The Lad with the Goat-Skin

Long ago a poor widow lived down near the iron forge by Enniscorthy, and she was so poor that she had no clothes to put on her son. So she used to settle him in the ash pit near the fire and heap the warm ashes round him, and as he grew, she dug the pit deeper. At last, by hook or by crook, she got hold of a goat-skin and fastened it round his waist, and he felt very grand and took a walk down the street.

The next morning she said to him, “Tom, you rascal, you’ve never done a hand’s turn yet, and you six foot tall and past nineteen. Take that rope and fetch me a bundle of sticks from the wood.”

“You needn’t say it twice, mother,” said Tom. “Here goes.”

When he had gathered the sticks and tied them, up came a huge giant nine feet tall and swung a club at him. Tom jumped aside, snatched up a stout broken branch, and with the first crack he gave the big fellow, he laid him flat on the ground.

“If you know any prayers,” said Tom, “now’s the time to say them, before I make pieces of you.”

“I have no prayers,” said the giant, “but if you spare my life, I’ll give you that club, and as long as you keep from sin, you’ll win every fight you ever fight with it.”

Tom let him go without a second thought. As soon as he had the club in his hands, he sat down on the bundle of sticks, gave it a tap with the club and said, “Sticks, I had great trouble gathering you and risked my life for you. The least you can do is carry me home.” Sure enough, that was all it needed. Off went the bundle through the wood, groaning and crackling, until it came to the widow’s door.

When those sticks were all burned, Tom was sent to gather more, and this time he had to fight a giant with two heads. He had a little more trouble with this one, that was all, and the price of his life was a fife that made anyone who heard it dance. Tom made the big bundle of sticks dance all the way home, with himself sitting on top.

The next giant was a fine young fellow with three heads. He had no more prayers than the others, so he gave Tom a pot of green ointment that would keep you from being burned, scalded or wounded. “And now,” he said, “there are no more of us. You can gather sticks here till Doomsday without giant or fairy man to bother you.”

Tom was prouder than ten peacocks, and he used to stroll down the street in the evening. But some of the little boys had no more manners than city brats and stuck their tongues out at his club and his goat-skin. He didn’t like that at all, but it would have been mean to clout one of them.

At last a kind of town crier came through the place, only he had a big bugle instead of a bell, a huntsman’s cap on his head and a kind of painted shirt. This bugleman announced that the King of Dublin’s daughter was so gloomy that she had not laughed for seven years, and that her father would give her in marriage to whoever could make her laugh three times.

“That’s the very thing for me to try,” said Tom. Without wasting any more daylight, he kissed his mother, waved his club at the little boys and set off along the yellow high road to the town of Dublin.

When he came to one of the city gates, the guards laughed and swore at him instead of letting him in. Tom put up with it for a while, until one of them, just for fun, as he said, poked his bayonet half an inch into Tom’s side. Tom did nothing but take the fellow by the scruff of the neck and the waistband of his trousers and fling him into the canal. Some ran to pull him out, and others came at Tom with swords and daggers to teach the ruffian some manners, but a tap of his club sent them sprawling into the moat or onto the stones, and they were soon begging him to stop. In the end one of them was glad enough to show him the way to the palace yard.

There in a gallery sat the king, the queen and the princess, watching wrestling and sword-play and dances and mummers, all put on to please the princess, but not a smile crossed her lovely face. Everything stopped when they saw the young giant with his boy’s face, long black hair and short curly beard, for his poor mother couldn’t afford razors, his great strong arms and bare legs, and nothing on him but the goat-skin from waist to knee.

But a rival called Redhead, who wanted to marry the princess himself and didn’t like the way her eyes opened at the sight of Tom, came forward and snapped at him to state his business.

“My business,” said Tom, “is to make the beautiful princess, God bless her, laugh three times.”

“Do you see all those merry fellows and skilled swordsmen?” said the other. “They could eat you with a grain of salt, and not one of them has got a laugh out of her these seven years.”

The men gathered round Tom, and Redhead goaded him until Tom said he didn’t care a pinch of snuff for the whole lot of them; let them come on six at a time and see what they could do.

The king was too far away to hear and asked what the stranger wanted. “He wants to make fools of your best men,” said Redhead.

“Oh, if that’s it,” said the king, “let one of them step out and test him.”

