"Destruction on you, you nasty beast; let me home. I have a tenpenny-piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff."
"Never mind your mother," said the Púca, "but keep your hold. If you fall, you will break your neck and your pipes." Then the Púca said to him, "Play up for me the 'Shan Van Vocht.'"
"Never mind whether you do or you don't," said the Púca. "Play up, and I'll make you know."
The Piper put wind in his bag, and he played such music as made himself wonder.
"Upon my word, you're a fine music-master," says the Piper, then; "but tell me where you're for bringing me."
"There's a great feast in the house of the Banshee, on the top of Croagh Patric, to-night," says the Púca, "and I'm for bringing you there to play music, and, take my word, you'll get the price of your trouble."
"By my word, you'll save me a journey, then," says the Piper, "for Father William put a journey to Croagh Patric on me because I stole the white gander from him last Martinmas."
The Púca rushed him across hills and bogs and rough places, till he brought him to the top of Croagh Patric.
Then the Púca struck three blows with his foot, and a great door opened and they passed in together into a fine room.
The Piper saw a golden table in the middle of the room, and hundreds of old women sitting round about it.
The old women rose up, and said, "A hundred thousand welcomes to you, you Púca of November. Who is this you have with you?"
"The best Piper in Ireland," says the Púca.
One of the old women struck a blow on the ground, and a door opened in the side of the wall, and what should the Piper see coming out but the white gander which he had stolen from Father William.
"By my conscience, then," says the Piper, "myself and my mother ate every taste of that gander, only one wing, and I gave that to Red Mary, and it's she told the priest I stole his gander."
The gander cleaned the table, and carried it away, and the Púca said, "Play up music for these ladies."
The Piper played up, and the old women began dancing, and they were dancing till they were tired. Then the Púca said to pay the Piper, and every old woman drew out a gold piece and gave it to him.
"By the tooth of Patric," says he, "I'm as rich as the son of a lord."