The Celtic Twilight by W. B. (William Butler) Yeats
page 114 of 123 (92%)
page 114 of 123 (92%)
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And the giant had told him to go to a little blue door in the side of
the hill, and there he got a pair of shoes that when you put them on would go faster than the wind. That night the cows gave so much milk that there were not vessels enough to hold it, and it was given to tenants and to poor people passing the road, and the rest was thrown out at the windows. I was passing that way myself, and I got a drink of it. That night the king said to Jack, "Why is it the cows are giving so much milk these days? Are you bringing them to any other grass?" "I am not," said Jack, "but I have a good stick, and whenever they would stop still or lie down, I give them blows of it, that they jump and leap over walls and stones and ditches; that's the way to make cows give plenty of milk." And that night at the dinner, the king said, "I hear no roars at all." The next morning, the king and the princess were watching at the window to see what would Jack do when he got to the field. And Jack knew they were there, and he got a stick, and began to batter the cows, that they went leaping and jumping over stones, and walls, and ditches. "There is no lie in what Jack said," said the king then. Now there was a great serpent at that time used to come every seven years, and he had to get a kines daughter to eat, unless she would have some good man to fight for her. And it was the princess at the place Jack was had to be given to it that time, and the king had been feeding a bully underground for seven years, and you may believe he got the best of everything, to be ready to fight it. |
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