“But I fancy many others can do your work as well, or better than you,” answered the gipsy. “What can your cups do when they are finished? I don’t hear you say anything to them, so I should think they would be stupid cups—only fit to drink out of.”
“And what else should they be for?” asked the potter angrily. “What do you mean by saying that you don’t hear me saying anything to my cups? I don’t think you know what you are talking about. It is nonsense, and you are talking nonsense.”
“My grandfather used to make pots on a wheel,” said the gipsy, and she laughed low, and showed her white teeth in the moonlight; “ah! but he knew how to do them, and he had charms to say to them when he threw them. And one of his cups would make you wise if you drank out of it, and another would give you your true love’s heart if she drank from it, and another would make you forget everything—yes, even your true love, and all your mirth and all your sorrow, and I think that was the best cup of all;” and again the gipsy laughed in the moonlight, and sang a little song to herself as she sat herself down before the potter.
“Now this is real child’s talk,” said the potter very impatiently. “’Tis easy to say your grandfather knew how to do all this, but why should I believe you? and because your grandfather may have been able to throw a bowl upon the wheel, that doesn’t make you know anything about the craft, or how it is done.”
“Nay, but he taught me too,” said the gipsy. “Give me a piece of your clay, and let me come to your wheel and you shall see.”
At first the potter thought she was talking nonsense, but to his great surprise she took hold of the clay in her little brown hands, and moulded and modelled it with the greatest skill. Then she placed it on the wheel and threw a little jug, and he wondered to see how deft she was.
“Now I will make you a little bowl,” she said, and then she made jugs and pots and jars, far more quickly and skilfully than the potter could have done. “And now I will colour them too,” she cried. “See, I shall catch the colour from the moon, and to-morrow you can put them into your kiln and bake them, and you may be sure that you have never had such pots there before.” Then she put her little brown hands out into the moonlight, and they were covered with rings which glittered and shone, but as she held up her palms to the moon’s rays, it seemed to the potter as if they too were full of some strange glittering liquid. “And now,” she said, “see, I will put it on to your pots, and I should think I had taught you that I know more about your trade than you do yourself.” And she took the pots in her hands and rubbed her palms over them, and she traced patterns on them with her fingers.
The potter looked at her and felt almost angry, but she only laughed in his face.
“And now one last thing,” she cried, “and that is, that I will make you a cup that has a spell in it, and it shall be a present for you to remember me by. It will be very plain, and there will be no gay colours in it, but when you give it to your true love to drink from, if once you have drunk from it yourself, you will have all her heart, but beware that she doesn’t take a second draught. For though the first draught that she drinks will be drunk to love, the second draught will be drunk to hate, and though she have loved you more than all else on earth, all her love will turn to hate when she drinks again. And as you are so ignorant how to make bowls and cups, you will not know how to fashion one so as to win back her love again.”
The potter stared in silence, while the gipsy took another bit of clay and placed it upon the wheel, and then she bent her head, which glittered with beads and coins, low over it, and placing her rosy lips close to the mouth of the cup, sang some words into it, while she moulded it with her hands, and turned the wheel with her foot. It was in some strange language that the potter had never heard before.