The shoemaker invited Padna to sit down in his workshop, which he did.  Padna thought it must be very dreary to sit there all day among old and new boots, pieces of leather, boxes of brass eyelets, awls, knives, and punchers.  No wonder the shoemaker was a melancholy-looking man.

Padna maintained a discreet silence while the shoemaker turned his critical glasses upon the boots he had brought him for repair.  Suddenly the great glasses were turned upon Padna himself, and the shoemaker addressed him in a voice of amazing pleasantness.

“When did you hear the cuckoo?” he asked.

Padna, at first startled, pulled himself together.  “Yesterday,” he replied.

“Did you look at the sole of your boot when you heard him?” the shoemaker asked.

“No,” said Padna.

“Well,” said the shoemaker, “whenever you hear the cuckoo for the first time in the spring always look at the sole of your right boot.  There you will find a hair.  And that hair will tell you the kind of a wife you will get.”

The shoemaker picked a long hair from the sole of Padna’s boot and held it up in the light of the window.

“You’ll be married to a brown-haired woman,” he said.  Padna looked at the hair without fear, favour, or affection, and said nothing.

The shoemaker took his place on his bench, selected a half-made shoe, got it between his knees, and began to stitch with great gusto.  Padna admired the skilful manner in which he made the holes with his awl and drew the wax-end with rapid strokes.  Padna abandoned the impression that the shoemaker was a melancholy man.  He thought he never sat near a man so optimistic, so mentally emancipated, so detached from the indignity of his occupation.

“These are very small shoes you are stitching,” said Padna, making himself agreeable.

“They are,” said the shoemaker.  “But do you know who makes the smallest shoes in the world?  You don’t?  Well, well!...  The smallest shoes in the world are made by the clurichaun, a cousin of the leprechaun.  If you creep up on the west side of a fairy fort after the sun has set and put your ear to the grass you’ll hear the tapping of his hammer.  And do you know who the clurichaun makes shoes for?  You don’t?  Well, well!...  He makes shoes for the swallows.  Oh, indeed they do, swallows wear shoes.  Twice a year swallows wear shoes.  They wear them in the spring, and again at the fall of the year.  They wear them when they fly from one world to another.  And they cross the Dead Sea.  Did you ever hear tell of the Dead Sea?  You did.  Well, well!...  No bird ever yet flew across the Dead Sea.  Any of them that tried it dropped and sank like a stone.  So the swallows, when they come to the Dead Sea, get down on the bank, and there the clurichauns have millions of shoes waiting for them.  The swallows put on their shoes and walk across the Dead Sea, stepping on bright yellow and black stepping-stones that shine across the water like a lovely carpet.  And do you know what the stepping-stones across the Dead Sea are?  They are the backs of sleeping frogs.  And when the swallows are all safe across the frogs waken up and begin to sing, for then it is known the summer will come.  Did you never hear that before?  No?  Well, well!”