Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/300

 294 miles high, and no branch on it, till you get to the top, and there is a nest, and you must bring down the eggs without breaking one, or else I will have you for my supper.” At first the giant’s dochter did not know how to help Nicht Nought Nothing; but she cut off first her fingers and then her toes, and made steps of them, and he clomb the tree, and got all the eggs safe till he came to the bottom, and then one was broken. The giant’s dochter advised him to run away, and she would follow him. So he travelled till he came to a king’s palace, and the king and queen took him in and were very kind to him. The giant’s dochter left her father’s house, and he pursued her and was drowned. Then she came to the king’s palace where Nicht Nought Nothing was. And she went up into a tree to watch for him. The gardener’s dochter, going to draw water in the well, saw the shadow of the lady in the water, and thought it was herself, and said, “If I’m so bonny, if I’m so brave, do you send me to draw water?” The gardener’s wife went out, and she said the same thing. Then the gardener went himself, and brought the lady from the tree, and led her in. And he told her that a stranger was to marry the king’s dochter, and showed her the man: and it was Nicht Nought Nothing asleep in a chair. And she saw him, and cried to him, “Waken, waken, and speak to me!” But he would not waken, and syne she cried:

The king and the queen heard this, and came to the bonny young lady, and she said:

“I canna get Nicht Nought Nothing to speak to me for all that I can do.”

Then were they greatly astonished when she spoke of Nicht Nought Nothing, and asked where he was, and she said, “He that sits there in the chair.” Then they ran