they collected workmen from
all quarters, and forced them to labour night and day without stopping for
rest or food; and according as any of them fell down from exhaustion, his
body was thrown upon the wall, which was built up over him! When {491} the
castle was finished, its inhabitants tyrannised over the whole country,
until the time arrived when the Danes were finally expelled from Ireland.
Ballyportree Castle held out to the last, but at length it was taken after
a fierce resistance, only three of the garrison being found alive, who
proved to be a father and his two sons; the infuriated conquerors were
about to kill them also, when one of then proposed that their lives should
be spared, and a free passage to their own country given them, on condition
that they taught the Irishmen how to brew the famous ale from the
heather--that secret so eagerly coveted by the Irish, and so zealously
guarded by the Danes. At first neither promises nor threats had any effect
on the prisoners, but at length the elder warrior consented to tell the
secret on condition that his two sons should first be put to death before
his eyes, alleging his fear, that when he returned to his own country, they
might cause him to be put to death for betraying the secret. Though
somewhat surprised at his request, the Irish chieftains immediately
complied with it, and the young men were slain. Then the old warrior
exclaimed, "Fools! I saw that your threats and your promises were beginning
to influence my sons; for they were but boys, and might have yielded: but
now the secret is safe, your threats or your promises have no effect on
me!" Enraged at their disappointment, the Irish soldiers hewed the stern
northman in pieces, and the coveted secret is still unrevealed.

In the South of Scotland a legend, almost word for word the same as the
above, is told of an old castle there, with the exception that, instead of
Danes, the old warrior and his sons are called Pechts. After the slaughter
of his sons the old man's eyes are put out, and he is left to drag on a
miserable existence: he lives to an immense old age, and one day, when all
the generation that fought with him have passed away, he hears the young
men celebrating the feats of strength performed by one of their number; the
old Pecht asks for the victor, and requests him to let him feel his wrist;
the young man feigns compliance with his request, but places an iron
crow-bar in the old man's hand instead