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HERE was once a man and his wife who had long wished in vain for a child, when at last they had reason to hope that Heaven would grant their wish. There was a little window at the back of their house, which overlooked a beautiful garden, full of lovely flowers and shrubs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and nobody dared to enter it, because it belonged to a powerful Witch, who was feared by everybody.

One day the woman, standing at this window and looking into the garden, saw a bed planted with beautiful rampion. It looked so fresh and green that it made her long to eat some of it. This longing increased every day, and as she knew it could never be satisfied, she began to look pale and miserable, and to pine away. Then her husband was alarmed, and said: ‘What ails you, my dear wife?’

‘Alas!’ she answered, ‘if I cannot get any of the rampion from the garden behind our house to eat, I shall die.’

Her husband, who loved her, thought, ‘Before you let your wife die, you must fetch her some of that rampion, cost what it may.’ So in the twilight he climbed over the wall into the Witch’s garden, hastily picked a handful of rampion, and took it back to his wife. She immediately dressed it, and ate it up very eagerly. It was so very, very nice, that the next day her longing for it increased threefold. She could have no peace unless her husband fetched her some more. So in the twilight he set out again; but when he got over the wall he was terrified to see the Witch before him.

‘How dare you come into my garden like a thief, and steal my rampion?’ she said, with angry looks. ‘It shall be the worse for you!’