Hookedy-Crookedy put his head in her lap, and she combed out a bushel of gold and silver and when he stood up again, she saw Hookedy-Crookedy no more, but instead the beautiful prince that had been trying to win her in her father’s drawing-room for the last three days; and then and there to her Jack told his whole story, and it’s Yellow Rose who is the delighted girl.
With little delay they were married. The wedding lasted a year and a day, and there were five hundred fiddlers, five hundred fluters and a thousand fifers at it, and the last day was better than the first.
Shortly after the marriage, Jack and his bride were out walking one day. A beautiful young woman crossed their path. Jack addressed her, but she gave him a very curt reply.
“Your manners are not so handsome as your looks,” said Jack to her.
“And bad as they are, they are better than your memory, Hookedy-Crookedy,” says she.
“What do you mean?” says Jack.
She led Jack aside, and she told him, “I am the mare who was so good to you. I was condemned to that shape for a number of years, and now my enchantment is over. I had a brother who was enchanted into a bear, and whose enchantment is over now also. I had hopes,” she says, “that some day you would be my husband, but I see,” she says, “that you quickly forgot all about me. No matter now,” she says; “I couldn’t wish you a better and handsomer wife than you have got. Go home to your castle, and be happy and live prosperous. I shall never see you, and you will never see me again.”
Donal That Was Rich and Jack That Was Poor
ONCE there were two brothers named Donal and Jack. Donal was hired by a rich man who had one daughter, and when his master died, he married the daughter.