and sat down to eat his
dinner off the cake, and a small, little bird sat on the edge of the
spring.

"`Give me a bit of your cake for my little ones in the nest,' said she;
and he caught up a stone and threw at her.

"`I've scarce enough for myself,' says he, and she being a fairy, put
her beak in the spring and turned it black as ink, and went away up in
the trees. And whiles he looked for a stone for to kill her, a fox went
away with his cake!

"So he went away from that place very mad, and next day he stopped, very
hungry, at a farmer's house, and hired out for to tend the cows.

"`Be wise,' says the farmer's wife, `for the next field is belonging to
a giant, and if the cows get into the clover, he will kill you dead as a
stone.'

"But the bad son laughed and went out to watch the cows; and before
noontime he went to sleep up in the tree, and the cows all went in the
clover. And out comes the giant and shook him down out of the tree and
killed him dead, and that was the end of the bad son.

"And the next year the poor widow woman says to the good son:--

"`You must go out into the wide world and seek your fortune, for I can
keep you no longer,' says the Mother.

"`Mother, I will,' says he.

"`And will you take a big cake with my curse or a little cake with my
blessing?'

"`A little cake,' says he.

"So she baked it for him and gave him her blessing, and he went away,
and she a-weeping after him fine and loud. And by and by he came to the
same spring in the woods where the bad son was before him, and the
small, little bird sat again on the side of it.

"`Give me a bit of your cakeen for my little ones in the nest,' says
she.

"`I will,' says the good son, and he broke her off a fine piece, and she
dipped her beak in the spring and turned it into sweet wine; and when he
bit into his cake, sure, it was turned into fine plum-cake entirely; and
he ate and drank and went on light-hearted. And next day he comes to
the farmer's house.

"`Will ye tend the cows for me?' says the farmer.

"`I will,' says the good son.

"`Be wise,' says the farmer's wife, `for the clover-field beyond is
belonging to a giant, and if you leave in the cows, he will kill you
dead.'

"`Never fear,' says the good son, `I don't sleep at my work.'

"And he goes out in the field and lugs a big stone up in the tree, and
then sends every cow far out in the clover-fields and goes back again to
the tree! And out comes the gian