J. F. Campbell Collection > Fireside stories of Ireland

THE MAID IN THE COUNTRY UNDER GROUND. 37
on a green ridge, and when she woke she found herself
sitting by the well in the upper world. Her father was
glad to see her again, but the wicked women of the family
drove her to an out-house to take her meals and sleep.
Well, she swept it out, and brushed the cobwebs off the
walls, and then she sat down at a little table they gave her,
and opened her box to see what was inside. All the silk,
and gold, and silver, and jewels that were in it were enough
to dazzle anyone's eyes, and she began to hang the walls
with the silk curtains, and cover the floor with the fine
carpets, that grew in size according as they were wanted,
and then she was like a queen in her bower, with as much
gold, and silver, and jewels in her casket as she chose.
Oh, weren't the step-mother and her daughter in a bad
way when they came by chance into the room ! They
asked how she got all the fine things, and when she told
them, the daughter popped herself head foremost into the
well, and there she met all the same adventures as her
sister, but she was cross and impudent with every one, and
she had no one to help her milking the wicked cows, nor
dyeing the hanks, nor filling the sieve, and at last she chose
the gold casket, and when the hags sent her away after half
starving her, the ram and the cow pucked her with their
horns, and the apple tree had like to kill her with the load
of fruit it let fall on her, and the hedge wounded her with
its thorny boughs, and when she found herself by the well
in the upper world she was more dead than alive. It was
worse when she came home, and the gold casket waj?
opened, for out there swarmed toads, and frogs, and snakes,
that crept under the beds, and filled every corner of the
house ; and day after day new ones were coming out, and
making a purgatory on earth for herself and her mother.
The father was glad enough to be let live with his daughter,
and there was so much talk about it in the country that
the young king came to see the maiden. To make a long
story short, they were married, and if they didn't live happy
ever after, it surely wasn't the fault of the young queen.