she sate her down on the doorstep, and, bringing
out her distaff, began to spin. And as she span she sang:
"My daughter ha' ate five pies to-day,
My daughter ha' ate five pies to-day,
My daughter ha' ate five pies to-day,"
for, see you, she was quite flabbergasted and fair astonished.
Now the King of that country happened to be coming down the street, and
he heard the song going on and on, but could not quite make out the
words. So he stopped his horse, and asked:
"What is that you are singing, my good woman?"
[Illustration: "What is that you are singing, my good woman?"]
Now the mother, though horrified at her daughter's appetite, did not
want other folk, leastwise the King, to know about it, so she sang
instead:
"My daughter ha' spun five skeins to-day,
My daughter ha' spun five skeins to-day,
My daughter ha' spun five skeins to-day."
"Five skeins!" cried the King. "By my garter and my crown, I never heard
tell of any one who could do that! Look you here, I have been searching
for a maiden to wife, and your daughter who can spin five skeins a day
is the very one for me. Only, mind you, though for eleven months of the
year she shall be Queen indeed, and have all she likes to eat, all the
gowns she likes to get, all the company she likes to keep, and
everything her heart desires, in the twelfth month she must set to work
and spin five skeins a day, and if she does not she must die. Come! is
it a bargain?"
So the mother agreed. She thought what a grand marriage it was for her
daughter. And as for the five skeins? Time enough to bother about them
when the year came round. There was many a slip between cup and lip,
and, likely as not, the King would have forgotten all about it by then.
Anyhow, her daughter would be Queen for eleven months. So they were
married, and for eleven months the bride was happy as happy could be.
She had everything she liked to eat, and all the gowns she liked to get,
all the company she cared to keep, and everything her heart desired. And
her husband the King was kind as kind could be. But in the tenth month
she began to think of those five skeins and wonder if the King
remembered. And in the eleventh month she began to dream about them as
well. But ne'er a word did the King, her husband, say about them; so she
hoped he had forgotten.
But on the very last day of the eleventh month, the King, her husband,
led her into a room she had never set eyes on before
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