Page:History of the four Kings of Canterbury, Colchester, Cornwall, and Cumberland.pdf/10

 take my daughter, according to my royal decree: and so they were married, and the wedding kept in great triumph, and the shepherd became a king's son.

O that was mighty well, said the third boy, he had wonderful good fortune.—This puts me in mind of a story, which I will now tell in my turn.

If I may believe my old grand-mother, there lived in the county of Cumberland, a nobleman, who had three sons, two of them were comely and tall youths, wise and learned: the third a merry fool, and went often in a party-coloured coat and steeple crowned hat, at the top of which was a cassel: in this dress he made a comical figure. At this time the king of Canterbury had a fine daughter, adorned with all the gifts of nature, joined to an ingenious education, she being very ripe witted, as appeared by her ready answers, and the comical questions she put forth. The king her father published a decree, that whoever should come to the court, and answer his daughter three questions,