I wish her youth."
"And I, beauty." "And I, prudence." "And I, a good heart." Thus the
fairies cried, and while they were yet speaking the old woman became a
wondrous fair maiden.

The next morning, when the king looked out of the window and saw the
beautiful girl hanging there, he was terrified, and thought: "Unhappy
man! What have I done! Had I no eyes last night?" Then he had her
carefully taken down with long ladders, and begged her pardon, saying:
"Now we will have a great festival and be right happy." So they
celebrated a splendid feast, and the young queen was the fairest in the
whole city.

But one day the sister ninety years old came to the palace to visit the
queen, her sister. "Who is this ugly creature?" asked the king. "An old
neighbor of mine who is half-witted," replied the queen, quickly. The
old woman kept looking at her rejuvenated sister, and asked: "What did
you do to become so young and lovely? I, too, would like to be young and
pretty again." She kept asking this the whole day, until the queen
finally lost her patience, and said: "I had my old skin taken off, and
this new, smooth skin came to light." The old woman went to a barber and
said: "I will give you what you will to remove my old skin, so that I
may become young and handsome again." "But good old woman, you will
surely die if I skin you." The old woman would not listen to him, and at
last he had to do her will. He took his knife and made a cut in her
forehead. "Oh!" cried the old woman.

"Who will look fair
Must grief and pain bear,"

answered the barber. "Then skin away, master," said the old woman. The
barber kept cutting on, until all at once the old woman fell down
dead.[1]

* * * * *

This story leads quite naturally to the class in which gifts, good and
bad, are bestowed by the fairies on two persons, one of whom is
deserving of good fortune; the other, of punishment or reproof. The
simplest form of this story is found in a Milanese tale (_Nov. fior._ p.
190).

XXVI. THE BUCKET.

There was once a mother who had two daughters: one was bad and the other
was very good. But the mother loved the bad one more than the good one.
She said one day to the bad one: "Go and draw a bucket of water." The
bad one did not want to go, and so she would not obey her mother. The
good daughter, however, said: "I will go and draw it." She went to draw
the water, and the bucket fell down the well