d as he was riding by the lady snatched the shoe off him.

He went away, then, and he left the horse and the sword and the suit of
armour in the place where he found them, and when the gentleman and the
other people came home he was sitting before them at the fire. He asked
them how the fight went, and they told him that the champion killed the
fiery dragon, but that he was gone away, and that no one at all knew who
he was.

When the King's daughter came home she said that she would never marry a
man but the man whom that shoe would fit.

There were sons of kings, and great people among them, and they saying
that it was themselves who killed the dragon; but she said it was not
they, unless the shoe would fit them. Some of them were cutting the toes
off their feet, and some of them taking off a piece of the heel, and
more of them cutting the big toe off themselves, trying would the shoe
fit them. There was no good for them in it. The King's daughter said
that she would not marry one man of them.

She sent out soldiers, then, and the shoe with them, to try would it fit
anyone at all. Every person, poor and rich, no matter where he was from,
must try the shoe on him.

The lad was stretched out lying on the grass when the soldiers came, and
when they saw him they said to him, "Show your foot."

"Oh, don't be humbugging me," says he.

"We have orders," said they, "and we cannot return without trying the
shoe on everyone, poor and rich, so stretch out your foot." He did that,
and the shoe went in on his foot on the moment.

They said to him that he must come with them.

"Oh, listen to me" (i.e., give me time), said he, "till I dress myself."

He went to the caher of the giants, and he got a fine new suit on him,
and he went with them then.

That's where the welcome was for him, and he as dressed up as e'er a
man of them. They had a wedding for three days and three nights.

They got the pond and I the lakelet. They were drowned, and I came
through. And as I have it (i.e., the story) to-night, that ye may not
have it to-morrow night, or if ye have it itself, that ye may only lose
the back teeth by it!

DOUGLAS HYDE.

The Demon Cat

There was a woman in Connemara, the wife of a fisherman; as he had
always good luck, she had plenty of fish at all times stored away in the
house ready for market. But, to her great annoyance, she found that a
great cat used to come in at night and devour all the best and fi