J. F. Campbell Collection > Fireside stories of Ireland

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THE FALSE BEIDE.
There was once a king and a queen that loved each other
very much, and they had a beautiful and kindly disposi-
tioned daughter. But the queen was taken ill, and when
she was dying she called her daughter alone to her bed-
side, and fastened a woven ring of hair, and silk, and gold
thread on her left arm, just under her shoulder, and said,
" Now, my dear daughter, you must be very careful not
to let any womankind get possession of that ring. It
was given to me by a good fairy when you Avere an ?nfant,
and she said that as long as you wore it, no one could do
you any real harm. But if once it was taken from you,
she that took it would command you in every way, and if
she was as ugly as sin, you should take her appearance, and
It was m her power to take yours, the moment the chancre
was made." '^
When the queen was dead, one lady of the court, who
had rather an ugly looking daughter, became very loving
to the young princess, and she spoke of the king^s loss so
feehngly, and piried him so much, that the princess thought
it would be the finest thing in the world if her father would
make her his second wife. So she was evermore speaking
of the lady's goodness of heart, and nice manners, and she
plagued her father so, that to get rid of the bother he
married the cunning lady at last. The first dinner they all
took together, the new queen gave wine to the princess,
and water to her own giri ; the next, she gave them both
wme, and the third, the poor princess had to put up with
water. By degrees she turned her father very much against
her, telKng him all manner of lies and stories, and when
there were great parties she would not be allowed to join
in them, because the young nobles and princes would dance
oftener with her, and entertain her with discourse much
oftener than her step- sister, for this one had a bad temper
as well as an ugly face.
So the poor young lady spent a great deal of her time in
her chamber, or when the weather was fine, out in the park,
sometimes walking, and sometimes sitting under the trees
and doing needle-work. One day she was hemming a