THE WELL OF THE WORLD’S END

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, though it wasn’t in my time, nor in your time, nor any one else’s time, there was a girl whose mother had died, and her father had married again.  And her stepmother hated her because she was more beautiful than she was.  And she was very cruel to her; she used to make her do all the servant’s work, and never let her have any peace.  At last, one day, the stepmother thought to get rid of her altogether; so she handed her a sieve and said to her: 

“Go, fill it at the Well of the World’s End and bring it home to me full, or woe betide you.”  For she thought she would never be able to find the Well of the World’s End, and, if she did, how could she bring home a sieve full of water?

Well, the girl started off, and asked every one she met to tell her where was the Well of the World’s End.  But nobody knew, and she didn’t know what to do, when a queer little old woman, all bent double, told her where it was, and how she could get to it.  So she did what the old woman told her, and at last arrived at the Well of the World’s End.  But when she dipped the sieve in the cold cold water, it all ran out again.  She tried and she tried again, but every time it was the same; and at last she sate down and cried as if her heart would break.

Suddenly she heard a croaking voice, and she looked up and saw a great frog with goggle eyes looking at her and speaking to her.

“What’s the matter, dearie?” it said.

“Oh dear! oh dear!” she said, “my stepmother has sent me all this long way to fill this sieve with water from the Well of the World’s End, and I can’t fill it no how at all.”

“Well,” said the frog, “if you promise me to do whatever I bid you for a whole night long, I’ll tell you how to fill it.”

So the girl agreed, and then the frog said: 

  “Stop it with moss and daub it with clay,
   And then it will carry the water away”;

and then it gave a hop, skip, and jump, and went flop into the Well of the World’s End.

So the girl looked about for some moss, and lined the bottom of the sieve with it, and over that she put some clay, and then she dipped it once-again into the Well of the World’s End; and this time the water didn’t run out, and she turned to go away.

Just then the frog popped up its head out of the Well of the World’s End, and said, “Remember your promise.”

“All right,” said the girl; for, thought she, “what harm can a frog do me?”

So she went back to her stepmother, and brought the sieve full of water from the Well of the World’s End.  The stepmother was angry as angry, but she said nothing at all.

That very evening they heard something tap-tapping at the door low down, and a voice cried out: 

  “Open the door, my hinny, my heart,
     Open the door, my own darling;
   Remember the words that you and I spoke,
     At the World’s End Well but this morning.”