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Tale Summary

There was once a Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman who were serving in the army, and ran away at the first chance they had. They wandered without food or drink for two days in a great forest filled with wild beasts, and the next morning the Scotsman climbed a tree and saw a castle on a hill far away and left for it without telling his companions. He reached the castle that night and was disappointed to find locked doors and no smoke coming from the chimneys, when a window opened and a beautiful woman appeared. She let him in, and he entered a large room with many men lying asleep. She fed him and he slipped into a slumber with the others. That night, surrounded by wild beasts, the Englishman also saw the castle in the distance, and the same thing happened to him as it did to the Scotsman. The next day, the Irishman also made it to the same place, but when he was given food and drink he refused to touch it until he learned who the woman was. She revealed that she was an enchanted Princess, and that her father had promised that the first man who released her from her spell would have a third of his kingdom, and all of it when he died, as well as her hand in marriage. She had been there sixteen years and no man had ever asked her name, and they all were asleep in the big room. She told him that if she could get a man to stay in a certain room from ten o’clock until midnight for three nights, she would be freed, and the Irishman willingly agreed to this. He was not there long when he heard knocking on the door but he would not open it, and so it was broken down and those outside came in and gave him a horrible beating until midnight. In the morning the princess appeared and rubbed him with something from a bottle that healed him, but he was unwilling to do the same thing a second night. She convinced him to stay, and he received an even worse beating. The next night she pleaded with him to stay, and he received the worst beating yet, but in the morning he was healed by the princess and released her from her spell. She told him that she must leave but that she would be back in several days in a carriage drawn by four gray horses. Although he protested, she disappeared before his eyes after she gave him a rod that would wake the sleeping men. A little lad who was the princess’s servant arrived to wait on him, and told the Irishman that the princess would come the next morning at nine o’clock, but when he went out to greet her the lad stuck a pin in his back which made him fall asleep. He told the princess that the Irishman was still sleeping and so she said he must meet her the next day. The lad took the pin out of the man’s back and he woke up, and was very sorry and confused that he missed her. The same thing happened the next morning, and the princess warned that he would never see her again if he did not show up on time. Again, the next morning the lad pricked the Irishman, and the princess was very sad, and gave the lad a sword to give to the man. This he did, and then vanished. The man was heartbroken, and used the rod to wake his two companions, giving them riches before sending them on their way and awakening the rest of the men. He then resolved to search the world for the princess, and so traveled for three years, at the end of which he was so downtrodden that he drew out the sword to kill himself. He noticed an inscription which read “you can find me in the Blue Mountains” and so he took heart and searched for someone who could tell him the way. He came across a little house, and the old man inside said that he had lived there for three hundred years, and in that time the Irishman was the only human he had seen. He spent the night there while the old man scoured a book which contained the history of the world to learn about the Blue Mountains, but he could not find it and instead sent the Irishman to see his brother, who lived nine hundred miles away. He blew a whistle, and the Irishman found himself there. The exact same events transpired, and he was whistled away to another brother’s house, who said that he was the master of all the birds in the world and would ask if they knew the location of the Blue Mountains. He called them all together and asked each one, but no one had heard of it until a giant Eagle showed up and apologized for being late, but that she flew a long way from the Blue Mountains. She told them that a marriage was being prepared for the princess, who had refused to marry for three years because she had not given up hope on the Irishman. The bird said that she would carry him, but that her price would be threescore cattle, cut into quarters which he must feed her every time she looked over her shoulder. The Irishman and the old man killed and quartered that many by evening and then the man mounted the Eagle and set off. As they came to the borders of the kingdom, however, he ran out of meat and threw a stone at the bird which sent them tumbling down, but he was lucky enough to land in the bay in front of the palace. He was reunited with the princess just in time, and they had a great wedding feast that lasted for a year and a day.

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