How Ian Dìreach got the Blue Falcon

He met with Gille Mairtean the fox, who tells him that the blue falcon is kept by the Giant of the Five Heads, and the Five Necks, and the Five Humps, and to seek service there tending animals.

Gille Mairtean turned himself into a boat and carried Ian to the island of Dhiurradh, and told him to seek service there, polishing gold and silver, which will let him, in time, steal the sword, but he must not let its sheath touch anything within the house.

After Ian received the bay colt, Gille bit the king, knocking him unconscious, and escaped, and they returned to the Big Women.

Gille warned Ian how to carry what he had brought back to the castle, to prevent his stepmother turning him into a bundle of sticks.

[6][7][8][9] Scottish literary critic W. P. Ker compared the tale to the medieval Dutch romance of Roman van Walewein [nl] (Gawain), since both stories are characterized by a hero taking part in a chain of quests.

[10] Folklorist Patrick Kennedy stated, on his notes to the Irish tale The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener, that the quest for the bird with the help of an animal "occurs in Mac Iain Direach ('Son of John the Upright')".

In this tale, titled The Hound of the Hill of Spears, prince Owen is fond of fowling, and finds the feathers of a Blue Hawk.

His new step-mother, who hates him, knows that the bird belongs to the Giant of the Seven Heads and Seven Trunks, and casts a geasa on Owen to not return home until he brings the Blue Hawk of Connaught.

In order to trick the owners of the treasures, the White Hound shapeshifts into the princess, the steed, the sword and the hawk.

[16] Folklorist Helen Creighton collected a tale from a teller named Wilmot Macdonald, from Newcastle, New Brunswick.

The next day, the old man tells the youth to fetch some red cow's straw in the barn and an egg a white hen laid the night before since they might be useful for him.

The king appears to him and makes a deal: he will give him the sword if the boy fetches for him a golden fruit from the tree that belongs to the giants.