The Golden Slipper

And in the evening she drove the heifer back from the field and gave her mother the flax. “Oh, mammy!” she said, “my head ached so the whole day, and the sun scorched so, that I couldn’t go down to the stream to moisten the flax.”––“Never mind,” said her mother, “lie down and sleep; it will do for another day.”

And the next day she called the old man’s daughter again, “Get up, thou daughter of a dog, and take the heifer out to graze. And here thou hast a bundle of raw flax; unravel it, heckle it, wind it on to thy spindles, bleach it, weave with it, and make it into fine cloth for me by the evening!”––Then the girl drove out the heifer to graze. The heifer began grazing, but she sat down beneath a willow-tree, and threw her flax down beside her, and began weeping with all her might. But the heifer came up to her and said, “Tell me, little maiden, wherefore dost thou weep?”––“Why should I not weep?” said she, and she told the heifer all about it.––“Grieve not!” said the heifer, “it will all come right, but lie down to sleep.”––So she lay down and immediately fell asleep. And by evening the bundle of raw flax was heckled and spun and reeled, and the cloth was woven and bleached, so that one could have made shirts of it straight off. Then she drove the heifer home, and gave the cloth to her stepmother.

Then the old woman said to herself, “How comes it that this daughter of the son of a dog has done all her task so easily? The heifer must have got it done for her, I know. But I’ll put a stop to all this, thou daughter of the son of a dog,” said she. Then she went to the old man and said, “Father, kill and cut to pieces this heifer of thine, for because of it thy daughter does not a stroke of work. She drives the heifer out to graze, and goes to sleep the whole day and does nothing.”––“Then I’ll kill it!” said he.––But the old man’s daughter heard what he said, and went into the garden and began to weep bitterly. The heifer came to her and said, “Tell me, dear little maiden, wherefore dost thou weep?