Once upon a time, and a long time ago it was, there lived an old woman in Erin. This old woman’s house was at the northeast corner of Mount Brandon. Of all the friends and relatives that ever she had in the world there was but one left, her only son, Sean,[3] nicknamed Fuarcosa (Coldfeet).

The reason that people called the boy Coldfeet was this: When a child he was growing always; what of him did not grow one hour grew another; what did not grow in the day grew in the night; what did not grow in the night grew in the day; and he grew that fast that when seven years old he could not find room enough in his mother’s house. When night came and he was sleeping, whatever corner of the house his head was in, it was out of doors that his feet were, and, of course, they were cold, especially in winter.

It was not long till his legs as well as his feet were out of the house, first to the knees, and then to the body. When fifteen years old it was all that he could do to put his head in, and he lived outdoors entirely. What the mother could gather in a year would not support the son for a day, he was that large and had such an appetite.

Coldfeet had to find his own food, and he had no means of living but to bring home sheep and bullocks from whatever place he met them.

He was going on in this way, faring rather ill than well, when one day above another he said, “I think I must go into the great world, mother. I am half starving in this place. I can do little good for myself as I am, and no good at all for you.”

He rose early next morning, washed his face and hands, asked assistance and protection of God, and if he did not, may we. He left good health with his mother at parting, and away he went, crossing high hills, passing low dales, and kept on his way without halt or rest, the clear day going and the dark night coming, taking lodgings each evening wherever he found them, till at last he came to a high roomy castle.

He entered the castle without delaying outside, and when he went in, the owner asked was he a servant in search of a master.

“I am in search of a master,” said Coldfeet.

He engaged to herd cows for small hire and his keeping, and the time of his service was a day and a year.

Next morning, when Coldfeet was driving the cattle to pasture, his master was outside in the field before him, and said, “You must take good care of yourself, for of all the herders who took service with me never a man but was killed by one or another of four giants who live next to my pastures. One of these giants has four, the next six, the third eight, and the fourth twelve heads on him.”

“By my hand!” said Coldfeet, “I did not come here to be killed by the like of them. They will not hurt me, never fear.”

Coldfeet went on with the cattle, and when he came to the boundary he put them on the land of the giants. The cows were not long grazing when one of the giants at his castle caught the odor of the strange herder and rushed out. When coming at a distance he shouted, “I smell the blood of a man from Erin; his liver and lights for my supper to-night, his blood for my morning dram, his jawbones for stepping-stones, his shins for hurleys!”

When the giant came up he cried, “Ah, that is you, Coldfeet, and wasn’t it the impudence in you to come here from the butt of Brandon Mountain and put cattle on my land to annoy me?”

“It isn’t to give satisfaction to you that I am here, but to knock satisfaction out of your bones,” said Coldfeet.

With that the giant faced the herder, and the two went at each other and fought till near evening. They broke old trees and bent young ones; they made hard places soft and soft places hard; they made high places low and low places high; they made spring wells dry, and brought water through hard, gray rocks till near sunset, when Coldfeet took the heads off the giant and put the four skulls in muddy gaps to make a dry, solid road for the cows.

Coldfeet drove out his master’s cattle on a second, third, and fourth morning; each day he killed a giant, each day the battle was fiercer, but on the fourth evening the fourth giant was dead.

On the fifth day Coldfeet was not long on the land of the dead giants when a dreadful enchanted old hag came out against him, and she raging with anger. She had nails of steel on her fingers and toes, each nail of them weighing seven pounds.

“Oh, you insolent, bloodthirsty villain,” screamed she, “to come all the way from Brandon Mountain to kill my young sons, and, poor boys, only that timber is dear in this country it’s in their cradles they’d be to-day instead of being murdered by you.”

“It isn’t to give satisfaction to you that I’m here, you old witch, but to knock it out of your wicked old bones,” said Coldfeet.

“Glad would I be to tear you to pieces,” said the hag; “but ’tis better to get some good of you first. I put you under spells of heavy enchantment that you cannot escape, not to eat two meals off the one table nor to sleep two nights in the one house till you go to the Queen of Lonesome Island, and bring the sword of light that never fails, the loaf of bread that is never eaten, and the bottle of water that is never drained.”

“Where is Lonesome Island?” asked Coldfeet.

“Follow your nose, and make out the place with your own wit,” said the hag.

Coldfeet drove the cows home in the evening, and said to his master, “The giants will never harm you again; all their heads are in the muddy gaps from this to the end of the pasture, and there are good roads now for your cattle. I have been with you only five days, but another would not do my work in a day and a year; pay me my wages. You’ll never have trouble again in finding men to mind cattle.”

The man paid Coldfeet his wages, gave him a good suit of clothes for the journey, and his blessing.

