She traveled away and away on before her, far further than I could tell you, and twice as far as you could tell me, until she came into a strange country, and going up to a little house, she found an old Hag living in it. The old Hag asked her where she was going. She said she was going to push her fortune.
Said the Hag: “How would you like to stay here with me, for I want a maid?”
“What will I have to do?” says she.
“You’ll have to wash me and dress me, and sweep the hearth clean; and on the peril of your life never look up the chimney,” said the Hag.
“All right,” she agreed to this.
The next day, when the Hag arose, she washed her and dressed her, and when the Hag went out she swept the hearth, and she thought it would be no harm to have one wee look up the chimney. And there what did she see but her own mother’s long leather bag of gold and silver? So she took it down at once, and getting it on her back, started away for home as fast as she could run.
But she had not gone far when she met a horse grazing in a field, and when he saw her, he said: “Rub me! Rub me! for I haven’t been rubbed these seven years.”
But she only struck him with a stick she had in her hand, and drove him out of her way.
She had not gone much further when she met the sheep, who said: “O, shear me! Shear me! for I haven’t been shorn in seven years.”
But she struck the sheep, and sent it scurrying out of her way.