“Oh, I will not cut it. Are we not better without it?”
“I will not leave this till I get the rod, to see if there is any good in it.”
cut the rod, and gave it to her. She turned from me, and struck a blow on a stone and changed it; and she struck a second blow on me, and made of me a black raven, and she went home, and left me after her. I thought she would come back; she did not come, and I had to go into a tree till morning. In the morning, at six o’clock, there was a bellman out, proclaiming that everyone who killed a raven would get a fourpenny bit. At last you would not find man or boy without a gun, nor, if you were to walk three miles, a raven that was not killed. I had to make a nest in the top of the parlour chimney, and hide myself all day till night came, and go out to pick up a bit to support me, till I spent a month. Here she is herself (to say) if it is a lie I am telling.
“It is not,” said she.
Then I saw her out walking. I went up to her, and I thought she would turn me back to my own shape, and she struck me with the rod and made of me an old white horse, and she ordered me to be put to a cart with a man to draw stones from morning till night. I was worse off then. She spread abroad a report that I had died suddenly in my bed, and prepared a coffin, and waked me, and buried me. Then she had no trouble. But when I got tired, I began to kill everyone who came near me, and I used to go into the haggard every night and destroy the stacks of corn; and when a man came near me in the morning, I would follow him till I broke his bones. Everyone got afraid of me. When she saw I was doing mischief, she came to meet me, and I thought she would change me. And she did change me, and made a fox of me. When I saw she was doing me every sort of damage, I went away from her. I knew there was a badger’s hole in the garden, and I went there till night came, and I made great slaughter among the ducks and geese. There she is herself to say if I am telling a lie.
“Oh, you are telling nothing but the truth, only less than the truth.”
When she had enough of my killing the fowl, she came out into the garden, for she knew I was in the badger’s hole. She came to me, and made me a wolf. I had to be off, and go to an island, where no one at all would see me, and now and then I used to be killing sheep, for there were not many of them, and I was afraid of being seen and hunted; and so I passed a year, till a shepherd saw me among the sheep, and a pursuit was made after me. And when the dogs came near me, there was no place for me to escape to from them; but I recognised the sign of the King among the men, and I made for him, and the King cried out to stop the hounds. I took a leap upon the front of the King’s saddle, and the woman behind cried out, “My King and my lord, kill him, or he will kill you.”
