English Fairy Tales quotes

So he says to the third, “How much do you love me, my dear?”

“Why, I love you as fresh meat loves salt,” says she.

Well, he was that angry. “You don't love me at all,” says he, “and in my house you stay no more.” So he drove her out there and then, and shut the door in her face.

“Oh! please mum, do give me something to eat, mum. I've had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, really and truly, mum,” says Jack.

“I may as well be broiled, as die of hunger.”

Well, the ogre's wife wasn't such a bad sort, after all. So she took Jack into the kitchen, and gave him a junk of bread and cheese and a jug of milk. But Jack hadn't half finished these when thump! thump! thump!

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.

She could not have been a good, honest old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch.

The door was not fastened, because the Bears were good Bears, who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that anybody would harm them.

So the little old Woman opened the door, and went in; and well pleased she was when she saw the porridge on the table.

And the thing to do is this: after you have entered the land of Fairy, whoever speaks to you, till you meet the Burd Ellen, you must out with your father's brand and off with their head.

And what you've not to do is this: bite no bit, and drink no drop, however hungry or thirsty you be; drink a drop, or bite a bit, while in Elfland you be and never will you see Middle Earth again.

”

There were neither windows nor candles, and he could not make out where the twilight came from, if not through the walls and roof. These were rough arches made of a transparent rock, incrusted with sheepsilver and rock spar, and other bright stones.

But though it was rock, the air was quite warm, as it always is in Elfland.

So he went through this passage till at last he came to two wide and high folding-doors which stood ajar. And when he opened them, there he saw a most wonderful and glorious sight.

The figure of Sir Richard Whittington with his cat in his arms, carved in stone, was to be seen till the year 1780 over the archway of the old prison of Newgate, which he built for criminals.

A woman was sitting at her reel one night; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of broad broad soles, and sat down at the fireside;

That same night the queen, who was a noted witch, stole down to a lonely dungeon wherein she did her magic and with spells three times three, and with passes nine times nine she cast Princess Margaret under her spell. And this was her spell:

So Lady Margaret went to bed a beauteous maiden, and rose up a Laidly Worm.

And when her maidens came in to dress her in the morning they found coiled up on the bed a dreadful dragon, which uncoiled itself and came towards them.

“That suits me,” cried the starling, and off it flew; and very comfortable nests have starlings.

So it went on, every bird taking away some knowledge of how to build nests, but, none of them waiting to the end.

Meanwhile Madge Magpie went on working and working without, looking up till the only bird that remained was the turtle-dove, and that hadn't paid any attention all along, but only kept on saying its silly cry “Take two, Taffy, take two-o-o-o.”

Away rode the prince and Kate through the greenwood, Kate, as they pass, plucking nuts from the trees and filling her apron with them. They rode on and on till they came to a green hill.

The prince here drew bridle and spoke, “Open, open, green hill, and let the young prince in with his horse and his hound,” and Kate added, “and his lady him behind.”

Immediately the green hill opened and they passed in. The prince entered a magnificent hall, brightly lighted up, and many beautiful fairies surrounded the prince and led him off to the dance. Meanwhile, Kate, without being noticed, hid herself behind the door.

“See you,” says she, “why, of course I do, as plain as the sun in the skies, and what's more,” says she, “I see you are busy too, into the bargain.”

“Ah, you see too much,” said he; “now, pray, with which eye do you see all this?”

“With the right eye to be sure,” said she, as proud as can be to find him out.

Just then the frog popped up its head out of the Well of the World's End, and said: “Remember your promise.”

“All right,” said the girl; for thought she, “what harm can a frog do me?”

So she went back to her stepmother, and brought the sieve full of water from the Well of the World's End. The stepmother was fine and angry, but she said nothing at all.