Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/472

390 young lady, were much pleased. He used often to dine with them, and frequently invited Lady Mary to come and see his house. One day when her brothers were absent elsewhere, and she had nothing better to do, she determined to go thither, and accordingly set out unattended. When she arrived at the house and knocked at the door, no one answered. At length she opened it and went in. Over the portal of the hall was written, "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold." She advanced: over the staircase the same inscription. She went up: over the entrance of a gallery, the same. She proceeded: over the door of a chamber she read: "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest that your heart's blood should run cold." She opened it—it was full of skeletons, tubs full of blood, &c. She retreated in haste. Coming down stairs she saw from a window, Mr. Fox advancing towards the house, with a drawn sword in one hand, while with the other he dragged along a young lady by her hair. Lady Mary had just time to slip down and hide herself under the stairs before Mr. Fox and his victim arrived at the foot of them. As he pulled the young lady upstairs she caught hold of one of the banisters with her hand on which was a rich bracelet, Mr. Fox cut it off with his sword: the hand and and bracelet fell into Lady Mary's lap, who then contrived to escape unobserved, and got home safe to her brother's house. After a few days Mr. Fox came to dine with them as usual (whether by invitation or of his own accord this deponent saith not). After dinner, when the guests began to amuse each other with extraordinary anecdotes. Lady Mary at length said she would relate to them a remarkable dream she had lately had. "I dreamt," said she, "that as you, Mr. Fox, had often invited me to your house, I thought I would go there one morning. When I came to the house I knocked, but no one answered. When I opened the door, over the hall was written 'Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.' But," said she, turning to Mr. Fox and smiling, "It is not so, nor it was not so;" then she pursued the rest of the story, concluding at every turn with "It is not so, nor it was not so," till she came to the room full of dead bodies, when Mr. Fox took up the burden of the tale and said, "It is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid that it should be so;" which he continued to repeat at every turn of the dreadful story, till she came to the circumstance of his cutting off the young lady's hand, when, upon his saying as usual, "It is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid that it should be so," Lady Mary retorted, "But it is so, and it was so, and here is the hand I have to show," at the same time producing the hand and bracelet from her lap: whereupon the guests drew their swords, and instantly cut Mr. Fox into a thousand pieces.—

From the district of the Maine, but we have heard it in Hesse also, though the rhyme runs rather differently—

The Pack of Ragamuffins No. 10 is allied to this.