“Give yourself no concern about it,” said the wife, “you’ll have it back, all spun and woven, by the first day of summer.”
As he never could get any other answer, he at last ceased to talk about the wool. All this time his wife was trying to find out the old woman’s name, but all her efforts were unavailing. By the time the last month of winter came round she became so anxious and uneasy that she could neither eat nor sleep. Her husband was greatly distressed at the change which had come over her, and begged her to let him know what ailed her. Unable longer to keep the matter secret, she told him the whole.
He was very much startled at what he heard, and told her how very imprudent she had been, as the old woman was, most certainly, a witch, and would take her away if she failed in her bargain.
A day or two after this conversation, he had occasion to go up the adjoining mountain. He was so bowed down with grief, at the thought of losing his wife, that he scarcely knew what he was about; and so wandered from the road, till he came to the bottom of a lofty cliff. While he was considering how he could get into the right road again, he thought he heard a sound as of a voice inside the hill. Following the sound he discovered a hole in the face of the cliff. On peeping through this hole, he saw a tall old woman sitting weaving with the loom between her knees; and, as she beat the treadles, every now and then breaking into a snatch of song,
“Ha! Ha! and Ho! Ho!
The good wife does not know
That Gilitrutt is my name.”
“Aha!” muttered the peasant to himself, “if she does not know now, she will know bye and bye;” for he felt quite sure that was the same old hag who had so imposed on his poor foolish wife.
All the way home, he kept repeating the word Gilitrutt, and, as soon as he got in doors, he wrote it down on a piece of paper, that he might not forget it. But he did not, at that time, give his wife the least inkling of what had befallen him. The poor woman grew more and more sorrowful, as the days passed on; and, when the closing day of winter came, she was so woe-begone that she had not the heart even to put on her clothes. In the course of the day, her husband enquired if she had found out her visitor’s name yet.
“Alas, no! Would to God I could find it out! for I am like to die of grief.”