can’t have everything. This is a hundred miles from a river and a hundred miles from an ocean, and no trees ever grew on this hill, nor ever could grow on it, and no bird ever sang on it for the last three hundred years.”
“Then all the more reason,” says she, “why you should have all them things.”
“But I can’t have them,” says Prince Connal.
“Can’t you?” says she. “Yes, you can. If you promise to have Shamus’s life unless he has you all those things by your castle in three days, you’ll soon have all you want,” says Nancy.
“Well, well, that’s wonderful,” says Prince Connal, says he, “and I’ll do it.”
So he sets out, and goes to Shamus’s house, and calls Shamus out to him to tell him that his castle was very bare-looking without something about it. Says he: “Shamus, I want you to put a beautiful river flowing past it, with plenty of trees and bushes along the banks, and also birds singing in them; and I want you to have the ocean roaring up by it also.”
“But, Prince Connal,” says Shamus, says he, “you know very well that I couldn’t get you them things.”
“Right well I know you can,” says Prince Connal, “and I’ll give you three days to have
