After that every one was quite happy. For they had gold and to spare,
and if the bed-ridden father was dull, Jack just brought out the harp
and said, "Sing!" And, lo and behold! It sang about everything under the
sun.
So Jack ceased wondering so much and became quite a useful person.
And the last bean still hasn't grown yet. It is still in the garden.
I wonder if it will ever grow?
And what little child will climb its beanstalk into the sky?
And what will that child find?
Goody me!
THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY
Long ago in Norroway there lived a lady who had three daughters. Now
they were all pretty, and one night they fell a-talking of whom they
meant to marry.
And the eldest said, "I will have no one lower than an Earl."
And the second said, "I will have none lower than a Lord."
But the third, the prettiest and the merriest, tossed her head and said,
with a twinkle in her eye, "Why so proud? As for me I would be content
with the Black Bull of Norroway."
At that the other sisters bade her be silent and not talk lightly of
such a monster. For, see you, is it not written:
To wilder measures now they turn,
The black black Bull of Norroway;
Sudden the tapers cease to burn,
The minstrels cease to play.
So, no doubt, the Black Bull of Norroway was held to be a horrid
monster.
But the youngest daughter would have her laugh, so she said three times
that she would be content with the Black Bull of Norroway.
Well! It so happened that the very next morning a coach-and-six came
swinging along the road, and in it sate an Earl who had come to ask the
hand of the eldest daughter in marriage. So there were great rejoicings
over the wedding, and the bride and bridegroom drove away in the
coach-and-six.
Then the next thing that happened was that a coach-and-four with a Lord
in it came swinging along the road; and he wanted to marry the second
daughter. So they were wed, and there were great rejoicings, and the
bride and bridegroom drove away in the coach-and-four.
Now after this there was only the youngest, the prettiest and the
merriest, of the sisters left, and she became the apple of her mother's
eye. So you may imagine how the mother felt when one morning a terrible
bellowing was heard at the door, and there was a great big Black Bull
waiting for his bride.
She wept and she wailed, and at first the girl ran away and hid herself
in the cellar for fear, but there the Bull stood waiting, and at last
the girl came up and said:
"I promised I would be content with the Black Bull of Norroway, and I
must keep my word. Farewell, mother, you will not see me again."
Then she mounted on the Black Bull's back, and it walked away with her
quite quietly. And ever it chose the smoothest paths and the easiest
roads, so that at last the girl grew less afraid. But she became very
hungry and was nigh to faint when the Black Bull said to her, in quite a
soft voice that wasn't a bellow at all:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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