Away went Coldfeet now on the long road, and by my word it was a strange road to him. He went across high hills and low dales, passing each night where he found it, till the evening of the third day, when he came to a house where a little old man was living. The old man had lived in that house without leaving it for seven hundred years, and had not seen a living soul in that time.

Coldfeet gave good health to the old man, and received a hundred thousand welcomes in return.

“Will you give me a night’s lodging?” asked Coldfeet.

“I will indeed,” said the old man, “and is it any harm to ask, where are you going?”

“What harm in a plain question? I am going to Lonesome Island if I can find it.”

“You will travel to-morrow, and if you are loose and lively on the road you’ll come at night to a house, and inside in it an old man like myself, only older. He will give you lodgings, and tell where to go the day after.”

Coldfeet rose very early next morning, ate his breakfast, asked aid of God, and if he didn’t he let it alone. He left good health with the old man, and received his blessing. Away with him then over high hills and low dales, and if any one wished to see a great walker Coldfeet was the man to look at. He overtook the hare in the wind that was before him, and the hare in the wind behind could not overtake him; he went at that gait without halt or rest till he came in the heel of the evening to a small house, and went in. Inside in the house was a little old man sitting by the fire.

Coldfeet gave good health to the old man, and got a hundred thousand welcomes with a night’s lodging.

“Why did you come, and where are you going?” asked the old man. “Fourteen hundred years am I in this house alone, and not a living soul came in to see me till yourself came this evening.”

“I am going to Lonesome Island, if I can find it.”

“I have no knowledge of that place, but if you are a swift walker you will come to-morrow evening to an old man like myself, only older; he will tell you all that you need, and show you the way to the island.”

Next morning early Coldfeet went away after breakfast, leaving good health behind him and taking good wishes for the road. He travelled this day as on the other two days, only more swiftly, and at nightfall gave a greeting to the third old man.

“A hundred thousand welcomes,” said the old man. “I am living alone in this house twenty-one hundred years, and not a living soul walked the way in that time. You are the first man I see in this house. Is it to stay with me that you are here?”

“It is not,” said Coldfeet, “for I must be moving. I cannot spend two nights in the one house till I go to Lonesome Island, and I have no knowledge of where that place is.”

“Oh, then, it’s the long road between this and Lonesome Island, but I’ll tell where the place is, and how you are to go, if you go there. The road lies straight from my door to the sea. From the shore to the island no man has gone unless the queen brought him, but you may go if the strength and the courage are in you. I will give you this staff; it may help you. When you reach the sea throw the staff in the water, and you’ll have a boat that will take you without sail or oar straight to the island. When you touch shore pull up the boat on the strand; it will turn into a staff and be again what it now is. The queen’s castle goes whirling around always. It has only one door, and that on the roof of it. If you lean on the staff you can rise with one spring to the roof, go in at the door, and to the queen’s chamber.

“The queen sleeps but one day in each year, and she will be sleeping to-morrow. The sword of light will be hanging at the head of her bed, the loaf and the bottle of water on the table near by. Seize the sword with the loaf and the bottle, and away with you, for the journey must be made in a day, and you must be on this side of those hills before nightfall. Do you think you can do that?”

“I will do it, or die in the trial,” said Coldfeet.

“If you make that journey you will do what no man has done yet,” said the old man. “Before I came to live in this house champions and hundreds of king’s sons tried to go to Lonesome Island, but not a man of them had the strength and the swiftness to go as far as the seashore, and that is but one part of the journey. All perished, and if their skulls are not crumbled, you’ll see them to-morrow. The country is open and safe in the daytime, but when night falls the Queen of Lonesome Island sends her wild beasts to destroy every man they can find until daybreak. You must be in Lonesome Island to-morrow before noon, leave the place very soon after midday, and be on this side of those hills before nightfall, or perish.”

Next morning Coldfeet rose early, ate his breakfast, and started at daybreak. Away he went swiftly over hills, dales, and level places, through a land where the wind never blows and the cock never crows, and though he went quickly the day before, he went five times more quickly that day, for the staff added speed to whatever man had it.

Coldfeet came to the sea, threw the staff into the water, and a boat was before him. Away he went in the boat, and before noon was in the chamber of the Queen of Lonesome Island. He found everything there as the old man had told him. Seizing the sword of light quickly and taking the bottle and loaf, he went toward the door; but there he halted, turned back, stopped a while with the queen. It was very near he was then to forgetting himself; but he sprang up, took one of the queen’s golden garters, and away with him.

If Coldfeet strove to move swiftly when coming, he strove more in going back. On he raced over hills, dales, and flat places where the wind never blows and the cock never crows; he never stopped nor halted. When the sun was near setting he saw the last line of hills, and remembering that death was behind and not far from him, he used his last strength and was over the hilltops at nightfall.

