The Fairy-Queen Godmother.[20]
There were, like many others in the world, a man and a woman over-burthened with children, and very poor. The woman no more knew what to do. She said that she would go and beg. She goes off, far, far, far away, and she arrives at the city of the fairies. After she had told them how many children she had, all give her a great many alms—she was laden with them.
The queen of the fairies gives her besides twenty pounds in gold, and says to her:
“If you will give me your child when you are confined—you shall bring it up in your law—I will give you a great deal of money, if you will do that.”
She told her that the godmother was already decided upon, but that she would speak about it to her husband. The queen told her to go home, and to return with the answer in a week.
She gets home as she best can, very much fatigued by her burthen. Her husband was astonished that she could have carried so much. She tells him what had happened with the queen of the fairies. He says to her:
“Certainly, we will make her godmother.”
And she returns at the end of a week to tell the queen that she accepts her. She tells her not to send and tell her when she is confined, that she will know it herself, and that she will come all right. At the end of a week she is confined of a daughter. The queen arrives, as she had said, with a mule laden with gold. When they came back from the christening, the godmother and the child fly away; and the parents console themselves with their other children, thinking that she will be happier in the house of the queen of the fairies.
The queen takes her to a corner of a mountain. It is there where her house was. She had already another god-daughter; this was a little dog, whose name was Rose,[21] and she named this last god-daughter Pretty-Rose. She gave her, too, a glint of diamonds in the middle of her forehead.[22] She was very pretty. She grew up in the corner of the mountain, amusing herself with this dog. She said to her one day: