“Right you are!” cried the giant gleefully, “and that’s just what I’ll do to you!”

So he got a sack and put Molly into it with the dog and the cat, and the needle and thread and the shears, and hung her on a nail in the wall, and went out to the wood to choose a stick.

Then Molly Whuppie began to laugh like anything, and the dog joined in with barks, and the cat with mews.

Now the giant’s wife was sitting in the next room, and when she heard the commotion she went in to see what was up.

“Whatever is the matter?” quoth she.

“Nothing, ’m,” quoth Molly Whuppie from inside the sack, laughing like anything.  “Ho, ho!  Ha, ha!  If you saw what we see you’d laugh too.  Ho, ho!  Ha, ha!”

And no matter how the giant’s wife begged to know what she saw, there never was any answer but, “Ho, ho!  Ha, ha!  Could ye but see what I see!!!”

At last the giant’s wife begged Molly to let her see, so Molly took the shears, cut a hole in the sack, jumped out, helped the giant’s wife in, and sewed up the hole!  For of course she hadn’t forgotten to take out the needle and thread with her.

Now, just at that very moment, the giant burst in, and Molly had barely time to hide behind the door before he rushed at the sack, tore it down, and began to batter it with a huge tree he had cut in the wood.

“Stop! stop!” cried his wife.  “It’s me!  It’s me!”

But he couldn’t hear, for, see you, the dog and the cat had tumbled one on the top of the other, and such a growling and spitting, and yelling and caterwauling you never heard!  It was fair deafening, and the giant would have gone on battering till his wife was dead had he not caught sight of Molly Whuppie escaping with the ring which he had left on the table.

Well, he threw down the tree and ran after her.  Never was such a race.  They ran, and they ran, and they ran, and they ran, until they came to the One Hair Bridge.  And then, balancing herself with the ring like a hoop, Molly Whuppie sped over the bridge light as a feather, but the giant had to stand on the other side, and shake his fist at her, and cry louder than ever: 

“Woe worth you, Molly Whuppie!  Never you dare to come again!”

And she, turning her head back as she sped, laughed gaily: 

“Never more, gaffer, will I come to the castle in the air!”

So she took the ring to the King, and she and the handsome young prince were married, and no one ever saw the double-faced giant again.

THE ASS, THE TABLE, AND THE STICK

A lad named Jack was once so unhappy at home through his father’s ill-treatment, that he made up his mind to run away and seek his fortune in the wide world.