The whole country behind him was filled with wild beasts.

“Oh,” said the old man, “but you are the hero, and I was in dread that you’d lose your life on the journey, and by my hand you had no time to spare.”

“I had not, indeed,” answered Coldfeet. “Here is your staff, and many thanks for it.”

The two spent a pleasant evening together. Next morning Coldfeet left his blessing with the old man and went on, spent a night with each of the other old men, and never stopped after that till he reached the hag’s castle. She was outside before him with the steel nails on her toes and fingers.

“Have you the sword, the bottle, and the loaf?” asked she.

“I have,” said Coldfeet; “here they are.”

“Give them to me,” said the hag.

“If I was bound to bring the three things,” said Coldfeet, “I was not bound to give them to you; I will keep them.”

“Give them here!” screamed the hag, raising her nails to rush at him.

With that Coldfeet drew the sword of light, and sent her head spinning through the sky in the way that ’tis not known in what part of the world it fell or did it fall in any place. He burned her body then, scattered the ashes, and went his way farther.

“I will go to my mother first of all,” thought he, and he travelled till evening. When his feet struck small stones on the road, the stones never stopped till they knocked wool off the spinning-wheels of old hags in the Eastern World. In the evening he came to a house and asked lodgings.

“I will give you lodgings, and welcome,” said the man of the house; “but I have no food for you.”

“I have enough for us both,” said Coldfeet, “and for twenty more if they were in it;” and he put the loaf on the table.

The man called his whole family. All had their fill, and left the loaf as large as it was before supper. The woman of the house made a loaf in the night like the one they had eaten from, and while Coldfeet was sleeping took his bread and left her own in the place of it. Away went Coldfeet next morning with the wrong loaf, and if he travelled differently from the day before it was because he travelled faster. In the evening he came to a house, and asked would they give him a night’s lodging.

“We will, indeed,” said the woman, “but we have no water to cook supper for you; the water is far away entirely, and no one to go for it.”

“I have water here in plenty,” said Coldfeet, putting his bottle on the table.

The woman took the bottle, poured water from it, filled one pot and then another, filled every vessel in the kitchen, and not a drop less in the bottle. What wonder, when no man or woman ever born could drain the bottle in a lifetime.

Said the woman to her husband that night, “If we had the bottle, we needn’t be killing ourselves running for water.”

“We need not,” said the man.

What did the woman do in the night, when Coldfeet was asleep, but take a bottle, fill it with water from one of the pots, and put that false bottle in place of the true one. Away went Coldfeet next morning, without knowledge of the harm done, and that day he travelled in the way that when he fell in running he had not time to rise, but rolled on till the speed that was under him brought him to his feet again. At sunset he was in sight of a house, and at dusk he was in it.

Coldfeet found welcome in the house, with food and lodgings.

“It is great darkness we are in,” said the man to Coldfeet; “we have neither oil nor rushes.”

“I can give you light,” said Coldfeet, and he unsheathed the sword from Lonesome Island; it was clear inside the house as on a hilltop in sunlight.

When the people had gone to bed Coldfeet put the sword into its sheath, and all was dark again.

“Oh,” said the woman to her husband that night, “if we had the sword we’d have light in the house always. You have an old sword above on the loft. Rise out of the bed now and put it in the place of that bright one.”

The man rose, took the two swords out doors, put the old blade in Coldfeet’s sheath, and hid away Coldfeet’s sword in the loft. Next morning Coldfeet went away, and never stopped till he came to his mother’s cabin at the foot of Mount Brandon. The poor old woman was crying and lamenting every day. She felt sure that it was killed her son was, for she had never got tale or tidings of him. Many is the welcome she had for him, but if she had welcomes she had little to eat.

“Oh, then, mother, you needn’t be complaining,” said Coldfeet, “we have as much bread now as will do us a lifetime;” with that he put the loaf on the table, cut a slice for the mother, and began to eat himself. He was hungry, and the next thing he knew the loaf was gone.

“There is a little meal in the house,” said the mother. “I’ll go for water and make stirabout.”

“I have water here in plenty,” said Coldfeet. “Bring a pot.”

The bottle was empty in a breath, and they hadn’t what water would make stirabout nor half of it.

“Oh, then,” said Coldfeet, “the old hag enchanted the three things before I killed her and knocked the strength out of every one of them.” With that he drew the sword, and it had no more light than any rusty old blade.

The mother and son had to live in the old way again; but as Coldfeet was far stronger than the first time, he didn’t go hungry himself, and the mother had plenty. There were cattle in the country, and all the men in it couldn’t keep them from Coldfeet or stop him. The old woman and the son had beef and mutton, and lived on for themselves at the foot of Brandon Mountain.

