Page:The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said.djvu/81

 Bloom-of-Youth went with the twelve balls of wool to her step-mother's house, and every person she met on the way she asked if he or she knew the name of the black and crooked woman. But no one could tell her the hag's real name. All they could tell was that she was the Witch of the Elders and that she lived beside the Big Stones that were at the other side of the wood.

Bloom-of-Youth was afraid: her face lost its color and her eyes grew wide and her heart would beat from one side of her body to the other. And every day the Witch of the Elders would come to the door and say "Have you my name yet, Bloom-of-Youth, have you my name yet? Two days gone, five to come on; three days gone, four to come on; four days gone, three to come on; five days gone, two to come on." Six days went by and on the seventh she would have to go to the Big Stones at the other side of the wood and let the Witch of the Elders take twelve drops of her heart's blood.

The night before the week's end her husband, when he sat down by the fire said "I saw