now only one.
"Kywitt! Kywitt! what a beautiful bird am I!"
Then the last man stopped too, and heard the last word.
"Bird," said he, "how beautifully you sing! Please to sing me that song once more."
"No," answered the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing; give me the millstone, and I will sing it again."
"Yes," said he, "if it belonged to me only, you should have it."
"Yes," cried all the others, "if he sings it again, he shall have it."
Then the bird came down, and all the twenty millers took poles, and lifted the stone up. The bird stuck his neck through the hole in the millstone, and put it on like a collar, and flew back to the tree, and sang—
"My mother, she killed me;
My father, he ate me;
My sister, little Margery,
Gathered up all my bones,
Tied them in a silk handkerchief,
And laid them under the Juniper-tree:
Kywitt! Kywitt! what a beautiful bird am I!"
And when he had done singing, he opened his wings, and though he had in his right claw the chain, in his left the shoes, and round his neck the millstone, he flew far away to his father's house.