he was heard crying:

"Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man;
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen(1) my bread."

(1) "Kitchen," that is, "season."

The monster soon found the poor young man, and pulled him from his hole.
And when he had got him out he told him that if he could answer him
three questions his life should be spared. The first was: Whether
Ireland or Scotland was first inhabited? The second was: Whether man was
made for woman, or woman for man? The third was: Whether men or
brutes were made first? The lad not being able to answer one of these
questions, the Red Etin took a mace and knocked him on the head, and
turned him into a pillar of stone.

On the morning after this happened the younger brither took out the
knife to look at it, and he was grieved to find it a' brown wi' rust. He
told his mother that the time was now com