The next day - Saturday - William was given a joint of meat. He tied a piece of string round the meat and dragged it along behind him. By the time he got home the meat was covered with dirt and was completely spoilt. His mother said: “You should have carried it on your shoulder.”
The next day - Sunday - William and his mother stayed at home.
On Monday - William went to work for another farmer. At the end of the day the farmer gave him a donkey. With difficulty, William put the donkey on his shoulder and started to walk slowly home. Now, in a nearby castle lived a Princess who had never spoken and never smiled. Her father had promised that the first person to make her smile, could marry her. And, yes, you’ve guessed! As William passed by carrying the donkey, the Princess saw him and laughed, and shouted - she had never seen such a funny sight before.
When William saw the Princess, he fell in love with her at once. And so, William and the Princess were married and lived happily ever after.
12 - THE STORY OF THE FIVE SKEINS (Part I)
This is the story about a girl who couldn’t spin and about what happened to her. She lived with her mother. One day her mother baked five pies and left them outside to get cool. Her daughter came along and ate them all. Wonder why she had such a greedy daughter, her mother sat down to spin and as she sat by her spinning wheel, she sang a song about it: “My daughter has eaten five pies today.”
As she sang, the King came riding by and asked her what she was singing. She didn’t want him to know that her daughter had eaten five pies, so she changed the words of her song: “My daughter has spun five skins today.”
The King was very impressed. He said to the girl’s mother: “I want a wife and I’ll marry your daughter. For eleven months of the year she can have all the food she likes to eat, and all the clothes she likes to wear and all the parties she likes to have, but in the last month of the year she’ll have to spin five skeins every day, and if she doesn’t, I’ll cut off her head.”
The girl’s mother agreed to the marriage. But when she told her daughter the conditions of the marriage, she was horrified, because she couldn’t spin. But her mother said: “Don’t worry. When the time comes, you’ll think of something. Anyway, by then the King will probably have forgotten.”
So the King and the girl were married. For eleven months the girl was very happy but on the last day of the eleventh month, the King took the girl to a room. Inside the room there was only a spinning wheel and a chair. The King said: “Tomorrow you’ll be shut in here with some food and some flax all day and if you haven’t spun five skeins by the evening, your head’ll come off!”
THE STORY OF THE FIVE SKEINS (Part II)
The girl was so frightened, she didn’t know what to do and she sat down and cried. Then all of a sudden she heard a knocking sound low down on the door and she got up and opened the door. And there was a little creature with a long tail. “Why are you crying?”, it said. And the girl told the little creature the whole story, right from the beginning. It listened very carefully and when she had finished, it twirled its tail and said: “I can help you. This is what I’ll do. Listen carefully. I’ll come to your window every morning and take the flax and I’ll spin five skeins for you and bring them back at night.”
“But what do you want in return?” she asked. “You have to guess my name,” the little creature replied. “I’ll give you three guesses every night. And if you haven’t guessed my name by the end of the month, then you’ll be mine. Now, what do you say?”
The girl thought she would be sure to guess its name by the end of the month, so she agreed. And the little creature twirled its tail and looked at the girl out of the corner of its eye. The girl didn’t like the look of it at all, but what else could she do?
Уважаемый посетитель!
Чтобы распечатать файл, скачайте его (в формате Word).
Ссылка на скачивание - внизу страницы.