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ONCE on a time there was a man, and he had a wife. Now this couple wanted to sow their fields, but they had neither seed-corn nor money to buy it with. But they had a cow, and the man was to drive it into town and sell it, to get money to buy corn for seed. But when it came to the pinch, the wife dared not let her husband start for fear he should spend the money in drink, so she set off herself with the cow, and took besides a hen with her.
Close by the town she met a butcher, who asked,—
“Oh! I must have five shillings for the cow, but you shall have the hen for ten pound.”
“Very good!” said the man; “I don’t want the hen, and you’ll soon get it off your hands in the town, but I’ll give you five shillings for the cow.
Well, she sold her cow for five shillings, but there was no one in the town who would give ten pound for a lean tough old hen, so she went back to the butcher, and said,—
“Do all I can, I can’t get rid of this hen, master! you must take it too, as you took the cow.”
“Well,” said the butcher, “come along and we’ll see about it.” Then he treated her both with meat and drink, and gave her so much brandy that she lost her head, and didn’t know what she was about, and fell fast asleep. But while she slept, the butcher took and dipped her into a tar-barrel, and then laid her down on a heap of feathers; and when she woke up, she was feathered all over, and began to wonder what had befallen her.
“Is it me, or is it not me? No, it can never be me; it must be some great strange bird. But what shall I do to find out whether it is me or not. Oh! I know how I shall be able to tell whether it is me; if the calves come and lick me, and our dog Tray doesn’t bark at me when I get home, then it must be me, and no one else.”
Now, Tray, her dog, had scarce set his eyes on the strange monster which came through the gate, than he set up such a barking, one would have thought all the rogues and robbers in the world were in the yard.
“Ah, deary me,” said she, “I thought so; it can’t be me surely.” So she went to the straw-yard, and the calves wouldn’t lick her, when they snuffed in the strong smell of tar.
“No, no!” she said, “it can’t be me; it must be some strange outlandish bird.”