said he would like to have the whole cake, come of his mother’s malison what might; so she gave him the whole cake, and her malison along with it.  Then he took his brother aside, and gave him a knife to keep till he should come back, desiring him to look at it every morning, and as long as it continued to be clear, then he might be sure that the owner of it was well; but if it grew dim and rusty, then for certain some ill had befallen him.

So the young man went to seek his fortune.  And he went all that day, and all the next day; and on the third day, in the afternoon, he came up to where a shepherd was sitting with a flock of sheep.  And he went up to the shepherd and asked him to whom the sheep belonged; and he answered: 

    “To the Red Ettin of Ireland
     Who lives in Ballygan,
   He stole King Malcolm’s daughter,
     The king of fair Scotland. 
   He beats her, he binds her,
     He lays her on a hand;
   And every day he strikes her
     With a bright silver wand. 
   ’Tis said there’s one predestinate
     To be his mortal foe;
   But sure that man is yet unborn,
     And long may it be so!”

After this the shepherd told him to beware of the beasts he should next meet, for they were of a very different kind from any he had yet seen.

So the young man went on, and by and by he saw a multitude of very dreadful, terrible, horrible beasts, with two heads, and on every head four horns!  And he was sore frightened, and ran away from them as fast as he could; and glad was he when he came to a castle that stood on a hillock, with the door standing wide open to the wall.  And he went in to the castle for shelter, and there he saw an old wife sitting beside the kitchen fire.  He asked the wife if he might stay for the night, as he was tired with a long journey; and the wife said he might, but it was not a good place for him to be in, as it belonged to the Red Ettin, who was a very terrible monster with three heads, who spared no living man it could get hold of.  The young man would have gone away, but he was afraid of the two-headed four-horned beasts outside; so he beseeched the old woman to hide him as best she could, and not tell the Ettin he was there.  He thought, if he could put over the night, he might get away in the morning, without meeting with the dreadful, terrible, horrible beasts, and so escape.

But he had not been long in his hiding-hole, before the awful Ettin came in; and no sooner was he in, than he was heard crying: 

  “Snouk but! and snouk ben! 
   I find the smell of an earthly man;
   Be he living, or be he dead,
   His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.”

Well, the monster began to search about, and he soon found the poor young man, and pulled him from his hiding-place.  And when he had got him out, he told him that if he could answer him three questions his life should be spared.