The Adventures of Covan the Brown-haired is a Celtic fairy tale translated by Dr. Macleod Clarke.
Then he came to an old man in a cottage, with a young woman combing her hair of gold.
The young woman warned against it, but he refused her advice rudely and took the service anyway.
The old man told him to follow the cows, because they knew good pasture, and to never leave them.
A boy ran to him and claimed his cows were in the corn; Covan said he could have driven them out in the time it took to come to him.
They went through a barren pasture, on which a mare and her foal were fat; a lush pasture with a starving mare and her foal, and a lake with two boats, one with happy youths going to the land of the Sun, and the other with grim shapes, going to the land of Night.
The old man warned him that it would be hard, but told him where to get a roe with white feet and a deer's antlers, a duck with a green body and a gold neck, and a salmon with silver skin and red gills.
The dog helped him catch the roe; the raven, the duck; and the otter, the salmon.
The old man gave him back his sister, and restored his brothers, though they would be fated to wander forever for their idle and unfaithful ways.