How Crubach became a Sower of Corn

IN Garff’s village there lived an old man named Crubach. The people called him Crubach, the Lame One, because when he was a young man he had had a dreadful fight with a bear, and had been nearly torn in pieces. The bear clawed his face all down one side and tore his arm, and would speedily have killed him, but that two or three brave men dashed in with blazing firebrands and thrust them in the bear’s face; and among them they killed the bear and saved poor Crubach. In time he recovered; but he was never able to hunt again, because he was lame and could not hold either a bow or a spear. But he was strong and clever, and he did not mean to have to beg his daily bread. So he became a grower of corn; and in time he was the greatest grower of corn in the village. He tilled his plot of land more carefully than the women, and always saved his best corn for seed; and his seed was so much better than other people’s that they used to go to him at the time of sowing, and take meat or skins or firewood to exchange for seed-corn.

Then the men began to see that after all Crubach had done well, even though he was not a hunter; and in course of time, some of them took to working among the crops and laying up more corn for the winter store.

Besides his crops of barley and wheat, Crubach grew flax, of which the fibres were dressed and spun into thread. He used to keep a supply of sticks trimmed and ready for making bows and arrow shafts and spear-shafts; he also made wooden cups and bowls and wooden tubs. And he used to gather wild plants of different sorts and use them for medicine; and it was said in the village that nobody except the Medicine Men knew more about plants than Crubach.

When Tig grew big enough to run about by himself, he became great friends with Crubach. The old man was generally to be found working on his piece of land, or sitting to scare away the birds from his crops. He used to teach Tig the names of the animals and birds, and tell him things about them—such as why Broc the badger never walks out except at night; why Graineag the hedgehog wears a prickly jacket; where Gobhlan the swallow goes in the cold-time; why Seabhac the kestrel hawk hangs in the air beating her wings; and who it is that haunts the reedy marshes, crying: “Boom-boom!” And when Crubach gathered in his harvest, he bound a little sheaf of corn for Tig, and gave it to him, and said: “This did I promise thee on the day when we were in the field together scaring the birds.”