"Jack Madden! Jack Madden! Your words came so bad in The tune we felt glad in;-- This castle you're had in, That your life we may sadden; Here's two humps for Jack Madden!"
And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump and put it down upon poor Jack's back, over his own, where it became fixed as firmly as if it was nailed on with twelve-penny nails, by the best carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked him; and, in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well to be sure, how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say anything, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders. Home they brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts and their looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight of his other hump, and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving they say his heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy tunes again.
In the days of Henry Beauclerc of England there was a little lad named Elidore, who was being brought up to be a cleric. Day after day he would trudge from his mother's house, and she was a widow, up to the monks' Scriptorium. There he would learn his A B C, to read it and to write it. But he was a lazy little rogue was this Elidore, and as fast as he learned to write one letter, he forgot another; so it was very little progress he was making. Now when the good monks saw this they remembered the saying of the Book: "Spare the rod and spoil the child," and whenever Elidore forgot a letter they tried to make him remember it with the rod. At first they used it seldom and lightly, but Elidore was not a boy to be driven, and the more they thwacked him the less he learned: so the thwackings became more frequent and more severe, till Elidore could not stand them any longer. So one day when he was twelve years old he upped with him and offed with him into the great forest near St. David's. There for two long days and two long nights he wandered about eating nothing but hips and haws. At last he found himself at the mouth of a cave, at the side of a river, and there he sank down, all tired and exhausted. Suddenly two little pigmies appeared to him and said: "Come with us, and we will lead you into a land full of games and sports": so Elidore raised himself and went with these two; at first through an underground passage all in the dark, but soon they came out into a most beautiful country, with rivers and meadows, woods and plains, as pleasant as can be; only this there was curious about it, that the sun never shone and clouds were always over the sky, so that neither sun was seen by day, nor moon and stars at night.