Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in FairylandBunce, John Thackray
History
Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland
Bunce, John Thackray
Fairy tales -- History and criticism
Now the Giant went back the third time, and made a
dreadful noise. "Out here _thy_ son," he said, "or the stone that is
highest in thy dwelling shall be the lowest." So they gave him the
King's son, and the Giant took him to his own house, and he stayed there
a long while. One day the youth heard sweet music at the top of the
Giant's house, and he saw a sweet face. It was the Giant's youngest
daughter; and she said to him, "My father wants you to marry one of my
sisters, and he wants me to marry the King of the Green City, but I will
not. So when he asks, say thou wilt take me." Next day the Giant gave
the King's son choice of his two eldest daughters; but the Prince said,
"Give me this pretty little one?" and then the Giant was angry, and said
that before he had her he must do three things. The first of these
was to clean out a byre or cattle place, where there was the dung of a
hundred cattle, and it had not been cleaned for seven years. He tried to
do it, and worked till noon, but the filth was as bad as ever. Then the
Giant's youngest daughter came, and bid him sleep, and she cleaned out
the stable, so that a golden apple would run from end to end of it. Next
day the Giant set him to thatch the byre with birds' down, and he had
to go out on the moors to catch the birds; but at midday, he had caught
only two blackbirds, and then the Giant's youngest daughter came again,
and bid him sleep, and then she caught the birds, and thatched the
byre with the feathers before sundown. The third day the Giant set him
another task. In the forest there was a fir-tree, and at the top was a
magpie's nest, and in the nest were five eggs, and he was to bring these
five eggs to the Giant without breaking one of them. Now the tree was
very tall; from the ground to the first branch it was five hundred feet,
so that the King's son could not climb up it. Then the Giant's youngest
daughter came again, and she put her fingers one after the other into
the tree, and made a ladder for the King's son to climb up by. When
he was at the nest at the very top, she said, "Make haste now with the
eggs, for my father's breath is burning my back;" and she was in such a
hurry that she left her little finger sticking in the top of the tree.
Then she told the King's son that the Giant would make all his daughters
look alike, and dress them alike, and that when the choosing time came
he was to look at their hands, and take the one that had not a little
finger on one hand. So it happened, and the King's son chose the
youngest daughter, because she put out her hand to guide him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account