In three quarters of a year the Queen of Lonesome Island had a son, the finest child that sun or moon could shine on, and he grew in the way that what of him didn’t grow in the day grew in the night following, and what didn’t grow that night grew the next day, and when he was two years old he was very large entirely.

The queen was grieving always for the loaf and the bottle, and there was no light in her chamber from the day the sword was gone. All at once she thought, “The father of the boy took the three things. I will never sleep two nights in the one house till I find him.”

Away she went then with the boy,—went over the sea, went through the land where wind never blows and where cock never crows, came to the house of the oldest old man, stopped one night there, then stopped with the middle and the youngest old man. Where should she go next night but to the woman who stole the loaf from Coldfeet. When the queen sat down to supper the woman brought the loaf, cut slice after slice; the loaf was no smaller.

“Where did you get that loaf?” asked the queen.

“I baked it myself.”

“That is my loaf,” thought the queen.

The following evening she came to a house and found lodgings. At supper the woman poured water from a bottle, but the bottle was full always.

“Where did you get that bottle?”

“It was left to us,” said the woman; “my grandfather had it.”

“That is my bottle,” thought the queen.

The next night she stopped at a house where a sword filled the whole place with light.

“Where did you find that beautiful sword?” asked the queen.

“My grandfather left it to me,” said the man. “We have it hanging here always.”

“That is my sword,” said the queen to herself.

Next day the queen set out early, travelled quickly, and never stopped till she came near Brandon Mountain. At a distance she saw a man coming down hill with a fat bullock under each arm. He was carrying the beasts as easily as another would carry two geese. The man put the bullocks in a pen near a house at the foot of the mountain, came out toward the queen, and never stopped till he saluted her. When the man stopped, the boy broke away from the mother and ran to the stranger.

“How is this?” asked the queen; “the child knows you.” She tried to take the boy, but he would not go to her.

“Have you lived always in this place?” asked the queen.

“I was born in that house beyond, and reared at the foot of that mountain before you. I went away from home once and killed four giants, the first with four, the second with six, the third with eight, and the fourth with twelve heads on him. When I had the giants killed, their mother came out against me, and she raging with vengeance. She wanted to kill me at first, but she did not. She put me under bonds of enchantment to go to the castle of the Queen of Lonesome Island, and bring the sword of light that can never fail to cut or give light, the loaf of bread that can never be eaten, and the bottle of water that can never be drained.”

“Did you go?” asked the queen.

“I did.”

“How could you go to Lonesome Island?”

“I journeyed and travelled, inquiring for the island, stopping one night at one place, and the next night at another, till I came to the house of a little man seven hundred years old. He sent me to a second man twice as old as himself, and the second to a third three times as old as the first man.

“The third old man showed me the road to Lonesome Island, and gave me a staff to assist me. When I reached the sea I made a boat of the staff, and it took me to the island. On the island the boat was a staff again.

“I sprang to the top of the queen’s turning castle, went down and entered the chamber where she was sleeping, took the sword of light, with the loaf and the bottle, and was coming away again. I looked at the queen. The heart softened within me at sight of her beauty. I turned back and came near forgetting my life with her. I brought her gold garter with me, took the three things, sprang down from the castle, ran to the water, made a boat of the staff again, came quickly to mainland, and from that hour till darkness I ran with what strength I could draw from each bit of my body. Hardly had I crossed the hilltop and was before the door of the oldest old man when the country behind me was covered with wild beasts. I escaped death by one moment. I brought the three things to the hag who had sent me, but I did not give them. I struck the head from her, but before dying she destroyed them, for when I came home they were useless.”

“Have you the golden garter?”

“Here it is,” said the young man.

“What is your name?” asked the queen.

“Coldfeet,” said the stranger.

“You are the man,” said the queen. “Long ago it was prophesied that a hero named Coldfeet would come to Lonesome Island without my request or assistance, and that our son would cover the whole world with his power. Come with me now to Lonesome Island.”

The queen gave Coldfeet’s old mother good clothing, and said, “You will live in my castle.”

They all left Brandon Mountain and journeyed on toward Lonesome Island till they reached the house where the sword of light was. It was night when they came and dark outside, but bright as day in the house from the sword, which was hanging on the wall.

“Where did you find this blade?” asked Coldfeet, catching the hilt of the sword.

“My grandfather had it,” said the woman.

“He had not,” said Coldfeet, “and I ought to take the head off your husband for stealing it when I was here last.”

Coldfeet put the sword in his scabbard and kept it. Next day they reached the house where the bottle was, and Coldfeet took that. The following night he found the loaf and recovered it. All the old men were glad to see Coldfeet, especially the oldest, who loved him.

The queen with her son and Coldfeet with his mother arrived safely in Lonesome Island. They lived on in happiness; there is no account of their death, and they may be in it yet for aught we know.