‘Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched, THE FAIR

Nor sell your pullets before they are catched. MAID
There is many a slip EN
’Twixt the cup and the lip. LOCKS

And to catch a sparrow you ’ll even fail
Till a pinch of salt is dropped on its tail.’

The grammar was not perfect; Charming ought
not to have said ‘catched, which was vulgar,
but ‘caught’ would not rhyme with ‘hatched.’
Besides he was too frightened to be in a truly
poetic mood. Gallifron was very furious, and he
roared, and rushed at Charming, swinging his
iron club, and would certainly have killed him had
not at one and the same moment Dulcet flown
at his shins and bitten them, and a raven darted
down out of the rock and pecked at the giant’s
eyes, and beat his face with its great black wings.
Consequently his blows fell harmlessly upon the
air, and Charming, rushing in, gave him strokes on
his knees, which brought him to the ground,
foe standing over him, he hacked off his
ead.
‘Then the raven croaked out—
‘You see I have not forgotten the kindness you
once showed me. To-day I have fulfilled the
promise I made to repay you.’
Charming thanked the raven with all his heart,
and then, mounting his horse, he rode away, with
the giant’s head at his saddle-bow.
On reaching the capital, the people came out in
crowds and welcomed him, and shouted with joy,
and the church bells rang out merry peals.
The princess asked the meaning of this, and was
told that Charming had killed Gallifron, and was
returned unhurt bearing his head. :
Charming now requested an audience, and the
Fair Maid with Golden Locks could not refuse it.
He entered, with many bows, and kneeling at the
M

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