"NIMMY NIMMY NOT, YOUR NAME'S TOM TIT TOT!"

Well, when that heard her, that gave an awful shriek and away that
flew into the dark, and she never saw it any more.



THE THREE SILLIES

Once upon a time there was a farmer and his wife who had one daughter,
and she was courted by a gentleman. Every evening he used to come and
see her, and stop to supper at the farmhouse, and the daughter used to
be sent down into the cellar to draw the beer for supper. So one
evening she had gone down to draw the beer, and she happened to look
up at the ceiling while she was drawing, and she saw a mallet stuck in
one of the beams. It must have been there a long, long time, but
somehow or other she had never noticed it before, and she began a-
thinking. And she thought it was very dangerous to have that mallet
there, for she said to herself: "Suppose him and me was to be married,
and we was to have a son, and he was to grow up to be a man, and come
down into the cellar to draw the beer, like as I'm doing now, and the
mallet was to fall on his head and kill him, what a dreadful thing it
would be!" And she put down the candle and the jug, and sat herself
down and began a-crying.

Well, they began to wonder upstairs how it was that she was so long
drawing the beer, and her mother went down to see after her, and she
found her sitting on the settle crying, and the beer running over the
floor. "Why, whatever is the matter?" said her mother. "Oh, mother!"
says she, "look at that horrid mallet! Suppose we was to be married,