THE THREE AUNTS

Once on a time there was a poor man who lived in a hut far away in
the wood, and got his living by shooting. He had an only daughter who
was very pretty, and as she had lost her mother when she was a child,
and was now half grown up, she said she would go out into the world
and earn her bread.

'Well, lassie!' said the father, 'true enough you have learnt nothing
here but how to pluck birds and roast them, but still you may as well
try to earn your bread.'

So the girl went off to seek a place, and when she had gone a little
while, she came to a palace. There she stayed and got a place, and
the queen liked her so well, that all the other maids got envious of
her. So they made up their minds to tell the queen how the lassie
said she was good to spin a pound of flax in four and twenty hours,
for you must know the queen was a great housewife, and thought much
of good work.

'Have you said this? then you shall do it', said the queen; 'but you
may have a little longer time if you choose.'

Now, the poor lassie dared not say she had never spun in all her
life, but she only begged for a room to herself. That she got, and
the wheel and the flax were brought up to her. There she sat sad and
weeping, and knew not how to help herself. She pulled the wheel this
way and that, and twisted and turned it about, but she made a poor
hand of it, for she had never even seen a spinning-wheel in her life.