Jack was so fatigued that he sat himself down
on a stone and thought of his mother, and the
distress she was in, and a pang of remorse entered
his heart. Then he heard the croak of a crow,
and looking up, he saw a black bird perched on a
rock. It said to him: ‘Korax! Korax! I am a
fairy, and I will tell you why you are here. Your
father was a great man, and rich, and one day a
cruel giant came and killed him and carried off all
his goods, and unless your mother had hidden
herself with you in the sheep-pen, he would have
destroyed you both as well. She fled with what
little she could collect together, carrying you on
her back, and she has lived ever since in great
poverty, and her poverty and sorrows have not
been lightened by any signs of consideration and
deference shown by you. I am speaking to you
now, not that I care for you or desire to do you
good for your own worthless sake, but because I
am grateful to your mother, and I know that I
cannot give her greater pleasure than by serving
and saving you, and I hope that in future you will
behave better to her. You must know that though
I am a fairy, my power is not continuous, every
hundred years there comes a time when it fails,
and I am obliged to live on earth subject to ex-
treme poverty and privation, and to be reduced to
the utmost destitution, and that I can only be
released from this condition by one who will give
me to eat her last crumb, and to drink her last
drop, and will comb my head with her golden
comb.

‘Now, yesterday, whilst you were away driving
the cow to market, I came begging to your
mother’s door. She was so good, so charitable,
that she gave me the last particle of bread that
remained in the house, and the last drop of milk
that remained in the pan, and then, seeing that I
was without any of those articles of toilette which

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