the house and she set it open. 'Come now,' she said to
the young man,' look in the chest and find it for yourself.' And when he
looked in she gave him a push forward, and in he went, and she shut the
lid on him. She wrote a letter to the lord then, saying he would not get
his son back till he had sent her own two men, and they were sent back
to her."

SHORTENING THE ROAD

"Himself and his son were walking the road together one day, and the
Goban said to the son 'Shorten the road for me.' So the son began to
walk fast, thinking that would do it, but the Goban sent him back home
when he didn't understand what to do. The next day they were walking
again, and the Goban said again to shorten the road for him, and this
time he began to run, and the Goban sent him home again. When he went in
and told the wife he was sent home the second time, she began to think,
and she said, 'When he bids you shorten the road, it is that he wants
you to be telling him stories.' For that is what the Goban meant, but it
took the daughter-in-law to understand it. And it is what I was saying
to that other woman, that if one of ourselves was making a journey, if
we had another along with us, it would not seem to be one half as long
as if we would be alone. And if that is so with us, it is much more with
a stranger, and so I went up the hill with you to shorten the road,
telling you that story."

THE GOBAN'S SECRET

"The Goban and his son were seven years building the castle, and they
never said a word all that time. And at the end of seven years the son
was at the top, and he said 'I hear a cow lowing.' And the Goban said
then 'Make all strong below you, for the work is done,' and they went
home. The Goban never told the secret of his building, and when he was
on the bed dying they wanted to get it from him, and they went in and
said 'Claregalway Castle is after falling in the night.' And the Goban
said 'How can that be when I put a stone in and a stone out and a stone
across.' So then they knew the way he built so well."

THE SCOTCH ROGUE

"One time he was on the road going to the town, and there was a Scotch
rogue on the road that was always trying what could he pick off others,
and he saw the Connemara man--that was the Goban--had a nice cravat, and
he thought he would get a hold of that. So he began talking with him,
and he was boasting of all the money he had, and the Goban said whatever
it was he had three times as much as it, a