88 Celtic Fairy Tales

thought she would turn me back to my own shape, and she
-struck me with the rod and made of me an old white horse,
and she ordered me to be put toa cart with a man, to draw
stones from morning till night. I was worse off then.
She spread abroad a report that I had died suddenly in my
bed, and prepared a coffin, and waked and buried me.
Then she had no trouble. But when I got tired I began
to kill every one who came near me, and I used to go intc
the haggard every night and destroy the stacks of corn;
and when a man came near me in the morning I would.
follow him till I broke his bones. Every one got afraid of
me. When she saw I was doing mischief she came to
meet me, and I thought she would change me. And she
did change me, and made a fox of me. When I saw she
was doing me every sort cf damage I went away from her.
I knew there was a badger’s hole in the garden, and I went
there till night came, and I made great slaughter among
the geese and ducks. There she is herself to say if I am
telling a lie. aa

“Oh! you are telling nothing but the truth, only less
than the truth.”

When she had enough of my killing the fowl she came
out into the garden, for she knew I was in the badger’s
hole. She came to me and made me awolf. I had to be
off, and go to an island, where no one at all would see me,
and now and then I used to be killing sheep, for. there
were not many of them, and I was afraid of being seen
and hunted; and so I passed a year, till a shepherd saw
me among the sheep and a pursuit was made after me.
And when the dogs came near me there was no place for
me to escape to from them; but I recognised the sign of