So they took pity on the poor Brownie, and asked the nearest henwife
what they should do to send it away. “That's easy enough,” said the
henwife, and told them that a Brownie that's paid for its service, in
aught that's not perishable, goes away at once. So they made a cloak of
Lincoln green, with a hood to it, and put it by the hearth and watched.
They saw the Brownie come up, and seeing the hood and cloak, put them
on, and frisk about, dancing on one leg and saying:
“I've taken your cloak, I've taken your hood;
The Cauld Lad of Hilton will do no more good.”
And with that it vanished, and was never seen or heard of afterwards.
THE ASS, THE TABLE, AND THE STICK
A lad named Jack was once so unhappy at home through his father's
ill-treatment, that he made up his mind to run away and seek his fortune
in the wide world.
He ran, and he ran, till he could run no longer, and then he ran right
up against a little old woman who was gathering sticks. He was too much
out of breath to beg pardon, but the woman was good-natured, and she
said he seemed to be a likely lad, so she would take him to be her
servant, and would pay him well. He agreed, for he was very hungry,
and she brought him to her house in the wood, where he served her for a
twelvemonths and a day.
When the year had passed, she called him to her, and said she had good
wages for him. So she presented him with an ass out of the stable, and
he had but to pull Neddy's ears to make him begin at once to ee--aw! And
when he brayed there dropped from his mouth silver sixpences, and half
crowns, and golden guineas.
The lad was well pleased with the wage he had received, and away he rode
till he reached an inn. There he ordered the best of everything, and
when the innkeeper refused to serve him without being paid beforehand,
the boy went off to the stable, pulled the ass's ears and obtained his
pocket full of money. The host had watched all this through a crack
in the door, and when night came on he put an ass of his own for the
precious Neddy of the poor youth. So Jack without knowing that any
change had been made, rode away next morning to his father's house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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