picking grains off the
floor. "If you see Laheen the Eagle again, or Blackfoot the Elk or the
Crow of Achill tell them to come and visit me sometime. I'm all alone
here except for my swallow and cuckoo and corncrake. And mind you, great
Kings and Princes used to come to see me." So she went on talking in low
tones and in sudden high tones.

"You must come with me and help me to get the rest of the Unique Tale,"
said the King of Ireland's Son. "That I'll do," said Gilly of the
Goatskin. "But I must get a name first.

"Old Mother," said he, to the Old Woman of Beare. "You must now give me
a name."

"I'll give you a name," said the Old Woman of Beare, "but you must stand
before me and strip off the goatskin that covers you."

Gilly pulled at the strings and the goatskin fell on the ground. The Old
Woman of Beare nodded her head. "You have the stars on your breast that
denote the Son of a King," she said.

"The Son of a King--me!" said Gilly of the Goatskin. "You have the stars
on your breast," said the Old Woman of Beare.

Gilly looked at himself and saw the three stars on his breast. "If I am
the Son of a King I never knew it until now," he said.

"You are the son of a King," said the Old Woman of Beare, "and I will
give you a name when you come back to me. But I want you, first of all,
to find out what happened to the Crystal Egg."

"The Crystal Egg!" said Gilly in great surprise.

"The Crystal Egg indeed," said the Old Woman of Beare. "You must know
that it was stolen out of the nest of Laheen the Eagle, and the creature
that stole it was the Crow of Achill. But what happened to the Crystal
Egg after that no one knows."

"I myself had it after that," said Gilly, "and it was stolen from me by
Rory the Fox. And then it was put under a goose to hatch." "A goose to
hatch the Crystal Egg after an Eagle had half-hatched it! Aye, aye, to
be sure, that's right," said the Old Woman of Beare. "And now you must
go and find out what happened to it. Go now, and when you come back I
will give you your name."

"I will do that," said Gilly of the Goatskin. Then he turned to the
King's Son. "Three days before Midsummer's Day meet me on the road to
the Town of the Red Castle, and I will go with you to find out what went
before and what comes after the Unique Tale," he said.

"I will meet you," said the King of Ireland's Son.

The two youths went to the table and ate slices of the unwasted loaf
and drank draughts from the