Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/325

 Rh as usual when an old man with a long grey beard on him challenged the king's son to play a game. John was quite willing, but he says to the old man, "What shall we play for?" "Oh," says the old man, "if you win you can ask whatever you like of me, and if I win I can ask anything I like of you." "Agreed," says John; and away they pecked at it hard and fast. Well, the first day, John, the king's son, won; so he asked that as soon as the sun rose in the morning every room in his father's palace would be filled with gold. In the morning every one in the palace, from the king to the pageboy, were near smothered in their bed with bright shining gold. " Ah, John, my boy," the old king said, "some day or other you'll be sorry for the ball-alley." "Never you mind, father, I'll take care of myself," said the lad. The next day John won again; so he asked that all his father's lawns and meadows might be filled with the finest cattle: and in the morning the great big estate of the king was covered with the finest head of cattle that was ever seen. But the old king still said that John would be sorry for the ball-alley: John told him however to put his fears in his pocket, and think no more about them as that he was all right. Now on the third day the old man won, and says he to John, "I'm old Grey Norris from Warland, and what I want you to do is by no means an easy job, for I want you to find out the place where I live, by the end of the year." So saying, the old man jogged off. Now after this John didn't give much way to sorrow, for even in the days of old Grey Norris there was a whiskey bottle, and John gave many a good hard pull at the mouth of that same; but, as the time drew nearer, John was at his wit's end for how to find out Grey Norris, and he was pining away day by day, for the old man said that he was going to put him to death if he couldn't find out. It so happened that in the service of the king there was a very old cook; this cook also had noticed the pining away of Prince John, so she says to him one day, "What is the matter, master John, that you have been so down in the mouth for the last month or so?" "Nothing, nothing at all," says John. "Ah, but I know that there is something," says she. Well, by degrees the whole story came out. "Pooh," said she, "if that is all, sir, I'll soon doctor your complaint." Now this old cook a hundred years ago had had a child and she had kept