o!" says he, "you're a girl of courage, though you wouldn't have
enough to follow me. I am now going to cross the quaking bog, and go
through the burning forest. I must then enter the cave of terror and
climb the hill of glass, and drop from the top of it into the Dead Sea."
"I'll follow you," says she, "for I engaged to mind you." He thought to
prevent her, but she was stiff as he was stout.

Out he sprang through the window, and she followed him, till they came
to the "Green Hills," and then says he:

"Open, open, Green Hills and let the light of the Green Hills through."
"Aye," says the girl, "and let the fair maid too."

They opened, and the man and woman passed through, and there they were
on the edge of a bog.

He trod lightly over the shaky bits of moss and sod; and while she was
thinking of how she'd get across, the old beggar appeared to her, but
much nicer dressed, touched her shoes with a stick, and the soles spread
a foot on each side. So she easily got over the shaky marsh. The burning
wood was at the edge of the bog, and there the good fairy flung a damp,
thick cloak over her, and through the flames she went, and a hair of her
head was not singed. Then they passed through the dark cavern of
horrors, when she'd have heard the most horrible yells, only that the
fairy stopped her ears with wax. She saw frightful things, with blue
vapours round them, and felt the sharp rocks and the slimy backs of
frogs and snakes.

When they got out of the cavern, they were at the mountain of glass; and
then the fairy made her slippers so sticky with a tap of her rod that
she followed the young corpse quite easily to the top. There was the
deep sea a quarter of a mile under them, and so the corpse said to her,
"Go home to my mother, and tell her how far you came to do her bidding.
Farewell!" He sprung head-foremost down into the sea, and after him she
plunged, without stopping a moment to think about it.

She was stupefied at first, but when they reached the waters she
recovered her thoughts. After piercing down a great depth, they saw a
green light towards the bottom. At last they were below the sea, that
seemed a green sky above them; and, sitting in a beautiful meadow, she
half-asleep, and her head resting against his side. She couldn't keep
her eyes open, and she couldn't tell how long she slept; but when she
woke, she was in bed at his house, and he and his mother sitting by her
bedside, and watching her.

It