When the king had come back Gobborn told him he had been unable to complete the job for lack of a tool left at home, and he should like to send Jack after it.

“No, no,” said the king, “cannot one of the men do the errand?”

“No, they could not make themselves understood,” said the Seer, “but Jack could do the errand.”

“You and your son are to stop here.  But how will it do if I send my own son?”

“That will do.”

So Gobborn sent by him a message to Jack’s wife.  “Give him Crooked and Straight!”

Now there was a little hole in the wall rather high up, and Jack’s wife tried to reach up into a chest there after “crooked and straight,” but at last she asked the king’s son to help her, because his arms were longest.

But when he was leaning over the chest she caught him by the two heels, and threw him into the chest, and fastened it down.  So there he was, both “crooked and straight!”

Then he begged for pen and ink, which she brought him, but he was not allowed out, and holes were bored that he might breathe.

When his letter came, telling the king, his father, he was to be let free when Gobborn and Jack were safe home, the king saw he must settle for the building, and let them come away.

As they left Gobborn told him:  Now that Jack was done with this work, he should soon build a castle for his witty wife far superior to the king’s, which he did, and they lived there happily ever after.

Lawkamercyme

     There was an old woman, as I’ve heard tell. 
     She went to the market her eggs for to sell;
     She went to the market, all on a market-day,
     And she fell asleep on the king’s highway.

     There came by a pedlar, whose name was Stout,
     He cut her petticoats round about;
     He cut her petticoats up to the knees,
     Which made the old woman to shiver and freeze.

     When this old woman first did wake,
     She began to shiver, and she began to shake;
     She began to wonder, and she began to cry—­
     “Lawkamercyme, this is none of I!”

     “But if it be I, as I do hope it be,
     I’ve a little dog at home, and he’ll know me;
     If it be I, he’ll wag his little tail,
     And if it be not I, he’ll loudly bark and wail.”

     Home went the little woman, all in the dark;
     Up got the little dog, and he began to bark;
     He began to bark, so she began to cry—­
     “Lawkamercyme, this is none of I!”

Tattercoats

In a great Palace by the sea there once dwelt a very rich old lord, who had neither wife nor children living, only one little granddaughter, whose face he had never seen in all her life.  He hated her bitterly, because at her birth his favourite daughter died; and when the old nurse brought him the baby, he swore, that it might live or die as it liked, but he would never look on its face as long as it lived.