The YELLOW FAIRY BOOK - online childrens book

Illustrated classic fairy tales for children by Andrew Lang

Home Main Menu Order Support About Search



Share page  


Previous Contents Next

THE BLUE MOUNTAINS
257
where the others were. He lay down on one of the beds and fell sound asleep. And now we must go back to the two that he left behind him in the wood.
When nightfall and the time of the wild beasts came upon these, the Englishman happened to climb up into the very same tree on which the Scotsman was when he got a sight of the castle ; and as soon as the day began to dawn and the Englishman looked to the four quarters of heaven, what did he see but the castle too! Off he went without saying a word to the Irishman, and everything happened to him just as it had done to the Scotsman.
The poor Irishman was now left all alone, and did not know where the others had gone to, so he just stayed where he was, very sad and miserable. "When night came he climbed up into the same tree as the Englishman had been on the night before. As soon as day came he also saw the castle, and set out towards it; but when he reached it he could see no signs of fire or living being about it. Before long, however, he heard the window opened above his head, looked up, and beheld the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He asked if she would give him food and drink, and she answered kindly and heartily that she would, if he would only come inside. This he did very willingly, and she set before him food and drink that he had never seen the like of before. In the room there was a bed, with diamond rings hanging at every loop of the curtains, and everything that was in the room besides astonished him so much that he actually forgot that he was hungry. When she saw that he was not eating at all, she asked him what he wanted yet, to which lie replied that ho would neither cat nor drink until he knew who she was, or where she came from, or who had put her I here.
' I shall tell you that,' said she. ' I am an enchanted Princess, and my father has promised that the man who' releases mo from tho spell shall have the third of his kingdom while lie is alive, and the whole of it after he is dead, and many mo as well. If ever L saw a man who looked likely to do this, you arc the one. I have been here for sixteen years now, and no one who ever came to the castle has asked mo who I was, except yourself. Every other man that has come, so long as I have been here, lies asleep in the room down there.'
'Tell me, then,' said the Irishman, 'what is tho spell that has been laid on you, and how you can be freed from it.'
' There is a little room there,' said the Prince I, ' and if I could
Previous Contents Next