But just as the Witch was dragging her to the stone a robin began to
sing on a branch outside the Stones. It was the same tune as
Bloom-of-Youth had sung her song to as she went through the wood. Now
all the words in her song came back to her.--

Spin, wheel, spin; sing, wheel, sing;
Every branch on the tree, spin, spin, spin;
The wool is hers, the thread is mine;
For loss of my heart's blood I'll never dwine!
Her name is Bolg and Curr and Carr,
Her name is Lurr and Lappie.

She said the last two names and as she did the Witch of the Elders
screamed and ran behind the stones. Bloom-of-Youth saw no more of her.

That evening her husband brought home the web of cloth that her
step-mother had woven. The next day Bloom-of-Youth began to make
clothes for him out of it. Never again did she make delays at the well
but she came straight home with her pails of water. The fire was
always clear upon the hearth and she had never to light it the second
time and then sweep away the ashes that had gathered on the floor. She
made good clothes for her husband out of the web of cloth her
step-mother had woven. And every evening she spun on her wheel and
there was never a time afterwards when she had not a dozen balls of
thread in the house.

The wool is hers and the thread is mine;
For loss of my heart's blood I never will dwine,
And I throw my ball over to you.

It was the Woodpecker that told this story to the Boy Who Knew What
the Birds Said.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Hen-wife's Son and the Princess Bright Brow]

The Hen-wife's Son and the Princess Bright Brow

[Illustration]

Everyone in and around the King's Castle despised Mell, the Hen-wife's
Son, said the Stonechecker, the bird that built within the stones of
the Tower. And it was not because there was anything mean about the
lad himself: it was because his mother, the Hen-wife, had the lowest
office about the King's Castle.

This is what a Hen-wife did: She had to mind the fowl and keep count
of them, she had to gather the eggs and put them into a basket and
send them to the King's Steward every day. And for doing this she had
as wages the right to go to the back-door of the Steward's house and
get from the under-servants two meals a day for herself and Mell, her
son.

And everybody, as I said, despised this son of hers--horse-boys and
dog-boys and the grooms around the Castle. But of course no one
des