“Oh!” said the Snipe, “mine are the prettiest children in all the wood.”
“Very well”, said the Sportsman, “I’ll not shoot them; don’t be afraid.”
But for all that, when he came back, there he had a whole string of young snipes in his hand which he had shot.
“Oh, oh!” said the Snipe, “why did you shoot my children after all?”
“What! these your children!” said the Sportsman; “why, I shot the ugliest I could find, that I did!”
“Woe is me!” said the Snipe; “don’t you know that each one thinks his own children the prettiest in the world?”
THE THREE PRINCESSES OF WHITELAND
Once on a time there was a fisherman who lived close by a palace, and fished for the king’s table. One day when he was out fishing he just caught nothing. Do what he would—however he tried with bait and angle—there was never a sprat on his hook. But when the day was far spent a head bobbed up out of the water, and said:
“If I may have what your wife bears under her girdle, you shall catch fish enough.”
So the man answered boldly, “Yes”; for he did not know that his wife was going to have a child. After that, as was like enough, he caught plenty of fish of all kinds. But when he got home at night and told his story, how he had got all that fish, his wife fell a-weeping and moaning, and was beside herself for the promise which her husband had made, for she said, “I bear a babe under my girdle.”