“I don’t want to have a slave,” said Jack to the little lady. “Can’t you find some way to be wholly free again?”
“Yes, master, I can be free if you can think of anything that you really like better than the half-crown that you paid for me.”
“I would like going up this river to Fairy-land much better,” said Jack. So suddenly the river became full of thousands of little people coming down the stream in rafts. They had come to take the Fairy Woman away with them.
THE FAIRY WOMAN’S PARTING GIFT
“What gift may I give you before I go?” she asked.
“I should like,” said Jack, “to have a little tiny bit of that purple gown of yours with the gold border.”
So she told Jack to lend her his knife, and with it she cut off a very small piece of the skirt of her robe and gave it to him. “Now I advise you,” she said, “never to stretch this unless you want to make something particular out of it.”
“Will ye step aboard, my dearest?” sang the Fairy Woman as she sailed away.
“Will ye step aboard, my dearest? for the high seas lie before us.
So I sailed adown the river in those days without alloy.
We are launched! But when, I wonder, shall a sweeter sound float o’er us
Than yon ‘pull’e haul’e, pull’e haul’e, yoy! heave, hoy!’”
All Jack had to do to make his magic boat go wherever he wished was to give it a command, so he ordered it to float up the river to Fairy-land.