After administering to his relief, Sir Lancelot rode up to the castle-gate, but found no entrance thereby.  The drawbridge was raised, and he sought in vain the means of giving the appointed signal for its descent.

But the damsel showed him a secret place where hung a little horn.  On this he blew a sharp and ringing blast, when the bridge presently began to lower, and instantly to adjust itself across the moat; whereon, hastening, he unlocked the gate.  But here he had nigh fallen into a subtle snare, by reason of an ugly dwarf that was concealed in a side niche of the wall.  He was armed with a ponderous mace; and had not the maiden drawn Sir Lancelot aside by main force, he would have been crushed in its descent, the dwarf aiming a deadly blow at him as he passed.  It fell, instead, with a loud crash on the pavement, and broke into a thousand fragments.  Thereupon, Sir Lancelot smote him with the giant’s sword, and hewed the mischievous monster asunder without mercy.  Turning towards the damsel, he beheld her form suddenly change, and she vanished from his sight:  then was he aware that it had been the nymph Vivian who accompanied him through the enchantments he had so happily subdued.  He soon released his brethren, and great was the joy at the Round Table when the Knights returned to the banquet.

Thus endeth the chronicle of Sir Tarquin, still a notable tradition in these parts, the remains of his castle being shown to this day.

FOOTNOTES: 

[8] Du-glass, “the becoming, the seemly, green,” described by Camden as “a small brook, running with an easy and still stream;” which conveys a good idea of the word Du.  The Du-glass empties itself into the estuary called by Ptolemy Bellesama, Belless-aman-e; pronounced Violish-anne,[9] the literal meaning of which is, that the “mouth of the river only is for ships;” i.e., that the rivers which form the haven are not navigable.—­Chronicles of Eri.—­O’Connor.

[9] Ballyshannon is evidently a very slight corruption of this term.

[Illustration:  THE GOBLIN BUILDERS.]

THE GOBLIN BUILDERS.

    “By well and rills, in meadows green,
      We nightly dance our heyday guise;
    And to our fairy king and queen
      We chant our moonlight minstrelsies. 
        When larks ’gin sing,
        Away we fling,
    And babes new-born we steal as we go,
        And elf in bed
        We leave instead,
    And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!”—­BEN JONSON.

The story which serves for the basis of the following legend will be easily recognised in the neighbourhood where the transactions are said to have occurred, though probably not known beyond its immediate locality.