One man stepped forward with a sword and a small round shield and slashed at Tom. Tom hit his elbow with the club, the sword flew up over their heads, and its owner went down on the gravel from a thump on the helmet. Another took his place, and another, and another, and then half a dozen at once, and Tom sent swords, helmets, shields and bodies rolling over and over, with the men yelling that they were killed and crippled and ruined, rubbing their poor elbows and hips and limping away. Tom took care not to kill anybody, and the princess was so amused that she let out a great sweet laugh that was heard all over the yard.

“King of Dublin,” said Tom, “I’ve got a quarter of your daughter.”

The king didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry, and all the blood in the princess’s heart rushed to her cheeks. There was no more fighting that day, and Tom was invited to dine with the royal family.

The next day Redhead told Tom about a wolf the size of a yearling heifer that prowled howling round the walls, eating people and cattle, and said how pleased the king would be to have it killed.

“With all my heart,” said Tom. “Send a lad to show me where it lives, and we’ll see how it treats a stranger.”

The princess was not pleased, for Tom looked a different person in fine clothes, with a smart green cap on his long curly hair, and besides, he had got one laugh out of her already. But the king agreed, and within an hour and a half the horrible wolf came walking into the palace yard with Tom a step or two behind, his club on his shoulder, like a shepherd strolling after a pet lamb.

The king, queen and princess were safe up in their gallery, but when the officers and courtiers strolling about the great yard saw the huge beast come in, they gave themselves up for lost and rushed for the doors and gates, and the wolf licked his lips as if to say, “Wouldn’t I enjoy a breakfast of a couple of you!”

“O Tom with the Goat-Skin,” shouted the king, “take away that terrible wolf, and you shall have all of my daughter!”

Tom paid no attention. He pulled out his fife and began to play for all he was worth, and every man and boy in the yard started to dance, heel and toe, and the wolf himself had to get up on his hind legs and dance a jig along with the rest. A good many people got indoors and shut the doors so the hairy fellow couldn’t catch them, but Tom kept playing, the ones outside kept dancing and shouting, and the wolf kept dancing and roaring at the pain in his legs, and all the while he had his eye on Redhead, who was shut outside with the others. Wherever Redhead went, the wolf followed, keeping one eye on him and the other on Tom to see if he might be allowed to eat him. But Tom shook his head and never stopped the tune, and Redhead never stopped dancing and bawling, and the wolf never stopped dancing and roaring, one leg up and the other down, ready to drop with sheer weariness.

When the princess saw there was no danger of anyone being killed, she was so tickled by the state Redhead was in that she gave another great laugh, and out cried Tom, “King of Dublin, I’ve got two quarters of your daughter!”

“Oh, quarters or wholes,” said the king, “put away that devil of a wolf, and we’ll see about it.”

So Tom put the fife in his pocket and said to the beast, which was sitting on its haunches ready to faint, “Off with you to your mountain, my fine fellow, and live like a respectable animal, and if I ever find you within seven miles of a town, I’ll…” He said no more, but spat in his fist and swung his club. That was all the poor wolf needed. He put his tail between his legs and took to his heels without looking at man or mortal, and neither sun, moon nor stars ever saw him in sight of Dublin after that.

At dinner everyone laughed except the sly red-haired fellow, who was busy planning how to finish Tom off the next day. “Well, King of Dublin,” he said, “you are in luck. There are the Danes plaguing us without end, and if anyone can save us from them, it’s this gentleman with the goat-skin. There is a flail hanging on the rafter in hell, and neither Dane nor devil can stand against it.”

“Will you give me the other half of the princess if I bring you the flail?” Tom asked the king.

“No, no,” said the princess. “I’d rather never be your wife than see you in such danger.”

But Redhead whispered and nudged Tom about how shabby it would look to back out of the adventure, so Tom asked which way to go, and Redhead told him. He travelled and travelled until he came in sight of the walls of hell, and before he knocked at the gates, he rubbed himself all over with the green ointment. When he knocked, a hundred little imps poked their heads through the bars and asked what he wanted.

“I want to speak to the biggest devil of all,” said Tom. “Open the gate.”

Before long the gate was thrown open, and the Old Boy himself greeted Tom with bows and scrapes and asked his business.

“My business isn’t much,” said Tom. “I’ve only come for the loan of that flail I see hanging on the rafter, so the King of Dublin can give the Danes a thrashing.”

“Well,” said the other, “the Danes are much better customers of mine, but since you’ve walked so far, I won’t refuse. Hand down that flail,” he said to a young imp, and he winked his far eye at the same time.

So while some of them barred the gates, the young imp climbed up and took down the flail, whose handle and striker were both made of red-hot iron. The little rascal was grinning to think how it would burn Tom’s hands, but it didn’t burn him any more than if it had been a good oak sapling.

