Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/357

 Rh bring him to the sea-side and put him in an open boat and send him adrift to the mercy of the waves. The witch of his castle said that she would cast a spell on the daughter, whose name was Rosaline. The spell being cast upon her, she was the ugliest thing that was in the world, but was most beautiful before. She was left outside of the castle-walls, and many a time did she cry herself to sleep. The people got in dread of her, and would say "what a horrid ugly thing!" and everything shunned her.

One evening as she was eating a bit of bread that was thrown to her, a robin came to pick the crumbs; and when he had the crumbs picked he sang a beautiful song for her, and she was happy that everything in the world had not quite forgotten her, though it was only a poor little robin.

The robin, seeing the grief that she was in, rose high in the air and flew towards Doolas Woods; and as she (sic) arrived there she was met by her cousin, the robin of the wood. She asked her what was the matter, or was there anything wrong. She told her of the grief of Rosaline, and of the king's witch casting a spell of deformity on her, and that she came to see would she get a berry off the fairy-tree. The robin of the wood told her that times had changed very much since she was here last, for that there was a great giant guarding the tree, that he slept every night in the branches, and that his breath was poison to birds and bees. "Every day," she says, "there comes a warrior to give battle to the giant; and the giant, when the warrior comes, bounds high in the air and plucks a branch off the tree and puts it in under his belt; and when he's exhausted fighting he takes a handful of the berries and eats them, and that revives his strength, and he strikes down the warrior with a mighty blow, for neither weapons, nor fire, nor water can kill him, but only three strokes of his own iron club. That iron club is girted to his waist with an iron band, and from the iron band there was a chain, and nothing can kill him but three strokes of his