gg-shells as you can get, go into his room, spread them out carefully
before his sight, then proceed to draw water with them, carrying them
two and two in your hands as if they were a great weight, and arrange
them when full, with every sort of earnestness around the fire."

The smith accordingly gathered as many broken egg-shells as he could
get, went into the room, and proceeded to carry out all his
instructions.

He had not been long at work before there arose from the bed a shout
of laughter, and the voice of the seeming sick boy exclaimed, "I am
eight hundred years of age, and I have never seen the like of that
before." The smith returned and told the old man.

"Well, now," said the sage to him, "did I not tell you that it was not
your son you had: your son is in Borracheill in a digh there (that is,
a round green hill frequented by fairies). Get rid as soon as possible
of this intruder, and I think I may promise you your son. You must
light a very large and bright fire before the bed on which this
stranger is lying. He will ask you, 'What is the use of such a fire as
that?' Answer him at once, 'You will see that presently!' and then
seize him, and throw him into the middle of it. If it is your own son
you have got, he will call out to you to save him; but if not, the
thing will fly through the roof."

The smith again followed the old man's advice: kindled a large fire,
answered the question put to him as he had been directed to do, and
seizing the child flung him in without hesitation. The _Sibhreach_
gave an awful yell, and sprang through the roof, where a hole had been
left to let the smoke out.

On a certain night the old man told him the green round hill, where
the fairies kept the boy, would be open, and on that date the smith,
having provided himself with a Bible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, was
to proceed to the hill. He would hear singing and dancing, and much
merriment going on, he had been told, but he was to advance boldly;
the Bible he carried would be a certain safeguard to him against any
danger from the fairies. On entering the hill he was to stick the dirk
in the threshold, to prevent the hill from closing upon him; "and
then," continued the old man, "on entering you will see a spacious
apartment before you, beautifully clean, and there, standing far
within, working at a forge, you will also see your own son. When you
are questioned, say you come to seek him, and will not go without
him."