‘But I wasn’t going to take you to the goog,’ said Gerna. ‘I should let you out first, of course.’
‘It is very kind of you to say so,’ said the little voice, with a tremble in it. ‘But you would not be able to open this purse, which, by the way, is not a purse at all, but a prison.’
‘I guess I could,’ cried the child. ‘My hands are ever so strong, and if they can get limpets off the rocks, they can open this tiny little thing, I’m sure. I’ll open it now, this very minute.’
Her strong young fingers began tugging at the end of the bag, but to her surprise she could not open it.
After working for ten minutes or more, she gave up in despair.
‘I told you so,’ said the tiny voice sadly. ‘Much stronger fingers than yours could not open this prison-bag, and no knife, however sharp, could cut its skin.’
‘Why could it not?’ asked the little maid.
‘Because a spell has been worked upon it,’ the wee voice answered.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Gerna.
‘When Hager put me here,’ explained the voice, ‘he was so afraid the dear Little People, and those who loved me, would discover where he had put me, and find out a way to release me, that he made it impossible by an evil spell that anybody—even himself—should be able to set me free for ninety-nine years three hundred and sixty-five days, unless a very poor little girl could be found who had no love of gold in her soul, nor any greed for riches, and who, out of the deep pity of a kind little heart, would be willing to carry me for love’s sake, in the dead of night, through a great bog haunted by hobgoblins, over a lonely moor to where a Tolmên[5] stands, and pass me three times through the Tolmên’s hole before the sun rises, and then lay me on its top, so that the first ray of the rising sun might smite upon the bag. This will break the spell and set me free.’