Page:Celtic Fairy Tales.djvu/241

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The Battle of the Birds
209

regret for having loosed the bundle—for it was not in his power to put it back again—and he would have wished this pretty place to be in the pretty little green hollow that was opposite his father's house; but he looked up and saw a great giant coming towards him.

"Bad's the place where you have built the house, king's son," says the giant.

"Yes, but it is not here I would wish it to be, though it happens to be here by mishap," says the king's son.

"What's the reward for putting it back in the bundle as it was before?"

"What's the reward you would ask?" says the king's son.

"That you will give me the first son you have when he is seven years of age," says the giant.

"If I have a son you shall have him," said the king's son.

In a twinkling the giant put each garden, and orchard, and castle in the bundle as they were before.

"Now," says the giant, "take your own road, and I will take mine; but mind your promise, and if you forget I will remember."

The king's son took to the road, and at the end of a few days he reached the place he was fondest of. He loosed the bundle, and the castle was just as it was before. And when he opened the castle door he sees the handsomest maiden he ever cast eye upon.

"Advance, king's son," said the pretty maid; "everything is in order for you, if you will marry me this very day."

"It's I that am willing," said the king's son. And on the same day they married.