The Young and Field Literary Readers, Book 2. Field Walter Taylor

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СКАЧАТЬ Ellen in a great chair of gold, with diamonds all about her head.

      When she saw Childe Rowland, she came to him and said:

      "Brother, why are you here? If the king of the elves comes, it will be a sad day for you."

      But this did not frighten Childe Rowland. He sat down and told her all that he had done.

      She told him that the two brothers were in the tower.

      The king of the elves had turned them into stone.

      Soon Childe Rowland began to be very hungry, and asked for something to eat.

      Ellen went out and soon came back with bread and milk in a golden bowl.

      Childe Rowland took it and was about to eat.

      All at once he thought of what the wise man had said.

      So he threw the bowl down upon the floor, and said:

      "Not a bit will I bite,

      Not a drop will I drink,

      Till Ellen is free."

      Then they heard a great noise outside, and some one cried out:

      "Fee-fi-fo-fum!

      I smell the blood

      Of an Englishman!"

      The door of the hall flew open and the king of the elves came in.

      Childe Rowland took his sword.

      They fought and they fought.

      At last Childe Rowland beat the king of the elves down to the ground.

      "Stop!" cried the king of the elves. "I have had enough."

      "I will stop when you set free the princess Ellen and my brothers," said Childe Rowland.

      "I will set them free," said the king.

      He went at once to a cupboard and took out a blood-red bottle.

      Out of this bottle he let a drop or two fall upon the eyes of the two brothers, and up they jumped.

      Childe Rowland took the hand of his sister and went out of the door, and up the long way.

      The two brothers went after them and left the king of the elves alone.

      Then they came out from the hill and found their way back to their own country.

      How glad the queen was!

      TOM TIT TOT

      Once a woman made five pies.

      When she had made them, she found that they were too hard.

      So the woman said to her daughter:

      "Put those pies into the cupboard and leave them there a little while and they'll come again."

      She meant that they would get soft.

      But the girl said to herself,

      "Well, if they'll come again, I think I will eat them."

      So she ate them all up.

      At supper time the woman said,

      "Daughter, get one of those pies. I think they must have come again."

      The girl went to the cupboard and looked, but no pies were there.

      Then she came back to her mother and said,

      "No, they have not come again."

      "Well, bring one," said the mother. "I want one for my supper."

      "But I can't. They have not come."

      "Yes, you can. Bring me one."

      "But I ate them all up."

      "What!" said the mother, "You bad, bad girl!"

      The woman could not stop thinking about those five pies.

      As she sat at the door spinning, she kept mumbling to herself:

      "My daughter ate five pies to‐day,

      My daughter ate five pies to‐day."

      The king was going by, and he heard the woman mumbling.

      "What are you saying, woman?" asked the king.

      The woman did not like to tell him about the pies, so she said:

      "My daughter spun five skeins to‐day,

      My daughter spun five skeins to‐day."

      "Well, well, well!" said the king, "I didn't know that any one could spin so much as that!"

      "My daughter knows how to spin," said the woman.

      The king thought a little while.

      Then he said: "I want a wife. If your daughter can spin as much as that, I will make her my wife. She shall have fine clothes, and for eleven months in every year she may do anything she wishes. But the last month of the year she must spin five skeins each day. If she doesn't, she must have her head cut off."

      "Very well," said the woman.

      She thought how fine it would be if her daughter should be the queen.

      The girl could have a good time for eleven months, anyway, and there would surely be some way to get the skeins spun.

      So the king took the girl away and made her queen.

      For eleven months she had everything she could think of.

      She had gold and silver and diamonds and fine clothes and good things to eat.

      But when the last month of the year came, she began to think what she should do about those five skeins.

      She did not have long to think, for the king took her into a room, all by herself, and said:

      "Here is a spinning wheel, and here is a chair, and here is some flax.

      "Now, my dear, sit down and spin five skeins before night, or off goes your head."

      Then he turned and went out.

      How frightened she was!

      She could not spin.

      She could only sit down and cry.

      All at once there was a rap at the door.

      She jumped up and opened it, and what should she see but a little black thing with a long tail!

      "What are you crying about?" asked the little black thing.

      "It would do no good to tell you," said the queen.

      "How do you know that?" asked the little black thing, and he twirled his tail.

      "Well, СКАЧАТЬ