“Because I want to go back to my father,” she said.
The dog said, “If you will promise me that you will not stay at home more than three days I will take you there. But first of all,” said he, “what do you call me?”
“A great, foul, small-tooth dog,” said she.
“Then,” said he, “I will not let you go.”
But she cried so pitifully that he promised again to take her home. “But before we start,” said he, “tell me what you call me.”
“Oh!” said she, “your name is Sweet-as-a-honeycomb.”
“Jump on my back,” said he, “and I’ll take you home.” So he trotted away with her on his back for forty miles, when they came to a stile.
“And what do you call me?” said he, before they got over the stile.
Thinking that she was safe on her way, the girl said, “A great, foul, small-tooth dog.” But when she said this, he did not jump over the stile, but turned right round about at once, and galloped back to his own house with the girl on his back.
Another week went by, and again the girl wept so bitterly that the dog promised to take her to her father’s house. So the girl got on the dog’s back again, and they reached the first stile as before, and then the dog stopped and said, “And what do you call me?”
“Sweet-as-a-honeycomb,” she replied.
So the dog leaped over the stile, and they went on for twenty miles until they came to another stile.
“And what do you call me?” said the dog, with a wag of his tail.
She was thinking more of her own father and her own home than of the dog, so she answered, “A great, foul, small-tooth dog.”
Then the dog was in a great rage, and he turned right round about and galloped back to his own house as before. After she had cried for another week, the dog promised again to take her back to her father’s house. So she mounted upon his back once more, and when they got to the first stile, the dog said, “And what do you call me?”
“Sweet-as-a-honeycomb,” she said.
So the dog jumped over the stile, and away they went—for now the girl made up her mind to say the most loving things she could think of—until they reached her father’s house.
When they got to the door of the merchant’s house, the dog said, “And what do you call me?”
Just at that moment the girl forgot the loving things that she meant to say, and began, “A great . . .” but the dog began to turn, and she got fast hold of the door-latch, and was going to say “foul,” when she saw how grieved the dog looked and remembered how good and patient he had been with her, so she said, “Sweeter-than-a-honeycomb.”
When she had said this she thought the dog would have been content and have galloped away, but instead of that he suddenly stood up on his hind legs, and with his fore legs he pulled off his dog’s head, and tossed it high in the air. His hairy coat dropped off, and there stood the handsomest young man in the world, with the finest and smallest teeth you ever saw.
Of course they were married, and lived together happily.
2
The Green Lady
Printed by Alice B. Gomme in Folk-Lore, VII (1896), 411–14, “The Green Lady: A Folktale from Hertfordshire.” Lady Gomme heard the tale as a child from her nursemaid, Mary Ann Smith, who forgot some of the rhymes.
The story contains episodes I, V, VI, and VII from a celebrated international tale, Type 480, The Spinning-Women by the Spring. The Kind and the Unkind Girls. In Grimms’ Household Tales it is No. 24, “Frau Holle.” A full-length study has been published by Warren E. Roberts, The Tale of the Kind and Unkind Girls (Berlin, 1958), which examines over nine hundred versions. The distribution is densest in northern Europe, with Finland, Estonia, and Sweden each reporting over one hundred texts. It is well known in India; Folktales of Japan, a companion volume in this series, gives three examples (Nos. 33, 34, 35).
Baughman lists several shorter or longer English variants of Type 480: Addy, Household Tales, No. 10, “The Little Watercress Girl,” and No. 18, “The Glass Ball”; Henderson, Northern Counties (1879 ed.), pp. 349–50; Grice, North Country, “The Ji-Jaller Bag,” pp. 108–10. Hartland gives an 1823 chapbook version in English Fairy and other Folk Tales, “The Princess of Colchester,” pp. 20–24, reprinted by Jacobs in English Fairy Tales, pp. 232–37. A cante-fable text from Kentucky is reprinted in R. M. Dorson, Buying the Wind (Chicago, 1964), pp. 206–209.
Common motifs include G204, “Girl in service of witch”; Q42.1.1, “Child divides last loaf with fairy (witch, etc.)”; D1821.3.6, “Magic sight by looking through keyhole”; B470.1, “Small fish as helper”; and Q2, “Kind and unkind.”
ONCE UPON A time, there was an old man who had two daughters. Now one of these girls was a steady, decent girl, and the other was a stuck-up, proud, conceited piece; but the father liked her best, and she had the most to eat, and the best clothes to wear.
One day, the nice girl said to her father, “Father, give me a cake and a bottle of beer, and let me go and seek my fortune.”
So the father gave her a cake and a bottle of beer, and she went out to seek her fortune. After she had walked a weary while through the wood, she sat down by a tree to rest herself, and eat her cake and drink her beer. While she was eating, a little old man came by, and he said, “Little girl, little girl, what are you doing under my tree?”
She said, “I am going to seek my fortune, sir; I am very tired and hungry, and I am eating my dinner.”
The old man said, “Little girl, little girl, give me some dinner too.”
She said, “I have only a cake and a bottle of beer; if you like to have some of that, you may.”
The old man said he would; so he sat down and they ate the cake, and drank the beer all up. Then the little girl was going on further, and the old man said: “I will tell you where to seek your fortune. Go on further and further into the wood, until you come to a little old cottage, where the Green Lady lives. Knock at the door and when she opens it, tell her you’ve come to seek service. She will take you in; mind you be a good girl, and do all she tells you to do, and you’ll come to no harm.”
So the little girl thanked him kindly and went on her way. Presently she came to the little cottage in the wood, and she knocked at the door. Then the door was opened by a pretty Green Lady, who said, “Little girl, little girl, what do you want?”
“I’ve come to seek service, ma’am,” said the little girl.
“What can you do?” asked the Green Lady.
“I can bake and I can brew, and about the house all things can do,” said the little girl.
“Then come in,” said the Green Lady, and she took her into the kitchen. “Now,” said she, “you must be a very good girl; sweep the house well; make the dust fly; and mind you don’t look through the keyhole, or harm will befall you.”
The little girl swept the house and made the dust fly.
