At cockcrow they set off again, but instead of cracking her nuts as
she used to do, this time Kate plucked the feathers off and cooked
the birdie. Soon there arose a very savoury smell. “Oh!” said the sick
prince, “I wish I had a bite of that birdie,” so Kate gave him a bite of
the birdie, and he rose up on his elbow. By-and-by he cried out again:
“Oh, if I had another bite of that birdie!” so Kate gave him another
bite, and he sat up on his bed. Then he said again: “Oh! if I only had
a third bite of that birdie!” So Kate gave him a third bite, and he rose
quite well, dressed himself, and sat down by the fire, and when the folk
came in next morning they found Kate and the young prince cracking nuts
together. Meanwhile his brother had seen Annie and had fallen in love
with her, as everybody did who saw her sweet pretty face. So the sick
son married the well sister, and the well son married the sick sister,
and they all lived happy and died happy, and never drank out of a dry
cappy.
THE CAULD LAD OF HILTON
At Hilton Hall, long years ago, there lived a Brownie that was the
contrariest Brownie you ever knew. At night, after the servants had
gone to bed, it would turn everything topsy-turvy, put sugar in the
salt-cellars, pepper into the beer, and was up to all kinds of pranks.
It would throw the chairs down, put tables on their backs, rake out
fires, and do as much mischief as could be. But sometimes it would be in
a good temper, and then!--“What's a Brownie?” you say. Oh, it's a kind
of a sort of a Bogle, but it isn't so cruel as a Redcap! What! you don't
know what's a Bogle or a Redcap! Ah, me! what's the world a-coming to?
Of course a Brownie is a funny little thing, half man, half goblin, with
pointed ears and hairy hide. When you bury a treasure, you scatter over
it blood drops of a newly slain kid or lamb, or, better still, bury the
animal with the treasure, and a Brownie will watch over it for you, and
frighten everybody else away.
Where was I? Well, as I was a-saying, the Brownie at Hilton Hall would
play at mischief, but if the servants laid out for it a bowl of cream,
or a knuckle cake spread with honey, it would clear away things for
them, and make everything tidy in the kitchen. One night, however, when
the servants had stopped up late, they heard a noise in the kitchen,
and, peeping in, saw the Brownie swinging to and fro on the Jack chain,
and saying:
“Woe's me! woe's me!
The acorn's not yet
Fallen from the tree,
That's to grow the wood,
That's to make the cradle,
That's to rock the bairn,
That's to grow to the man,
That's to lay me.
Woe's me! woe's me!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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