once."

But now she saw her sweetheart coming through the crowd, and he held
over his head in the air her own golden ball; so she said:

"Stop, stop, I see my sweetheart coming!
Sweetheart, hast brought my golden ball
And come to set me free?"

"Aye, I have brought thy golden ball
And come to set thee free,
I have not come to see thee hung
Upon this gallows-tree."

And he took her home, and they lived happy ever after.




My Own Self


In a tiny house in the North Countrie, far away from any town or
village, there lived not long ago, a poor widow all alone with her
little son, a six-year-old boy.

The house-door opened straight on to the hill-side and all round about
were moorlands and huge stones, and swampy hollows; never a house nor a
sign of life wherever you might look, for their nearest neighbours were
the "ferlies" in the glen below, and the "will-o'-the-wisps" in the long