to life again;
and when the Gruagach saw all his sons alive and as well as ever, he
let a laugh out of himself, and all the Eastern world heard the laugh.

Then the cowboy said to the Gruagach: "It's a bad thing you have done
to me, for the daughter of the king of Erin will be married the day
after your laugh is heard."

"Oh! then we must be there in time," said the Gruagach; and they all
made away from the place as fast as ever they could, the cowboy, the
Gruagach, and his twelve sons.

They hurried on; and when within three miles of the king's castle there
was such a throng of people that no one could go a step ahead. "We must
clear a road through this," said the cowboy.

"We must indeed," said the Gruagach; and at it they went, threw the
people some on one side and some on the other, and soon they had an
opening for themselves to the king's castle.

As they went in, the daughter of the king of Erin and the son of the
king of Tisean were on their knees just going to be married. The cowboy
drew his hand on the bride-groom, and gave a blow that sent him
spinning till he stopped under a table at the other side of the room.

"What scoundrel struck that blow?" asked the king of Erin.

"It was I," said the cowboy.

"What reason had you to strike the man who won my daughter?"

"It was I who won your daughter, not he; and if you don't believe me,
the Gruagach Gaire is here himself. He'll tell you the whole story from
beginning to end, and show you the tongues of the giant."

So the Gruagach came up and told the king the whole story, how the Shee
an Gannon had become his cowboy, had guarded the five golden cows and
the bull without horns, cut off the heads of the five-headed giant,
killed the wizard hare, and brought his own twelve sons to life. "And
then," said the Gruagach, "he is the only man in the whole world I have
ever told why I stopped laughing, and the only one who has ever seen my
fleece of wool."

When the king of Erin heard what the Gruagach said, and saw the tongues
of the giant fitted in the head, he made the Shee an Gannon kneel down
by his daughter, and they were married on the spot.

Then the son of the king of Tisean was thrown into prison, and the next
day they put down a great fire, and the deceiver was burned to ashes.

The wedding lasted nine days, and the last day was better than the
first.

THE STORY-TELLER AT FAULT

At the time when the Tuatha De Dannan held the sovereignty of