“‘Mother, I will,’ says he.
“‘And will you take a big cake with my curse, or a little cake with my blessing?’ says she.
“‘A big cake, sure,’ says he.
“So she baked a big cake and cursed him, and he went away laughing! By and by, he came forninst a spring in the woods, and sat down to eat his dinner off the cake, and a small, little bird sat on the edge of the spring.
“‘Give me a bit of your cake for my little ones in the nest,’ said she; and he caught up a stone and threw at her.
“‘I’ve scarce enough for myself,’ says he, and she being a fairy, put her beak in the spring and turned it black as ink, and went away up in the trees. And whiles he looked for a stone for to kill her, a fox went away with his cake!
“So he went away from that place very mad, and next day he stopped, very hungry, at a farmer’s house, and hired out for to tend the cows.
“‘Be wise,’ says the farmer’s wife, ‘for the next field is belonging to a giant, and if the cows get into the clover, he will kill you dead as a stone.’
“But the bad son laughed and went out to watch the cows; and before noontime he went to sleep up in the tree, and the cows all went in the clover. And out comes the giant and shook him down out of the tree and killed him dead, and that was the end of the bad son.
“And the next year the poor widow woman says to the good son:—