Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/360

 174 know what she was about, and fell fast asleep. But while she slept, the butcher took and dipped her into a tar-barrel, and then laid her down on a heap of feathers; and when she woke up she was feathered all over, and began to wonder what had befallen her.

"Is it me, or is it not me? No, it can never be me; it must be some great strange bird. But what shall I do to find out whether it is me or not. Oh! I know how I shall be able to tell whether it is me; if the calves come and lick me, and our dog Tray doesn't bark at me when I get home, then it must be me and no one else."

Now, Tray, her dog, had scarce set his eyes on the strange monster which came through the gate, than he set up such a barking, one would have thought all the rogues and robbers in the world were in the yard.

"Ah! deary mel" said she, "I thought so; it can't be me surely." So she went to the straw-yard, and the calves wouldn't lick her, when they snuffed in the strong smell of tar.

"No, no!" she said, "it can't be me; it must be some strange outlandish bird."

So she crept up on the roof of the safe and began to flap her arms, as if they had been wings, and was just going to fly off.

"When her husband saw all this, out he came with his rifle, and began to take aim at her.

"Oh!" cried his wife, "don't shoot, don't shoot! it is only me."

"If it's you," said her husband, "don't stand up there like a goat on a house-top, but come down and let me hear what you have to say for yourself."