So off he went and told the coo, but she wouldn’t hold still, so back he went and told his mother.
“Well,” said his mother, “tell the big, big coo there’s a sharp, sharp sword at the belt of the fine, fine laddie from the wars who sits beside the weary, weary lady with the golden hair, and she weeping for a sup o’ milk.”
And he told the big, big coo, but she wouldn’t hold still.
Then said his mother: “Run quick and tell her that her head’s going to be cut off by the sharp, sharp sword in the hands of the fine, fine laddie, if she doesn’t give the sup o’ milk the weary, weary lady weeps for.”
And wee, wee Mannie went off and told the big, big coo.
And when coo saw the glint of the sharp, sharp sword in the hand of the fine, fine laddie come from the wars, and the weary, weary lady weeping for a sup o’ milk, she reckoned she’d better hold still; so wee, wee Mannie milked big, big coo, and the weary, weary lady with the golden hair hushed her weeping and got her sup o’ milk, and the fine, fine laddie new come from the wars put by his sharp, sharp sword, and all went well that didn’t go ill.
Sir Gammer Vans
Last Sunday morning at six o’clock in the evening as I was sailing over the tops of the mountains in my little boat, I met two men on horseback riding on one mare: So I asked them: “Could they tell me whether the little old woman was dead yet who was hanged last Saturday week for drowning herself in a shower of feathers?” They said they could not inform me positively, but if I went to Sir Gammer Vans he could tell me all about it.
“But how am I to know the house?” said I.
“Ho, ‘tis easy enough,” said they, “for ‘tis a brick house built entirely of flints, standing alone by itself in the middle of sixty or seventy others just like it.”