Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/541

 Miscellanea. 499

to him in marriage, and the pair started off for her father's city. When the king saw his daughter alive and well and married to a prince (for the ogress was a queen as well as an ogress), he was delighted.

After being made much of, the ogress' son and his bride went back to their own palace. But one day the Fate came and stole the ball of silk, and they heard that all was going wrong with the king again. Then the ogress' son made a large chandelier and took it as a present to his own Fate, and induced her to get the ball of silk back from the other one. But she told him : "You must go and live far away from this, for otherwise it will be stolen again." And so they did, and all lived happily.

III. The Three Heavenly Children.

A certain king made a proclamation in his city that he was going to walk through the streets after nightfall, and that all the lights in the houses must be put out, and every one must be abed. There was a poor old woman with three daughters, and they made their living by spinning day and night. Instead of putting out the light, they blocked up the keyhole and all crevices, and sat working. As the king passed by, the eldest said : " I wish I had the king's cook " ; the second said : " I wish I had all the king's cotton to spin"; but the third said: "I wish I had the king himself, and I would give him three children — the sun, the moon, and the firmament." The king overheard them, and next day sent and ordered them to appear before him. He granted the wishes of the two eldest, giving the one his cook and the other all his cotton ; and the youngest, for she found favour in his eyes, and renewed her promise to bear him the three heavenly children, he made his wife. In due time the queen gave birth to the sun- child, and all the house shone when he was born. But the king's mother hated her daughter-in-law, and persuaded the midwife to take the child away, and put a puppy in its place. When the king, who was absent, came home she told him : " Come and see what your wife has given you — a nasty puppy ! " The king was very sorry, but said : " So be it ; better luck next time." The queen-mother had sent the child away to be cast out in a wood. There a she-goat, which had strayed from the flock, found it and brought it up.

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