“Thank you,” said Tom. “Now would you open the gate for a fellow, and I’ll give you no more trouble.”

“Oh, is that the way of it?” said Old Nick. “It’s easier getting in through those gates than getting out. Take that tool from him and give him a good beating.”

One imp put out his claws to grab the flail, but Tom gave him such a whack on the side of the head with it that he broke off one of his horns and made him roar like the devil he was. Then they all rushed at Tom, but he gave them, big and small, such a thrashing as they didn’t forget in a hurry. At last the old ruler of them all, rubbing his elbow, said, “Let the fool out, and woe to whoever lets him in a second time, great or small.”

So out marched Tom and away, paying no heed to the shouting and cursing from the tops of the walls, and when he got to the great yard of the palace, you never saw such running and racing as there was to see him and the flail. When he had told his story, he laid the flail on the stone steps and warned everyone, for their lives, not to touch it. If the king, queen and princess had made much of him so far, they made ten times more of him now. But Redhead, the mean sneak, crept over and tried to grab the flail to make an end of Tom. His fingers barely touched it when he let out a roar as if heaven and earth were colliding, and he flung his arms about and danced till it was pitiful to see.

Tom ran to him, caught his hands in his own two and rubbed them this way and that, and the burning pain left them before you could count one. Between the pain that had only just gone and the relief he felt, the poor fellow’s face was the funniest you ever saw, such a muddle of laughing and crying that everybody burst out laughing, and the princess could no more stop than the rest.

“Now, ma’am,” said Tom, “if there were fifty halves of you, I hope you’ll give me them all.”

The princess looked at her father, and then, my word, she came over to Tom and put her two delicate hands into his two rough ones, and I wish it had been me in his shoes that day!

Tom would not bring the flail into the palace, and you may be sure nobody else went near it. When the early risers passed by next morning, they found two long cracks in the stone where it had burned its way down, nobody could tell how far. And at noon a messenger came in to say that the Danes were so frightened when they heard the flail had come to Dublin that they had got into their ships and sailed off.

I suppose that before the wedding Tom got some schoolmaster, like Pat Mara of Tomenine, to teach him the principles of politeness, fluxions, gunnery and fortification, decimal fractions, practice and the rule of three, so that he could keep up a conversation with the royal family. Whether he ever wasted his time learning those sciences I’m not sure, but it’s as sure as fate that his mother never wanted for anything to the end of her days.

About this telling

Joseph Jacobs took this tale for Celtic Fairy Tales from Patrick Kennedy’s Legendary Fictions, where it is called “The Adventures of Gilla na Chreck an Gour.” Jacobs notes that “The Lad with the Skin Coverings” is a popular Celtic figure, and that Mr. Nutt, in his book on the Holy Grail, took him to be the original of Parzival.

The central contest asks Tom to make the princess laugh. Jacobs discusses parallels and theories in his nineteenth-century notes; his broad comparisons do not establish a single origin or a medical cure for sadness.

Tom’s trip to fetch the flail from hell and his fight with the imps are kept, told in the same joking spirit as the original. A few oaths and rough words from the storyteller are left out.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg #7885, The Lad with the Goat-Skin)

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: includes stabbings, beatings, threats, a painful burn and a comic journey to hell.

Winning a fight and choosing when to stop

Tom spares the giants, avoids killing the palace fighters and heals Redhead after the hot flail burns him. These acts distinguish strength from a wish to destroy. Yet his fife also forces frightened people and the wolf to dance to exhaustion, so the comedy includes suffering rather than harmless amusement.

The king speaks of giving fractions of his daughter away. Her own clearest decisions come when she objects to the dangerous errand and later places her hands in Tom’s. Those moments deserve attention alongside the bargain made over her laughter.

Examine the three laughs

For each laugh, identify what the princess sees, who is hurt or frightened, and what Tom does to limit or end the harm. Would the scene be funny from Redhead’s or the wolf’s viewpoint? The protective ointment and healing touch are magic, not real ways to handle burns.

Think about it

• What three gifts did Tom win from the giants?
• What made the princess laugh each of the three times?
• Why did Redhead keep sending Tom on dangerous errands, and how did it turn out for him?

You may also like

• King O’Toole and His Goose — another lively Irish tale from Celtic Fairy Tales
• The Field of Boliauns — another funny Irish tale told in a storyteller’s voice
• The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener — another Kennedy tale of a poor lad who wins a princess