English Fairy Talesjust by on the top of a ladder thatching a rick, and when he
saw the little girl spill the milk, he said: “Little girl, what do
you mean by spilling the milk, your little brothers and sis-
ters must go without their supper.” Then said the little girl:
“Titty’s dead, and Tatty weeps, the stool hops, and the broom
sweeps, the door jars, and the window creaks, the old form
runs round the house, the walnut-tree sheds all its leaves,
the little bird moults all its feathers, and so I spill the milk.”
“Oh!” said the old man, “then I’ll tumble off the ladder
and break my neck,” so he tumbled off the ladder and broke
his neck; and when the old man broke his neck, the great
walnut-tree fell down with a crash, and upset the old form
and house, and the house falling knocked the window out,
and the window knocked the door down, and the door up-
set the broom, and the broom upset the stool, and poor little
Tatty Mouse was buried beneath the ruins.
JACK AND HIS GOLDEN SNUFF-BOX
ONCE UPON A TIME, and a very good time it was, though it
was neither in my time nor in your time nor in any one else’s
time, there was an old man and an old woman, and they had
one son, and they lived in a great forest. And their son never
saw any other people in his life, but he knew that there was
some more in the world besides his own father and mother,
because he had lots of books, and he used to read every day
about them. And when he read about some pretty young
women, he used to go mad to see some of them; till one day,
when his father was out cutting wood, he told his mother
that he wished to go away to look for his living in some
other country, and to see some other people besides them
two. And he said, “I see nothing at all here but great trees
around me; and if I stay here, maybe I shall go mad before I
see anything.” The young man’s father was out all this time,
when this talk was going on between him and his poor old
mother.
The old woman begins by saying to her son before leav-
ing, “Well, well, my poor boy, if you want to go, it’s better