The Lilac Fairy Book Part 44

'Well, but it didn't fall,' replied the young man, and he went off to the kitchen to get some supper, leaving them to cry as long as they liked.

The next morning he got up with the sun, and said to the old man and to the old woman and to his wife:

'Farewell: my foot shall not return to the house till I have found other three people as silly as you,' and he walked away till he came to the town, and seeing the door of a cottage standing open wide, he entered. No man was present, but only some women spinning at their wheels.

'You do not belong to this town,' said he.

'You speak truth,' they answered, 'nor you either?'

'I do not,' replied he, 'but is it a good place to live in?'

The women looked at each other.

'The men of the town are so silly that we can make them believe anything we please,' said they.

'Well, here is a gold ring,' replied he, 'and I will give it to the one amongst you who can make her husband believe the most impossible thing,'

and he left them.

As soon as the first husband came home his wife said to him:

'Thou art sick!'

'Am I?' asked he.

'Yes, thou art,' she answered; 'take off thy clothes and lie down.'

So he did, and when he was in his bed his wife went to him and said:

'Thou art dead.'

'Oh, am I?' asked he.

'Thou art,' said she; 'shut thine eyes and stir neither hand nor foot.'

And dead he felt sure he was.

Soon the second man came home, and his wife said to him:

'You are not my husband!'

'Oh, am I not?' asked he.

'No, it is not you,' answered she, so he went away and slept in the wood.

When the third man arrived his wife gave him his supper, and after that he went to bed, just as usual. The next morning a boy knocked at the door, bidding him attend the burial of the man who was dead, and he was just going to get up when his wife stopped him.

'Time enough,' said she, and he lay still till he heard the funeral pa.s.sing the window.

'Now rise, and be quick,' called the wife, and the man jumped out of bed in a great hurry, and began to look about him.

'Why, where are my clothes?' asked he.

'Silly that you are, they are on your back, of course,' answered the woman.

'Are they?' said he.

'They are,' said she, 'and make haste lest the burying be ended before you get there.'

Then off he went, running hard, and when the mourners saw a man coming towards them with nothing on but his nightshirt, they forgot in their fright what they were there for, and fled to hide themselves. And the naked man stood alone at the head of the coffin.

Very soon a man came out of the wood and spoke to him.

'Do you know me?'

'Not I,' answered the naked man. 'I do not know you.'

'But why are you naked?' asked the first man.

'Am I naked? My wife told me that I had all my clothes on,' answered he.

'And _my_ wife told me that I myself was dead,' said the man in the coffin.

But at the sound of his voice the two men were so terrified that they ran straight home, and the man in the coffin got up and followed them, and it was _his_ wife that gained the gold ring, as he had been sillier than the other two.

From 'West Highland Tales.'

_THE HOODIE-CROW_

ONCE there lived a farmer who had three daughters, and good useful girls they were, up with the sun, and doing all the work of the house. One morning they all ran down to the river to wash their clothes, when a hoodie came round and sat on a tree close by.

'Wilt thou wed me, thou farmer's daughter?' he said to the eldest.

'Indeed I won't wed thee,' she answered, 'an ugly brute is the hoodie.'

And the bird, much offended, spread his wings and flew away. But the following day he came back again, and said to the second girl:

'Wilt thou wed me, farmer's daughter?'

'Indeed I will not,' answered she, 'an ugly brute is the hoodie.' And the hoodie was more angry than before, and went away in a rage. However, after a night's rest he was in a better temper, and thought that he might be more lucky the third time, so back he went to the old place.