her, the poor forgotten wife sat beside a well, and when night
came she climbed into an oak-tree, and slept amongst the
branches. There was a shoemaker who lived near the well, and
next day he sent his wife to fetch water, and as she drew it she
saw what she fancied to be her own reflection in the water, but
it was really the likeness of the maiden in the tree above it.
The shoemaker's wife, however, thinking it was her own, imagined
herself to be very handsome, and so she went back and told the
shoemaker that she was too beautiful to be his thrall, or slave,
any longer, and so she went off. The same thing happened to the
shoemaker's daughter; and she went off too. Then the man himself
went to the well, and saw the maiden in the tree, and understood
it all, and asked her to come down and stay at his house, and to
be his daughter. So she went with him. After a while there came
three gentlemen from the King's Court, and each of them wanted
to marry her; and she agreed with each of them privately, on
condition that each should give a sum of money for a wedding
gift. Well, they agreed to this, each unknown to the other; and
she married one of them, but when he came and had paid the
money, she gave him a cup of water to hold, and there he had to
stand, all night long, unable to move or to let go the cup of
water, and in the morning he went away ashamed, but said nothing
to his friends. Next night it was the turn of the second; and
she told him to see that the door-latch was fastened; and when
he touched the latch he could not let it go, and had to stand
there all night holding it; and so he went away, and said
nothing. The next night the third came, and when he stepped upon
the floor, one foot stuck so fast that he could not draw it out
until morning; and then he did the same as the others--went off
quite cast down. And then the maiden gave all the money to the