Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/193

 Rh on her daughters' necks. When the old woman went away he took the ribbons off and tied them on his two brothers' necks. So when she came down again she killed her two daughters.

Whittlegaire, when she was asleep again, called his brothers and brought them out, and told them to bring their clothes and not to wait, and when he got them out he told them all. The next morning they went to a farmer's house. He asked them where did they lodge all night, and they told him "in that old house there below"; and he asked them how they escaped, for no one ever yet lodged in that house but was killed. They told the farmer all, and how Whittlegaire saved them. The farmer said he would give them work and his eldest daughter to be married to the eldest brother if Whittlegaire would go and steal the Quilt of Diamonds on the old witch's bed. So Whittlegaire went and got a long crook, and put it down the chimney, and hooked it in the Quilt, and pulled it up the chimney, and made off The old woman followed him, and she said: "Whittlegaire, you killed my two daughters, and now you've stolen my Quilt of Diamonds!"

"Go along, you old rap, you killed them yourself," said he; "and I'll do more than that to you."

The farmer said he never knew a little boy so good; and he said that he'd get his second daughter married to Whittlegaire's second brother if he would go and steal him the Boots of Swiftness.

He went to the house and stole the boots, which were under the bed, and he put the boots on. The old woman followed him, but he gave a mile in every step, and went across a big river and waited until she came down, because, as she was a witch, she could not cross the river.

"Whittlegaire," she said, "you killed my two daughters, and stole my Quilt of Diamonds and the Boots of Swiftness!"

"Go along, you old rap," said he; "I'll do more than that to you."