Then he called out to the Fire: “Oh! kind Fire, don't boil the water.” But the Fire replied: “You once let my young sisters die: you cannot expect any mercy from me.” So he flared up and boiled the water all the faster.
At last, when the cock got unpleasantly warm, he thought of the wind, and called out: “Oh, Wind, come to my help!” and the Wind said: “Why, there is that noble domestic bird in trouble. I will help him.” So he came down the chimney, blew out the fire, blew the lid off the pot, and blew the cock far away into the air, and at last settled him on a steeple, where the cock has remained ever since. And people say that the halfpence which were in the pot when it was boiling have given him the queer brown colour he still wears.
From the Spanish.
Snegourka.
There lived once, in Russia, a peasant and his wife who would have been as happy as the day is long, if only God had given them a little child.
One day, as they were watching the children playing in the snow, the man said to the woman:
“Wife, shall we go out and help the children to make a snowball?”
But the wife answered, smiling:
“Nay, husband, but since God has given us no little child, let us go and fashion one from the snow.”
And she put on her long blue cloak, and he put on his long brown coat, and they went out onto the crisp snow, and began to fashion the little child.