he used to cover it unless he wished to petrify his foes; and even to this day an evil or overlooking eye is called by the Irish Balor's eye. Once on a time his druid revealed to Balor that he should die by the hands of a grandson of his; and as he had only one child, a young daughter called Ethnea, he made sure against any future danger by having her shut up on a lofty and almost inaccessible height called Tor More, or the big tor, at the eastern extremity of the island. There she was guarded by twelve matrons, who were never to mention the other sex to her. Balor went on with his robberies, and he was clever enough at last to steal Mac Kineely's grey cow. He transformed himself for the purpose into a red-headed lad, and told Mac Samthainn, who happened to be holding the grey cow by a halter, that he had overheard his brothers at the forge agreeing to use his steel for their own swords, whereupon Mac Samthainn asked the foxy lad to take the halter, while he went to the forge in a towering passion. The next sight Mac Kineely had of his cow was to see her with Balor in the middle of the sound. Mac Kineely learnt from a druid that the cow could not be recovered till Balor had been killed, as he would, in order to keep her, never shut the basilisk eye; but Mac Kineely had a fairy friend who told him how Balor was to be brought to his fall. This lady, called Biroge of the Mountain, took Mac Kineely dressed as a woman through the air to the Tor More, and asked shelter for a lady she had just rescued from the hands of a cruel tyrant. The twelve matrons could not think of disobliging the banshee, and she in her turn put them all to sleep as fairies can; but when they woke they found that Biroge and her protégée
