GRUMBLEGIZZARD.
"Once on a time there were five goodies, who were all reaping in a field; they were all childless, and all wished to have a bairn. All at once they set eyes on a strangely big goose-egg, almost as big as a man's head.
"'I saw it first,' said one.
"'I saw it just as soon as you,' screamed another.
"'Heaven help me, but I will have it,' swore the third; 'I was the first to see it.'
"So they flocked round it and squabbled so much about the egg that they were tearing one another's hair. But at last they agreed that they would own it in common, all five of them, and each was to sit on it in turn like a goose, and so hatch the gosling. The first lay sitting eight days, and sat and sat, but nothing came of it; meanwhile the others had to drag about to find food both for themselves and her. At last one of them began to scold her.
"'Well,' said the one that sat, 'you did not chip the egg yourself before you could cry, not you; but this egg, I think, has something in it, for it seems to me to mumble, and this is what it says, "Herrings and brose, porridge and milk, all at once." And now you may come and sit for eight days too, and we will change and change about and get food for you.'
"So when all five had sat on it eight days, the fifth heard plainly that there was a gosling in the egg, which screeched out, 'Herrings and brose, porridge and milk;' so she picked a hole in it, but instead of a gosling out came a man child, and awfully ugly it was, with a big head and little body. And the first thing it bawled out when it chipped the egg, was 'Herrings and brose, porridge and milk.'
"So they called it 'Grumblegizzard.'
"Ugly as it was, they were still glad to have it, at first; but it was not long before it got so greedy that it ate up all the meat in their house. When they boiled a kettle of soup or a pot of porridge, which they thought would be enough for all six, it tossed it all down its own throat. So they would not keep it any longer.