shoulders, of sharp faces, must be blurred for her, and the facts of life softened: like a slaughter seen through gossamer, or a throat cut behind a fan of silk.
‘A year or two ago,’ said the Giant, ‘there was a young woman, pretty and light of foot, walking the road alone at night, coming to her cousin in Galway, with her babby of scarce six months laid to her breast. She had been walking for many a mile, walking through a dense wood, when—’
‘A demon comes up and eats her,’ said Pybus, with confidence.
‘—she emerged at a crossroad,’ the Giant continued, ‘just as the moon rose above the bleak and lonely hills. She stood there bedazzled, in the moonlight, wondering, which way shall I go? She looked down, into the face of her babby, but snug in his sling he was asleep and dreaming, dreaming of better times, and she could get no direction there. Shall I, she thought, linger here till morning, making my bed in the mossy ditch, as I have done many times before? It may be that in the morning some knowledgeable traveller will come along, and direct my way, or perhaps even in my dream I will receive some indication of the shortest route to my cousin’s house. I need hardly add, that her hair was long and curling and pale, her form erect, her body low and small but seemly, so that if the most vicious and ungodly man had chanced to glimpse her he would have thought her one of the gentry, and would have crossed himself and left her unmolested. Now this was her protection, as she walked the road, and she knew it; what man would touch a fairy, with a fairy babby bound in a cloth? And yet she was a mortal woman, with all her perplexities sitting heavy on her shoulders, and her worries making the weight of the babby increase with every mile she trod.’
A man said, from the shadows, ‘I’ve heard of a type of fairy where they carry their babbies on their backs, and the nursing mothers have tits so long and supple that they can fling one over their shoulder so the babby can suck on it, which is a great convenience to them when they’re labouring in the fields.’
‘Yes, well, some people will believe anything,’ the Giant said.
‘Must be foreign,’ said a woman. ‘A foreign type. I’ve never heard it. Still and all, it would leave your hands free.’
A man said, ‘Whoever heard of gentlefolk that labour in the fields?’
‘Will you be quiet, down at the back?’ Vance asked testily. ‘I’ve brought you over a master storyteller of unrivalled stature, and you’re just about going the right way to irritate him, and then you’ll be sorry, because he’ll stamp on your heads and burst your bloody skulls.’
‘It’s not worrying me, Joe,’ the Giant said. ‘Calm yourself and sit down, why don’t you? Shall I go on?’ There were murmurs of assent. ‘So: just then, as she was casting around, she heard a noise, and it was not the sound of a horse, and it was not very distant, and she discerned it was the slap of shoe-leather, and she thought, here is a man on the road who is either rich or holy, either merchant or priest, and I will beg either a blessing or a penny—who knows which will do me more good, in the long run?
‘Then out of the shadows stepped a little man, with a red woollen cap upon his head, and carrying a leather bag. So he greeted her, and Step along with me, he says, and I’ll fetch you to a place you can sleep the night. Now she looked at him with some dismay, for he was neither merchant or priest, and she did not know what he was, or what he had in his leather bag. She said, The wind is fresh and the moon is high, and I think I’ll step out, because my relatives are gathered about their hearth in the town of Galway, and they are waiting for me.
‘And he says to her, very low and respectful, Mistress, will you walk with me for all that? I will bring you to a hall where a little baby is crying with hunger, with no one to feed him, because his mother is dead and we have no wet nurse among us. Do me this favour, he says, as I observe your own child is plump and rosy, and he will not miss the milk, but without it our babby will die. And if you will do me this favour, I will give you a gold piece from my leather bag.
‘And then he gave the bag a good shake, and she could hear the chink of gold pieces from within.’
‘She ought not go, for all that,’ the red-haired woman observed. ‘It will end badly.’
‘And aren’t you the shrivelled old bitch!’ Pybus said. ‘Not go, and have the babby starve?’
‘I’m telling you,’ the woman said. ‘Just wait, you’ll see.’
‘Do you know this story, then?’ Pybus asked her.
‘No, but I know that type of man that wears a red woollen cap.’
‘Well now,’ the Giant said, ‘let the true facts of what occurred put an end to your debate. For she was an amiable, good-hearted young woman, and she says to him, For such a pitiful tale as you have told me I’ll come to the babby, and ask you no money, for you are an old man, and you may need your cash yourself, by and by.’
‘Oh, Jesus!’ Joe Vance said. ‘If that were my wife, I’d beat her into better sense.’
‘So off they step together, many a mile, turning her out of her true path, and still her babby sleeps, until she grows footsore and says to the old man, I fear we will not be there by morning.
‘We shall come to the place before dawn, I promise you, says the old man. This is a king’s son I am taking you to nurse, and it is not likely I should find him lying under the next hedge.’
‘A pox on kings,’ said the blind man. ‘What do kings avail? Better he dies.’
‘You speak out of your bitterness and affliction,’ the Giant said. ‘Not all kings are bad.’
‘Yes,’ said the blind man. They are bad inherently. It is not a question of their personal character. Kingship is an institution merely silly in itself, and pernicious as well.’
‘Less politics,’ the fair young woman said. ‘I want to hear of the girl, she is feeling she can’t go a step more, so what is the old man going to do to coax her, as she doesn’t seem to want his money?’
‘Put his hand up her skirts and wiggle his finger?’ Vance asked. ‘That’s often known to invigorate a female.’
The red-head yawned. ‘Little man, you might wave your cock to the five points,’ she said. ‘Not a woman in Ireland but would be laughing.’
‘Go on,’ Pybus said, impatient. ‘Go on with the tale, Charlie.’
The Giant began again, taking up the young woman’s voice. ‘Good sir, I did not know it was a king’s son you were bringing me to. So off they step, across field and stream, for what seems another hour, and another, and another, and dawn does not break, nor does the sky lighten one crack, and on and on they go, into the dark. And again she is weary, the babby grown a leaden weight, her feet cold and sore, her breath coming short and painful and every limb crying out for rest and warmth, her belly rumbling too. She says, King’s son or no, I can walk no more. Then the old man takes from under his coat a silver flask, and hands it to her—and she marvels at its workmanship, for it was finer than any she had ever seen or dreamed of. Take a draught! says he, and she takes a draught, and it is like nothing she has ever tasted in her mortal life. It is like honey but sweeter, it is like new milk but milder, it is like wine but it is stronger than any wine that was ever poured into a chalice. And as soon as she drinks it down, she feels all weariness drop away from her, and all torment of mind, and the babby is as light as air, and her feet feel as if she’s on her way to a dance, twitching at the first strain of the
