She set a geasa that the older two must steal: the Knight of the Glen's wild Steed of Bells.

The youngest said that he will go with his brother, and set a geasa that she stand on a tower with her face to the wind, with a sheaf of corn to eat and water to drink, until they returned.

The knight took them to a furnace, to boil them, from the oldest to the youngest of the princes, and then the Black Thief.

They changed themselves into a smith's anvil and a piece of iron, which the third one made a hatchet of, and she started to cut down the tree.

The Black Thief told how he had once come to a castle where a woman held a child and wept.

The thief cut off the toe and threw it into a fishpond, where it called to the giant, who followed and drowned.

The Texas Folklore Society included a variant in its thirty-fourth publication, which also mentioned versions published in the writings of Jeremiah Curtin and William Thackery.

[4] "The Byzantine Brigand," told by Angus MacLellan, was collected for Stories from South Uist.

[6] A Canadian variant, "The Black Thief" was given by Lauchie MacLellan of Nova Scotia.