e what stopped the Gruagach Gaire from laughing. I took
the heads off them all when they came back without the tidings for
which they went, and I'm greatly in dread that your head'll be on the
twelfth spike, for I'll do the same to you that I did to the eleven
kings' sons unless you tell what put a stop to the laughing of the
Gruagach."

The Shee an Gannon made no answer, but left the king and pushed away to
know could he find why the Gruagach was silent.

He took a glen at a step, a hill at a leap, and travelled all day till
evening. Then he came to a house. The master of the house asked him
what sort was he, and he said: "A young man looking for hire."

"Well," said the master of the house, "I was going tomorrow to look for
a man to mind my cows. If you'll work for me, you'll have a good place,
the best food a man could have to eat in this world, and a soft bed to
lie on."

The Shee an Gannon took service, and ate his supper. Then the master of
the house said: "I am the Gruagach Gaire; now that you are my man and
have eaten your supper, you'll have a bed of silk to sleep on."

Next morning after breakfast the Gruagach said to the Shee an Gannon:
"Go out now and loosen my five golden cows and my bull without horns,
and drive them to pasture; but when you have them out on the grass, be
careful you don't let them go near the land of the giant."

The new cowboy drove the cattle to pasture, and when near the land of
the giant, he saw it was covered with woods and surrounded by a high
wall. He went up, put his back against the wall, and threw in a great
stretch of it; then he went inside and threw out another great stretch
of the wall, and put the five golden cows and the bull without horns on
the land of the giant.

Then he climbed a tree, ate the sweet apples himself, and threw the
sour ones down to the cattle of the Gruagach Gaire.

Soon a great crashing was heard in the woods,--the noise of young trees
bending, and old trees breaking. The cowboy looked around and saw a
five-headed giant pushing through the trees; and soon he was before him.

"Poor miserable creature!" said the giant; "but weren't you impudent to
come to my land and trouble me in this way? You're too big for one
bite, and too small for two. I don't know what to do but tear you to
pieces."

"You nasty brute," said the cowboy, coming down to him from the tree,
"'tis little I care for you;" and then they went at each other. So
great was the nois