“I love you as fresh meat loves salt!”

Now when her father heard this he was very angry, because he really loved her more than the others.

“What!” he said.  “If that is all you give me in return for all I’ve given you, out of my house you go.”  So there and then he turned her out of the home where she had been born and bred, and shut the door in her face.

Not knowing where to go, she wandered on, and she wandered on, till she came to a big fen where the reeds grew ever so tall and the rushes swayed in the wind like a field of corn.  There she sate down and plaited herself an overall of rushes and a cap to match, so as to hide her fine clothes, and her beautiful golden hair that was all set with milk-white pearls.  For she was a wise girl, and thought that in such lonely country, mayhap, some robber might fall in with her and kill her to get her fine clothes and jewels.

It took a long time to plait the dress and cap, and while she plaited she sang a little song: 

  “Hide my hair, O cap o’ rushes,
   Hide my heart, O robe o’ rushes. 
   Sure! my answer had no fault,
   I love him more than he loves salt.”

And the fen birds sate and listened and sang back to her: 

  “Cap o’ rushes, shed no tear,
   Robe o’ rushes, have no fear;
   With these words if fault he’d find,
   Sure your father must be blind.”

When her task was finished she put on her robe of rushes and it hid all her fine clothes, and she put on the cap and it hid all her beautiful hair, so that she looked quite a common country girl.  But the fen birds flew away, singing as they flew: 

  “Cap-o-rushes! we can see,
   Robe o’ rushes! what you be,
   Fair and clean, and fine and tidy,
   So you’ll be whate’er betide ye.”

By this time she was very, very hungry, so she wandered on, and she wandered on; but ne’er a cottage or a hamlet did she see, till just at sun-setting she came on a great house on the edge of the fen.  It had a fine front door to it; but mindful of her dress of rushes she went round to the back.  And there she saw a strapping fat scullion washing pots and pans with a very sulky face.  So, being a clever girl, she guessed what the maid was wanting, and said: 

“If I may have a night’s lodging, I will scrub the pots and pans for you.”

“Why!  Here’s luck,” replied the scullery-maid, ever so pleased.  “I was just wanting badly to go a-walking with my sweetheart.  So if you will do my work you shall share my bed and have a bite of my supper.  Only mind you scrub the pots clean or cook will be at me.”

Now next morning the pots were scraped so clean that they looked like new, and the saucepans were polished like silver, and the cook said to the scullion, “Who cleaned these pots?  Not you, I’ll swear.”  So the maid had to up and out with the truth.  Then the cook would have turned away the old maid and put on the new, but the latter would not hear of it.