English Fairy Tales / Английские сказки

However, the wizard kept on offering her more and more for it, until at last the gold ring grew frightened, and changed itself into a grain of barley, which fell on the ground. The man then turned into a hen, and began to search for the grain of barley, but this again changed itself to a pole-cat, and took off the hen’s head with a single snap.

The wizard was now dead, the pole-cat put on human shape, and the youth afterwards married the girl, and from that time forward let all his magic arts alone.

The King of Waterfalls

When the young king of Easaidh Ruadh came into his kingdom, the first thing he thought of was how he could amuse himself best. The sports that all his life had pleased him best suddenly seemed to have grown dull, and he wanted to do something he had never done before. At last his face brightened.

�I know!’ he said. �I will go and play a game with the Gruagach.’ Now the Gruagach was a kind of wicked fairy, with long curly brown hair, and his house was not very far from the king’s house.

But though the king was young and eager, he was also prudent, and his father had told him on his deathbed to be very careful in his dealings with the �good people,’ as the fairies were called. Therefore before going to the Gruagach the king sought out a wise man of the countryside.

�I am wanting to play a game with the curly-haired Gruagach,’ said he.

�Are you, indeed?’ replied the wizard. �If you will take my counsel, you will play with someone else.

�No; I will play with the Gruagach,’ persisted the king.

�Well, if you must, you must, I suppose,’ answered the wizard; �but if you win that game, ask as a prize the ugly crop-headed girl that stands behind the door.’

�I will,’ said the king.

So before the sun rose he got up and went to the house of the Gruagach, who was sitting outside.

�O king, what has brought you here to-day?’ asked the Gruagach.

�That is just what I want,’ said the king, and they played; and sometimes it seemed as if one would win, and sometimes the other, but in the end it was the king who was the winner.

�And what is the prize that you will choose?’ inquired the Gruagach.

�The ugly crop-headed girl that stands behind the door,’ replied the king.