Page:The Allies Fairy Book.djvu/62

 wilt not remember that thou hast ever seen me.” Every one he met was giving him welcome and luck, and he charged his father and mother not to kiss him; but as mishap was to be, an old greyhound was in and she knew him, and jumped up to his mouth, and after that he did not remember the giant’s daughter.

She was sitting at the well’s side as he left her, but the king’s son was not coming. In the mouth of night she climbed up into a tree of oak that was beside the well, and she lay in the fork of the tree all that night. A shoemaker had a house near the well, and about midday on the morrow the shoemaker asked his wife to go for a drink for him out of the well. When the shoemaker’s wife reached the well, and when she saw the shadow of her that was in the tree, thinking of it that it was her own shadow—and she never thought till now that she was so handsome—she gave a cast to the dish that was in her hand, and it was broken on the ground, and she took herself to the house without vessel or water.

“Where is the water, wife?” said the shoemaker. “Thou shambling, contemptible old carle, without grace, I have stayed too long thy water and wood thrall.” “I am thinking, wife, that thou hast turned crazy. Go thou, daughter, quickly, and fetch a drink for thy father.” His daughter went, and in the same way so it happened to her. She never thought till now that she was so lovable, and she took herself home. “Up with the drink,” said her father. “Thou homespun shoe carle, dost thou think that I am fit to be thy thrall.” The poor shoemaker thought that they had taken a turn in their understandings, and he went himself to the well. He saw the shadow of the maiden in the well, and he looked up to the tree, and he sees the finest woman he ever saw. “Thy seat is wavering, but thy face is fair,” said the shoemaker. “Come down, for there is need of thee for a short while at my house.” The shoemaker