“Himself and his son were walking the road together one day, and the Goban said to the son ‘Shorten the road for me.’  So the son began to walk fast, thinking that would do it, but the Goban sent him back home when he didn’t understand what to do.  The next day they were walking again, and the Goban said again to shorten the road for him, and this time he began to run, and the Goban sent him home again.  When he went in and told the wife he was sent home the second time, she began to think, and she said, ’When he bids you shorten the road, it is that he wants you to be telling him stories.’  For that is what the Goban meant, but it took the daughter-in-law to understand it.  And it is what I was saying to that other woman, that if one of ourselves was making a journey, if we had another along with us, it would not seem to be one half as long as if we would be alone.  And if that is so with us, it is much more with a stranger, and so I went up the hill with you to shorten the road, telling you that story.”

THE GOBAN’S SECRET

“The Goban and his son were seven years building the castle, and they never said a word all that time.  And at the end of seven years the son was at the top, and he said ‘I hear a cow lowing.’  And the Goban said then ‘Make all strong below you, for the work is done,’ and they went home.  The Goban never told the secret of his building, and when he was on the bed dying they wanted to get it from him, and they went in and said ‘Claregalway Castle is after falling in the night.’  And the Goban said ’How can that be when I put a stone in and a stone out and a stone across.’  So then they knew the way he built so well.”

THE SCOTCH ROGUE

“One time he was on the road going to the town, and there was a Scotch rogue on the road that was always trying what could he pick off others, and he saw the Connemara man—­that was the Goban—­had a nice cravat, and he thought he would get a hold of that.  So he began talking with him, and he was boasting of all the money he had, and the Goban said whatever it was he had three times as much as it, and he with only thirty pounds in the world.  And the Scotch rogue thought he would get some of it from him, and he said he would go to a house in the town, and he gave him some food and some drink there, and the Goban said he would do the same for him on the morrow.  So then the Goban went out to three houses, and in each of them he left ten pounds of his thirty pounds, and he told the people in every house what they had to do, and that when he would strike the table with his hat three times they would bring out the money.  So then he asked the Scotch rogue into the first house, and ordered every sort of food and drink, ten pounds worth in all.  And when they had used all they could of it, he struck with his hat on the table, and the man of the house brought out the ten pounds, and the Goban said ’Keep