Celtic Fairy Tales Read Online Free PDF Page B

rich woman sat up late one night carding and preparing wool, while
all the family and servants were asleep. Suddenly a knock was given
at the door, and a voice called, "Open! open!"
    "Who is there?" said the woman of the house.
    "I am the Witch of one Horn," was answered.
    The mistress, supposing that one of her neighbours had called and
required assistance, opened the door, and a woman entered, having in
her hand a pair of wool-carders, and bearing a horn on her forehead,
as if growing there. She sat down by the fire in silence, and began
to card the wool with violent haste. Suddenly she paused, and said
aloud: "Where are the women? they delay too long."
    Then a second knock came to the door, and a voice called as before,
"Open! open!"
    The mistress felt herself obliged to rise and open to the call, and
immediately a second witch entered, having two horns on her
forehead, and in her hand a wheel for spinning wool.
    "Give me place," she said; "I am the Witch of the two Horns," and
she began to spin as quick as lightning.
    And so the knocks went on, and the call was heard, and the witches
entered, until at last twelve women sat round the fire—the first
with one horn, the last with twelve horns.
    And they carded the thread, and turned their spinning-wheels, and
wound and wove, all singing together an ancient rhyme, but no word
did they speak to the mistress of the house. Strange to hear, and
frightful to look upon, were these twelve women, with their horns
and their wheels; and the mistress felt near to death, and she tried
to rise that she might call for help, but she could not move, nor
could she utter a word or a cry, for the spell of the witches was
upon her.
    Then one of them called to her in Irish, and said, "Rise, woman, and
make us a cake."
    Then the mistress searched for a vessel to bring water from the well
that she might mix the meal and make the cake, but she could find
none.
    And they said to her, "Take a sieve and bring water in it."
    And she took the sieve and went to the well; but the water poured
from it, and she could fetch none for the cake, and she sat down by
the well and wept.
    Then a voice came by her and said, "Take yellow clay and moss, and
bind them together, and plaster the sieve so that it will hold."
    This she did, and the sieve held the water for the cake; and the
voice said again:
    "Return, and when thou comest to the north angle of the house, cry
aloud three times and say, 'The mountain of the Fenian women and the
sky over it is all on fire.'"
    And she did so.
    When the witches inside heard the call, a great and terrible cry
broke from their lips, and they rushed forth with wild lamentations
and shrieks, and fled away to Slievenamon, where was their chief
abode. But the Spirit of the Well bade the mistress of the house to
enter and prepare her home against the enchantments of the witches
if they returned again.
    And first, to break their spells, she sprinkled the water in which
she had washed her child's feet, the feet-water, outside the door on
the threshold; secondly, she took the cake which in her absence the
witches had made of meal mixed with the blood drawn from the
sleeping family, and she broke the cake in bits, and placed a bit in
the mouth of each sleeper, and they were restored; and she took the
cloth they had woven, and placed it half in and half out of the
chest with the padlock; and lastly, she secured the door with a
great crossbeam fastened in the jambs, so that the witches could not
enter, and having done these things she waited.
    Not long were the witches in coming back, and they raged and called
for vengeance.
    "Open! open!" they screamed; "open, feet-water!"
    "I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and
my path is down to the Lough."
    "Open, open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door.
    "I cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs and I
have no power to move."
    "Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!"