st he brought down his three
daughters to see Jack, so that he could observe what impression Jack
made upon them. When they came into the kitchen and saw the ugly
little fellow, every one of the three fainted and had to be carried
out.

"It is all right," says the King; "we will surely keep you," and Jack
was employed, and sent out into the garden to work there.

Now at this time the King of the East declared war on the King of
Scotland. The King of the East had a mighty army entirely, and he
threatened to wipe the King of Scotland off the face of the earth.

The King of Scotland was very much troubled, and he consulted with his
Grand Adviser what was best to be done, and his Grand Adviser
counselled that he should at once give his three daughters in marriage
to sons of kings, and in that way get great help for the war. The King
said this was a grand idea.

So he sent out messengers to all parts of the world to say that his
three beautiful daughters were ready for marriage. In a very short
time the son of the King of Spain came and married the eldest
daughter, and the son of the King of France came and married the
second, and a whole lot of princes came looking for the youngest, who
was the most beautiful of the three and whose name was Yellow Rose;
but she would not take one of them, and for this the King ordered her
never to come into his sight, nor into company, again.

Yellow Rose got very downhearted, and spent almost all her time now
wandering in the garden, where the Hookedy-Crookedy lad was looking
after the flowers, and she used to come around again and again,
chatting to Hookedy-Crookedy. And so it was not long until he saw that
the Yellow Rose was in love with him, and he got just as deeply in
love with her, for she was a beautiful and charming girl.

The next thing the Grand Adviser counselled the King was that he
should send his two new sons-in-law, the Prince of Spain and the
Prince of France, to the Well of the World's End for bottles of
Ioca[2] to take to battle with them, that they might cure the wounded
and dead men. So the King ordered his sons-in-law to go to the Well of
the World's End and bring him back two bottles of Ioca.

[Footnote 2: Ioca was a liquid that cured all wounds and restored the
dead to life.]

The Yellow Rose told Hookedy-Crookedy this, and when he had turned it
over in his mind, he said to himself, "I will go and have a chat with
the mare and the bear about this."

So o