Yellow Rose got very downhearted, and spent almost all her time now wandering in the garden, where the Hookedy-Crookedy lad was looking after the flowers, and she used to come around again and again, chatting to Hookedy-Crookedy. And so it was not long until he saw that the Yellow Rose was in love with him, and he got just as deeply in love with her, for she was a beautiful and charming girl.
The next thing the Grand Adviser counselled the King was that he should send his two new sons-in-law, the Prince of Spain and the Prince of France, to the Well of the World's End for bottles of Ioca[2] to take to battle with them, that they might cure the wounded and dead men. So the King ordered his sons-in-law to go to the Well of the World's End and bring him back two bottles of Ioca.
[2] Ioca was a liquid that cured all wounds and restored the dead to life.
The Yellow Rose told Hookedy-Crookedy this, and when he had turned it over in his mind, he said to himself, "I will go and have a chat with the mare and the bear about this."
So off to the woods he went, and right glad the mare and the bear were to see him. He told them all that had happened, and then he told them how the King's two sons-in-law were to start to the Well of the World's End the next day, and asked the mare's advice about it.
"Well, Jack," says the mare, "I want you to go with them. Take an old hunter in the King's stable, an old bony, skinny animal that is past all work, and put an old straw saddle on him, and dress yourself in the most ragged dress you can get, and join the two men on the road, and say that you are going with them. They will be heartily ashamed of you, Jack, and your old horse, and they will do everything to get rid of you. When you come to the crossroads, one of them will propose to go in and have a drink; and while you are chatting over your drink, they will propose that the three of you separate and every one take a road by himself to go to the Well of the World's End, and that all three shall meet at the crossroads again, and whoever is back first with the bottle of water is to be the greatest hero of them all. You agree to this. When they start on their roads, they will not go many miles till they fill their bottles from spring wells by the roadside and hurry back to the meeting-place, and then continue on home to the King of Scotland and give him these bottles as bottles of Ioca from the Well of the World's End. But you will be before them. After you have set out on the road, and when you have gone around the first bend, put on your wishing-cap and wish for two bottles of Ioca from the Well of the World's End, and at once you will have them." And then the mare directed Jack fully all that he was to do after.
Jack thanked the mare, and bade good-bye to her, and went away.
The next day, when the King's two sons-in-law set out on their grand steeds to go to the Well of the World's End, they had not gone far when Jack, in a ragged old suit and sitting on a straw saddle on an old white skinny horse, joined them and told them he too was going with them for a bottle of Ioca. Right heartily ashamed were they of Jack and ready to do anything to get rid of him.
By and by, when they came to where the road divided into three, they proposed to have a drink, and as they set off to drink they proposed that each take a road for himself, and whoever got back first with a bottle of Ioca would be the greatest hero. All agreed, and each chose his own road and set out.
When Jack had got around the first bend, he put on his wishing-cap and wished for two bottles of Ioca from the Well of the World's End, and no sooner had he wished than he had them; and back again he came, and when the other two came riding up, surprised they were to find Jack there before them. They said that Jack had not been to the Well of the World's End and it was no Ioca he had with him, but some water from the roadside.