Molly Whuppie

Long ago, in a country of dark woods and cold rivers, three sisters were lost, and the youngest of them was called Molly Whuppie. They walked until the light went. Then they saw a window, and knocked, and a woman opened the door and said, "You cannot stay here. My husband is a giant." "We will go at first light," said Molly. "We only want the fire." The woman had a kind face and a bad situation, and she let them in. The giant came home and looked at them and said nothing at all, which was worse than shouting. At bedtime he put the three sisters in one bed and his own three daughters in another, and around his daughters' necks he tied chains of gold, and around the sisters' necks he tied ropes of straw. Molly did not go to sleep. She lay in the dark until the house was quiet. Then she swapped them over. Straw for gold, gold for straw, and back into bed with the cold chain at her own throat. In the night the giant came in and felt about in the dark for the straw, and carried those three out of the room. Molly took her sisters by the hand, and they were out of the door and running before he came back. They ran until they came to a river, and across the river went a bridge of one hair. Molly went over first, testing every step. The bridge held. Her sisters came after, and the three of them stood on the far bank and got their breath. The giant came down to the water and could not cross. He stood there in the dark, enormous and furious and entirely stuck. "Never you come back, Molly Whuppie," he shouted. "Twice more I will come," Molly called, "if I have a reason." She went back twice, and both times she had one. Once for the giant's sword, which the king wanted for his eldest son's wedding. Once for the purse from under the giant's pillow, which the king wanted for his second son's. Both times she went in quiet as a mouse and came out fast as a hare, and both times she crossed the bridge of one hair while the giant roared at the water. The second time he very nearly had her. He caught her sleeve at the bridge's end, and Molly left him the sleeve and kept the purse. "Never you come back, Molly Whuppie," he shouted. "Never I will," said Molly, "for I have no reason left." And she did not. She married the king's youngest son, and lived in a house with a river at the bottom of the garden and a good stone bridge across it, wide enough for a cart. The end.