She said the last two names and as she did the Witch of the Elders screamed and ran behind the stones. Bloom-of-Youth saw no more of her. That evening her husband brought home the web of cloth that her step-mother had woven. The next day Bloom-of-Youth began to make clothes for him out of it. Never again did she make delays at the well but she came straight home with her pails of water. The fire was always clear upon the hearth and she had never to light it the second time and then sweep away the ashes that had gathered on the floor. She made good clothes for her husband out of the web of cloth her step-mother had woven. And every evening she spun on her wheel and there was never a time afterwards when she had not a dozen balls of thread in the house. The wool is hers and the thread is mine; For loss of my heart's blood I never will dwine, And I throw my ball over to you. It was the Woodpecker that told this story to the Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said. [Illustration] [Illustration: The Hen-wife's Son and the Princess Bright Brow] The Hen-wife's Son and the Princess Bright Brow [Illustration] Everyone in and around the King's Castle despised Mell, the Hen-wife's Son, said the Stonechecker, the bird that built within the stones of the Tower. And it was not because there was anything mean about the lad himself: it was because his mother, the Hen-wife, had the lowest office about the King's Castle. This is what a Hen-wife did: She had to mind the fowl and keep count of them, she had to gather the eggs and put them into a basket and send them to the King's Steward every day. And for doing this she had as wages the right to go to the back-door of the Steward's house and get from the under-servants two meals a day for herself and Mell, her son. And everybody, as I said, despised this son of hers--horse-boys and dog-boys and the grooms around the Castle. But of course no one despised Mell more than did the King's daughter, Princess Bright Brow. She used to go into a wood and whisper along the branch of a tree. And one day the Hen-wife's son whom she despised so much made answer to her. He was lying along the branch of the tree watching his mother's goat that grazed on the grass below. Now this is what Princess Bright Brow said to the tree and this is what she used to say to it every day.-- Oak-tree, oak-tree, above the rest, Which of the heroes loves me best? Mell was lying along the Branch as I have said, and he made answer back to her.-- Princess, Princess, he's at your call, And the Hen-wife's son loves you best of all! The King's daughter looked up and she saw the Hen-wife's son on the branch, and she went into a great rage. She gave orders to the grooms that the Hen-wife's son was to be whipped every time he looked at her. Many's the time after that Mell got the lash. But he loved Bright Brow so much that he could not forbear looking at her. II