IV. Three Feathers

Once upon a time there was a girl who was married to a husband that she never saw. And the way this was, was that he was only at home at night, and would never have any light in the house. The girl thought that was funny, and all her friends told her there must be something wrong with her husband, some great deformity that made him want not to be seen.

Well, one night when he came home she suddenly lit a candle and saw him. He was handsome enough to make all the women of the world fall in love with him. But scarcely had she seen him when he began to change into a bird, and then he said: ‘Now you have seen me, you shall see me no more, unless you are willing to serve seven years and a day for me, so that I may become a man once more.’ Then he told her to take three feathers from under his side, and whatever she wished through them would come to pass. Then he left her at a great house to be laundry-maid for seven years and a day.

And the girl used to take the feathers and say: ‘By power of my three feathers may the copper be lit, and the clothes washed, and ironed, and folded, and put away to the missis’s satisfaction.’

And then she had no more care about it. The feathers did the rest, and the lady had never had a better laundress. Well, one day the butler, who decided to have the pretty laundry-maid for his wife, said to her, he should have spoken before but he did not want to annoy her. ‘Why should it when we work together?’ the girl said. And then he felt free to go on, and explain his master is to pay him seventy pounds, and how would she like him for a husband.

And the girl told him to bring her the money, and he asked his master for it, and brought it to her. But as they were going upstairs, she cried ‘O John, I must go back, sure I’ve left my shutters undone, and they’ll be slashing and banging all night.’

The butler said, ‘Never you trouble, I’ll put them right’, and he ran back, while she took her feathers, and said: ‘By power of my three feathers may the shutters slash and bang till morning, and John neither be able to fasten them nor get his fingers free from them.’

And so it was. The butler neither could leave the shutters, nor keep the shutters from opening as he closed them. And he was angry, but could not help himself, and he did not care to tell of it and get the laugh on him, so no one knew.

Then after a bit the coachman began to notice her, and she found he had forty pounds with the master, and he said she might have it if she would take him with it.

So after the laundry-maid had his money in her apron as they went together, she stopped, exclaiming: ‘My clothes are left outside, I must run back and bring them in.’ ‘Stop for me while I go; it is a cold frosty night,’ said William, ‘you’d be catching your death.’ So the girl waited long enough to take her feathers out and say, ‘By power of my three feathers may the clothes slash and blow about till morning, and may William neither be able to take his hand from them nor gather them up.’ And then she was away to bed and to sleep.

The coachman did not want to be laughed at, and he said nothing. So after a while, the footman comes to her and said: ‘I have been with my master for years and have saved up a good bit, and you have been three years here, and must have saved up as well. Let us put it together, and make us a home or else stay on at service as you wish.’ Well, she got him to bring the savings to her as the others had, and then she pretended she was faint, and said to him: ‘James, I don’t feel well, run down for me and fetch me up a drop of brandy.’ Now no sooner had he started than she said: ‘By power of my three feathers may there be slashing and spilling, and James neither be able to pour the brandy straight nor take his hand from it until morning.’

And so it was. James could not get his glass filled, and there was slashing and spilling, and also down came the master to know what it meant! So James told him he could not make it out, but he could not get the drop of brandy the laundry-maid had asked for, and his hand would shake and spill everything.

When the master got back to his wife he said: ‘What has come over the men, they were all right until that laundry-maid came. Something is up now. They have all drawn out their pay, and yet they don’t leave, and what can it be anyway?’

But his wife said she could not hear of the laundry-maid being blamed, for she was the best servant she had and worth all the rest put together.

So it went on until one day as the girl stood in the hall door, the coachman happened to say to the footman: ‘Do you know how that girl served me, James?’ And then William told about the clothes. The butler put in, ‘That was nothing to what she served me,’ and he told of the shutters clapping all night.

Just then the master came through the hall, and the girl said: ‘By power of my three feathers may there be slashing and striving between master and men, and may all get splashed in the pond.’

And so it was, the men argued which had suffered the most by her, and when the master came up all would be heard at once and none listened to him, and they had shoved one another into the pond.

When the girl thought they had had enough she took the spell off, and the master asked her what had begun the fight, for he had not heard in the confusion.

And the girl said: ‘They were ready to fall on anyone; they’d have beat me if you had not come by.’

So it went on, and through her feathers she made the best laundress ever known. But to make a long story short, when the seven years and a day were up, the bird-husband, who had known her doings all along, came after her, restored to his own shape again. And he told her mistress he had come to take her from being a servant, and that she should have servants under her. But he did not tell of the feathers.

And then he bade her give the men back their savings.

‘That was a rare game you had with them,’ said he, ‘but now you are going where there is plenty, leave them each their own.’ So she did; and they went to their castle, where they lived happy ever after.

V. The Three Cows

There was a farmer, and he had three cows, fine fat cows. One was called Facey, the other Diamond, and the third Beauty. One morning he went into his cowshed, and there he found Facey so thin that the wind would have blown her away. Her skin hung loose about her, all her flesh was gone, and she stared out of her great eyes as though she’d seen a ghost; and what was more, the fireplace in the kitchen was one great pile of wood-ash. Well, he was bothered with it; he could not see how all this could happen.

Next morning his wife went out to the shed, and saw that Diamond became as thin as Facey – nothing but a bag of bones, all the flesh gone, and half a rick of wood was gone, too; but the fireplace was full of white wood ashes. The farmer decided to watch the third night; so he hid in a closet next to the kitchen, and he left the door slightly open, that he might see what happened.

Tick, tick, went the clock, and the farmer was nearly tired of waiting; he had to bite his little finger to keep himself awake, when suddenly the door of his house opened, and in rushed maybe a thousand pixies, laughing and dancing and pulling Beauty’s rope till they had brought the cow into the middle of the kitchen.

Tick, tick, went the clock, but he did not hear it now. He was staring at the pixies and his last beautiful cow. He saw them throw her down, fall on her, and kill her; and then with their knives they ripped her open, and cut off all the meat. Then out ran some of the little people and brought in firewood and made a roaring fire on the hearth, and there they cooked the flesh of the cow – they baked and they boiled, they stewed and they fried.

‘Take care,’ cried one, who seemed to be the king, ‘let no bone be broken.’

Well, when they had all eaten, they began playing games with the bones, tossing them one to another. One little leg-bone fell close to the closet door, and the farmer was so afraid that the pixies should come there and find him in their search for the bone, that he put out his hand and picked it up. Then he saw the king stand on the table and say, ‘Gather the bones!’

Round and round flew the imps, picking up the bones. ‘Arrange them,’ said the king; and they placed them all in their proper positions in the hide of the cow. Then they folded the skin over them, and the king struck the pile of bone and skin with his rod. Whisht! Up sprang the cow and lowed dismally. It was alive again; but alas! as the pixies dragged it back to the cowshed, it halted, because a bone was missing. The cock crew, away they flew, and the farmer went trembling to bed.