Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/300

224 queen appeared, now seven times prettier than before; her husband himself assisted her and conducted her back to the palace in triumph.

Lucinda, her mother, and the gate-keeper were quartered, and their bodies exhibited at the four corners of the castle as a warning to everybody. The queen anointed her little brother with some ointment she had found in the whale's stomach, and he regained his old form. And so all three of them are alive to this very date, if they have not died since. May they get into an egg shell and be your guests to-morrow.

THE WONDERFUL FROG.

HERE was once, I don't know where, a man who had three daughters. One day the father thus spoke to the eldest girl: "Go, my daughter, and fetch me some fresh water from the well." The girl went, but when she came to the well a huge frog called out to her from the bottom, that he would not allow her to draw water in her jug until she threw him down the gold ring on her finger. "Nothing else? is that all you want?" replied the girl, "I won't give away my rings to such an ugly creature as you," and she returned as she came with the empty pitchers. So the father sent the second girl, and she fared as the first; the frog would not let her have any water, as she refused to throw down her gold ring. Her father gave his two elder daughters a good scolding, and then thus addressed the youngest: "You go, Betsie, my dear, you have always been a clever girl: I'm sure you will be able to get some water, and will not allow your father to suffer thirst; go, shame your sisters!"