“When I am dead, Billy, my boy,” he said, “put your hand in my left ear and draw out the napkin, and you’ll never want for eating or drinking; and put your hand in my right ear, and you’ll find a stick there, that will turn into a sword if you wave it three times round your head, and give you the strength of a thousand men beside your own.  Keep that; then cut a strip of my hide, for a belt, for when you buckle it on, there’s nothing can kill you.”

Billy Beg was very sad to hear that his friend must die.  And very soon he heard a more dreadful roar than ever he heard, and a tremendous bull rushed out of the forest.  Then came the worst fight of all.  In the end, the other bull was too much for Billy Beg’s bull, and he killed him and drank his blood.

Billy Beg sat down and cried for three days and three nights.  After that he was hungry; so he put his hand in the bull’s left ear, and drew out the napkin, and ate all kinds of eating and drinking.  Then he put his hand in the right ear and pulled out the stick which was to turn into a sword if waved round his head three times, and to give him the strength of a thousand men beside his own.  And he cut a strip of the hide for a belt, and started off on his adventures.

Presently he came to a fine place; an old gentleman lived there.  So Billy went up and knocked, and the old gentleman came to the door.

“Are you wanting a boy?” says Billy.

“I am wanting a herd-boy,” says the gentleman, “to take my six cows, six horses, six donkeys, and six goats to pasture every morning, and bring them back at night.  Maybe you’d do.”

“What are the wages?” says Billy.

“Oh, well,” says the gentleman, “it’s no use to talk of that now; there’s three giants live in the wood by the pasture, and every day they drink up all the milk and kill the boy that looks after the cattle; so we’ll wait to talk about wages till we see if you come back alive.”

“All right,” says Billy, and he entered service with the old gentleman.

The first day, he drove the six cows, six horses, six donkeys, and six goats to pasture, and sat down by them.  About noon he heard a kind of roaring from the wood; and out rushed a giant with two heads, spitting fire out of his two mouths.

“Oh! my fine fellow,” says he to Billy, “you are too big for one swallow and not big enough for two; how would you like to die, then?  By a cut with the sword, a blow with the fist, or a swing by the back?”

“That is as may be,” says Billy, “but I’ll fight you.”  And he buckled on his hide belt, and swung his stick three times round his head, to give him the strength of a thousand men besides his own, and went for the giant.  And at the first grapple Billy Beg lifted the giant up and sunk him in the ground, to his armpits.

“Oh, mercy! mercy!  Spare my life!” cried the giant.

“I think not,” said Billy; and he cut off his heads.