The king would give a great reward to them if they succeeded, and if they didn't, he'd never give one of them a job again. The next day they came to a ford, where a dozen of carpenters were puzzling their heads about setting up a wooden bridge that would neither have a peg nor a nail in any part of it. Says he to his son, "Never sleep a night where the woman is everything, and the man nothing." He stopped a day or two, however, and by cross-examining and calling witnesses, he got the murder tracked to the woman and the busy neighbour. The two men slept in a farmer's house half a mile farther on and the next morning the first news they heard, when they were setting out, was, that the man of the house they left the evening before was found murdered in his bed, and the lodger taken up on suspicion. ![]() "You may come along with us, if you like," says he to the other man but he said he was too tired. ![]() There was another chance lodger besides the Goban and his son, and when the evening was half over, the Goban said he thought he would go farther on his journey as it was afine night. If he didn't talk, a meddlesome neighbour did, and interfered about everything. That night they stopped at a house where the master sat by the fire, and hardly opened his mouth all the evening. The poor man blessed the two men, and they went on. Well, the Goban put two nicks near one end of every joist on opposite sides and when these were fitted into one another, there was a three-cornered figure formed in the middle, and the other ends rested on the mud wall, and the floor they made was as strong as anything. Always have the head of an old woman by the hob warm yourselves with your work in the morning and, some time before I come back, take the skin of a newly-killed sheep to the market, and bring itself and the price of it home again." When they were leaving next morning, the Goban said to his son, "Maybe one of these girls may be your wife some day."Īs they were going along, they met a poor man striving to put a flat roof over a mud-walled round cabin, but he had only three joists, and each of them was only three-quarters of the breadth across. Still I wish that you may have good luck in your choice of a husband, and so I give you three bits of advice. While they were chatting about one thing and another, says the Goban, "Young girls, if I'd wish to be young again, it would be for the sake of getting one of you for a wife but I think very few old people that do be thinking at all of the other world, ever wish to live their lives over again. The next night they slept at another farmer's house, where there were two young daughters-one with black hair, very industrious the other with fair complexion, and rather liking to sit with her hands across, and listen to the talk round the fire, than to be doing any work. Now," says he, "tie up the horses if you can." "Oh! by my word, here's a thistle strong enough this time." "That will do." So they entered one field, and says Goban, "'lie the bastes up for the night." "Why?" says the son "I can't find anything strong enough." "Well, then, let us try the next field. The farmer told theni they might leave their beasts to graze all night in any of his fields they pleased. He took his son along with him, and the first night they got lodging at a farmer's house. Goban knew that, in other times far back, the King of Ireland killed the celebrated architects, Rog, Robog, Rodin, and Rooney, the way they would never build another palace equal to his, and so he mentioned something to his wife privately before he set out. When he wanted to drive big nails into beams that were ever so high from the ground, he would pitch them into their place, and, taking a fling of the hammer at their heads, they would be drove in as firm as the knocker of Newgate, and he would catch the hammer when it was falling down.Īt last it came to the King of Munster's turn to get his castle built, and to Goban he sent. He could fashion a spear-shaft while you'd count five, and the spear-head at three strokes of a hammer. If he didn't build Ferns, he built other castles for some of the five kings or the great chiefs. Maybe it was him that built the Castle of Ferns part of the walls are thick enough to be built by any goban, or gow, that ever splintered wood, or hammered red-hot iron, or cut a stone. It is a long time since the Goban Saor was alive. Sacred Texts Sagas and Legends Celtic Index Previous Next Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts: The Goban Saor
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